Is 'The Untamed' 《陈情令》a good adaptation?

[@shinaxia7474]

My comment on Xiao Zhan's acting choices. First of all, it's not the agency that decides for him, it's him and I feel that a bit of his current position. His WWX role was brilliant, but it brought a lot of suffering in his personal life (let's not kid ourselves, whoever was his fan in 2020 knows). Xiao Zhan simply had to survive. He also had certain obligations to certain people. Well, and with his immense popularity, he became such a positive idol that he couldn't take controversial or dark roles. In my opinion, fortunately, this changed when he established himself as an actor and as a public figure. He played the highly emotional role of Patient No. 5 in the theater for a year and made himself known as a really talented actor. Following descriptions of his roles in new projects that are currently in post-production, we can expect to see him in new dynamic and emotional roles, including anger. One role is that of a heroic wuxia hero who fights an invader, and the other is that of a career-climbing intelligent man possessed of a lust for revenge. You can tell from Xiao Zhan's statement that he prefers controversial, dark roles and knows that fans also like him in such creations. So after this terribly boring period where he fulfilled his previous commitments I think he finally has enough power over his career to give us some really intriguing characters.

[@kukla608]

I am really happy that I watched the drama without any preconceived notions. I am glad parents, uncles, and elders were cast as older. For me, visual casting of parents as ageless would have been incredibly distracting. The studio did a great job against a political system of censorship we can not even begin to understand. So to me, the drama is a Version of the novel. Movie versions of novels are never the same for a myriad of reasons. But I think the soul and passion of the story are conveyed super well and that is the most important thing. The Untamed is not the novel and for all its supposed faults, CQL is still a masterpiece that I hope interested people will always give an unbiased viewing. If The Untamed were "perfect" and yet had no soul it would have lost its luster and not continued to be the worldwide phenomenon it is still today.

[@kashishgupta7100]

You described the adaptation in the best way possible... Showing the actual faults and not some personal opinions. While watching the drama, I actually had questions like the branding on lan zhan, the yin iron, song lang 's trouble with xue yang and much more.. However I actually liked the drama ignoring the fact that its a book adaptation will make us think that it is actually nice.. Although the CGI part can't be neglected, they really tried to make up such a fantasy drama in low budget but the actors managed to balance it with the best of their performance.. Lan zhan and weiying ' s chemistry, wen ning, lan sizhui, lan jingyi, jiang yanli and jiang cheng's tough (rude) but caring character were actually too good.. I will forever recommend this drama and try to explain it as much as possible

[@kerstinkapp7986]

The Untamed is a masterpiece, unbeaten and the actors were a stunning crew. They were outstanding with the low budget given and it is until today the most amazing work i have watched from Wang Yibo, portraying LAN Zhan with only facial expressions and Xiao Zhan giving the perfect Wei Wuxian.

[@kashishgupta7100]

@kerstinkapp7986 Indeed 🙌✅

[@va_layla_crazor]

I felt like the untamed was very close despite all the large plot changes I think it was the emotional impact. People kept telling me it was very different but after listening to the audio drama and reading the novel, cql definitely has a similar emotional impact to the original

[@kukla608]

Thank You for this intensely vibrant analysis of the MXTX's beloved tale. In 2021 I learned about the world of Untamed and danmei in general. Being a visual artist I accepted the low budget. Having worked in the theater. I know design and prop creation with few funds is difficult, to say the least. But the show's appearances never once jarred me out of the plot. Because the acting was so well performed. and heartfelt. The soundtrack inspired me to learn Chinese dizi and Japanese Shinobue flutes. It has had a huge impact on my interest in all forms of art as well. Emotionally It's still my favorite cinematic experience. MDZS and TGCF are part of my everyday world in a very good well. Thanks Again.

[@edeplois]

Would love to see a video on the animation adaptation!

[@krznarbg]

What a great analysis. You explained things I thought but perhaps didn’t fully understanding why. Thank you for work on this.

[@melsdesignerdiaries]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this. I recently rewatched it again after Netflix was threatening to take it away and omg I missed these two so so much. The untamed / mdzs story will always be my favourite cdrama of all time. 4 years and I'm still not over wangxian. Xz and wyb pairing was the best and every other heterocouple I've seen after this pales in comparison to this two. I wished we had a s2 😢

[@HestiaSticks]

This video was such a delight! Binge watched the whole thing in one sitting. Makes me want to reread the novels again lol. Would love to see a video like this talking about the donghua as well someday!

