just finished this a few minutes ago. as per Youku's production prior to this, it was quite a challenge for me to find a site to watch this comfortably (not in Netflix/wetv app or iqiyi which are usually the 3 sites I frequented for CDramas. Finally settled for watching in Dramacool site, despite the annoyance of having to filter all the popups *sigh

now, on with the drama's review. The plot is nice enough, intriguing and appropriately interesting. The idea of a carefree handsome youth (which is somehow an influenced wealthy heir to an important family) finding his footing in the big jianghu world really grab me in, and Neo Hao did a good job playing the role of BLDJ. I used to have a crush on him in his A Girl Like Me and yes, he was as enchanting and handsome as ever. His portrayal of BLDJ is also appropriate and endearingly captivating. in fact, all of the characters did a good job and that made the stories flow perfectly well in my opinion. Though it looks like BLDJ seems like the ML here, and it was clear during the first half (or maybe the until the third quarter) of the show, I can't help but feel that they put so much emphasis on YDZ towards the end, and BLDJ just kinda fades in importance towards the end. Love the idea of the so called brotherhood that BLDJ and YY/YDZ shared as the main point of this story, but I cant help but think, the brotherhood was only based on the same scene when they were about 9/10-ish year old and there's not enough brotherhood thingy going on between adult BLDJ and YDZ shared to convince me of such high paid effort that BLDJ seems to extend towards YDZ and vice versa ( albeit lesser for the YDZ's part towards BLDJ). I feel like BLDJ shared more moments of ups and downs with SKCF as brothers compared to YDZ.

Acting was quite top notch if I may say so, and this extends to almost all characters in the drama, so it was quite heartening. I definitely was amazed that the younger actor who carried the role of NGCS can keep up with the vibes set up by the older and more experienced actor for the older Mr Li , causing the flow of Li Changsheng character to flow smoothly even though there is a transition from one actor to another, as if the NGCS character was acted out by one actor only, just donning a face mask. lol. This gives me quite a contrast to Li Hanyi's character, I love little Hanyi, but the adult version was just annoying, I dunno what the Writer was planning for that character. How can someone being raised alongside NGCS and was then later sent to someone like BLDJ can possibly grow up to be that kind of irritating, hollier-than-thou swordsman I wonder. In fact, in my mind, the ranking for the most annoying female character for this series are YueQing > Yi Wenjun > older Li Hanyi. (and wenjun only slightly above in the list due to the fact that she appears more than the adult Li Hanyi. lol). YueQing was such a useless character with no redeemable value at all in my eyes. very close minded, all she did was whine and throw tantrum while making her sister's underlings did all the works. And don't let me start with Yi Wenjun. I can symphatized with her life as someone who basically had no choice at all from the beginning and had to be a sacrificial pawn in the political board of Beili, and I can even understand why she needs to leave her first born in the palace when she first left, I can even understand how she felt the need to go back for her supposedly dying first born later, but the way she did it, and her decisions ultimately caused all the downfalls of important and strong characters. The romance between her and YDZ was also not so well developed and I just cant get into the ultimate love story to pity their failed love. Totally agrees with Ji Ruofeng's comment "beauty that is causing the downfall of a country" (or something to that effect) and I'm glad that BLDJ blames her for his brother's death, even though he thinks YDZ don't. With adult Li Hanyi acting all mighty and self-righteous with no power/life experience to back-up her annoying self, this concludes my list of 3 most annoying females in Dashing Youth. lol

Back to ML and FL, I think this is my first drama of FL and I quite like her. Yue Yao was also someone who is righteous, but is not clouded with power and was able to see the bigger picture. She was a steadfast supporter of BLDJ and I think, for BLDJ to become such an accomplished swordsman, YueYao was at least half a reason for it. in fact, I think, if BLDJ were to lose YY and his entire Marquis of Zhenqi's mansion like YDZ does, I am sure the turnout would not be quite so different with YDZ tbh. BLDJ was just lucky he was able to happily end up with someone like YY and get to keep his families and as such, was backed up by such a powerful family. The romance between ML and Fl was plentiful in the first half and I was sad that viewers were robbed of the chance to see them back in Qiandong City and get married (I mean, BLDJ has been taking YY left right and center with him all this while, and he still hasn't married the girl yet? the heck were you doing Dongjun?? I'm pissed). and though it was mention times and times again that BLDJ inspires to be a Liquor Deity, while his brother wants to be a Sword Deity, it seems that that inspiration fades into the background by the end of the stories, nothing whatsoever about Dongjun finally being renowned for that feat, after the episodes where he won with his Seven Starry Nights. In fact, much of the plot tails end up like this, with no satisfying closure. Mr Li disappears with no trace, what with the Marquis's mansion fate, seeing that Dongjun is the sole son/grandson of the hereditary title of Marquis of Zhenqi, what's the point of Li Hanyi being the second city lord of XueYue, what's the point of Ye Xiaofan's character coming back (is it only to say hi to YDZ and lets him off? lol), what happened to the 8 gentleman's (BLDJ's shishiongs-poor Gu fella only appears in the first few episodes lol), I was even irked why the need to go to such lengths to introduce certain characters like Zhao Yuzhen then didn't do anything with him. lol. There's lots of other knickknacks left untied but I guess there's that. I was also left unsatisfied with how the emperor seems to be let off with no repercussions whatsoever and nothing in the palace of Beili seems to change for the good while YDZ had to atone for his strains of bad luck. I was in a hate love relationship with Xiao Ruofeng's character. while he seems to be quite upright and just, he also enabled such an undeserving man to own the highest power, when he himself can fit much better in the shoes. So it's fine for him to be selfish by allowing himself not to be tied to the throne but it was wrong for others not to let them be sacrificed for the greater good? yes, I'm talking about YWJ's case here.

OSTs were quite nice. And not to mention, hats off to the costumes team. they did a splendid job! I was always looking forward to see the next costumes the characters donned every time, and I'm glad that the dashing costumes were not only limited to the main leads only and all the characters' costumes appear to be so well thought of and beautiful, be it for the men or the women. BLDJ and YDZ's costumes were amongst the most beautiful I've ever seen in wuxia series. YueYao's also all flowy and enchanting *love love love. And truly, as per the series name, all the characters are dashing in their own right, it was literally a feast for the eyes. lol.


All in all, I probably will be looking around for this so called sequel of Dashing Youth -the blood of youth. Hopefully it can kept me watching till the end lol