Chinese Drama: The Rise of Phoenixes 天盛长歌

Year Released

2018

Genre

Historical Fiction

No. of Episodes

70 - running time of 45 minutes per episode

Starring

Chen Kun, Ni Ni

Storyline

Ning Yi (Chen Kun), the sixth prince of Tian Sheng Empire had been imprisoned in Zhong Zhen temple for years after being plotted by Crown Prince Ning Chuan (Hai Yitian). After his release, all the other princes died one by one as part of his revenge for the late third prince Ning Qiao (Liu Zhehui) and his late mother Ya Le (Mei Ting).

Ning Yi meets Feng Zhiwei (Ni Ni) and initially uses her as part of his chess piece to bring down Crown Prince. The both fall in love but were unable to be together due to their statuses.

My View

Definitely a great political struggle drama but rather slow and steady one. It seems too long a story but to bring down every single prince, falls in love and the plot twist at the end shocked me really.

Rating

5/5 Stars

 

Chinese Drama: The Taoism Grandmaster 玄门大师

 

Year Released

2018

Genre

Fantasy

No. of Episodes

46 - running time of 46 minutes per episode

Starring

Tong Mengshi, Pei Zitian

Storyline

A little related to God of Honour 封神榜 whereby God Yang Jian 杨戬 had predicted a grandmaster would be saving the world regaining peace between Wolf clan and human realm thousand of years later. In the meantime, he sacrificed himself to create a barrier to prevent heaven realm from destroying Wolf clan.

Zhang Ling (Tong Mengshi) meets Tie Lang (Pei Zitian) together with many others from different sects to participate in a competition and train to become the only taoism grandmaster who protects the world. Their aim is to retrieve back pieces of armours left over by Yang Jian.

My View

The plot is overall pretty good whereby the participants go through trials as a form of training before actually fighting with Demon Fox Bai Qianji (Pan Shuangshuang), who seduced King Zhou bringing Shang Dynasty to its downfall. 

I can only rate 3 stars because though there are a lot of fighting with demons but just too many and draggy. There are like four trials then probably like five competitions to find those armours. In one on the competitions, another three barriers or something.

Too much for me to bear seriously and only twist was I did not expect Tie Lang to be Wolf King.

Rating 

3/5 Stars