User Reviews

There are several points for an 9 star review but first, I'll explain why not a 10 star review: because of the camera work and sound design. I don't know if the director (or directors?) had a not so great camera team operator because in some scenes you can see the way the camera shakes and it's not consistent with the feeling of the scene. Although I understand why the sound design needed to be covered by the BGM because of the loud exterior sounds of other productions that happened in the same place and at the same time, there's no enough digetic sound to give more dimensionality to the overall picture. With dubbing it's another issue that I don't have right to make criticism.

However, why 9 stars? Because even though it was a low budget production, it doesn't feel like one. It's obvious the production knew their weaknesses and their strengths and exploited both of them.

The first thing I applaud is the script. The script writer was debuting in this work, and already had done a excellent job of conveying the substancial (romantic) relationship of ZZS and WKX. It is not at all surprising that both GJ and ZZH were able to demonstrate good acting skills here, because the script worked on their behalf.

The second thing is the plot, although it falls into varied exhibition dialogues (understandable, because after all it is in television format), is interesting enough to be able to continue watching and waiting for the next episode. Besides, the cast doesn't fall behind; although not everyone is at the level of the skill of ZZH or the other veteran actors, they stand in their own enough to show a convincing performance.

And the last thing: the fight scenes. In the first episodes those aren't too great because of the edited slow motion, but later in the ongoing episodes, the fights have improved a lot, so much so that they give me adrenaline.

From a point of a viewer who has not seen many Chinese dramas, this series is quite recommended to enter the world of wuxia stories. Please love this serie! By the way, you can find the free episodes 1-10 at Youku channel.

Everyone compares this show to "The Untamed", which is why I watched it. I do not agree with this. Firstly, as far as the plot is concerned, it is "The Untamed" that wins. More fantasy can be seen in "The Untamed", but here we see a more down-to-earth story. More realistic. At the same time, in terms of romantic feelings between the two young men-main characters, it is this show that wins. There are so many cute moments here ... The Chinese were able to bypass the censorship to the maximum!

Overall, a good fantasy drama. Instructive.

Wen Kexing stole the show. This role was so successful and popular because Gong Jun interpreted it very well and immersed himself in the role. WenKexing is a multi-faceted and complex character. How Gong Jun handled the switching between kindness and cruelty is spot-on. WenKexing is a classic role and will forever be in the hearts of the audience.

On the other hand, I am confused by the blank stare acting of Zhou Zishu. It is odd and illogical for an immoral former leader of an assassination organization to act like a saint after he left the organization. It is either due to poor script or poor acting. This character is a turn-off for me and therefore I couldn't give this drama a 10-star.

Word of Honor is a wuxia drama, based on Priest's novel named Tian Ya Ke. It means you will see many martial arts scenes, everything will satisfy you emotionally. I guarantee it.

The characters Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing, which are the leading roles, are very skillfully written and acting in the same way. You can see how much the actors attach importance to their roles in their acting. Zhang Zhehan, who portrays a character like Zhou Zishu, who is desperate but has found hope in the last years of his life but has limited time ve Gong Jun, who portrays a character like Wen Kexing, who lived his life in a dark/insane place and still one of his part a little child, both of lead actors... THEY SHOW INCREDIBLE ACTING!! I think the reason i love this drama so much is that every relationship is so deep. Zhou Xu/Wen Kexing, Wen Kexing/Gu Xiang, Zhou Xu/Cheng Ling. All of them is so pure and the acting is so good that it feels as if you are experiencing all those emotions. Not just the lead roles, all the actors/actress are like your best friend.

One of my favorite things about Word of Honor is definitely cinematography. They make you feel like the camera is your eyes. The arrival of daylight, the positioning of the actors, everything is to make you feel as if you are living there, and you feel that too. It will be a festival for your eyes and heart.

The production team gave their best to this drama. If you are watching a Chinese drama for the first time, it may be difficult to notice but I, as someone who has been here for 6 years, can see how much effort they have made for this drama. If I'm not mistaken, there are subtitles in 13 languages right now, and they do everything to give viewers comfort.

There is a lot to say but I did my best to make this spoiler free. It will leave a mark in your life, you can be sure of that.

I often just watch highlights of a series, especially Chinese series cause many them of have such a large number of episodes with a lot of filters. However, each episode in this series is quite dense with plot details and forshadowings. Actions scenes has good choreography and stays true to its genres. The two leads portray their character spendidly, especially through their eyes and microexpressions. They also performed most of the action scenes themselves. The supporting charactors also have interesting backstories. Dispite the limited budget, the crews has delivered a high quality series with a lot of hearts in it.

