Song of the Moon (2022) - Final Review

Final review/rating:  Song of the Moon (2022) - Decent acting from eye candy cast marred by a lackluster script 

This is 7/10 stars ✮✮✮✮✮✮✮ from Pandafan🐼

Overall rating:         7 Stars Plot:                       6 Stars Acting/cast:            7 Stars Couple chemistry:   7 stars Music:                    8 Stars Re-watch value:      5 Stars Enjoyment factor:   6.5 Stars

Song of the Moon (2023) features a gorgeous main cast (Zhang Bin Bin, Wang You Shou, Wang Yi Lun, Xu Lu) in gorgeous xianxia settings, but the drama is mediocre at best.  

There are occasional moments that lift it above mediocrity in terms of xianxia angst and romance, but unfortunately, much of the 40 episode drama is spent on endless variations on the same theme.  

Even the heartfelt performances from the two deliciously gorgeous male leads failed to save this one from being something of a slog to get through. 

To be honest, my sole reason for persevering to the end and rating this a 7/10 rather than a 6.5/10 was because Zhang Bin Bin and Wang You Shou are just so damn fine...  

SPOILERS AHEADS

Plot with potential...

Lu Li and Liu Shao 💕

For a spoiler-free synopsis, see mine 👉here.  Essentially, and with spoilers ahead, the plot had quite a bit of potential.    

As a young girl of 8, Liu Shao (played by Xu Lu) meets a mysterious immortal who grants her three days of perfect happiness in exchange for permission to change her fate in 10 years time.  

When Liu Shao is 18, she is rescued from a demoness by Lu Li (played by Zhang Bin Bin), a handsome and playful young cultivator with high spiritual powers, who looks exactly like the immortal from Lui Shao's past and who only has half a heart. Romance ensues.  

Wang You Shou as He Na

Liu Shao and Lu Li join the Wu Yang academy to increase their cultivation, and in the process, encounter dangers and meet friends, such as the mysterious He Na (played by Wang You Shuo), the powerful but gentle demon king in white, whose people are cursed to remain within the seas.  He falls deeply in love with Liu Shao but she only has eyes for Lu Li. 

But it soon becomes apparent that Liu Shao and Lu Li's spiritual essences conflict and causes harm to the other.  When Lu Li sacrifices his life for Liu Shao, high immortal Luo Ge emerges from his long seclusion. He looks exactly like Lu Li, and bears the other half of his heart, but to Liu Shao's grief, Luo Ge does not appear to bear Lu Li's memories or his love for her. Or does he? 

Zhang Bin Bin as Luo Ge

The reason for the Luo Ge's resemblance to Lu Li is because they are two halves of the same heart, with Luo Ge sending half his heart to the mortal realm to undergo tribulation so that he can ultimately ascend to being a high immortal, free of distracting desires. But of course these crop up - after all, Luo Ge and Lu Li are halves of the same heart.    

Meanwhile, all is not well, as an evil force sealed within the ancient four seasons monument is in danger of breaking out and destroying the world, and that force is inextricably linked with Luo Ge because Luo Ge is one half of High Immortal Yue Guang (the God of the Moon), while the evil force is the other half... sealed 10,000 years ago by Yao Ling, Goddess of the Sun, who loved High Immortal Yue Guang and died to give the good half of him a chance to live (Luo Ge). But that necessarily means that the evil half also lives, albeit sealed.    

A Fu (by Wang Yi Lun) and Luo Ning (by Zheng He Hui Zi)

There is also a subplot in which He Na's unscrupulous younger brother A Fu (played by Wang Yi Lun) repeatedly wrecks havoc as he tries by any means possible to break the curse on his people (including scheming to unleash the sealed evil force), and history repeats, as he and Luo Ge's sister, Luo Ning (played by Zheng He Hui Zi) fall in love, against a backdrop of his deception... 

... marred by endless variations on the same theme

Somehow, the potential of the plot and avenues for high romance and angst were
squandered by the drama's lacklustre script. While watchable, the drama is not addictively good and it moves at a pedestrian pace, with repetitive and seemingly endless variations on the same theme.  

Zhang Bin Bin's Lu Li ; Wang You Shuo's He Na

In the first arc (episodes 1 - 13), we get Liu Shao and Lu Li's love story, much of which is concentrated on their experiences at the Wu Yang academy, and which seem to require them to go on repeated searches for one or other magical herb or medicine to rescue various people (whether it be Duke Wu Yang, Liu Shao, Lu Li etc etc), often with the selfless help of He Na.  There's also the staple 'green tea' obsessively-crazy-about-the-male-lead villainess Bai Feng who gets a tedious amount of screen time and whose machinations are both despicable and boring.  

The drama remained watchable only because of the outstanding performances from Zhang Bin Bin (who delivers a swoon-worthy portrayal of a young man in love that is the stuff of dreams in the delightfully cheeky Lu Li) and Wang You Shuo's gorgeous He Na, whose gentle devotion and goodness makes him a second male lead that the audience cannot fail to love. Incidentally, although the main CP look good together, the chemistry between Zhang Bin Bin's Lu Li /Luo Ge and Xu Lu's Liu Shao feels a bit contrived and overly reliant on beautiful set piece scenes.  Thankfully there is only one misunderstanding between the leads in the first arc which gets resolve fairly quickly. 

Zhang Bin Bin as Luo Ge 

In the second arc, Zhang Bin Bin's Luo Ge is a complete contrast, being aloof (at first) to the point of cruelty to the forlorn Liu Shao. Although it is commendable acting to portray a completely different person convincingly, one can't help feeling that one has downgraded from the much more lovable Lu Li in high immortal Luo Ge, and it's hard to get enthused by him. 

