The Longest Promise, a satisfying slow burn with Xiao Zhan

This 40-episode drama by Tencent Video is the latest xianxia hit on Netflix. Led by Xiao Zhan and Ren Min, The Longest Promise is at heart a drama about a romance made impossible due to a master/student relationship. 

Although there are no “gods” in this drama, its universe exists between the human and celestial realms. There’s the Kongsang kingdom, supported by spiritually powerful forces led by the priests and preceptors (what the hell is a preceptor?) of Jiuyi mountain. Then there are a bunch of clans/tribes, and lastly Merfolk, who really kena the short end of the stick in this show. 

The story focuses on Shi Ying, the crown prince of Kongsang, and Zhu Yan, the princess of the Crimson clan. The two characters meet as children in the Kongsang palace grounds, where Zhu Yan shares with Shi Ying her ambitions to pursue magic skills. She goes on about her admiration of the crown prince, without realising that she’s actually talking to the crown prince. Some bad things happen, he defends her, and subsequently the honourable Shi Ying has a terrible fall from grace, thought to be dead by all, including Zhu Yan. Having escaped from the palace, he retreats into isolation in Jiuyi mountain and cultivates his magical powers, while Zhu Yan is ridden with guilt and gratitude, and dedicates her life to trying to revive him. 

Binding the two characters is both fate and a curse (duh!). While wishing good things for Shi Ying, Zhu Yan inadvertently becomes his curse. Basically, if they were to meet before he reaches 18, he’ll die. They do end up meeting, of course, which is why this drama exists. After some back-and-forth, Shi Ying takes on Zhu Yan as a disciple. Here begins the butterflies-in-stomach stuff. 

I thought about explaining the rest of the story and its key characters in this review, but it’ll make this newsletter a 2,000 word essay. So instead of going into all of it, here is what came up for me. 

Is this show a worthy watch?

Yes. But only really because Xiao Zhan exists. 

For those of you new to c-drama, Xiao Zhan became well-known thanks to his performance in the Boys’ Love drama, The Untamed. (Don’t hate me but I’ve never actually watched it.) It was such a popular show that fanfics were written about it, but, controversially, many changed Xiao Zhan’s sex to female, which caused serious offence to his fan base. One thing led to another, and it ended with China banning Archive of Our Own (AO3), a globally loved fanfiction platform. Xiao Zhan came under serious fire for not controlling his fans better. No kidding, there’s a whole Wikipedia page on this. Soz AO3 fans, time to get VPN. 

The Longest Promise is actually my first Xiao Zhan drama and I totally get the allure. He’s really good looking but beyond that, he is a good actor and the total highlight of the show. He shared in an interview that he was really worried about playing Shi Ying because of the character’s stoic personality and poker face, and he didn’t want to just be one-dimensional and needed to convey emotions despite the limited facial expressions available to him. He totally nailed it; I think he did like 90% of his acting in this drama with just his eyes and eyebrows.

There’s a major scene in the show where Shi Ying looks at Zhu Yan with such anguish and pain, and also so much love. Not going to lie, I texted Kirsten and said, “Find me a man that looks at me the way Shi Ying looks at his disciple”. Just. Here’s another gif. 

It’s also my first drama with Ren Min, an up-and-coming actress who’s quite a lot younger than Xiao Zhan. I started the show not quite a fan of her acting, which at moments did feel a little forced, but she became more palatable as her character developed to have more depth. She did a good job portraying Zhu Yan’s playfulness and exuberance. She had some major cry scenes and I also genuinely cried along because it all felt quite sad and painful. 

The side characters and actors are not super memorable, and many follow tropes. For example, there’s the comedy element from Chong Ming, an ancient and powerful mythical bird that’s also Shi Ying’s BFF. There are a bunch of characters that walk the thin line between good and evil, such as the overbearing shifu aka Grand Preceptor, and the scheming Bai Xuelu. Bai Xuelu is played by Wang Churan, and she stood out because she acted her role well. Coincidentally, Wang Churan is the lead in a relatively new show with Yang Yang, titled Fireworks of My Heart. One wonders why she ended up playing second fiddle here. 

