The reviews I post this week are for dramas that are LONG OVER DUE! Yes, I know I should have finished these dramas a while ago BUT WE ARE HERE NOW! The first one of these reviews, as you can see here, is the WILDLY popular Chinese drama Word of Honor.
*Now as per usual with any review I write, I will not be including any spoilers in this review.*
A QUICK SYNOPSIS OF WORD OF HONOR - Zhang Zhe Han plays Zhou Zi Shu who, in order to leave an assassin organization performs a procedure on himself that gives him 3 years to live. He disguises himself and just travels the world, determined to live out his days alone. He meets Wen Ke Xing, played by Gong Jun, and other people in his travels. They grow close and end up traveling around together, stumbling upon a conspiracy in the process.
Overall, this was such a fun drama to watch. I get why so many people enjoyed it and why it is so popular. It was entertaining and had a lot of good things going for it. Was it a perfect drama? No but I don't think that was necessarily the drama's fault. I mean at the time that this was being made, no one thought it was going to be as popular as it now is. That is why it is so good, you as the audience find things in the drama to enjoy and be entertained by. People just need to watch and enjoy what they are watching no matter what other people say.
WHAT I LOVED ABOUT THIS DRAMA
- THE LEADS
I think this one is a given. Anyone who has already seen this drama knows what I am talking about. If you have not watched Word of Honor yet, you are in for a treat. Zhang Zhe Han and Gong Jun has GREAT chemistry together. You can just tell they liked working with each other a lot in this drama. I really don't think another actor could replace these 2 actors in their roles in this drama. These roles were MADE FOR THEM! There is something really poetic about the two leads and how they interact throughout this drama.
-THE SUPPORTING CAST
You can't mention the leads without doing a shout out to the supporting cast in this drama. It is a special kind of drama when the audience not only becomes attached to the main characters but also become attached and invested into the stories of the supporting cast. Now, I will say, I did not become as attached to the supporting cast as much as other people. I really became attached to the lead actors BUT I have to acknowledge that this supporting cast did a lot for this drama and I can see why a lot of people became attached to their various stories.
-THE FIGHT SCENES
The fights scenes in this drama are like dance sequences. I know I say this a lot, ESPECIALLY when it comes to Wuxia dramas. It is true again with Word of Honor. The fight scenes were just fun to watch. This might speak towards the chemistry between the cast to because they all just looked so good during all the fight scenes. With the two leads when they fought, their chemistry just OOZED off the screen. The scenes were shot beautifully and really were a highlight of this drama.
-CINEMATOGRAPHY
Now even though I make the point below about the production, there were still some nice shots and scenes of cinematography in this drama. You can tell the production made an effort in parts of the drama and it paid off with some beautiful scenes and shots.
-OSTs
These OSTs will be stuck in my head FOREVER! There are just some dramas where you will never forget the songs that accompany the drama. The songs can take you back to certain scenes or characters in the drama. Word of Honor did just that with some of the songs that played throughout the drama.
WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER
-THE PACING
The pacing sort of fell apart at the end of this drama. I have to say I liked the first half of this drama more than the second half. The ending seemed rushed. The sequence of events sort of seemed smashed together and didn't seem to flow as well as the first half of this drama. Now this may be because the production was running out of money so the production had too quickly. It got to the ending but if a drama has to add an extra/special episode to give a better ending, that is telling you something.
-KEEPING TRACK
This is probably just a me problem but for some reason I had a VERY HARD time keeping track of all the factions and people. I don't know what my problem was or what the production did to be as confused as I was BUT MAN, I had a hard time keeping everything straight. Maybe there were just too many factions or characters. I just don't know. This may be why I didn't really become attached to the supporting cast because I just couldn't keep track of them all.
-THE PRODUCTION
Now this was very apparent even when this drama was still filming, this production did not have a lot of money. This shows in the final drama as well. I am impressed that the production made what they did with the budget they had. I have to commend the production on that. I am not faulting the drama on what their budget was. I am just saying to people who have not seen this drama yet, don't go into this drama thinking you are going to see a high budget drama. That is not what you are going to get AND IT SHOWS IN THE FINAL DRAMA! Just be ready to love this drama for other reasons.
-PLOT POINTS
This goes hand in hand with what I said with the pacing. The ending seemed rushed and that the drama was racing to the end. This means some of the plot points were just never resolved or some of the characters had their stories end in ways that I found unnecessary. Maybe if the drama had a higher budget or more episodes, these plot points could have been resolved or done in a different way.
Rating: 8.5/10 (Streaming on VIKI now)
If you are curious about my reaction to the drama IN REAL TIME - here is my tweets/watch thread for the drama
Have you seen Word of Honor?
What did you think of the drama?
Is it on your list to watch?
Will you watch this drama now after reading my review?
WE NOW ALSO HAVE A DISCORD SO TALK TO US ON THERE AS WELL!?