[@erzbethluna3115]

Watching this video on the day of the dead (I'm mexican) was the candy I didn't knew I needed. I love your analysis and compelling points, made me want to rewatch it with a different perspective. I pretty much agree with your version of the story, I would just add that WWX outlives Lan Qiren and make his days insufferable in Gusu. I very much agree LWJ is not the best choice for chief cultivator, definitely must go to Nie Huaisang, even Jiang Cheng if you give him credit for his capacity of rebuilding an entire sect from ashes. Also, I prefer gray-more-black- moral WWX, because this also makes LWJ conflict with good and bad more real and important. I like to believe LXC had this aspect of morality more flexible, but backfired to him in the form of JGY, the most adorable villain in history. Your video was a treat! :D please please make one for the animation!

[@angie-gz4yg]

I agree with your commentary about XZ's recent roles. After I watched The Untamed, I felt that as an actor Xiao Zhan had more range than Wang Yibo. But his recent roles have been uninspiring. He has been typecast in the overly wholesome. optimistic, hero roles. In contrast, Wang Yibo has had varied and interesting roles with Hidden Blade as his best role to date.

[@meghaghosh2545]

Can you please tell me what are some of Xiao Zhan's recent projects?

[@angie-gz4yg]

@@meghaghosh2545 The Youth Memories, Sunshine by my side, The Longest Promise, Oath of Love, Ace Troops. I watched The Youth Memories and Sunshine by my side. I started Oath of Love and The Longest Promise but dropped both of them.

[@mercurycures]

35:19 omg so this a piece of classical music from Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. i have absolutely no idea why it was featured in The Untamed, & honestly found it SO distracting since my primary association with this music is the part of Fantasia with the dinosaurs. an… interesting choice by the drama’s production team to say the least lol

[@douglasoctet5366]

Yes! I'm afraid I laughed out loud when the music suddenly ceased being Chinese and became so recognizably Stravinsky, which I don't think is what the makers were going for. Did they think it an obscure work?

[@claudia4632]

Personally I think it suits the moment. WWX was out of his mind and that situation had no similar occurrence in the drama (him losing everything, also the hope to live) and such a jarring difference in the music helps to illustrate this moment as a jarring exception and of insanity.

[@AcyraxJ]

Glad you’re still here

[@nabilahalshari7880]

CQL/MDZS content in 2024? It's more likely than you think. I agree with the people who consider The Untamed to be its own thing. While it's fairly faithful in terms of the plot and characters, it does have a different vibe, I think it lost MXTX's "style" of writing if that makes any sense (I respect your opinion on Guanyin Temple, but nah eat your heart out Wei Wuxian). And I don't even mean the censorship, a lot of the creative choices and interpretations of characters for instance make it different. Still good on its own and is undeniably an achievement. And yes, please do a video on the animation I don't see as many people talking about it, it's the adaptation most closest to me, it being the first I encountered.

[@lunabear-j2j]

Animation is really good. It is very close what I imagined reading the books.

[@kukla608]

Yes CQL/MDZS, were always destined to be different.

[@SuzumeIsSuzume]

Not everyone writing a whole paragraph and me actually reading it. 9:48 they did not stop😭 im crying 36:15 they do play it ALOT and its even my phone ringtone😭 36:45 i see it now how the messed up on the placings now I honestly like the drama more, i perfer it this way since they had the sequence of events in order instead when i watched the anime its not in order and just my brain go boom after watching the untamed. I like how they added more scenes for yanli cus when i watched the anime and read the manhua i was like "wjeres yanli??? I want yanli!" I do like how mdzs added more scenes for the female because Wen qing didnt come until like REALLY late and i was waiting till death for her literally. The detail of where wwx has a mole but mxy didn't was my fav literally. I did like how wenning exposed how jiangcheng's core is actually wwx's before we get the news of how jin guangyao is is doing bad which then just makes lian fangzhun seem like he knows more than just we think which in mdzs jiang cheng found out after jin guangyao's "death" which i was like "how id this going to end???". Which I really didn't like the anime's ending😅 And I was so confused too when lwj became the emporer whatever it was. And we never got to see wwx's death in the anime so very weird to me. Look i never saw the part where wwx was getting threatened. But i have heard the audio😭 and i just felt death because of how AKWARD that sounded how he said that RIGHT THERE INFRONT OF LIKE AVERYONE😭 like thats gonna haunt someone till death😭

[@Alelysia]