I think this drama is the best adaptation of Chinese novels in recent years. It interprets the love of two boys in the period of ancient Chinese knights. The two mutual salvation dramas contain many classic expressions of love in China and the world. There is no direct expression of love in the play, but the love expressed by the eyes gestures of the two actors can make you want to stop.

This is the best wuxia series I saw in recent years.

The relationship between the main actors is romantic and delicate. You can tell by every words they say and every expression they make. I can feel the spark and its change between them. It uses a lot of Chinese poetries and articles. If you can speak Chinese, you will feel the power and the beauty of the ancient sentences that they talk to each other. If not it's okay too, Youku made their best to provide the translation in 13 languages on Youtube.

The editor made a very complex Zhou Zishu. And Zhang Zhehan (portray ZZS) plays really well. This character is changing all the time as the story goes. And Wen Kexing is also changing inside as he interacts with his soulmate Zhou Zishu. The eye acting of Gong Jun (portray WKX) is very attractive. They both had the dark history that they don't want to touch. But along with each other, they find the new meaning of life. Besides the main characters, there're a lot deep and lifelike characters as well. You will be touched by even a bit part. The acting and the story is very enjoyable!

Also, the composition looks typically Chinese-elegent. As a wuxia drama, the martial art is graceful, flexible and diverse. In different scenes you will have different feelings.

Although the film editing and effects are not perfect, and I know the budget is limited, I still love and highly recommend this drama.

The screenwriter is a genius. You will be surprised to see how she plays with words, how she gives it deep meanings, and that she can tell a very deep story even with a simple sentence. Her name is Xiao Chu. I will definitely remember this name.

Didn't think another drama could surpass "The Untamed," but this one surely is on par with if not even one notch higher. With some of the most breathtaking cinematography and camera angles, a clever script--poetic, subtle, and crisp yet never draggy--combined with excellent main leads who literally bring the characters to live before the viewer's eyes, and a superb supporting cast, beautifully choreographed martial arts moves...WOW! I'm again blown away by this wonderful drama. No one is perfect here. It's a love story, a story of atonement and redemption, it is so many things neatly wrapped up in scenes that take us into their world and hearts. We feel their pains, their joy, their triumphs. The two main leads who carry the weight of portraying the BL arc are simply eye candy and exuded such charisma and chemistry that I'm completely swooned by them, and I'm not even gay. I'm only on episode 12 and can hardly wait for the next episode to air. Fingers-crossed that they will have a happy ending. Please don't leave it open to interpretation. I'm watching it in its original language and hope the translations will do this wonderful production justice.

This show is by no means bad. Plenty of characters crossing blades, politics, intrigues and romantic drama. The story is nothing too fancy with lots of familiar elements, but nonetheless an unexpected twist or two. It is not overflown with magical or mythical elements and therefore somewhat more 'mundane', which makes it a little more relatable than comparable shows.

It does, unfortunately, also have some flaws. The relationship between the two main characters is hard to grasp. This "kinship of soulmates" seems supposed to be more than friendship, but even without any graphic innuendos some scenes made me feel like I was watching Chinese Brokeback Mountain. The "lost memory"-reason to explore ones story and history seemed a little uncreative and some of the dramatic turns a tad too artificial. The fact that many of the requisites and backgrounds look obviously painted and lots of the studio settings re-used 1:1 without any rearrangements (i.e. The "plateau") is a little sad, because the rest of the cinematography left a rather decent impression.

Overall I found the show to be decently entertaining, but definitely not as overwhelmingly positive as some of the reviews here might suggest. It's nice to watch, but not memorable enough to revisit again at a later point of time.

I think we can all agree that this darama is extremely addictive and each episode gets better and better than the last

Chinese Drama 'Word of Honor' was interesting at first, quickly, however, changed sides.

The drama starts strong, with the introduction to the world, the mystery in hand, the political powers as well as the characters. The mystery element was pretty intriguing and even the villains seemed twisty and shady. However, after the first part, the drama took a more domestic turn, opting for a slice of life focus, forgetting about the matter in hand, adding a few specs of the characters' past here and there and pretty much letting them play little house on the prairie for a big chank of time. The villains were toned down too, and the main one was simply too tamed to be that horrific bad guy who will keep things interesting. The ending, finally, was rushed, but emotional, especially since the second couple was the main source of entertainment in the second half.

So, overall, 5.5 out of 10.

If they were allowed to make a drama that portrays same-sex relationships realistically, this would have been a much better story. Unfortunately, that type of story would not have passed censorship.

The story has way too many characters, yet the main leads aren't three-dimensional enough to drive the plot forward. The acting is just that, acting. At no point did it seem like the actors had embodied their characters, as if they existed in that world all along. The relationships felt contrived, sometimes exaggerated or underwhelming.