Especially since arc 2 consists of endless rinse and repeat scenarios of Luo Ge rejecting Liu Shao (but clearly while having feelings for her, whether these be Lu Li's or otherwise);  Luo Ge getting seriously hurt (whether due to Liu Shao's spiritual essence or because he overtaxes his strength by singlehandedly protecting her or the world in some way or other whilst the other celestials appear completely useless); and Luo Ge having to recuperate while in a weakened state after said overtaxing of strength.  Oh, and the evil force keeps getting stronger and Luo Ge and other celestials keep trying to strengthen the seal to the four seasons monument to contain the evil within, ad infinitum, because this is, of course, a losing battle.  It is not exactly riveting watching to see them point their spells at an inanimate object with looks of intense concentration on their faces🙄  

The trio

Add in more delusional Bai Feng and the tiresome A Fu constantly throwing spanners in the works that require He Na to sort out (often at great cost to He Na), and A Fu's ill fated romance with Luo Ning, and that is basically the drama in a nutshell.  

The tempo does not really alter, even when Luo Ge realises his feelings for Liu Shao and decides that he must protect both her and the three realms, though there are occasional moments of high angst and romance that any decent xianxia ought to have (such as Lu Li's sacrifice, Luo Ge defeating the lover's curse and the phoenix tear of forgetfulness for Liu Shao, and the pathos of Luo Ning's tragic ending - the inevitable outcome of A Fu's toxicity).     

Even the immersive performances from the gorgeous Zhang Bin Bin and Wang You Shuo failed to save this drama from being something of a slog to get through... 

Choose your own ending: episodes 39 or episode 40

A word of explanation on the ending (or more correctly, the endings), which may have caused some viewers confusion. 

Goddess of the Sun Yao Ling and God of the Moon Yue Guang

In episode 38, the significance of Liu Shao's childhood pact with the mysterious
immortal is finally revealed - she was chosen by God of the Moon Yue Guang to reincarnate the spiritual essence of Goddess of the Sun, Yao Ling.  

This is because Yue Guang knew that his lover Yao Ling would spare his life and sacrifice her own, but that in her splitting his essence into good (Luo Ge) and bad (the evil force sealed in the monument), the threat of evil would remain, eventually to destroy the world.  Liu Shao was chosen so that she could execute Luo Ge with Yao Ling's powers, thus ensuring that the evil force inextricably linked to Luo Ge would also die...

But what will Liu Shao, who loves Luo Ge as much as Yao Ling loved Yue Guang, choose to do? Save her love or save the world?  

The drama gives us two alternatives, in each of episodes 39 and 40: 

In episode 39, the evil force has overpowered Luo Ge's consciousness at the wedding of Luo Ge and Liu Shao, and He Na dies at the hand of the evil-force-possessed Luo Ge in order to protect Liu Shao. 

Sad/open ending?  Luo Ge's futile search for Liu Shao's spirit

Rather then killing Luo Ge, Liu Shao instead absorbs all of the evil force from Luo Ge (thus destroying it using Yao Ling's spiritual essence, the only force that can truly defeat the essence of Yue Guang).  Liu Shao therefore dies, having released Luo Ge (and the three realms) from the evil force forever.    

    

Brokenhearted, Luo Ge leaves the heavens and wanders the realms in search of Liu Shao's spirit essence, never realising that her three legged phoenix spirit is following at his back...  

OR

Heavenly wedding

In episode 40, Liu Shao and Luo Ge are getting married happily.  But the evil force soon takes possession of Luo Ge. 

They fight, but evil Luo Ge wins. But with the help of a heavenly herb left to Liu Shao by the real Luo Ge, and the combined efforts of the celestials, Liu Shao is able to unseal the Goddess of the Sun's powers.

An epic showdown fight ensues as the celestials and He Na aid Liu Shao in trying to seal evil possessed Luo Ge and even Bai Feng sacrifices her life to try and defeat him. At the last moment, when He Na gets ready to use his life force, A Fu stops his brother and takes his place. He and the remaining spirit essence of Luo Ning perish, and the real Luo Ge temporarily returns. He begs for death, and Liu Shao kills both the evil force and Luo Ge, who promises her a lifetime together before dying in her arms.  

Distraught, Liu Shao wanders the three realms, and on her travels sees the reincarnation of A Fu and Luo Ning in the mortal realm.  One day, a youth wielding a fan taps her on the shoulder. The lowered fan shows her the beloved face of Luo Ge. So an open happy ending💗       

 

Final Thoughts 

🐼: Song of the Moon (2022) had the potential to be a lot better than it ended up being.  A missed opportunity for grand xianxia romance and angst due to a slow paced and tediously repetitive script that does not make the best use of the wonderful actors in the drama.  

Zhang Bin Bin as Lu Li, Luo Ge, Yue Guang, Immortal

Honestly, it was rather hard work to get through and it barely makes a 7/10 stars from me, and only because of Zhang Bin Bin and Wang You Shou, who were both outstanding.  Without them, this would be a 6.5 at best. 

Song of the Moon (2022) is probably only suited for die-hard fans of the main cast, especially those of Zhang Bin Bin who lent much needed colour to every one of his characters, from Lu Li to Luo Ge, and the light and dark manifestations of Yue Guang. 

The talented man also lends his voice to two songs in the soundtrack, the beautiful outro song 若有先知 ("If there is foreknowledge") and the sub theme song 半心劫 ("Half-heart calamity"). 

I hope he selects better scripts in the future - he is a compelling actor with wonderful onscreen presence that just needs a better drama to shine in.   

7/10 stars ✮✮✮✮✮✮✮