Miss the Dragon (2021) - Final Review

Final review/rating: Miss the Dragon (2021) - Xianxia lite, which does not quite hit the right emotional notes 

This is 6.5/10 stars ✮✮✮✮✮✮ from Pandafan🐼

Overall rating:         6.5 Stars Plot:                       6 Stars Acting/cast:            6.5 Stars Couple chemistry:   6 stars Music:                    7 Stars Re-watch value:      5 Stars Enjoyment factor:   6 Stars

Miss the Dragon (2021) is what I would call Xianxia lite in that it does not quite hit the right emotional notes.  There are some gorgeous set piece scenes and the usual themes (eg undying love through many lifetimes) that you would expect in the Xianxia genre. But because Miss the Dragon seems to have just copied and pasted iconic moments from other notable Xianxia dramas in a mishmash fashion and ambitiously tried to give us four lifetimes worth of the romance of the main leads in a 36 episode drama, it is difficult to get emotionally invested in the story.  

That said, there are moments of genuine humour, and the outstanding chemistry between the loveable second lead couple is delightful. If you are in the mood for Xianxia lite, then give Miss the Dragon a go. A solid 6.5 stars from Pandafan🐼  

SPOILERS AHEADS

The plot - four lifetimes is three too many

Love amongst the peach blossoms - 1st lifetime

The plot is fairly simple - see my spoiler free synopsis 👉here for more details. Essentially, its four lifetimes in which our main leads fall in love again and again, as the Dragon King guards his precious one true love through her reincarnations in the hope that they can reunite after her fourth lifetime.  Possibly the writers of the drama were trying, with four lifetimes, to go one up on the iconic gold star standard of Xianxia dramas, Three Lives, Three Worlds: Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms 三生三世十里桃花 (TMPB). 

In my view, Miss the Dragon falls short.  

The first arc of the story, when Dragon King Yuchi Lonyan falls for Liu Ying, attempts to give us all the Xianxia bells and whistles.  For example, there is a scene that is lifted directly out of TMPB which mirrors Susu saving a black snake (who is actually Prince Ye Hua of the heavenly realm and a black dragon).  We have Liu Ying saving a silver snake, who is really the Dragon King Yuchi Lonyan with the latter falling deeply in love as a result.  The parallel is hardly subtle and possibly unintentionally ironic in that Zhu Xu Dan, the actress who plays Liu Ying in Miss the Dragon also played Xuan Nu in TMPB, a villainess who (in)famously wrecks havoc with her envy of Bai Qian/Susu and has the ability to copy her appearance.  So copying this particular scene from TMPB is a little on the nose.  

Forest of fireflies - 4th lifetime de ja vu

Anyway, we are given as much Xianxia romance as beautiful music, beautiful settings and peach blossom forests and fireflies can evoke.  But somehow, the chemistry is not quite there with our main couple Liu Ying (played by Zhu Xu Dan) and Yuchi Lonyan (played by Dylan Wang), even though they are objectively good looking.  So it is hard to feel too emotionally invested in their subsequent lifetimes... which feels somewhat tedious and repetitive.  There's only so much depth you can plumb if you want to portray four lifetimes in 36 episodes.  It may have been better to just use flashbacks (like they did very effectively for ten lifetimes in Love and Redemption, for example).  

General Feng Cheng Yue - 3rd (and most kickass) lifetime

Also, because Yuchi Lonyan retains his memories but Liu Ying and her reincarnations do not (or at least not fully), astute viewers may wonder what it is that makes these two fall in love every lifetime and who exactly Yuchi Lonyan loves - is it Liu Ying, or her reincarnations, who all have different personalities and memories and therefore are arguably different people? 

Miss the Dragon only briefly touches on this troublesome aspect when Yuchi Lonyan and reincarnation number 3 (my favourite), the kickass female general Feng Chen Yue, are about to tie the knot, and she grimaces at the wedding dress that Yuchi Lonyan prepared years ago for his Liu Ying because it is not to her taste. He gets it, by the way, changing the robe to something more befitting her temperament.  But other than that scene, the drama does not really address this issue.  

Saved by the Second Lead Couple

MVPs Qing Qing and Xue Qian Xue

What kept me watching Miss the Dragon was the adorable chemistry between the second couple, the ditzy but adorable bird elf Qing Qing (played by Pan Mei Ye) and the enigmatic Lord of Luofeng Pavilion, Xue Qian Xun (played by newcomer Deng Wei).  

It is classic trope territory (cold, handsome lord and innocent beauty falling head over heels) but done so well in this case that these two steal the show.  Unlike the main couple, their story is not broken up into four chunks, but there is obviously a backstory to their mutual slow burn attraction, and the drama does a great job with stringing the viewer along step by step before the final denouement. Incidentally, their star-crossed lovers backstory is touching and worth waiting for (and truly the stuff of xianxias). 

Loved these two - they were definitely the MVPs of this drama!💕

Chemistry and villainy

Bros sharing advice and a hot tub

It is strange that despite lacking chemistry between each other, the leads actually share some remarkably good chemistry with everyone else.  

The bromance and rivalry between Yuchi Lonyan and Xue Qian Xun, for example, provides some stellar moments of hilarity. 

These two share (sometimes unwanted) advice on their respective difficulties with wooing, the occasional hot tub chat, and always end up in awkward positions while fighting each other.  Case in point is when Qing Qing walked in on this:

Awkward x1

And this😆🙈:

Awkward x2, aka I see nothing

Zhu Zan Jin as Mingge Xingjun

I should also add that the villain of the piece Mingge Xingjun (and his motives) were not immediately obvious, at least to me, so that made for some interesting twists in the final episodes.  

Turns out that it is the usual lust for power hidden beneath a placid surface.  I liked that Liu Ying's four lifetimes (and the need for the main leads to be apart for those lifetimes) was part and parcel of Mingge Xingjun's machinations.  There were also some epic final scene battles and the ending was one I could live with.  

Final thoughts

🐼:  Worth a watch if you are in the mood for Xianxia lite, which is aesthetically pleasing but not too angsty. At 36 episodes, Miss the Dragon is shorter then most Xianxia dramas and the episodes are mostly 35m or so, so it is not too much of a slog to get through, especially if you fall for the second lead couple like I did and enjoy seeing beautiful scenes with beautiful people. The OST is also rather beautiful, especially Fireflies 遇萤, as sung by Henry Huo 霍尊. 

A solid 6.5/10 stars ✮✮✮✮✮✮