User reviews

Well written, great acting, awesome plots and smarts. Highly recommended. I binge-watched this for a couple of days.

Consider it as the Chinese version of GOT . The epic background stories, excellent acting,directing,scene,and of course the wonderful sound track. Though it's a little difficult to understand the old Chinese language for modern Chinese people, Netflix could do a good job in the translation.

My favourite show in 2019 so far. Loved the cast, the set up, and the storyline. They have created an absolute beautiful Tang Dynasty in this show. Very joyful to watch.

The author of the original novel is the best novelist (maybe one of the best if you want to nitpick) and the show kept all its spirit and visualized all the elements from Chinese culture in a splendid way! Bravo! (It's not a paid endorsement.)

It's more like a long movie. Absolutely a marvel. Complex but easy to follow storyline, great characters, twists and an amazing chase scene.

This an epic 48 episode movie. Story, dialog, cinematography, action sequences, music, intensity, costume, set design, explosions, suspense, drama, acting, character development, all on a stunning level like you have never seen before.

The Chang'an in poet Lee Bai's poems are presented so beautifully on screen here. It's like a time-machine that takes you back to this ancient world to experience all the beauty, culture, joy, sadness, loyalty, and betrayal it has to offer with its heroes, villains, and the in-betweens.

Zhang Xiaojing is a real Tang Dynasty superhero in recorded history. The actor who portrayed him went through major changes from his usual image and style and spent long hours training in combat for the show and did an incredible job.

Those chase/combat scenes intertwined with the outdoors Chang'an Idols showdown were absolutely amazing. The humbling and self-reflecting moments with the emperor were also some of my favorites parts of the story.

When the show is over I felt like I woke up from a beautiful and adventurous dream and yearning to go back to experience it all again.

A high-quality series with dynamic scenes, action in almost every episode and no wire fu. Chang'an life, architecture, and crowd scenes are well covered. I can't comment on the historical accuracy, but the attention to detail seems more thorough than in other Chinese series I've watched.

The show has many pros and the script is not one of them. The plot twists are predictable. They focus on the main character until the last episodes, where the focus shifts towards the secondary characters. As a result, it is not clear who to feel for and why.

It is commendable that there is no division into good and evil. However, there are so many characters and not one of them opens up completely. They try to use flashbacks, but it doesn't work well: here are some tough guys today, and here's a five-minute dive into the past. Now I know them well enough to drop a tear! It would be easier to sympathize with Zhang Xiaojing if he was the main character in more than just the first 2/3 of the series.

The last 1/3 of the script seems to have been censored and rewritten due to some political reasons. The conversations in favor of the poor look ridiculous. Officials lecturing the emperor in the presence of the crowd, seriously?

In short, the series raises the quality standards for subsequent shows. It's nice to watch and never gets boring. Personally, I won't watch it again: it doesn't evoke any deep emotions because of the flaws mentioned above.

The first 5 EPs seem a bit slow but it gets better and better. The best Chinese series ever. Great sound tracks, beautiful costume and most importantly, the love for ordinary people, which is rare in TV shows from the western world.

Had high hopes for this drama, but nothing but disappointments. Good cinematography thus the two stars, yet a lacking story and bad main actors... Dragging a one episode storyline for 20 episodes with no real developments. Show is like putting icing on a poop cake... the core is total trash.

It's likely to make the list of China's best dramas of 2019, and the best costume drama I've seen so far. This drama is superior to other dramas in terms of historical reducibility, shooting effect and plot. The play pays great attention to the costumes and language of the Tang dynasty, which greatly restores the cultural features of that time. This drama also has a very good shooting effect, especially in each episode of the TV before and after the two clips, are worth recalling. In terms of plot, foreshadowing is very well designed. I did not understand many of the plots, but with the help of some auxiliary means, I understood a little. At first I didn't think it was a good show because I couldn't understand what it was about, but then I got more and more absorbed in it, and I was deeply attracted by it, and many of the episodes were memorable. But some of the details may need a second view to understand. I think it is one of the few costume dramas with high scores in China in recent years. The humanity, court, all corners of the country and common people are vividly portrayed, some of which make people feel deeply afraid to look straight at. Maybe this is the social appearance of that time. The final open ending buried a deep foreshadowing. I wish the show had a second season. I think the end song is also very good, and it is not fixed, which is also very attractive to me. The show was very creative and opened my eyes. It let me know that a day in Chang 'an can be made into 48 episodes. All in all, I hope the Chinese film industry can produce more good dramas like The longest Day In Chang 'an.

This is high quality and scores in many aspects including cinematography, acting, intrigue, attention to details, costume, execution, lighting and believable fight scenes. In a nutshell, it tells of a terrorist attack on the city of Chang'an on the day of the Lantern Festival and follows through our hero's efforts to investigate and prevent the attack on the city. There's many characters in the entire series and I definitely got lost and confused many times. Much time and effort is given to the development of each character. There's no shortcuts in this series and if you don't follow through it, you will want to rewind and catch up again to continue with the story. The series is interesting, fast paced and beautifully made, so you will not want to give up at any point. It also builds up and you just want to solve the mystery.

The best drama series I've seen in the past ten years. It's filled with the aesthetics of Chinese culture and showcases the beauty of Chang'an during the Tang Dynasty. The street scenes, the attire of ordinary people, the indoor settings, and the costumes are truly the most beautiful and captivating I've ever seen in a suspenseful historical drama. The plot is intricately arranged, and the scene transitions and characters are spot on. The pacing is also excellent. The romantic elements are perfectly balanced-subtle yet tantalizing. The performances of the male lead and the antagonist are truly outstanding! You can learn a lot about the Tang Dynasty. If you love historical dramas, you definitely shouldn't miss this one.

The way the previews were presented is also the most sophisticated approach I have ever seen.

Cliff hanging suspense until you found out the enemy is nothing you could imagined. The cinematography alone proves it a movie instead of TV drama. Let alone the mise en scene, wat! A recreation of one of greatest ancient city ever built? The city ChangAn had direct influence on the construction of Kyoto, Japan. To witness a replica of ChangAn is a blessing! Hidden under the splendid glamour is the wave of darkness that eventually swollen the empire. Tang dynasty has been the pinnacle of Asian civilization in all aspects especially of art, culture and tradition. This movie crew must have taken year long research at the museums to make everything convincing.

This plot had many contrivances. I watched it on Youtube and the most interesting thing was the progressively sharp decline of views from 2.7m views of the first episode to less than 90,000 by the last episode. What that tells me is that regardless of the quality of production and the caliber of actors, if a story fails to move the audience it might as well have remained untold. Who does one root for in a story where none has the sympathy of the audience? The core of the plot was to save the city of Changan yet it never gave us a chance to even get a glimpse of the people or even a reason why we should root for our male lead played by Lei Jiayin who, by the way, looked terrible and acted like a rookie. The producers/directors should have chosen Zhou Yiwei- who is a phenomenal actor- instead of Lei Jia Yin.

At no time did I believe that Zhang Xiaojing as a character was intelligent enough to solve a high-risk case in less than 24 hrs when he had previously been captured and imprisoned for years. I mean, come on, I'm willing to suspend disbelief for only so long.

I have just finished watching episode 1 and won't be watching any more. The whole thing looks gorgeous and is full of promising characters - it even has camels! But the English subtitles are so wooden that the whole thing made little sense. It wasn't helped by a unrealistic plot involving a manacled prisoner mumbling every so often through his lanky hair. Perhaps it's a blast if you speak Mandarin, though, based on the earlier reviews here!