Untouchable Lovers (凤囚凰) is the drama adaptation of the novel Feng Qiu Huang written by Tian Yi You Feng, starring two young faces – Song Wei Long (Long for You) and Guan Xiao Tong (Love of Aurora). Because Yumama had a hand in this project, I’m not sure how novel fans will find the new rewritten story. Lol.
Stills:
In the original novel, Feng Qiu Huang follows the story of a modern girl who wakes up one day and finds herself in the body of Liu Chu Yu, a princess of the Liu Song Dynasty. The princess is known for telling her younger brother, Emperor Qianfei, about the unfairness in his harem verses hers, at which he granted her thirtysomething male concubines. That sounds awesome… only now our heroine has to finds way to survive, knowing that history isn’t on her brother’s side (he’s overthrown). Rong Zhi, our male lead, is one of the heroine’s mysterious concubines, who’s known for his scheming personality and slyness.
15 thoughts on “First Impression: What do you think of Untouchable Lovers (Feng Qiu Huang)?”
I watched the first episode and enjoyed it. Totally forgot that the novel has time travel! But I like how it was handled – making her into a spy/mole pretending to be the princess. I think this gives the character more to do than simply “survive.” I can’t believe how much gets covered within one episode, but things are moving fast. The OTP has good chemistry and I can see myself rooting for them.
The drama as a whole is really pretty. Even the opening/ending animation is super detailed and gorgeous.
15 thoughts on “First Impression: What do you think of Untouchable Lovers (Feng Qiu Huang)?”
The first four episodes were surprisingly strong. I honestly thought it might turn out to be a mess, all pretty with no substance, but nope, it was pretty good. Despite my low expectations, I am now cautiously optimistic about this drama. ^_^
I love GXT’s portrayal of her character. Liu Chuyu is pretty spunky as the spy, but she also seems to know what she is doing. The psycho emperor is also pretty entertaining to watch, and an easy antagonist for me as the audience to want to strangle. Song Wei Long’s Rong Zhi, however, is pretty stiff in my opinion. I can’t really get behind the romance between the main characters just yet…
I didn’t read the original novel, but tbh, I prefer the drama’s espionage angle more than time traveling. The pacing is fast and suspenseful, and the directing is very well done, so I hope the story turns out nice.
And obviously, the sets and costumes are gorgeous. The weird hairdos don’t distract me as much as I thought. Drama, pleaseeeee be good.
15 thoughts on “First Impression: What do you think of Untouchable Lovers (Feng Qiu Huang)?”
Glad to hear good reviews, cannot wait to watch now!
Is Guan Xiao Tong’s voice dubbed? It seems like, I actually like it when she speaks normally but when she screams then her voice sounds stuffed or choked.
15 thoughts on “First Impression: What do you think of Untouchable Lovers (Feng Qiu Huang)?”
Yay found 2 episodes! Not dying to watch more though, not sure how much I’m liking this drama yet. For the first time I’m dying for just a little tiny bit of more color, not a whole bunch but just a bit more because things look pretty good for Wuxia or War theme now. This first 2 eps was more comedic. SPOILER alert from the trailers for next episodes: I just got so used to the women dominating men theme and it seems the men(Song Wei Long) are back to dominating soooo soon, that will be such a huge plot twist that I hope they do it gradually bc I won’t be ready for that to happen. It’s always been women that gets tortured in dramas, time to see the men’s turn!
Very surprised Miss Guan Xiao Tong’s acting is very good and I cannot imagine any other actress that will be able to handle this role of her better. I just like the fact she keeps her expression realistic and didn’t try to overly act cutesy or with anything weird that’s really out of the norm. (I guess if the actress’s face matches it enough to do that, in the case of GXT, no.) Not sure for the future episodes to come, hope she keeps this up. I’m only kind of annoyed by the confusion of the plot, really confused if this is time traveling and if she got inside the princess’s body or not? That’s probably the only thing that makes me want to continue, I think the pace is still a little bit slow for me.
Song Wei Long looks a bit Thai to me, at least he seems to be a brand new face in the Chinese drama industry then. He is owning a new image that is easily recognized, not too identical to others, and not too easy to forget.
15 thoughts on “First Impression: What do you think of Untouchable Lovers (Feng Qiu Huang)?”
Nah, I think in one of the episodes, some masked guy tells GXT’s character to go on a mission and impersonate the princess. I’m pretty sure there is a scene where the real princess gets sunk (and presumably drowns) into a lake or something, and the fake girl with the same face and clothes rises up from the water to fool everyone. I don’t see any trace of time traveling or body swapping, I think that’s just from the source material.
15 thoughts on “First Impression: What do you think of Untouchable Lovers (Feng Qiu Huang)?”
