Recently, I had the chance to watch my third chinese drama: Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils, Tiān Lóng Bā Bù. I actually watched all 40 episodes in 5 days, clearly sacrificing sleep and schoolwork to watch as many episodes as I did. This may not seem special in any way, until you remember that a typical drama episodes is 40 minutes long (as opposed to 20) which means that I watched approximately 3 hrs and 20 minutes of the drama each day. Quite hard when you have four tests to study for.

Anyway, the story centers around a martial artist by the name Qiao Feng. To be frank, this guy is the definition of GAR, so there’s little reason to explain his character. At the beginning, Qiao Feng becomes the leader of the Beggars’ Sect, which few oppose since he is the strongest in all of China. There is actually a saying in China (in the story) “Mu Rong in the North, Qiao Feng in the South,” or something like that. Not like the directions are very important. You could say that things are looking up for Qiao Feng.

Of course, things can’t be all happy-happy in China. Prominent members of the Beggars’ Sect are being murdered by their own martial arts. People begin to suspect that Mu Rong Fu is behind all of the murders (beating people with their own martial arts is his claim to fame.) Not only that, but some think that Qiao Feng might be in on it. Not a good time to be Qiao Feng right now.

Besides a focus on Qiao Feng, there are two other leading male roles in this drama: Duan Yu, the prince of Dali, and Xu Zhu, a random monk from Shaolin Temple. I won’t go into either of their stories too much, since it would spoil too much of the story (Xu Zhu is introduced in the second half of the drama and Duan Yu’s story is just waaay too long to explain.)

My main reason for watching this drama was that I was really bored and that Lui Yifei is in this drama (wiki her and be captivated by her beauty.) I was surprised that the drama turned out to be good, though. It keeps you going with questions like: “How many half sisters can one guy have?” XD

Even though the title of the post is named after the GARness of Qiao Feng, Duan Yu is actually my favorite character. Even though Qiao Feng is uber at everything, Duan Yu is somewhat pathetic. He’s probably the only male character in the entire series who doesn’t know any martial arts in the beginning. Even at the end, he really doesn’t know that much. Even though he has no means to protect himself, he still tries to protect others and to stop fighting, something that gets him in trouble far too often.

I really apologize for the lack of synopsis. It’s really hard to describe drama series like this without severely spoiling the plot. I think anyone who enjoys wuxia dramas would dig this one.