Chinese Entertainment

Ashile Sun being smitten with Li Changge on The Long Ballad

I've been making my way backwards through all of Wu Lei's dramas over the last 12 months, and this one is one of my favorites!

Dilraba Dilmurat plays the titular Li Changge (literally "long song"), daughter of the Da Tang emperor, whose life gets tragically interrupted by her uncle usurping the throne and killing her whole family. She goes on the run disguised as a man. Two young men from the palace follow her, one of them to help her, the other to kill her (played by Alen Fang/Fang Yilun and Liu Yuning). Wu Lei plays a grasslands prince called Ashile Sun. Their lives intertwine and he falls in love with her, saving her life multiple times, while she is consumed with the thought of revenge against her uncle and to restore peace in Da Tang. But she's not constantly a damsel in distress: she's smart and well-educated, and makes relatable decisions. In fact, it's a very character-driven drama, the main relationship is healthy and happy, and the political shenanigans are all mostly believable and didn't bore me.

It's very much a growing-up story, with Changge at first thinking she knows everything, to her slowly learning that she knows nothing at all. Oh, and there's her friend and cousin Leyan (played by Zhao Lusi), a pampered princess who somehow gets lost in the wilderness and has her own growing-up story.

The drama is based on a manga, and some of the most intense scenes are represented by animated scenes, which takes a bit of getting used to. I'm not sure if they just wanted to call back to the manga origins of the drama, or if they really had no money to film the large battle scenes. (Or whether it was covid-related. The drama was filmed in 2020.) This is my only real complaint about the drama, everything else worked fine for me.

How long is it? 49 episodes of about 45 minutes each. (Not too long. I did not want it to end.)

Is it a rec? Yessssss! You can watch it for the plot that holds together pretty well, but there are also a lot of shallow reasons: Wu Lei's beautiful braids, for example, or Dilraba crossdressing, or Zhao Lusi and Liu Yuning as the second pairing.

5 out of 5 stars. One of the few period dramas that I really love.

Does it have a happy ending?

ending spoilers

Yes! Changge and Ashile Sun live happily ever after on the grasslands. (They never get married on screen, but I don't care about that.) The secondary couple, Li Leyan and Hao Du, get married and she becomes a wise ruler. The third couple does not get a happy ending (which is why they're the only ones who get a kiss. natch).

Where to watch?
You can watch it on Viki or Youtube (or everywhere else omg). There's also a really fun BTS playlist.

More detailed thoughts

more thoughts, a very mixed bag, I tried not to make it too spoilery

* the characters are based on the true story of a Tang princess marrying a Turk prince. Her uncle is Li Shimin (598-649AD, second emperor of the Tang dynasty), Changge is based on Princess Dingxiang (Li Shimin's stepdaughter), and Ashile Sun on Ashina Zhong, a Turk prince and her husband by decree of Li Shimin.

* Wu Lei was only 20 when this was filmed (and Dilraba was 27). He doesn't really come across as a very believable experienced prince/general because he looks way too young for the role. But that's par for the course for idol dramas, and he does a good job as usual.

* You can tell from the bts that Wu Lei and Dilraba did not spend any more time in each other's presence than absolutely necessary. She obviously thought him beneath her, which I can understand considering their age difference. Luckily, you couldn't tell from the way they depict the relationship. Their on-screen chemistry is just fine. There are quite a few people who prefer the second pairing for that reason, but I'm not one of them.

- Speaking of chemistry, Wu Lei had a no-kissing clause in his contract, which led to some very unfortunate directing choices. But even without kisses, their relationship moved me very much. <3

+ I really do need to restate how lovely the relationship itself is. Ashile Sun falls in love with Changge relatively early, but can't tell her because she's busy politicking. That she's disguised as a man doesn't bother Sun's advisor, who keeps ribbing him about the young guy he keeps meeting. <3 There's a lot of fun bickering between them at first. Later, there are many loving looks and hugs and conversations, and they get one of my favorite confession scenes in historical drama ever.

* The grasslands. Um. Actually, the Ashile tribe was painted as less terrible than the Sui queen, so I guess you could say it's less racist than expected? Since Ashile Sun is the male lead, both he and his tribe members as well as his family (the Khan himself) are portrayed in a mostly positive light and not depicted as total savages. I've seen much worse, but I'd still classify it as racist, on the usual level for cdrama.

