The Longest Promise: a faked death, a disciple, and a two-year wait on the shelf

2023 · Tencent Video, WeTV · Xiao Zhan (肖战), Ren Min (任敏)

Why this one

The Longest Promise (玉骨遥) is a useful lesson in how long a Chinese drama can wait between filming and release. Principal photography began in March 2021 at Hengdian World Studios and finished in August 2021. The series then aired from July 2 to July 20, 2023, on Tencent Video and WeTV, about two years later. It ran 40 episodes (43 in the Netflix cut), and it is presented as a prequel to the 2021 series Mirror: A Tale of Twin Cities (镜·双城), so it belongs to a shared fictional world rather than standing entirely alone.

The setup

Shi Ying (时影) is the crown prince of Kongsang (空桑). He is framed by an imperial consort, Qiu Shui, and fakes his own death to escape. He retreats to Mount Jiuyi to cultivate, and there he meets Zhu Yan (朱颜), a princess of the Chi Yi clan, who becomes his disciple. Viewer-written synopses add the hinge that gives the story its tragic shape (a mild spoiler): a curse says the first girl he sees will be the one who kills him, and the title's "jade bone" is the object she ultimately uses to pierce him.

That is the mechanism the whole show turns on. A master-disciple relationship built on protection and tenderness is also, by prophecy, a relationship between a man and the person fated to hurt him, and the story asks how much of the harm is fate and how much is choice.

Note — The source novel: The drama is adapted from a novel titled simply Zhu Yan (朱颜), by Cang Yue (苍月). The show's title, Yu Gu Yao (玉骨遥), is its own: it foregrounds the jade bone (玉骨) that the ending depends on, and "yao" (遥) carries a sense of distance, an appropriate word for a story about two people who are close and never quite together.

Cast and crew worth knowing

• Xiao Zhan (肖战) as Shi Ying. His other work covered on this site includes The Legend of Zang Hai, and he is also the subject of a separate feature about his career.

• Ren Min (任敏) as Zhu Yan.

• Directed by Jiang Jiajun.

• 40 episodes (43 on Netflix).

How it was received

Reviewers on fan platforms were divided, and the disagreement is instructive. Some viewers were skeptical of Ren Min's casting beforehand and came away impressed by both leads. Others criticized how the script writes Zhu Yan: the heroine is meant to be sweet, kind, and innocent, and some reviewers felt the writing made her come across as naive to the point of being frustrating, a criticism they traced back to the source novel as well. The disagreement is a reminder that a romance can succeed commercially and still leave its audience arguing about the heroine.

Where to watch

• WeTV and Tencent Video

• Netflix, in the 43-episode cut, in some regions

Its echo outside China

The long delay before release is the most distinctive fact about the show, and it says something about how the industry works. A series can be finished, and even belong to a franchise that has already aired, and still wait two years for its slot. The reasons for a gap like that are rarely made public. For viewers, the practical lesson is that a drama's release year is not always a reliable guide to when it was made.