Palavra de Honra (2021)

From a novel reader

As a reader of the novel, I'm going to say this might be the closest novel to drama adaptation ever. It kept almost all of the parts in the novel and added storylines to the main and side characters the original novel was pretty quick and simple but the drama added more depth to it. I'm kind of disappointed that because of budget and time the drama had to end on such a 'cliffhanger-y' note but the extra episode at the end of everything(ep37) gave us a good simple explanation of things as long as you look closer into the scenes and details. Watch it, the costumes, effects, music(omg the music in this drama was ALMOST just as good as The Untamed) I recommend going online to find the ost of Word Of Honor after or before watching it because the songs were beautiful. Stop reading reviews and just go watch it gogogo!

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So this is one of the rare shows that I actually finished and as soon as it was over, I started to rewatch it.
There is so much to say about this show yet I don't think there are enough words on this planet to cover all my feels!!!

I still have a lot of mixed feelings about this show. Not because it was bad, but maybe because of the pace? I know there was a need to build the tension but honestly, it kinda killed a lot of the feeling for me. Which is odd for me to say, I know. Mostly because I loved the hell out of this show.

When I first started it, I won't lie. I was asking myself more than a few times, "what the hell am I doing here? What am I watching? *WHY* am I watching it?!" only to very quickly be sucked into a weird black hole where I cancel every plan I ever made and stayed in front of the screen binge watching it. Lol

Gah I loved the actors in this show. I feel like I can't unsee them as their characters ever again. Lol

I think the main thing I didn't like was honestly the ending. It felt rushed all of a sudden and didn't make much sense. after I finished it the first time, I read other reviews and comments and I kinda see why they had to do that -- but I also don't. Like you built this whole show up for this moment and with the last few episodes it was kinda bullshit. I said what I said.

I wanted more from the ending and I know if I read the book, I'll see the *real* ending, but I feel like fans and even the actors were kinda ripped off and left with a lot more questions.

I have such a love hate relationship with Gu Xiang. She was super adorable but I completely hated how she treated Cheng Ling and Wei Ning. They were both these really sweet and amazing guys and she was a bitch to them. While she was "sassy" with a lot of others, she really was a straight up bitch to them most of the time and I never understood it. Okay, yeah, she grew up not around "people"; but she doesn't treat KeXing or Xu like that. So I really don't get it.

Also have a love hate relationship with Scorpion King... but I feel more bad for him than anything else, given his back story. I feel like he really could have been a great good guy had he not wanted his father's approval so much. How that man treated him was all kinds of fucked up.

There were so many characters that even now I couldn't even tell you how I felt about them but I will say that I demand a spinoff or a bonus episode showing us ChengLing's story about growing up. They really had us stressing and worried about this kid only for them to end it the way they did. Like hold up. Slow down. WHAT?! lol

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Vai deixar muitas saudades

Terminei essa obra prima hoje e no meu coração só resta um vazio e saudade. Amei a série, sou suspeita pra falar, pois sou fã da Priest (autora da novel) e gosto muito do estilo das histórias dela. Particularmente eu não conhecia essa, mas acompanhei a série desde o lançamento e me apeguei a tudo desde o começo. Personagens muito cativantes, impossível não se conectar com o casal protagonista, com os personagens secundários, e até com os vilões, pois em diversos momentos eu me vi simpatizar com o Scorpion. A série é de baixo orçamento, mas eu não pude deixar de me impressionar com a belíssima fotografia e as cenas de luta foram bem feitas, sem falar nos figurinos incríveis e nas OSTs. Amei o trabalho do trio protagonista, principalmente do Zhang Zhehan, ele já ganhou uma fã, pois já vou atrás de acompanhar os outros trabalhos dele e o fato dele não usar peruca pode ser um detalhe bobo, mas me fez amar mais ainda o personagem kkkk. Algo que acho importante é a falta de sutileza do romance entre Zhou Zishu e Wen Kexing, o que realmente me impressionou, pois não é nem subentendido, eu achei explícito mesmo, e isso mostra a dedicação da produção em não descaracterizar a história e tentar fazer o melhor possível com as restrições que a censura impõe, e a isso eu só posso dizer "muito obrigada"! Enfim, foi uma jornada muito boa de acompanhar, eu ri, eu chorei até ficar com dor de cabeça, mas o final foi lindo e tudo valeu a pena. Espero que venham mais histórias nesse formato já que essa, merecidamente, foi um sucesso.

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I only watched this was because it was really trending and popular and my sister recommended it to me, however I didn’t really like it. It was slow and I know it’s supposed to be boy love but I still can’t really feel the chemistry between the two male leads. I would like to say the music, costuming, and cast is great. The storyline however didn’t interest me at all.