The nail in the coffin was when Wen Kexing was explaining the background story about his relationship with Ah Xiang. Those lines were lifted straight out of Ever Night. Maybe it was done as a tribute, but still. In either case, I would rather re-watch Ever Night than to continue watching Word of Honour.

Everything is too good to be described with words ❤ Highly recommend!

My fave of the year so far and I think its going to stay like that!!! Just love it I'm gripping my chair just waiting for more episodes and the wait kills meeeee!!!!! Want to know more but at the same time don't want it to endd

I haven't been this insane for a tv drama over 10 years. Thanks for all the beauty and touched feelings it brings to me. I ship WEN and Zhou forever!!!!!!!

This is a great movie I've ever seen Beautiful actors, professional, beautiful scenes, elaborate staged

This is one of those unusual instances where a TV drama adaptation is actually better than the original novel...and managed to pass China's strict media censorship with its obvious LGBT contents (we'll get to that later).

"Word of Honor" is adapted from a BL internet novella called "A Tale of the Wonderers," written by Priest. It's a story of bad boy meets bad boy (crazy ghost lord + dying assassins leader). They ended up together because the crazy one just wouldn't leave the dying one alone. The two ran into heroes who turned out to be eviler than themselves...and thus began their mystery-solving/treasure- hunting/child-raising adventure together.

While the two MCs in the novel were interesting, the scriptwriter for "Word of Honor" created a juicier adaptation by adding depth and dimension to All the characters. The writer also exceeded audiences' expectation by expanding the original short novel with intriguing new storylines and character interactions. For example, the relationships between young disciple (played by Sun Xi Lun) and his surrogate dads (male leads Gong Jun and Zhan Zhe Han) offered comic reliefs that were unexpectedly endearing at times.

I'm pleasantly surprised by the performances of newcomers Gong Jun and Zhou ye (male lead Wen Ke Xing and his mischievous servant girl Gu Xiang). Both did outstanding jobs in bringing their emotionally charged characters to life. Furthermore, the chemistry between Gong Jun and Zhan Zhe Han (main lead #2) is actually more sizzling than most male-female couples on screen. There are many not-so-subtle flirting, lingering looks, physical contacts, and romantic poetic references between the male leads in almost every episode. I'm truly amazed at how "Word of Honor" is able to pass China's censorship that generally treats LGBTQ contents as "immoral." Nevertheless, I'm very grateful that WOH hadn't been yanked off TV network like its predecessors "Guardian" (another novel by Priest) and "Addicted".

Whether it's a tale of pugilistic adventure about romantic or brotherly love, I think most viewers will find some elements in WOH that are worthy of binge watching.

I really love this beautiful drama the story is great and the protagonists are great wenzhou are so cute love them I really recommend this drama

The plot is tight, the characters are lovable, the costumes are beautiful. This is my first cdrama, and I am loving every bit of it! I just love all the interactions the characters have! The actors are also very expressive and you can tell their emotions or hidden emotions from their little expressions. I am definitely going to read the novel after the season is over! Only 11 episodes have been released so far when I am writing this review, but some of my favorite moments revolve around the two main characters' (Wen Ke Xing and Zhou Zhi Shu) interactions with Cheng Ling whom they dote on and protect like their son! So adorable! Definitely give this drama a try!

Asides from the lack of chemistry between the two males leads Shou Zishu and Wen Kexing in this series, which is a crucial factor of success in any BL drama, Word of Honor also has many other points of contention. Not only do the CG backgrounds and marketing posters appear to have multiple similarities to another BL drama series, but the acting and storyline also seem to have one too many coincidental details to it.

Despite wanting to like this series, and having great hopes for it after discovering this new TV genre, I was gravely disappointed to see the tackiness in the male leads' flirtation, the oddly familiar cover pose, storyline and CG backgrounds. Despite Priest having authored Word of Honor predating that of the other wildly successful BL drama series, this TV series was released two years after that series, meaning that it had plenty of time and opportunity to take cues from what made the other series successful.

I hope to see more original storytelling and screenplay for this TV genre in the future.

I think it's the most wonderful movie I have seen. Great 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

I will absolutely replay this drama again and again! So in love with the chemistry between the leading roles, Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing! Can they make another more drama like this? If yes, I definitely support this two actors to work together!

I have got to say that this is one of the best dramas I've seen! I can count on one hand the number of shows or movies that have enthralled me to the point that I'm thinking of it almost every waking moment, and Word of Honor is one of them. It has interesting, charismatic characters, complex morality questions, wonderful locations, well-rounded side characters, and engaging villains. The two leads are just amazing as Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu! I can't imagine anyone else as them. I just hope that the ending is satisfying and happy!