Marketed to be Tencent’s next big bromance, Arthur Chen Feiyu and Luo Yunxi‘s Immortality has finally wrapped up filming and released a few character posters.
The drama, featuring Luo Yunxi as a teacher of Chen Feiyu in a battle of good vs evil, was originally sold to be the most expensive BL drama made, we’re not so sure anymore given all the other ones that have came into the mix (such as Zhang Zhehan Gong Jun’s A Tale of the Wanderers, Jing Boran, Song Weilong’s The Society of Four Leaves, and Tan Jianci and Chen Zheyuan’s Winner is King, as well as several big projects in pre-production). I feel like this one has the best team (Ashes of Love CGI and world-building, Tribes and Empires costume designer, World of Dugu director) and most shippable leads, but we’ll have to wait to see who comes out on top in the end.
By changing an essential character’s gender from male to female, this drama is already problematic when it comes to character motivations. The story contains a lot of cruelty, brutality and hypocrisy committed by both good and evil. Censors wouldn’t ok these.
Society of Four Leaves has the best chance to be true to the original, as long as the script doesn’t change either main character into a swashbuckler, or give them too much screen time together.
Tale of the Wanderers main cast appearance feels out of character. They look too teenager. Even presuming being highly skilled in wushu can preserve one’s appearance, the person would still give off a tangible air of dominance.
Adopted father-son romance in Winner is King is definitely out. As long as the script can establish another believable motivation for Chang Geng, the rest seriously depends on the balance between court intrigues and how well several major battles are carried out.
Society of Four Leaves need not be a “big-budget” production. Everything in the story itself is pretty modest. The proportion of main cast salaries to the production budget is now regulated by the Chinese authorities. No more disproportionately huge compensation for any actor.
Agreed! I’ve only read Tian Ya Ke and Sha Po Lang, so idk about the other 2 novels (I mean I know the general storyline and a few details of 2Ha but that’s it).
Tale of Wanderers isn’t what I imagined at all for the characters bc in the novel they felt very… world-weary and a little worn and melancholy (as well as, like you said, very strong presence). I have good feelings towards Zhang ZheHan so I’ll wait and see how it goes, but Gong Jun’s styling and stills look particularly idol-boy. (Also the props and costuming look a little cheap in the stills). I’d rather they look more plain and “common” but less costume-y.
Winner is King I’m actually QUITE excited about bc I’m totally digging Tan JianCi playing Gu Yun, and the stills/concept posters looked really good. They just need to get the world-building really solid and deliver on the plot and I’ll be fine with it.