I really wanted to continue watching but other shows caught my eye and I kinda just procrastinate to watch this. Didn’t know I would procrastinate a whole year to watch it and still not even finish half the show. It just doesn’t interest me and I only watched it because of the untamed.

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A Classic Wuxia Drama

I started watching the drama around the time it first started airing, and within the first few episodes, it seemed quite interesting. Nevertheless, it fell a bit from my expectations but was definitely a good watch.

~ THE STORY ~

As the headline mentioned, this drama is a classic wuxia drama, where there is the whole righteous vs evil, and the good never ends up being good. We eventually see the person who was the most calm become the plotter behind the whole martial arts conspiracy. In general, if you have watched enough c-dramas, the plot is honestly quite predictable, and I am a person who is all for unpredictable plots, so in this aspect, Word of Honor met what I expected but was not was I was looking for. A good side to this predictability is all the foreshadowing. Word of Honor had a lot of foreshadowing; perhaps the most I have seen in any drama; and the foreshadowing was pretty nice too!

A lot of people mention about the BL (boy love) in the drama, and yes, compared to a lot of other c-dramas, this is a drama that comes off as flirty. However, if you have read the novel, the scenes are a downplay. I really enjoy those scenes in the drama, but at times, I did not really see the connection even though I absolutely love how protective and the trust they have around each other (especially in episode 28). In general, I like their relationship, but I expected a bit more.

Now about the 'gray' areas and antihero aspect. Yes, it is true that both of the male leads have killed their fair share of people and have a different perspective on death compared to other people. However, perhaps it is because I have watched quite some dramas that have these type of protagonist that I just am not as attracted to this aspect of the characters; I expected a more dark and dangerous side of them.

Unlike the dramas where we have this one villain that turned to have another villain that backed him/her/they up, and then the whole mess, we have a clear villain within the first 15 episodes though the villain was quite predictable by episode 5. (It's always the good guys) To be honest, I like this villain because he has a clear reason for wanting to have the power: he wants to have the thrill of plotting and succeeding. It's all about the plotting rather than the final power.

Now, the good aspect that I enjoyed! The hurt and past. I love character development, and I prefer dramas that start of low and build up. In this drama, we have two characters that are both torn over their own pasts and in need to move on from it. Each of them are able to understand the other without any words. On a side note, (spoiler) I am not a childhood troope person, and although I get that the drama might have made the male leads from the same sect to pass the censorship of hugging, the idea did ruin the drama a bit for me because instead of Zi Shu supporting Kexing due to his understanding of him, we kind of get the vibe that he partially supported him because of him becoming his Shidi.

Slightly unnecessary death. *huge spoilers for those who have not read the novel (please do not read this paragraph if you do not want any major spoilers)* In the novel, Gu Xiang and Cao Weining both die, and true to its adaptation, the drama also has it that both of them also die. While I like that the drama followed the novel quite closely in this aspect, their death honestly feels quite unnecessary, so not a huge fan of this scenario that happened.

Some more unnecessary characters. The Seventh Lord and the Great Shaman. Originally, in the novel, the two of them were the ones that came up with the method to cure Zi Shu, and it would have been alright that the drama did not follow the actions, but for the last episodes that they were present in, they honestly did not even do much. These two characters only seemed to be here because the novel had them.

~ THE ACTING ~

I spent a lot of time thinking about the acting because sometimes it is hard to distinguish between the acting and our dislikes and likes of the character itself, and after much thought, I decided to give it a 9/10 though I personally think that if it were some other actors, they would have done pretty well, too. Zhe Han did a good job portraying Zi Xu, but I am a bit iffy on Simon Gong's acting of Kexing. The supporting characters did amazing, so if I were to rate them together as a group of actors/actresses, I would give a 9.5/10.

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An enjoyable watch

I really don't like stories or series that copy others and while the settings and story are different to The Untamed, some of the sayings and scenes just plain outright copy The Untamed. It's only one or two scenes and lines but considering it is same premise, I think even one is too much.

Having said that, evaluating the series on its own, it is an enjoyable watch. The most captivating character is Wen Ke Xing, I think the actor who played this role did an amazing job to bring out the manic, sad, tortured and happy sides of the character.

The plot is okay, nothing grand, I think the focus of the show was more on the dynamics of the characters and their relationships. I enjoyed the show but I must admit I did fall asleep for one of the episodes.

I think it did fall short on execution of some scenes. The last few episodes just didn't feel right and could have been done better.

Overall, it was enjoyable.

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Is BL, not BL adaption!!!

