The Door Is Open Wide

It had been far too long since I watched a show that made me have that oh moment when I realize that not only am I invested in the plot and the characters, but I have feelings for them. You know the feeling - when they're not just "the characters" anymore, but blorbos from my show! And then I started watching 雨霖铃 | Zhan Zhao Adventures. I enjoyed myself immensely, and then around episode 19 of 37 I realized

oh

when I made this gif:

The three main characters sit around a small table, drinking. To the left, Bai Yu Tang faceplants while holding a turquoise bottle. His friends Zhan Zhao and Hou Ling Long look at him, and then each other, smiling fondly.

And yeah. Here I am. With feelings, and an attempt at a short and non-spoilery rec! (With footnotes. Because I can't actually shut up about this show right now, only redirect myself.) (If you'd rather skip the text and watch a trailer with spoilers, this one is rather excellent.) 

Right: Zhan Zhao Adventures¹ (雨霖铃²) is a 37 episode Chinese wuxia series that dropped in May 2026. The adventures in question are a fun mix of overarching quest (there is a plot against the emperor afoot!), side quests (of course our main characters will help a nice young scholar look for his missing sister), and Jianghu hijinks (one sect stole a McGuffin from a second sect, which a third sect now wants to steal from them!).

The cinematography is lovely, and the fight choreography is super fun and dynamic - the kind of stuff that makes you go yes! and gasp at the skill on display by the actors and stunt performers. One of my favorite things about it, though, is that some of the absolutely coolest fights belong to the female character, who early on fights off over a dozen attackers while defending a small child and also the main character. It's really good stuff.³

And the characters - oh. Well. This is the short version, so: The entire trio are youxia (current or former). Zhan Zhao⁴ (played by Yang Yang) is a government official on a dangerous mission. Huo Ling Long (Zhang Rounan) is the daughter of a Jianghu sect leader, out experiencing the world for herself instead of accepting an arranged marriage⁵. And Bai Yu Tang⁶ (Fang Yilun) wants to know who is the better fighter, him or Zhan Zhao, so is wandering around causing trouble while trying to find and challenge this man he's never met before.

The relationship that almost immediately develops between the three is... a lot. As in. They care so much about each other. They will do anything to protect each other. So when the plot takes those side quests and hijinks and deftly weaves them into something very personal, the stakes feel incredibly high. The characters have to deal with old wounds being reopened while questioning what they know of their own pasts. And through this, the show's focus stays on how that angst affects the trio's dynamic, and what they can do to heal from old and new hurts alike.

There is no romance storyline - no official couple. This leaves the three of them free to all be equally affectionate with each other, without any two sidelining the third. This is obviously fantastic canonical gen! It also makes for the most satisfying OT3 dynamic possible.⁷

I would also be remiss if I did not mention that the show has a truly staggering amount of hurt/comfort and whump. As in: Zhan Zhao starts the series with something like 10% of his life bar left, and promptly proceeds to lose even more. If you like beautiful men collapsing in pain, this is the show for you!⁸ Here's where things are at in episode 5:

Zhan Zhao's limp body is resting on Huo Ling Long's shoulder. She gently moves him to lean against the corner of the carriage they are in, while Bai Yu Tang helps hold his arm. To settle him as comfortably as possible Huo Ling Long cradles his face in her hands and tilts his head against the wall.

Now, if you're anything like me, one of your very reasonable questions about a new cdrama will be: But what about the ending?

 The last episode also has a bonus post-credit scene, so make sure you don't miss it! (It may not be in the YT version?)

 I haven't seen a list of content warnings anywhere, so please let me know if there's anything in particular you want to know about.

Depending on where you are, Zhan Zhao Adventures is currently available on Viki⁹, Apple TV, YouTube or Viu. It's also on my FTP - see this post for details on how to download files from there (it's in the same folder as Guardian). Let me know if none of those ways work and you still want to get the files, as I have a backup solution I can share privately.

Footnotes

¹ The show is based on a novel by author minifish. She in turn based the novel on 七俠五義 | The Seven Heroes and Five Gallants, a late 19th century novel that collects the oral performances of famous storyteller Shi Yukun. So it's transformative works all the way down!

² The original title of the book and show, "雨霖铃" (Yǔlínlíng), is itself the title of a Song Dynasty tune set to poetry. In other words: minifish used a song title for her book that is a fanfic of a Qing Dynasty story. Gotta love it! The poem itself has been translated a lot, and my favorite rendering of the meaning in English is "Bells Ringing in the Rain".

³ For a glimpse of Huo Ling Long in action, see my gif set here from episode 23. (I was immediately compelled to make this, because I just love the way she fights. She doesn't float serenely, not a hair out of place - she fights, and gets injured, and gets angry.)

⁴ Zhan Zhao is one of the original Seven Heroes from the novel mentioned in footnote 1. He works for Justice Bao, a character who appears to be as ubiquitous in Chinese popular culture (see this list of related works!) as someone like Robin Hood is in the Anglo world.

⁵ For those who aren't familiar enough with Chinese costume drama tropes to tell from the hair and robes, we first meet Huo Ling Long disguised as a young man. She introduces herself as "Xiao Di", which literally means "little brother".

⁶ Bai Yu Tang is one of the original Five Gallants from The Seven Heroes and Five Gallants. The five are sworn brothers all nicknamed [Adjective] [Rat/Mouse] (Chinese uses the same word for both animals). His beef with Zhan Zhao (who he has never met) is that the Emperor officially designated Zhan Zhao the "Imperial Cat", and this irks him as "the Jinmao Rat". So he decides that they are Rivals, and shows up in the story hoping to beat Zhan Zhao in a fair fight. Unfortunately for him, when they finally meet Zhan Zhao couldn't win a fair fight with a literal mouse, so he sticks around.

⁷ Trying to keep this a short rec without spoiler means not spamming with too many images, but that really is doing this very pretty show and very beautiful actors a disservice. For those curious about the OT3 in particular, look at how the show films them (from episode 30)! When it comes to their dynamics, here's happens when the plot tries to separate them. I also made one (extremely spoilery) set showing how the h/c too goes three ways.

⁸ This show could easily get a H/C bingo. I don't wanna go too deep into spoilers, but if you're curious...!

⁹ I've used the Viki subs' styling of writing the character names "Ling Long" and "Yu Tang", but fandom seems to prefer "Linglong" and Yutang".