Yong An Dream (2024) - Final Review

Final review/rating: Yong An Dream (2024) - A sweet adaptation that eschews the darkness of the source novel in favour of light fluffiness 

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

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

Jeremy Tsui/Xu Zheng Xi as Lu Shi Yan

So I watched Yong An Dream (2024) after Jeremy Tsui/Xu Zheng Xi's recent 15 March 2024 announcement on Weibo that he was retiring from acting. 

I've always wanted a magnum opus from Xu Zheng Xi - a drama that showcases the full extent of his considerable abilities. The man has a gravelly low voice (criminally under used alas!), the ability to swing from high comedy to tormented angst, and the acting chops to carry off nuanced morally grey anti-heroes. Sadly, he has not had much luck with the scripts that have come his way and more often than not, he has been paired with much younger actresses who are not in his league acting wise, and/or he is casted in some generic idol romcom. 

Yong An Dream (2024) is more of the same, rather than magnum opus material. Notably, the source novel《長安第一美人》Chang'an's First Beauty goes down some very dark Stockholm-syndrome-on-steroids pathways and was a did-not-finish for me, but the drama adaptation sanitises this in favour of light fluffiness. 

SPOILERS AHEAD

Plot: A squeaky clean adaptation in which an imperial prosecutor and ingenue join forces to investigate 

For a spoiler free synopsis, see mine 👉here. 

Those who have read the the source novel may be expecting something entirely different. After all, Chang'an's First Beauty is definitely not a fluffy romcom - in the novel, the innocent young Shen Zhen becoming the mistress of the powerful Lu Shi Yan in circumstances where the imbalance of power makes consent dubious at best. Obviously something along those lines and across different lifetimes would never pass muster with current Chinese drama censorship, so it is reconstituted into a cookie cutter romcom mystery in Yong An Dream (2024).  

When your tears literally hurt my heart

In the drama version, they stick with the present timeline and keep things squeaky clean - Shen Zhen (played by Oyang Nana) is a typical Mary Sue ingenue determined to vindicate her father, who has been unjustly imprisoned due to the collapse of the West Canal. 

When imperial prosecutor Lu Shi Yan (played by Xu Zheng Xi) meets Shen Zhen, he discovers that she is the mysterious woman he keeps having vivid dreams about, dreams in which they clearly shared a complicated past. Lu Shi Yan also discovers, to his consternation, that every time Shen Zhen cries, his heart physically hurts (this being some sort of karmic consequence of his having caused her too many tears in a past existence, as slowly revealed in his dreams). She of course, takes full advantage of his weakness, leading to some pretty funny moments - cue heart clutching and multiple faints as Xu Zheng Xi hams it up for some slapstick comedy😅  

As Lu Shi Yan and Shen Zhen join forces to investigate the true culprit(s) behind the West Canal collapse, they inevitably fall for each other. After all, Lu Shi Yan is re-written as the hero who suavely rides to the aid of the damsel-in-distress, including repeatedly rescuing Shen Zhen from a creepy wannabe rapist and administering the severest beating permitted by law on each occasion. Lu Shi Yan and Shen Zhen also share some fun and games as they go undercover as a brainless business magnate and his hot-headed concubine in the course of their investigations.   

Shen Ran and Zhou Su An

The drama also presents us with a interesting second couple in the form of elder sister Shen Ran (played by Xia Nan) who is unhappily married to the rascally cheater Li Di, and the still-waters-run-deep imperial censor Zhou Su An (played by Sun Jian). Amidst a sizeable amount of mutual but unspoken attraction, Shen Ran and Zhou Su An are also investigating the West Canal collapse, and later, Li Di's role in it. 

There drama offers a third CP pairing as well, in the form of Shen Zhen's childhood friend General Su Heng (who is devoted to Shen Zhen) but later meets his match in the Xu Yi Qing, the kickass General's daughter who can literally kick his ass.

All of the various investigation threads lead to the unmasking of the mastermind - but not before Lu Shi Yan nearly dies, Shen Zhen is set up in a murder case, the Grand Princess (Lu Shi Yan's mother) is implicated in treason, and Zhou Su An and Shen Ran take turns at death's door.  All par for the course ahead of the  final reveal that all along it was the Empress who was plotting to overthrow the Crown Prince to set up her unwilling son to be the next Emperor.  

All's well that ends well, of course, and the drama concludes with three happy CPs and a big happily ever after.   

Strengths: necessary edits, the charming ML, the interesting 2nd CP, and feel-good fluffiness 

I am not usually one for censorship, but in the case of Yong An Dream (2024) I generally approve.  

An unedited gas lighting Lu Shi Yan straight from the novel is probably too much for many viewers to stomach, myself included. Xu Zheng Xi's Lu Shi Yan in the drama version, on the other hand, is much more mellow and utterly charming. Any hint of darkness on Lu Shi Yan's part is confined to a few fragmented dreams of a hazy past in which torture and fade-to-black carnality feature, and which always horrify him upon waking - at one point, he even comments that surely, I could not have been such a beast?  

