Anyone else following these two serials currently airing on iqiyi? I find Joy of Life very light-hearted entertaining. The MC (both as a child and as adult) looks naturally goofy and the acting of all the actors/actresses are excellent! The humour is subtle and comes off naturally (whereas I gave up after watching the first 2 episodes of Once upon a time, there was a Spirit Sword Mountain with its somewhat-forced humour and inexperienced acting). In sharp contrast, many settings in The Sword Dynasty are artistic with beautiful cinematography and excellent acting from experienced actors/actresses. Some of the scenes truly deserve repeat watching to appreciate the composition and the attention-to-details rendered by the director. The one major and very prominent flaw (in my view) is the MC who always have this very smug look on his face that invites a smacking. I know he is a popular actor with many female fans, but he is the oldest-looking 15-year old lad in the TV-series adaptations from the novels that I have ever seen! Heck, he even looks much older than his petite aunt. Joy of Life is akin to a light, refreshing meal while The Sword Dynasty is similar to a heavy, luxurious formal sit-down meal. Thankfully, there's no much fillers in both series so far!
Li Qin is a great actress. Sandrine Pinna is a French Chinese actress from Taiwan. I find it hard to consider it bad acting, more culture shock Especially if you have read the book, Spirit Sword mountain is supposed to be over the top. I haven't watched any yet but Li Qin is always a scene stealer, saw her clips in Joy of Life. I won't bet against Sandrine Pinna though, I would recommend that you give Spirit Sword Mountain another try. As for Sword Dynasty, I haven't read the book unlike the other two but the story feels all too familiar with classic wuxia. Have you watched The Legends? What about Man Comes To Tang Dynasty? I am working on getting season 2 subbed. Joy of Life author was incredibly bad at writing romance but TV screenwriters are experts at that so it should be very good. I am not interested in the plot though. It was a big disappointment just like Martial Universe since Martial Universe had more romance than action which I was not expecting
I like both dramas, but I like JOL more. I feel Sword Dynasty could have a better screenplay. Towards the end, I feel they rush the ending and just randomly killed off random characters. Overall, I like the fighting scenes^^