I avoid BL at all cost! (Hence, I have never watched 'the other famous BL dramas').
However I am a fan of ZhangZheHan since his YunXi days, and after RuYi Pavilion I was surprised to hear him took up a BL adaptation drama. I was very skeptical of his choice, almost gave it a pass, but decided to give it a chance because I know ZZH never fails to deliver in acting. Also, I had just finished GongJun's Begin Again and getting to know him better.
ZhangZheHan impressed me even more this time. I'm very surprised with his flexibility and diversity in transformation, from his previous masculine superior characters to this graceful, elegant, beautiful yet strong AXu character. I WAS SOLD!
Wow, their chemistry is no joke. The casting of these 2 was also pure luck. Due to the pandemic, productions were delayed, and 1st choice lead actors were switched for unavoidable reasons, giving us the current powerful WenZhou couple.
How they project the relationship between 2 men without crossing China's censorship line still baffles me. There were a lot of focus on hands skin-ship, adoring/mesmerizing gaze, flirtatious lines in forms of poetry, hair-play, and HUGS! (bolder questionable hug towards the end ;) ) They portrayed it oh so very sweetly, I just can't resists but fall for this couple.
As for the story, I have not read the novel, so I can't compare. But having watched a lot of HK wuxia dramas/films, I can say that this WordOfHonor lives up to the wuxia theme.
I love the fight choreography, especially initial zzh's fight scenes (I may be bias here). However towards the end, his fight scenes are a lot less, which is quite sad for me because he gives the best works in fighting actions. I am also not a fan of many slow-mo camera works during these fight scenes, a tad too much. But at the time this review was written, Youku is still working on re-editing many scenes as to fulfill requests from fans. This is very surprising and satisfactory, never heard being done before, having production to re-edit to satisfy viewers feedback even after the drama has finished airing for VIPs subscribers. Definitely will re-watch again and again and again......