I just started watching cdramas a couple months ago and started with Till the End of the Moon. I got to about ep 12 when I found out most Chinese shows have a sad ending and learned from clips that this one also did, so I stopped watching. A little research and Untamed and Word of Honor kept popping up as "the BEST shows China ever made" and both had happy endings. OK so I found Untamed on Netflix and it took me over a month with the subtitles but I got through it and WOW!!! I REALLY LOVE IT! Wei is my first Chinese love and I have since rewatched some eps like 2, 5, 8, 13, 14, 48-50 about 20 times each. The only thing I don't get is why Wei jumped off the cliff. I get that he was devested over losing his sister and the Wens and everyone turning against him, even LAN standing against him. BUT!!!! He has always been shown as a survivor, regardless of circumstances. He felt responsible for his clan getting killed and dedicated himself to saving his brother and sister so they could retake their home. He gave up his Golden Core to help his brother but didn't complain about being powerless. He was thrown into the Burial Mounds where he should have died but lived and even learned his dark magic to take the place of his sword skills. He always found a way and suddenly he just gives up. Especially when Lan went to save him he should have realized one person still loved him and made an illusion so people thought he and Lan were dead but they could have run away together. Also, I didn't like that they turned Huaisang into a villain. I don't see him like that at all, he loved his brother, hated Yao using him to kill him so he gathered the info to take him down AND managed to convince Mo to bring his childhood friend Wei back in the process. He think he was great and his spinoff movie was so much fun. Also the spin off movie with Wen Ning and Lan Yuan was very good. I have not read the books or seen the anime so my opinions are all based on the TV drama, but I still loved it.

[@animec-dramaskpop6362]

It wasn't sudden AT ALL. Everyone breaks. Even the most resilient ppl.

[@LukeSkywalkerInMe]

The cliff jumping is not in the book. They could not portray what happened in the book because then it would have been too obvious that LZ was in love with WY. What basically happened was that WY couldn't control his demonic power anymore and got mentally and physically destroyed by the demonic energy. LZ tried to save him with his qi, even from his Clan elders but they dragged him back to Gusu and WY died afterwards alone in the demon cave or something. Horrible and heartbreaking 😭 The donghua adaptation is a bit more faithful to that part.

[@Alelysia]

​@@LukeSkywalkerInMe ok thanks for the info on the book. Is there an English version audio book that is the real story? I've seen English translation print books on Amazon. Anyone know if it's an accurate translation?

[@claudia4632]

He'd lost everything and every one. He'd fight in those situations you talked about for his brother, for his sister, for the Wen clan. He lost all of them. When he jumped, he didn't know LWJ would stand by him still. And he let go of LWJ's hand to save him, since his brother would break the stone and possibly kill both WWX and LWJ. It's hard to keep fighting, when you have nothing more to fight for.

[@LukeSkywalkerInMe]

@@Alelysia hey, the books you can buy are supposed to be quite accurate but you always lose something in translation, sadly. Every language has it's own way of conveying content. There was a fan translation back in the day that you can still find online. It uses different words here and there but only Chinese speaking people can really tell you how accurate the translation is. I thought it was okay. I've read them all.

[@LukeSkywalkerInMe]

The choice to put all the past events separately had a quite jarring effect to the drama that leaves you with a huge punch in the gut. The books keep the past events sprinkled in here and there, so it overall mostly feels like the bad things are over now and wangxian is the real main narrative. The only good thing about condensing the past into one go was, that you could better follow what happened when to whom. If I had read the books first I would have been totally lost😮. Another point. Yes, they had very low budget. You see it everywhere. So, what's the point of commenting on it again and again? Low budget dramas have their own charme. It's always fascinating to me to see how much money they had for their shows. Comparing The Untamed (low budget) not enough Extras, funny, cheap effects, Mysterious lotus casebook (more budget) way more Extras, better effects, Luoyang (even more budget) tons of Extras, impressive effects.

[@brigeem5022]

After watching both The Untamed and the donghua, I much prefer the donghua. I’m a fan of adaptations that stay close to the source material. The donghua is amazing and I wish it was more popular! It’s free to watch on YT. The Untamed was fun to watch though, mostly due to the actors and how incredible they were. The chemistry was great. Live action adaptations irk me in that the source material is there but strays heavily from it. I’m just not a fan of that. I had the same issue with Guardian to a more extreme level. It actually pissed me off, lmao. I get why it’s done but I’m still ehhh about it. I’m currently reading Faraway Wanderers, but I watched Word of Honor before reading it and know that Word of Honor is, once again, completely different. It was actually an enjoyable watch though, and I was aware that it strays waaaay off from the source material. It was still much better than Guardian imo in changing certain plot points to fit the needs of a live action adaptation that will draw a viewer in. I would 100% always prefer a donghua adaptation over live action. It’s a much more flexible medium to visualize the type of media that is being depicted. It’s hard to do fantasy leaning live actions “right” without the big budget.

