‘Longest Promise’: Episode 1 Run-down — Definitely Not Old Enough to be “Shifu”

EPISODE 1 RECAP (+ a bit of 2)

A wedding is about to take place and the bride — Zhu Yan (Ren Min), a princess of a desert tribe — is doing her best to get out of it. And let me tell you, she is serious about it, okay?

She creates a painting of herself which she then enchants to become a real-life carbon copy of herself. This copy will attend the wedding in place of her while she runs away, that’s the plan.

While this determination is admirable, I’d say that maybe she needs to take a look at that groom who is waiting in front of her tent first. Except for those braids, he doesn’t look bad.

Now, not only does Zhuyan control the life-size doll to pretend to be her at the wedding, she also uses magic to create a sandstorm and a sand monster and makes it look like the monster kills the princess. That way, everyone will think she is dead and won’t chase after her.

Afterwards, Zhu Yan runs away on horseback and then takes a brief break at a river bank.

A man (Xiao Zhan) in white appears from the sky and descends with an umbrella. Good for him, UV rays are a real threat. Guess who he is.

A “Shifu”. Zhu Yan’s Shifu*. I didn’t expect the male lead to be addressed as Shifu this early on in the drama.

He looks way too young to be a Shifu, by the way. More like an older brother who was forced into the role of a teacher.

But then the scene cuts to a few years back when both of them were still children.

Zhu Yan was sent to a mainland kingdom — I didn’t catch the name of this kingdom so I’ll just refer to it as the Big Kingdom since it seems to have power over smaller kingdoms and tribes — to learn how to be a proper lady. The problem? She doesn’t want to be a lady at all. So the mischievous thing walks around, climbing trees, looking for an opportunity to meet the Crown Prince of Big Kingdom, whom she hopes will grant her permission to do more exciting things, like archery and stuff.

And meet the prince she does.

He gives her a flower as a gift. When a mean Lady squashes the flower, he uses magic to revive the flower. He even punishes the Lady with lines. Long story short, the prince is the nicest kid ever and a lot more mature than the adults around him. Is he the reason why Zhu Yan runs away from her wedding? Fine, if he maintains those qualities when he grows up, I can see why Zhu Yan would want to jilt her groom at the altar for the adult version of him.

But that means Lady frames Shi Ying for murder later on. It’s not a particularly smart plan she comes up with, but it works because the emperor is kind of an idiot.

Shi Ying escapes with the help of a priest. From that point on, he resides on a mountain, secretly studying magic and improving his skills, hoping to reunite with his mother one day.

Five years later, instead of just reviving flowers, he can also… make droplets of water rise in midair.

I guess this new magic will become important later because twelve minutes into episode 2, Shi Ying is still doing this thing with water. The grown-up Zhu Yan is also here. She comes to this mountain to seek out someone who knows spells for a certain plan that we don’t know much of yet.

Zhu Yan looks and acts like… someone very young. Like, very very young. You should see the way she tries to convince a bird that they should be friends.

Good thing Shi Ying also appears young; otherwise, I’m not sure a romance between them would have worked.

There’s some event/contest going on at this place that involves dancing. And of course, where there is a contest, there’s dirty playing behind the curtain. A friend of Zhu Yan’s is bullied. Her beautiful and very valuable dress is tossed down a cliff by a mean girl so Zhu Yan is determined to get it back for her friend. Even if that means climbing down a cliff in a fluffy dress with long sleeves.

At the bottom of the cliff, Zhu Yan isn’t exactly being subtle. She talks loudly to herself and is surprised that the place people warned her not to go to seems very creepy.

In his room, which is nearby, Shi Ying is reading. But suddenly one of his candles flickers and he senses something unusual going on outside. Yes, our boy is that sensitive to movements. You can bet he would be able to sense it if a mosquito did so much as land on his fully-clothed knee.

He runs into Zhu Yan there and recognizes her right away. Needless to say, they establish their connection as he catches her in midair for the first time.

However, when Shi Ying’s assistant (who is also a magical bird) arrives at the scene, he freaks out that Shi Ying has interacted with a woman and urges him to kill her right away. Okay, what’s going on, Mr. Bird? I’m intrigued. Is she his “fated calamity” or something?

COMMENTS

I will say that this drama doesn’t do a great job of introducing its characters and their motives. It takes a while to understand who’s significant and who’s not and who wants what. But once you catch up, it isn’t bad. It looks like the drama will be more than just a teacher who aggressively protects his student only to betray her in the end.

The palace and politics stuff isn’t particularly interesting, but they seem to have a point with the magic system. Plus, CGI looks a lot better than other fantasy dramas.

As I have mentioned above, the female lead begins her story as a young and charging-into-danger naïve young woman. Alhough, it isn’t much of a problem in this case so far because the actress’ outlook suits her character and her acting is believable enough.

Xiao Zhan is not bad as an aloof male lead in white. I went into the drama fully expecting to see another forgettable “teacher” character (what? We have been served too many dull wooden-face male leads with no real motivations already, I have the right to expect another forgettable one, okay?). Granted, I’m not that passionate about Shi Ying now, but I appreciate how the drama doesn’t rely completely on aloofness and indifference to his personality, they actually expand on these two traits, and Xiao Zhan’s acting backs this up. We can see that Shi Ying is the way he is not for the sake of being attractive, but because he is aware of how dangerous the world is and needs to put on a mask to protect himself. And after a while, the mask becomes part of him.

I can’t vouch for the character in future episodes, but at the moment, he is engaging enough as a male lead.