Qin's Moon — The Legend of Qin drama (2015)
At a glance54 episodes
In 2015 Qin's Moon became one of the very first donghua adapted into a live-action TV series. The Legend of Qin (秦时明月), in 54 episodes, aired on Hunan TV from 29 November 2015. Lu Yi plays Gai Nie, Jiang Jinfu the young Jing Tianming and Michelle Chen the healer Duanmu Rong.
Production and behind the scenes
The project was announced on 27 August 2013: Sparkly Key teamed up with Shanghai Tangren Media to bring its 3D series to live action. Filming began on 15 August 2014. Direction was entrusted to Zheng Weiwen, who would make The Untamed, the Mo Dao Zu Shi adaptation, four years later. The cast also includes Sun Yizhou, Hu Bingqing, Jin Chen and Qin Junjie.
How it differs from the donghua
The series keeps the donghua's setting and characters but largely rewrites their relationships to fill 54 episodes. Romantic subplots are far more prominent than in the animation, and some characters change role or personality. The heavily choreographed fights rely on wires and CGI. The result feels more like a mainstream-network wuxia drama than the donghua's dark epic.
Reception and success
Fans of the animation were lukewarm: many criticised the gap with the characters they knew, starting with the weight given to romance. The series nonetheless benefited from Hunan TV's reach and its actors' popularity, and was exported to platforms such as Viki.
Trivia
- Director Zheng Weiwen is also one of the two directors of The Untamed (2019).
- It is one of the first examples of a Chinese donghua adapted into a live-action series, long before the dramas based on Soul Land or Battle Through the Heavens.
- Michelle Chen was already known for playing Xiaolongnü in The Return of the Condor Heroes (2014).
- Another series, The King's Woman (秦时丽人明月心, 2017), has no direct link to the franchise despite its title.
My take
I find it hard to recommend this series to donghua fans: it keeps the names but loses the soul, and the love stories take up too much room. Lu Yi makes a believable Gai Nie and some sets work well, but the magic of the animated Qin's Moon does not make it to the screen. Worth watching out of curiosity, to see how far Chinese adaptations have come since.
Who is it for?Anyone curious about the history of adaptations and fans of 2010s wuxia dramas.
— Spidermas, for Donghua Fan