[@periwinkle5393]

As a non-naive English speaker myself, the way you speak Chinese and English in the same sentence is soooo perfect it sounds like some other worldly sorcery to me!!!

[@KingyofSpades]

I was just going to rewatch your witch video and what a nice surprise!

[@_kpoplicious]

Omg 😭 I had so much fun watching this video!!! I love your analysis!!! I haven’t finished reading MDZS yet because it put me in a reading slump 😅 after watching this video, I thought about picking it up again!! Have you read the danmei books Faraway Wanderers and Kaleidoscope of Death and watched their live action adaptations ; Word of Honor and The Spirealm? Would you please consider making videos on them too 😭🙏🥰

[@angie-gz4yg]

I've read the fan translation and watched the drama. I agree that for the most part, the drama is faithful to the novel. Majority of the changes can be attributed to censorship and budget. I prefer the drama over the novel, the characters are richer, more developed in the drama, and WWX comes across more mature and less annoying.

[@RoseNZieg]

after I saw the drama, I learned that there was a donghua. although the donghua had its own problems due to media limitations and censorship, it was so much better in the fantasy and action aspects. I highly recommend the donghua over the drama. watch both if you are a fan of the story.

[@lilgreymoth]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this! I love your personal headcannon for the series. Now please please please make a video on the donghua 😭🙏

[@mercurycures]

beautiful commentary and analysis! i’m a big fan of the novel and while it’s still probably my least favorite of MXTX’s books, it has absolutely my favorite of her casts of side characters (Jin Guangyao is one of my all-time fave villains too, and i so appreciated your breakdown of his character & some of the more sympathetic details that were omitted from the drama). i also agreed so much with your critiques of all the plot continuity errors and contrivances re: the Yin Iron, and especially of my biggest personal grievance with the drama which is the “cleaning up” of Wei Wuxian’s morality. his framing alone makes him feel like a completely different character to book!WWX, and although i appreciate some of the maturity that the drama’s writing brings to Wangxian’s development, in the end they still fell flat for me because i think the most powerful aspect of their relationship in the novel (that being a character who has done horrible, monstrous things still being chosen and loved by someone, and that his guilt and past mistakes do not mean he cannot get a second chance at connection and belonging in his new life, etc) hits so much less if that character is being retroactively exonerated of nearly all his wrongdoing (it renders him a less active protagonist of his own story too, which sucks in its own way). definitely a mixed bag of an adaptation, but there’s so much to love too-Zhu Zanjin, Wang Zhuocheng and Xuan Lu are the absolute standouts of the drama for me and all capture & enhance their characters so much, so i’m really glad it exists for that reason. also, it was incredibly cool to see an actual guqin player (guqin-ist?) discussing the use of the guqin in the show, & i fine it weirdly hilarious that Su She of all characters was holding it correctly. overall just a lovely video & analysis, thank you so much for uploading!! ❤

[@claudia4632]

Thanks for you analysis!

[@fishstixx9737]

Love the Wen Qing outfit!

[@Limaien]