*Let's not mention the desert tribes that we get to meet later, some of whom have bad blond wigs, and then they do a PSA on covid in dance form. One of the absolute weirdest things I've ever seen on a cdrama. Impossible to take seriously.

* Ashile Sun always has to reject all the pretty slave girls that keep getting sent to his tent. He's afraid of spies. Suuure.

+ I really liked A'Dou, Changge's boy sidekick. One of the few child characters that ever won my heart in any tv show (cdrama or otherwise).

* I did not like Ashile Sun's sidekick and military advisor Mu Jin, mostly because he was a *shit advisor*. He was there mostly for comic relief and for speaking Ashile Sun's stoic male lead character's thoughts out loud. That he was supposed to have a job was conveniently forgotten very early on.

* I also didn't like Xiao Khan, Ashile Sun's half-brother and heir to the Khan. He was painted as cruel and thoughtless in the beginning, but then they realized they needed the viewers to empathize with him and gave him a redemption arc. It doesn't quite add up for me. Of course, them being brothers, they'll always be antagonistic for no reason, so I guess it doesn't matter much.

+ I started out hating Li Leyan, Changge's spoiled cousin, but she grew on me. There are many episodes of her barely surviving on the street, which eventually convinced me. Only the eps she spent in a weaver's shop were played for laughs too much, I could have done without those. But she does turn into a character I could empathize with, and I even ended up liking her relationship.

+ I almost forgot: one of the main draws of the drama for me is that Changge lives as a man for most of it. I always love crossdressing in dramas, and this one is no exception. (Like in all cdramas I've seen that had crossdressing, they make no attempt to hide her breasts. One gets used to it.) I especially like that it's so normal for her that she already does it before the whole political shnanigans even start, and she keeps doing it even after her odyssey is over.

+ I really really love Ashile Sun's braids. All the Ashile characters have beautiful braids, and it's especially obvious while they're fighting. A+.

+ I haven't mentioned any of the plot points in particular, but I'll just repeat that I think they made more sense than I thought they would? There are some tropey ones that aren't very realistic, but I found most of them believable. Changge's story is gripping, and I liked her learning journey. Several times, I thought "this young girl can't be as smart as they make her out to be," and it turns out, nope, she really wasn't that smart. :D She gets enough things right, but also many of them wrong. I definitely had fun.

+ Ashile Sun has his own political enemies, and while they were the most flat in their evilness, I still thought their motivations made sense, and the progression to becoming the show's main villains follows logically.

+ I admit I liked both Changge's and Ashile Sun's desire for peace. Oftentimes in cdrama, peace must be achieved through war, but here they both try to achieve peace by - duh - peaceful means. I liked that a lot.

* This list sounds way more negative than my impression of the drama was. I think I picked out everything that I could complain about and listed it here, but didn't list all the plot stuff that I liked (and there was a lot of it).

Image gallery
all 31 images: https://postimg.cc/gallery/6TkbT4q

Other Wu Lei picspams so far: The Sporty Look, The Elf Look, Nothing But You, Amidst a Snowstorm of Love

30 images!

Political/family setup

Changge and her mother - Child, did you sneak out disguised as a man again?


Li Leyan and her two suitors Wei Shuyu and Hao Du (although they don't know it yet)


Changge and her uncle, the usurper Li Shimin (Geng Le)

Soooo many tropes

Changge on the run


He saves her life


They fall off a roof


Everyone's in disguise


Too few clothes ;)


Too many clothes - Wu Lei almost got heat stroke a few times in that costume


Covid dance ...w.t.f.

Battles

Confrontation...


...on the battlefield


Most of the battles are rendered anime-style


More battles


Trying to resolve their differences - Changge is adorably fighty


More battles

Romance

Side Characters

Changge and her student A'Dou (one of the few child characters i have ever loved on any show)


Changge and her cousing Li Leyan


Second couple


Third couple

Braaaaaaaaids!

I'm not going to put all the Long Ballad icons I've already made here, because there are many and they've all been posted here before. I posted them to c_ent instead (link below). You can also find them through the tag:
https://tinny.dreamwidth.org/tag/art-icons,tv-cdrama-longballad?mode=and

This review was x-posted to c_ent, and here's the separate icon post at c_ent.