There are many other great elements going for the show, although they’ve become pretty standard for period dramas these days. The martial art and fighting scenes are honestly quite ace. Swordfighting, swashbuckling Shi Ying is very hot, and I found myself rewinding not just romantic scenes but also the dramatic fighting ones to make sure I take it all in. The costumes in these xianxia dramas generally never disappoint, but The Longest Promise is more on the austere side, focusing a lot on the purity and simplicity of Jiuyi mountain. The cinematography and special effects were all quite tasteful and not painfully CGI-ed. It felt like this show had a good budget. 

Generally, I find that novel-based adaptations generally make better dramas, maybe because there’s greater coherence in plot. This one is based on a romance novel by Cang Yue, titled Zhu Yan, which is also the name of the main female character. In Mandarin, the show’s title is actually 玉骨谣, which means “Jade Bone Ballad”. I know it sounds random, but it references the love token between the two leads, and I think it’s quite poetic. I find that the English titles of c-dramas are usually super tacky and terrible, and really does not do justice to the show (what the hell is The Longest Promise?) There are many interesting details and plot points that I enjoyed that explore Chinese moral values and myth, like the primordial chaos hundun, and a delicious emotional tug-of-war throughout that keeps you glued to the screen. 

SPOILERS AHEAD

Plot angst and other complaints 

Asian dramas are known to be all about repressed emotions, but this is always extra pronounced in Chinese period dramas, especially xianxia. I guess the idea is that there are so many rules, traditions, rank and seniority that must be adhered to that it makes it very difficult for romance. But this is also what makes the ache so good. 

Somewhere around the 30 episode mark is where shit begins to hit the fan. While Shi Ying has made up his mind to leave his Preceptor life behind to be with Zhu Yan, he hasn’t exactly told her that, and the poor girl has no idea. Instead, her insecurity thinks that Bai Xuelu is who he has his sights on, and she just… sulks in silent misery. 

Thanks to everyone’s inability to just communicate like emotionally mature adults, it leads to a massive misunderstanding between the main characters, which gets really drawn out and forms the core tension of the show. (Without it, this would be just a 20-episode drama.) This misunderstanding eventually blows up massively and culminates in the leads basically taking turns to almost die. 

This back-and-forth between the two leads is obviously necessary to make the audience feel bad for them, and hooks us in deeper. The whole time I’m just like—JUST TELL THE PERSON YOU LOVE THEM ALREADY!! 

It’s also pretty typical for xianxia characters to take on extremely sacrificial acts for their loved ones. People are bound to vomit blood, that’s normal. But what bugs me about the show is the liberal usage of xianxia concepts around spirituality, cultivation and mystical power. In this show, Shi Ying often totally loses his power only to gain it back again at the right moment, and even in weakened states he somehow still seems very powerful. There are also parts where Zhu Yan is supposed to be living in quite a lot of pain, but somehow it didn’t appear very painful to me. *shrugs* 

The worst bit, though, was the show’s ending. It felt super unnecessary that Shi Ying had to sacrifice his life to get rid of the God of Destruction. I didn’t understand why Zhi Yuan, the unfortunate Merfolk second lead, couldn’t have just done it, and then our main couple could live happily ever after. I’m not opposed to unhappy endings, but I just felt it was unmeaningful and didn’t add to the story other than to make us all feel extra sad. 

The final scene also left a lot of ambiguity for me—so is Shi Ying really dead? Or not really? Who knows? I feel the characters didn’t quite get sufficient time together, given that 80% of the show was dedicated to building up their confession and relationship. It was an unsatisfying ending for me. So much so that I had to watch another lovey dovey Xiao Zhan drama, The Oath of Love, just to get over this. 

Final verdict

Even at 40 episodes, this is considered a shorter xianxia than most, as they usually go up to even 55 episodes. I completed it all over the span of a 10-hour flight to New Zealand and two to three late nights. Admittedly, I scrubbed through lengthy dialogues, especially scenes between the smaller characters or politicking bits, because I don’t enjoy them. Everything else kept me entertained, and I was never really bored.

It isn’t the best xianxia I’ve watched, and it also definitely isn’t the best (maybe this should be a separate newsletter), but if you’re looking to just get some guilty pleasure and enjoyable revenge bedtime procrastination entertainment, this hits the spot. 

Well, that’s it for my first review folks! Let me know what I should watch next.