Ahahahah I love the Guqin interlude. I’ve always felt a bit petty about this so I don’t mention it much but I have very similar feelings about the Dizi portrayal in both the Drama and Donghua. I can’t be too hard on it in general - music is HARD. Playing an instrument at just a passable level takes years, mastery takes a lifetime. I don’t wanna dunk too hard here, especially when it’s clear the actor/producers have made a real effort to at least approximate the way you play instruments. But maaaaan does it break my immersion when they get it wrong 😆😆😆 I think Xiao Zhan must’ve had at least a couple of lessons in Dizi playing since he’s more or less handling it correctly, but there’s a lot of hesitancy in the way he holds it - something that would be practically instinctive to a years-long player. I’ve personally not played the Dizi (hopefully one day!) but I played the flute for like a decade, plus I’ve taken lessons in Traverso playing. The latter has slightly different proportions to the Dizi but in terms of material and mechanics it’s very similar (streamlined, no lip plate or keys). It’s a damn hard instrument to play so Xiao Zhan gets a lot of leeway just by holding it correctly… But there’s so often a very notable discrepancy between what he’s doing on screen and the sounds we then hear. He’ll be moving his fingers around a lot in some approximation of runs but the score is just trills or octave jumps (virtually no difference in finger positioning - the latter is usually only a matter of breath control). The finger positions of flute tones tend run consecutively, i.e. one finger raised or lowered/holes blocked means one tone up or down - quite often the score will jump a tone or two higher or lower but the finger positions we see will be all over the place. It's not too obvious but still visually jarring enough to see that the score and the playing aren't in harmony. The scene in Ep. 2 where he play’s Lan Zhan’s song to calm Wen Ning down is almost completely without any diegetic sound and you can clearly hear that the flutist is (almost certainly) a woman (based on the sound of her breath intake - you can kind of hear where the player’s natural voice lies when the breath intake is fast or harsh enough to also cause movement to their vocal cords). They also get the finger positioning vs. score thing wrong in the Donghua so the editing/animation there as well is very obviously finalised by people with no intuitive sense of how flute playing works. With that being said, I just really love seeing flute/Dizi playing being portrayed as something so interesting on screen. Wei Ying’s Dizi’s a good foil to Lan Zhan’s more refined Guqin playing. Flutes are quite mobile and mercurial/flighty/playful, and while the physics of the instrument itself have to be incredibly precise for it to sound right (or at all) they’re deceptively simple in structure and form - we even see Wei Ying make one on the fly at one point. It makes sense as it’s something he might have been able to carve himself while stuck in the burial mounds. Flutes are very primal too, and some of the oldest instruments in the world in preservation. The Guqin by contrast feels like a hallmark of culture/civility since it’s so conscientiously designed. But flutes are also seen as quite mystical. They can sound very uncanny. I don’t know if it’s the same way in the sinosphere but it used to be a bit of a running joke in the orchestral world that all flutists, no matter how sunny or calm on the outside, were secretly filled with rage lmao. Overall a very fun choice for the Yiling Patriarch. I love this video btw - I’ll definitely check out your other stuff ❤

[@msxli4185]

That wasn't the tiger tally when he fell into the burial mounds in his pocket, that was the sword spirit

[@jennie2920]

I get that but i don't understand how that physical sword reached burial mounds from that Xuanwu cave ?

[@inishireland]

The Untamed, was good especially if you hadn't read the books. They were restricted with the type of scenes they were allowed to put in from the book, which was a shame, but really enjoyed the main characters Xiao Zhan and Wang. 😊🐇🦁❤️💚⚘️

[@ashiii11-s4g]

to be honest the only thing that i really really hate is the whole ,,you dont understand the jiang family ,, thing that the untamed caused

[@spangelicious837]

I both love and hate the changes made in the drama 😂, but it's still better than the animated adaptation. That thing was a mess. 🙈 Best adaptation is the audiodrama, and I'm bummed that the person I was following who was translating it into English got their channel taken down. 😢

[@lunabear-j2j]

While I like the untamed, I consider it to be it's own thing. I wached the drama twice before reading the novel. At the end of yi city arc I really wanted to unsee the drama and read the novel 😢. They have changed the story and personalities of characters to the point that the novel lost its meaning in many areas. Not all characters needs to be good. White washing we wuxian and Jiang chen and making jin guanyao like that is crime 😂. Cql makes it look like wuxian is carrying an unwanted responsibility by taking wen remnants. They seemed like a burden. But in the novel it is very clear that he wanted to leave lotus cove because he thought his debt is paid. So Wens were a family to him. I was shocked when i got to the blood corpses part. It happened throughout the drama. Cql wuxian was served justice when drama wuxian find peace. The weight of the novel is no longer there. So I have mixed feelings. I'd say I'm rather disappointed in the drama than dislike/hate it.

[@ckfriedrice1]

If you're a fan of any mdzs adaptations, relax a bit you'll find treasures in all of them. I'm sure this video goes in great details but invest your time in the Untamed instead. Get past the first few eps and it'll suck you in

[@lexa4160]

Theres a reason my favorite adaptations were always the Audio drama and Donghua. The budget and how jarring some scenes were are two things I couldnt sit through, even when I was a fan (not anymore, not that I hate it now, but I've moved on). The one thing that I still cannot 100% agree was the casting with LWJ. Not to hate on him, I know everyone adores WYB, but to me I never got the LWJ vibes I did from the novel and other adaptations. XZ's acting saved it all for me and kept me watching. CQL does have its good moments, they manage to deliver the emotional bits and it's one of the reasons I don't understimate it or believe it's a bad drama. Not the best (for me), but still has its values. I will edit this comment or add another the more I watch the vid, from now thank you for your commentary!