Lost You Forever is a Fantasy Chinese Drama starring Yang Zi, Zhang Wan Yi, Deng Wei and Tan Jian Ci.
It tells the story of how two cousins, Xiao Yao and Cang Xuan, separated as children, reunite and their struggles to achieve their goals. Her, looking for a peaceful life with someone that puts her above anything else; him, striving to become as powerful as possible to protect the ones dear to him.
Even having only watched Part 1, I would say this has become my favourite Fantasy Cdrama: I was amazed by how emotional I found myself being just watching these characters conversing with each other and noticing their small gestures and details they conveyed. A testament of how much I came to care about these characters, and how alive they felt to me.
It is rare, for me, to follow a show from beginning to end, while it is airing. I usually watch the first few episodes, and then come back to it once it ended. But not this time. I was there every day at the scheduled airtime. That is how much I was taken by this drama.
As of now, with only Part 1 available, I would give it a 9/10.
I loved it, and I feel the only major critique I can give is about the political plotline, which even not being the main draw of the drama, or being something I usually have high expectations for, is what detracted me from giving a higher rating. It was just not that interesting, with no big twists or betrayals, I found it very bland. From characters hundreds, if not thousands, of years old, I was expecting more elaborate planning.
Let’s now move on to spoilers.
The Characters
Xiao Yao: I loved her background: lived alone in the forest for decades, then was tortured for decades, then lived as a man, thinking everyone had abandoned her… During the first half of the drama, I felt that she could become my new standard for Chinese female leads, I adored her.
Then the story moved on, she got her family and her body back, and she became stagnant: she would pine over Tushan Jing and hang around with a couple other characters, but what did she actually do to push the plot forward? Little or nothing, and that disappointed me.
I am hoping that in Part 2 her character starts to actually do something important plot wise, and maybe gets back more of the personality she had during the first episodes: more hardened and cynical, because for all the talk she did about not trusting people, she sure did seem to move on from her past and back to being a kind of carefree princess pretty quickly.
Cang Xuan: He was my favourite male character, probably for how naturally and emotional his actor portrayed him. I pitied him, whenever he appeared on screen, he brought a sense of melancholy with him: even in the few scenes where he was happy, I felt an underlying sadness for everything he went through, and likely will go through, that made his happiness unreal, short-lived; someone not destined to be happy.
He wants to be with Xiao Yao, wants to protect her, but to do this his sole focus is on his political ambitions, and thus ends up drifting more and more away from her in the process.
The only drawback of this character is how much he is intertwined in the politic plotline, which I already mentioned finding flat and uninteresting. Therefore, most of his storyline is not as captivating as the character is.
Tushan Jing: He is the main romantic interest for Xiao Yao, but I found him to be pretty boring. I am rooting for him to end up with her: he is the male character that treats her the nicest, and that can give her the peaceful life that she wants, but I still find him boring: he has no motivations for anything he does other than be with her and help her. And sure, that is good, for him to be so loyal to her, but where is his actual character?
Xiang Liu: The snake demon, a complex character with even more complex mood swings. Every interaction with Xiao Yao is a gamble, will it end sadly, with him inevitably leaving? Or will it leave you astonished by his short fuse, when he threatens her out of nowhere?
I liked him as Xiang Liu, getting close with the female lead but while still being reserved, but adored him when he took on the identity of the carefree Fangfeng Bei. If the drama could be about him leaving behind his army and live the rest of his life hanging out with Xiao Yao as Fangfeng Bei, no one would be seeing me complaining.
The Romance
I found this drama interesting in the sense that there are different love interests, and even when Xiao Yao declares herself in love with one of them, she still seems to have feelings with another. The female lead is a faceted character, and her emotions are not clear cut.
Let us look at the male leads one by one.
Cang Xuan, sadly for him and my poor shipper heart, is not even being considered by Xiao Yao as a romantic interest: she only sees him as family. However, I cannot lie, his love filled gazes towards her, his sadness and jealousy when she was meeting another, made me whish for Xiao Yao to at least consider him as a possible partner.
Tushan Jing, as I said before, is the best choice for Xiao Yao. But why, after promising to leave his identity behind and just live with her forever, did he immediately go back to his family? Yes, his fiancé was pregnant; but before that, when the grandmother refused to break his engagement, why did he not just leave it all behind as promised? He has no right to be upset once Xiao Yao decides to move on, he brought in on himself.
Xiang Liu is interesting, because I believe that if he was willing to abandon his duties and just be with her, maybe as Fangfeng Bei, Xiao Yao would be choosing him over Tushan Jing. I find the relation between Xiang Liu and Xiao Yao to be the most dramatic and emotionally charged. And yes, he was very violent against her in the beginning, but if she can move over it and be friends (and something more) with him, I can overlook it. He is a demon, after all.
And lastly, Feng Long, could he even be considered a love interest? Not really. He told Xiao Yao he wants to marry her only because he is comfortable with her, and since it could be a good political move for him… So, not much of a romantic prospect, but props to him for his honesty, I guess.
The Politics
I do not have much to say about this, other that this is the aspect that in my opinion doesn’t allow the drama to be perfect. It was, as already mentioned, very bland.
There are a lot of historical Chinese dramas about fights for the throne, the majority of them are, and the political plotline in Lost You Forever does not stand out at all compared to them.
A couple of Kingdoms, a few neutral families in the Central Plains, a couple of uncles fighting the nephew for the throne. And that’s it. Where is the intrigue? Where is the dramatics? Not here.
Also, 39 episodes of Cang Xuan trying to gain power, and for what? For Grandpa to just hand him the throne at the end. Meh.
The Finale (of Part 1)
It is only the finale for the first part of the drama, but in the eventuality of actors getting cancelled or some other scandal that causes Part 2 to never air (in C-dramaland you never know), it would be an OK finale for the overall series. Unsatisfactory, but ok.
Snake boy has his army, Jing gets the short end of the stick with his cheating fiancé (honestly, his own fault for going back there), Cang Xuan gets his throne, and Xiao Yao can spend the rest of her days hanging out with her family.
… Let us all hope that nothing goes wrong and Part 2 airs in a few months.
Notable Scenes
- The whole of the first episode, when Cang Xuan and Xiao Yao are children. The actors were amazing, and made me cry for characters I had just met.
- Any scene of Xiao Yao and Fangfeng Bei just hanging around town and having fun: they have so much chemistry.
- When Xiao Yao is killed (or almost) and gets hanged up in the air from the vines. I was not expecting it, and was completely shocked by how violent the whole sequence was.
Overall, a great watch for anyone interested in Chinese dramas, as long as they can stick around despite the violence against the female lead in the first half.
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