That said, I am not quite sure I buy the Lu Shi Yan-as-a-never-been-kissed-bashful-boyish-cluelessness schtick that they land Xu Zheng Xi with, and one gets the feeling that he doesn't buy it either and can only muster a half-hearted attempt at portraying this. 

However, the drama does have the good sense of providing some fan service and we get to see Xu Zheng Xi's six pack on at least two occasions - for those who want to skip straight to those, they are at episodes 10 and 13😆     

To be honest, I found the 2nd CP much more interesting than the main CP. With the 2CP pairing, elder sister Shen Ran is already married - but to an absolute rotter - whilst the intriguing Zhou Su An cannot stay away and keeps telling her with his eyes (and his actions) that his heart is very much hers for the taking. Their mutual attraction and affinity is obvious, but also forbidden, and Shen Ran is stuck in a marriage with a cheating and abusive creep whom she must outsmart to vindicate her father.  For all her strength of character, Shen Ran is proper to a fault, and she really struggles to accept that after divorcing her abusive ex-husband she can find happiness again with Zhou Su An. I cheered this pairing's HEA as it was a resounding message that you can and should open your heart to love again - there's no need to swear off love just because your Ex is a POS. 

Another point in its favour is that at 24 episodes, Yong An Dream (2024) is short and sweet. There were some comedic laugh-out-loud moments that hammed things up and ended before it got too tiresome, some decent action scenes for a non-wuxia, and plenty of feel good fluffiness. This is a world where wannabe rapists and abusive ex-husbands get their just deserts, the good guys win, and there are happily-ever-afters all round.  

Weaknesses: Some quibbles with the writing choices, lack of chemistry, and Xu Zheng Xi's wasted potential

I found the writing in the first half quite fun and decidedly better than the more lazy writing in the second half.  

In particular, I disliked the drama hitting the viewer with a different Shen Ran in the later episodes, when she suddenly becomes slap-happy with Shen Zhen and tries to end the main CP's relationship.  This seemed completely out of character, and unnecessarily ruined Shen Ran's portrayal. I also wished they had stayed away from the amnesia trope in the final episode, which had me rolling my eyes.  

This is a cheap and cheerful idol romance, so it would be unfair to judge it through any other lens.  That said, I think the romance between the main CP of Xu Zheng Xi and Oyang Nana is tepid at best. They seemed to be going for tenderness rather than passion (perhaps understandable given the need to avoid the dubious consent issues of the source novel) and possibly to lessen any potential viewer aversion to the May-December pairing. But even so, there was way less chemistry between the main CP here, then in, say the recent Royal Rumours (2023), where Xu Zheng Xi and Meng Zi Ye shared some cute, flirtatious slow-burn romcom chemistry (see review 👉here), or in The Autumn Ballad (2022), where Xu Zheng Xi and Qiao Xin give us a great example of the sizzle that is possible with the enemies-to-lovers trope (see review 👉here).  

Oyang Nana does a competent job as the demure female lead, but the script does not give her much to work with and she lacks the charisma to elevate the role to a memorable one. I also struggled to see her as a Helen of Troy type - she felt more like someone's cute kid sister. 

To be honest, I was also aghast that Oyang Nana was top billed in this drama ahead of Xu Zheng Xi, who is clearly the more experienced and better actor by a country mile. No disrespect to her but how the ever loving heck did she end up top billed??? I suspect it is this sort of thing, as well as having to churn out cookie cutter idol dramas with yet another young actress-in-leading-strings which may have led Xu Zheng Xi to announce his recent retirement from the entertainment industry.  

Unlike Oyang Nana, Xu Zheng Xi is able to give the drama's sanitised Lu Shi Yan colour and some leashed ruthless devilry by stint of personal charisma, but the role as written is obviously well within his comfort zone and one he can do with his eyes closed.  

Xu Zheng Xi really needs/needed more challenging roles, ones that can showcase his full potential and stretch him as an actor, but alas, this last swan song of his is not a magnum opus. One can't help repining the lost potential. Just imagine what Xu Zheng Xi could do with another script and a morally grey anti-hero in all his nuanced glory, and paired with a more accomplished actress with whom he shares sizzling chemistry! Never say never, but I'm rather gutted that we may never get the opportunity to see Xu Zheng Xi at his finest now given his early retirement.  

It's also a pity that they overdubbed Xu Zheng Xi's glorious gravelly voice in this drama - the voice actor is not bad, but if you compare this with The Autumn Ballad (2022) where Xu Zheng Xi does his own voice work, the difference is clear.  

Final thoughts

🐼:  Yong An Dream (2024) is a cheap and cheerful idol romance, which eschews the darkness of the source novel in favour of fluffy lightness. It is the drama equivalent of easy listening or comfort food - not particularly memorable and it likely won't rock your world, but it is also a decent watch, with sufficient romance, comedy, and action to make it an enjoyable light-hearted watch. 

I watched Yong An Dream (2024) with a good deal of preemptive nostalgia as Xu Zheng Xi's swan song drama, and I think it was worth watching for this reason alone if nothing else.  Xu Zheng Xi is certainly a delight in this drama, but I couldn't help wishing that it had been more worthy of his potential. 

7/10 stars ✮✮✮✮✮✮✮