I’m a wuxia novel fan, and Gu Long was one of my earlier favorite authors during my growing up years. However, I’ve not read this particular novel, Juedai Shuangjiao (Legendary Twins) which is supposed to be a great novel that has been adapted in this drama. When I stumbled across this drama, I was ecstatic because I recognized Hu Yitian and has wanted to watch his new dramas.

For the first few episodes, I was disappointed with the quality of the drama. I was not only disappointed with the acting and the overall plot, I found it hard to understand the logic of the characters. Everyone seemed stupid and gullible. The heroes could easily give up their own lives for some very trivial and unreal reasons. They could also fall into the tricks of the same villains over and over again. Everything was noisy with obnoxious and over exaggerated characters. I was stuck at episode 8 and found myself unable to move on.

I couldn’t understand the high rating on MDL; I thought I must be missing something. So I returned to the series and continued. As I began watching it with a mindset of simple logic, and seeing the impossibilities as possibilities, I began to follow the mood and flow of the story, and in fact rather enjoyed it till the end.

The story is a typical story from Gu Long’s novel - a whole maze of characters that can be confusing and hard to remember, the heroes always get the shorter ends whereas the villains triumph (initially), all the pretty girls tend to fall in love at first sight with the protagonist. Admittedly, the drama is tropey and the consequences are as expected. Nonetheless, embracing its shortcomings, I found the drama rather entertaining after I got passed the first 10 episodes.

This is a story of two twin brothers separated at birth, their parents murdered. One twin is adopted by the killers and the other is raised by a group of villains. 18 years later, the brothers meet and are told to kill each other for no reasons provided. The story revolves around the two brothers who go through all the adventures together and separately, and eventually learn about their own story and meet the loves of their lives.

The twins have totally opposite characteristics: one is dull and righteous (played by Hu Yitian), whereas the other street smart, jovial, bombastic and mischievous (played by Chen Zhi Yuan). It is hard to assess Hu Yitian’s acting because the character he plays is quiet with little emotion (he’s been brought up with not much affection). On the other hand, I really enjoy Chen Zhi Yuan’s acting, which is cute, funny and natural. Chen Zhi Yuan has a young boyish face which really helps in his portrayal of Xiao Yu’er (little fish) that brings out his playfulness.

To my surprise, the official sound tracks are very nice. They are composed with an air of authentic Chinese wuxia tunes; the music is soothing and the lyrics are moving.

Overall, I can’t say I love this drama. But to be fair, it is an interesting drama that deals deep into the relationship of a pair of separated brothers, and in the end the righteous wins over the evil.

If you’re a wuxia or Gu Long fan, you may thoroughly enjoy this drama. If you’re not so familiar with the author and his work, you may find it overwhelming and unrealistic. All in all, this is not as bad as I have originally thought. In fact, I have enjoyed the sword fighting and qinggong (wire fu) scenes pretty well.