Yeah I saw that part too, pretty clever how they did it but I was still confused if that was supposed to be a spirit or another human girl. But by this point this should not be time traveling anymore bc she isn’t modern at all.
Unless there is an amnesia theme to it, she time travelled but got amnesia then became a spy then it might works.
I skimmed a lot, quite bored at ep 3-4, it might be bc I need eng sub to understand better.
15 thoughts on “First Impression: What do you think of Untouchable Lovers (Feng Qiu Huang)?”
Personally, I prefer time travel angle because it seems more real. I mean spy (fake princess) doesn’t have the same feeling than real but possessed princess. Anyway, I don’t know why but I cannot shake Ye Yaxi image from GXT. Anyone know whether someone translated it ?
15 thoughts on “First Impression: What do you think of Untouchable Lovers (Feng Qiu Huang)?”
Went in with low expectations and came out enjoying the 4 episodes. I wasn’t a fan of GXT’s acting in Novoland, but she seems to be do pretty well with this one. Looking forward to see how Chuyu and Rong Zhi will play out. Tho, I am a bit concerned with how many things they’re adding in this – espionage, court intrigue, wuxia, palace drama (male spin), and birth secrets.
15 thoughts on “First Impression: What do you think of Untouchable Lovers (Feng Qiu Huang)?”
Yu Zheng… *sigh*
Finding out Yumama is acting in it too makes a huge ball of confusion.
It’s got some faithful elements but I wish they were able to keep the time travel element. Knowing they had to still deal with getting approvals for broadcasting in China, I can still live vicariously through the original and Manhua versions haha.
GXT’s acting is starting off much better here so there’s some hope. SWL, I’m still reserving my opinions on him for now since I want to see if he deserved his leading role, being that he is under Yu Zheng’s studio.
It’s only four episodes so far so I want to wait it out to next week’s episodes of whether to continue watching or not.
15 thoughts on “First Impression: What do you think of Untouchable Lovers (Feng Qiu Huang)?”
To be honest, its been a while since I read the novel, but the drama actually allows me to recall some of the characters and scenes that are now pretty vague and fuzzy to me so I’d say it is pretty faithful to the novel. It covers a lotta ground so it also doesn’t feel draggy so far. I think it is a disappointment to most other novel faithfuls because the biggest draw of the novel is actually RongZhi instead of ChuYu….and it’s pretty obvious SWL didn’t manage to capture the essence of Rongzhi. Rongzhi rates VERY highly in most polls among beloved male characters from online novels..he is like up there with He Yi Chen from My Sunshine.
As a neutral, i think it is not a bad watch. I quite like it so far. On a sidenote, the flare bell trousers distract me more than the hair now haha.
15 thoughts on “First Impression: What do you think of Untouchable Lovers (Feng Qiu Huang)?”
I am four episodes in and pleasantly surprised. Granted, the “less-than-good-looking” male harem and the sewing machine hairstyles were major distractions. And for some reason, I yearn for bold colors. The show made it up with its fast pace storytelling. And, GXT and SWL’s acting wasn’t as terrible as I remembered (SWL’s acting was *really* bland when he was in “Long For You.” Now, I’m kind of looking forward to watch “Beautiful Reborn Flower.”) So as long as the story doesn’t go the way of Mary Sue or endless flashbacks, I will keep watching.
15 thoughts on “First Impression: What do you think of Untouchable Lovers (Feng Qiu Huang)?”
Of course the color!!! What dynasty is this? The king and princess are so poor to the extent where all of their rooms are extremely empty, not a single picture was hung anywhere and not a single colorful vase found anywhere. Shelves were completely empty. The rooms only has yellow-orange wood.
15 thoughts on “First Impression: What do you think of Untouchable Lovers (Feng Qiu Huang)?”
I’m glad I didn’t read the novel beforehand so I don’t know how “perfect” Rong Zhi is supposed to be, but Song Weilong is doing a pretty decent job so far. I also love Guan Xiaotong and her sass in portraying Chuyu. The two leads also have chemistry. The espionage part is pretty tricky; I mean, how long can they drag it out before the fake Chuyu has to kill the Emperor? Or maybe after he’s dead then the love story will truly begin?
I think despite Yu Zheng’s infamous reputation for being a thrash producer, he knows how to make his dramas addictive to watch. First two episodes were comedic.
The only bad thing is there are only 4 episodes per week :/
15 thoughts on “First Impression: What do you think of Untouchable Lovers (Feng Qiu Huang)?”
If they follow closely with the adaptation, killing the emperor should be about half point. I mean half the book is in this kingdom the other half in another.
15 thoughts on “First Impression: What do you think of Untouchable Lovers (Feng Qiu Huang)?”
Can i ask where did you all watch episodes of this drama with eng subtitle ? Because my big sister and i are very interested so we keep searching but we can’t find any sites with subtitle !
Can someone please share with me where to watch ? 😄