Fantasy comedy romance drama There Was Once A Spirit Sword Mountain 从前有座灵剑山 stars up-and-coming actors Xu Kai (Story of Yanxi Palace) and Zhang Rongrong (Legend of the Demon Cat) as leads.
The genius and outspoken young cultivator Wang Lu (Xu Kai) possesses the soul of the legendary Ouyang Shang, and becomes the disciple of Wang Wu (Zhang Rongrong), an elder of the Spirit Sword sect who looks eighteen yet is actually several hundred years old. The bickering teacher-disciple eventually work together to save the world and find true love in the process.
Costars include Zhu Yuanbing (Miracle Healer) as Wang Lu’s best mate Hai Yunfan, Gao Yu’er (Story of Yanxi Palace) as Wang Wu’s best friend Fengling, and Guo Xiaoting (A Step into the Past) as the innocent Liuli Fairy.
Based on the fantasy internet novel of the same name by Guowang Bixia (the author’s name is literally His Majesty the King), the web drama recently wrapped up filming.
Can you tell me the actor who played AO Guankai?? He’s not mentioned anywhere!
Ao Guanhai is played by Yi Bo 伊博.
The optimist in me is hoping that they make reasonable changes for the adaptation, cause so many cultivation novel seemed to struggle so much when it goes live. This cultivation genre seriously needs a major win after last year, cause the only adaptation I enjoyed that year was Ever Night even though it slowed in it’s 2nd half with it’s pacing, but then again it’s not the worst offender (looking you Martial Universe and Legend of the jade sword =.=).
It would be good if they are willing to invest more on the plot and the wuxia side and not over-saturate with the romance. I know I can’t judge too early, but just looking at the bts I can’t shake off the feeling that they’re just going for a run of the-mill xianxia to boost the young cast profile. I mean the sets, lights and overall production value looks pretty generic. At the very least I hope they have enough comedy to accommodate.
After Yanxi and watching the currently airing Zhao Yao I have to say I’m slightly obsessed with Xukai at the moment..he’s still green and a bit stiff but his acting is very natural and not exaggerated like a lot of newbie actors. I think he can do well, not sure how I feel about Zhang Rongrong though.
What I’ve noticed is dramas with less popular actors/actresses usually have more budget left over which helps in getting a better production crew. The cast for this drama is relatively new/unknown so the budget allocation would be balanced instead of being tilted in favor of the leads. With this in mind, this drama might turn out to be decent. Of course, novel to drama adaptions are never 1:1 so hardcore novel fans would probably be displeased by this. The stills look pretty cool, hopefully this drama works out.
The novel is very long, and quite unorthodox with a lot of video game based concepts. To me, the little bit of characters and action in this preview video show the drama significantly deviates from the novel in plot and structure. Not necessarily a bad thing if there are many good cdrama script writers. Unfortunately not the case. Too much terrible precedence, e.g. the atrocious Fighter of the Destiny. On the fence about giving this a try.