General surprised how they don’t give a fork and went crazy with the romantic (M*M) aspect of this drama. I’m pretty dense and even I got the gay vibe from the two main leads. I mean with in 4 episode one of the main male leads literally called the other male lead pretty 5 or 6 times and says that he has a “small waist and long legs”. Guess they learn from Untamed and made it five times as gay (lol). At least they know what we’re here for and is not for the bromance!!!

Ps- To my understanding and research this drama is doing really well at all fronts and topping the charts at number one in many Chinese websites. Surprise given how little advertisement it was given before release.

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Lack of Chemistry and Weak Plot

I watched the trailer on Youtube and people said it's better than the The Untamed and I was like 'woah I should watch it, they said it's better' so I give it a try. I expected a lot in this series however at first episode, it already didn't give me an impression except the action scenes, I consider it. The acting is okay yeah? Zhang Zhehan is the only one gave justice when it comes to this and the chemistry between these two leads is a bit off. Anyway, I just gave it a pass, I think maybe because it was only the first episode so well let's where this series will take us. However, well, as the story goes by, the chemistry is really a bit off and it irritates me as well as the plot. Yes it has more skinship between the two leads but yeah that's it. The plot is weak and well a bit confusing. The chemistry is really off I don't know what is lacking, I can't explain it. Lastly, maybe that's why many people like it because it is more daring and it shows more the bl side than the TU despite the censorship but no chemistry at all. It's a shame that they said it's better than the TU. The cgi and action scenes are the only thing it's better than TU but the story and plot is really didn't captured my interest at all so I dropped it. I'll just wait to the Immortality and Eternal Faith to be aired.

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50% adventures, 50% martial arts politics, 100% BL

For all the hoops that this production has went through to become what it is today, major props to everyone involved. It deserves all the adoration and love. It's a low budget drama but, with the love of the script writer (who is an actual fan of the original novel and cares about the work deeply), the hard work of the crew and the actors, this drama pulled off some amazing chemistry, good acting, and beautiful props and designs. Not to mention that all of the actors are eye candy.

I don't need to talk about the love between zhou zishu and wen kexing since I'm sure other reviewers have done a great job of that, but I'd like to give TWO WARNINGS for folks in case they came into this drama thinking it's ONLY about those two.

1) SET YOUR EXPECTATIONS ACCORDINGLY. Please note that although the adventures of Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing (and by extension: Zhang Chengling, Gu Xiang, and Cao Weining) is a major part of the show, a big part of the show is also dedicated to a lot of the supporting characters and the politics of the martial arts world. You'll either get bored of it or you'll bear through it for your love of the supporting characters (like the Scorpion King).

2) Around episode 29-30, there is a major disruption of the pacing of the drama and pretty much continues on to the end of the drama. I've been told that this happened because of the low budget of the drama (and also, I heard it was supposed to have 45 episodes? But then, due to money reasons, they could only do 36.) Whatever it is, you can really feel the change around those episodes and can feel some of the impact on the characters' arcs and growths. Unfortunately, it is what it is.

Fortunately, despite some of these shortcomings, the ending is good enough and, considering everything we've been given throughout the show, it's been very enjoyable. I didn't have as much passion for the show as I first started since I was waiting for the YouTube releases, but I found myself still unexpectedly smiling at some of the later episodes. The main cast--all five of them--are so critical to the success to this show. Their chemistry and relationship are fantastic.

Ultimately, you can enjoy this BL drama because the love and chemistry between Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing is quite obvious, but if you want to understand the full depth of some of the metaphors and literature, then you'll have to do more digging around Tumblr and Twitter and whatnot.

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In Par with The Untamed

This chinese drama series is really one of the best I've watched. At first, I expected this drama will not be as amazing as The Untamed but I was wrong. This is actually in par with The Untamed.

When we talk about the FIGHTING SCENES - it is the best I've seen so far especially scenes involving either WEXING or SHU or both of them. The CGI is not that good but not that bad. The STORY is really interesting too. The CASTS did their roles perfectly individually. The COSTUMES are nice too. The MUSIC is very nice too. The SETTINGS are really nice too. Overall, it's perfect for me!

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At first i was hesitant cause im not a fan of BL Series... but "Word Of Honor" is not a categorize as BL for me... its more of Brotherhood... & Friendship.
Those who are hesitant to watch like me coz of that reason.... No... No ... NO.... watch it.. its a nice story of how U can give & sacrifice ur life for ur so-called-brother...how to be selfless..
At the beginning i find it boring hehehe, it was talk & talk & talk... but given its Simon & Zhe Han i believe on the project they choose so i continue to watch... & indeed its good as it continues... good fighting scene, good GC, good Cinematography and ofcourse, good acting of the 2 main lead... hoping for Season 2
Worth to watch... trust me :-)

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