I don’t have a lot to say about the beginning of this drama except that it looks light-hearted and some minor characters are quite entertaining. It is a romance fantasy with dragons, Taoist schools, and a female protagonist with unique powers from the start. From the first few episodes, the acting falls within the “watchable” range (for now).
Dramas of this genre are unpredictable in terms of consistency, so just go with the flow and drop it when you’ve had enough, I guess.
EPISODE 1 RECAP
A dragon prince (Neo Hou) is walking across the snow in a red robe. With good reason, of course: he is walking to his own wedding. Are you sure those dragon horns are a good way to impress whomever you’re marrying, though?
When he arrives at his bride’s side, however, she pulls out a sword and runs him through.
This woman is a Taoist Immortal in disguise, it is her job to hunt out creatures like him. What’s worse, she wants to take one of his dragon scales to make an armor to protect her real boyfriend. Ouch. See? I knew those dragon horns were a bad idea.
The dragon prince fights back but loses. In the end, to prevent the Taoist woman from taking the scale, he removes it from his body and throws it out of sight, hoping to catch it later. As for himself, his soul is shattered into pieces by the Taoist woman and sealed in various places.
We see the dragon scale fly and fly and land on a baby girl! She absorbs that power. Nothing more needs to be said, that’s the female lead. Named Yanhui.
For some reason, the baby girl is abandoned by her mother and she grows up a beggar on the street. We don’t know much about her, but there is one thing we are sure of: she loves steamed buns.
One day, when things seem hopeless for the girl, she meets a Taoist Master (a “Shifu”), who takes her in as his disciple and lets her study at his immortal school.
You see, whenever I hear the word “shifu” comes out of any female lead, my initial reaction is: oh no. But not to worry this time, this Shifu is an uncle already, and what’s more, it’s Zheyan the phoenix from Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms!
I’m getting a good vibe from this Shifu. He seems like someone you can learn from. That hairstyle, though… not sure it flatters him.
Yanhui grows up and becomes quite a mischievous girl (Zhou Ye). She is behind her classmates and always has a much bigger appetite than allowed. No amount of steamed buns is ever enough for her.
Although, I wouldn’t worry about Yanhui’s poor grades. With that dragon scale inside her, it’s only a matter of time before she releases a power that surprises the world.
One day, when Yanhui is hanging out with her friend at what looks like a prison camp, one of her Shifu’s colleagues comes in and starts ranting about Nine-tailed Foxes being horrible monsters that need to be vanquished or whatever. It isn’t important, this lady just wants to prove she has the power to kill, that’s the point. She even tortures a bunch of kids for information on where to find more of those Foxes.
Yanhui jumps in to put a stop to it. Power suddenly bursts out of her. Told you.
The mean lady is scared to death. When things calm down again, she starts accusing Yanhui of having sinister intentions towards her seniors and attempts to strike Yanhui again. But Yanhui’s Shifu appears just in time to stop another pointless fight.
Although, this is not exactly good news for Yanhui because her Shifu punishes and expels her right afterwards. I hope this is only temporary. Ken Chang is a terrific actor and very rarely do we get a mentor who isn’t trying to get it on with his student, and she’s being expelled from his school already? Also, she has not actually learned anything yet.
Yanhui begins her traveller’s life in a nearby town. But first things first, steamed buns.
Then, she goes around looking for a way to make money. The first job she takes involves killing a snake demon that has been bothering the villagers who venture into the woods. After some smashing around, Yanhui beats the snake. But out of nowhere, a man knocks her unconscious.
It is the dragon prince — without the horns, thankfully. He has sensed his scale inside Yanhui and plans to take it back.
This prince is the stoic type and doesn’t talk a lot. In fact, it looks like he isn’t interested in human interactions at all.
He brings Yanhui back to what looks like an orphanage and keeps her tied up inside a storage room. But there’s food, the prince treats her with a big basket full of food. And never mind how a strange man has just kidnapped her and bound her hands, Yanhui only cares about what’s inside the food basket. More steamed buns!
Later that night, the dragon prince thinks back to the day he was stabbed and had to give up his power.
It would have been a very sad scene had he not looked like Sisu from Raya and the Last Dragon.
It isn’t a bad thing, though, because now I actually like him. Plus, he used to have a group of adorable little fairies as helpers. I mean, look at them, are we in a Pixar movie now? I need to know where they sell these guys’ figurines ASAP.
Unfortunately, they also got hit during the struggle and vanished on the same day his dragon form died. OK, if we could get only one thing out of this drama, it had better be bringing those flower fairies back to life.