Review: Snowy Night: Timeless Love (2024) 七夜雪

Plot Overview

The drama opens with Huo Zhan Bai ft Zeng Shun Xi fighting is his 6th brother Xu Chong Hua for treasonous acts. While Huo Zhan Bai doesn’t kill Xu Chong Hua, Xu Chong Hua decides to jump to his death. Huo Zhan Bai feels exceptionally guilty and upon learning that Xu Chong Hua’s infant son is very ill, he takes it upon himself to seek medical treatment from the most skilled doctor in the land – Xue Zi Ye. He brings Mo’Er and Mo’Er’s mother, Qiu Shui Yin, to Yao Shi Valley where Xue Zi Ye lives to save Mo’Er.

Xue Zi Ye is a beautiful young woman who runs the “clinic” at Yao Shi valley. Each year, she only tends to 10 individuals (normally martial artists) who procured the Hui Tian medallion and brings 100,000 (we’ll just say dollars) for her services. It is rumored that she is exceptionally greedy and loves beautiful men, but the reality is that she uses the money she gets to run an orphanage, help nearby villagers and support a young group of women who were orphaned to help run her clinic. She herself has a traumatic past where the village she was adopted into was massacred and the young boy she was with, sacrificed himself to save her. 

Xue Zi Ye was ultimately unable to cure Mo’Er but put together a list with exceptionally rare ingredient as a way to keep Huo Zhan Bai going. The story revolve around Huo Zhan Bai seeking each of these ingredients while Xue Zi Ye tries to uncover the truth about her past. 

 

 

Overall Thoughts

I’ve been following this drama since it was announced back in October of 2023. There had been quite a few “battles” between Li Qin’s fans and Zeng Shun Xi’s fans because Li Qin got top billing and there was back and forth about that. Even all up until the airing of this drama, fans from both sides were annoyed one way or another because their actor/actress was not getting the treatment from a marketing perspective the fans thought they deserved.

But both sides quieted down after the drama started airing. Unfortunately, this drama has only been very middling in terms of popularity. Breaching just 8000 on iQiYi’s popularity index. The drama may inch towards 8500 but I doubt it’ll breach 9000 during its run. The general consensus is that Li Qin is absolutely stunning and perfectly cast for the role of Xue Zi Ye, but the story is slower paced and the wuxia components of the show are lacking which I will dive into later. 

The cast is doing their part to market the drama, going on live streams and even participating in a live marketing event today. Li Qin and Zeng Shun Xi from the live streams and also behind the scenes clips seem to get along quite well. Li Qin even shared in today’s marketing stream that Zeng Shun Xi wanted to push for a kissing scene in the drama when they started filming to which Li QIn joked that this may not be the drama for that. 

 

 

What I liked

• Perfect casting of Xue Zi Ye: In the book, Xue Zi Ye is a young woman with a traumatic past. Therefore, even though she is still relatively young (in her mid/late 20s in the book), she is often cold, distant, and sharp tongued. Unlike many other shows with a bubbly, cheery, curious main female lead, Xue Zi Ye exhibits her caring through actions rather than words and is more reserved.  The term 清冷 or cold is how she is often described in the book. Li Qin is perfectly cast for this role because she is the one actress in the Chinese entertainment industry with that natural cold/reserved aura.  Indeed, when she is onscreen, I cannot take my eyes off of her. She has natural beauty and grace that perfectly fits what I imagined Xue Zi Ye to be when I read the book. It amazes me how beautiful Li Qin is in this role without much hair accessories at all. My one qualm about her role is that the costume designers put on fake nails for her which I totally do not understand. Sure it helps elongate her fingers but I didn’t think they were necessary. 
• Beautiful scenery (when live):The cast filmed for 20+days on location in the snowy mountains of Xin Jiang province. In the book, Yao Shi Valley is set somewhere in the snowy west, outside of “Zhong Yuan” or the middle land so the placement and location of filming is more or less geographically accurate.  In the behind the scenes clips, cast members shared that it was excruciatingly cold during those days of filming with snow blustering about. But the result is that whenever there are wide sweeping shots with Huo Zhan Bai on horseback, for example, they are stunning to behold. 

What Suffered 

• Fakeness/Emptiness of the Set:
  • CGI: While there were beautiful live shots on location, much of the drama was filmed in a set in Heng Dian with green screen for the larger backgrounds. Unfortunately, those scenes were painfully obvious that the background is fake, especially when there were some real scenes that were far suprior. This has detracted from the quality of the show and is one major item that the show is getting panned for. 
  • Set pieces: Much of the story is set in Xue Zi Yie’s Yao Shi Gu. That’s the valley where she lives and cares for patients. While the drama built out this set and were meticulous in its design, the finished product also looks fake or at least jarring. Part of the contrast here vs other historical dramas is the vast emptiness of the set which ultimately leads to more use of CGI in the background. 
• Monotone color palette: Yes, snow is a major theme of the show and book but the white, black and gray color palette of what is presented on screen does get fatiguing. In the book, Xue Zi Ye with the word Zi meaning Purple in her name, would wear purple outfits. In my head, I imagined much bolder colors. In the drama, the costume designers specifically chose very pale hues of purple and lavender. Certainly this continues to give off the aura of coldness and a sense of the ethereal to Xue Zi Ye, but overall the drama looks bland. The only sparks of color presented on screen are when Huo Zhan Bai goes off on his adventures elsewhere but those are very short stints on screen. Otherwise, it is the members of Yuan Yi Gong that bring out a pop. 
• Mediocre martial arts: This breaks my heart because I’ve seen Zeng Shun Xi practice martial arts in behind the scenes clips and he is quite good. However, the finished product on screen is less than optimal with weird cuts and slow motion camera work. The last few days drew ire from Zeng Shun Xi’s fans because supposedly big fight scenes where the actors spent long periods of time choreographing and filming were evidently cut. 

Commentary on the Plot 

I binged the book when I learned that it was going to be filmed into a drama. The book is a relatively short read and starts with Huo Zhan Bai being on the tail end of his 8 year search for ingredients for Mo’Er. The drama offers a more straightforward timeline and expands upon the interactions between Huo Zhan Bai and Xue Zi Ye over the years which helps us see how their relationship builds. There are more light hearted moments in the back and forth between Xue Zi Ye and Huo Zhan Bai for each of his visits while also sprinkling in more about how their attraction was built. There are also plenty more visitors to the valley in order to help Xue Zi Ye learn more about her traumatic past.

In the book, we only learn about their interactions via flashback and immediately get to the conflict with the villains of Yuan Yi Gong and Tong. The in person interactions we get between Xue Zi Ye and Huo Zhan Bai are few and far between in the book. The tone throughout the book is more depressed and dark while the drama offers more lighthearted moments.

Ultimately, I do think that this drama could have been better served if they filmed it as a movie and tied in closely with the book. It would have made for a tighter script since the pace of this drama is slower with fodder added to build out Xue Zi Ye’s story. I expect the drama to build up to where we coincide with the book plot-wise but in the meantime, I will focus on enjoying Xue Zi Ye on screen.