Review: Legend of the Female General (2025) 锦月如歌
Summary: He Yan ft Zhou Ye grew up using her brother’s identity and became the masked but powerful “Fei Hong” General. However, her brother assassinated her to take her place. Surviving the assassination attempt, she decides to join Xiao Jue ft Cheng Lei’s army as a new recruit to continue to serve her country and reclaim her rightful title.
Platform: Tencent
Episodes: 36
Airing Date: Aug 6, 2025
Final Rating: 6.3/10 – For viewers seeking a sweet love story, the drama does a decent enough job. But it is a missed opportunity in showcasing themes of heroism, strategy and female leadership that were highlights of the book, and expected of a drama featuring a female general.
He Yan 禾宴 Zhou Ye 周也
Female general, grew up as He Ru Fei
xiao jue 肖珏 cheng lei 丞磊
General
chu zhao 楚昭 zhang kang le 张康乐
Student of the Chancellor, young gov't official
song tao tao 宋陶陶 zhang miao yi 张淼怡
New friend of He Yan
Plot Overview
Though He Yan ft Zhou Ye was born a girl, she was raised as a boy in the He family. Her adoptive older brother He Ru Fei was expected to die as a child due to poor health. The He father didn’t want their aristocratic title to leave the He family, hence, swapping how the boy and girl were raised. He Yan wore a mask all “his” life as he went to school. He escaped however, to take control of “his” own life and joined the army. At a young age, and despite wearing a mask, she became the famed “Fei Hong” general. Alongside Xiao Jue ft Cheng Lei, they fought numerous battles.
However, He Ru Fei lived to adulthood and hated that his life was stolen from him. He poisons and tries to kill his sister and retake the identity of “Fei Hong” general while Xiao Jue and his father’s army were completely wiped out due to He Ru Fei and Chancellor Xu’s treasonous actions.
He Yan survives her assassination and decides that in order to regain her life, she must obtain power equal to “Fei Hong” General. She joins the army once again as a new troop, this time in Xiao Jue’s Army. Together, they work to defeat threats from outside the borders while also rooting out the rot from within the Capital.
Overall Thoughts
Though the book this drama was based on is considered a strong “IP”, the drama itself did not make a big splash. It only breached 27,000 on Tencent’s popularity index even though there were not that many costume dramas airing at the same time. Instead, it is currently being roundly beat out by This Thriving Land 生万物 which is taking about 35% of viewership share while The Legend of the Female General is in 2nd place at around 13%. From the looks of it, the drama will end with between 15million to 20million views per episode. A very middling performance.
For anyone that read the book, it’s pretty clear that the drama amped up the romance components of the show while it downplayed the components where the female lead shined on her own. Though the on-screen chemistry between Cheng Lei and Zhou Ye was enjoyable enough (largely from Cheng Lei’s side), the drama shifted the spotlight away from the female lead’s strength and independence, undermining the most compelling aspects of the story.
I actually did enjoy shipping the main couple but had to suspend belief of the grander picture that Zhou Ye’s He Yan was supposed to be a powerful general. If you think of her more of a tom boy, but someone who still grew up a girl, then the drama is more palatable.
However, the book was a “Da Nv Zhu” or a female heroine centric book. Those components were severely reduced in this drama and key moments were instead given to the male lead. The changed screenplay has been the biggest criticism for this drama which I describe in more detail below.
The Legend of the Female General kicks off, at least in my opinion, a slew of female general oriented dramas that are set to come. We’ll see how the other dramas fair when they air.
Romance vs Female Heroism - A Missed Opportunity
Ship that Romance
For those that like shipping the main male and female lead and want a cute drama to chase, I thought this drama was actually not bad on that front. I liked Cheng Lei and Zhou Ye together on screen and their interactions were cute and charming. Cheng Lei in particular does a good job of portraying the juxtaposition between the tenderness Xiao Jue feels for He Yan and the strictness he has for everyone else. This type of character is very “hao ke” or ship worthy. Their time in Ji Yang in particular, I thought was quite sweet.
But, that’s not why this book or story should be interesting. He Yan in particular should not emphasize her cuteness! She is a GENERAL! One of the strongest criticisms of the screenplay is how it undermines He Yan’s agency and power, which I fully agree with.
Book vs Drama depiction
For example, in the book, He Yan sneaks off to Run Du to save the this city from the incoming attack from the Wu Tuo clan. She uses her own skills and intellect to change the tides of battle. When she found her deputy general Li Kuang willing to sacrifice women as food (yes, cannibalism in the book) to save the city from famine, she steps up to vehemently fight this order. She takes a stand to protect these women that men thinks are unworthy, as many of them were just recovered from being captured by the enemy but also abused by them. The men then thought they were disposable for not being “clean”. He Yan adamantly stands up for them and is furious at how Li Kuang could treat women that way.
He Yan is also the one who sends for aid from nearby general Yan He to support them in battle. This general arrives at the nick of time to save the city from behind. Not only him but Xiao Jue appears as well and we learn he also requested aid from Yan He. However, the important part is, Xiao Jue appeared AFTER He Yan was pretty much done with everything. She did not know he was going to help her and technically did not need his help.
In the drama, however, He Yan and Chu Zhao were trying to use their authority to push back on the deputy general Li Kuang from sending women to the front lines as bait (yes, the drama changed this as well so it’s less deplorable). But He Yan’s words didn’t work. Though she galloped forth at the gate to stop these women from being sent to their deaths, Li Kuang’s men were still not willing to listen. Only when Xiao Jue appeared did Li Kuang back down. Xiao Jue needed to be there in order to give legitimacy to He Yan. The Gao Guang or “Shining Moment” in this scene was taken away from He Yan and given instead to Xiao Jue. Furthermore, it was Xiao Jue who sent for aid from General Yan He, NOT He Yan. In the drama, we see that He Yan was surprised to learn that Yan He was there to help them. Meaning that once again, Xiao Jue is the person to save the day. Xiao Jue was the bonafide knight in shining armor and while He Yan made a good attempt to lead, she was left to be someone that needed to be supported and rescued. The point of the story in the book is that He Yan could do everything independently. The drama completely removed that component and made her look weak compared to Xiao Jue.
General believability Issues
In the book, the original female He Yan was indeed killed and she came back to life as another He Yan from another family. The drama did away with this storyline and just had her survive her attempted assassination. That’s all fine but then you have to basically believe that the entire world could mix up Zhou Ye’s He Yan (who is small and scrawny), with He Ru Fei (who is much taller and bigger on screen). Literally, in the opening scene, you have to question just how it’s possible that Xiao Jue could not tell there was something off about the 2 versions of He Ru Fei. I feel like Xiao Jue not recognizing He Yan in the book made more sense since it was a completely different body while in the drama, it definitely broke immersion.
There were plenty of other believability issues which essentially is another flavor of the screenwriters diminishing He Yan’s effectiveness. We are supposed to believe that He Yan did indeed grow up as a boy/man her entire life. That was not evident in how He Yan on screen was portrayed. The “cutesy”, feminine stereotypes were quite evident when she was in the training camp that it made me wonder how she survived as a general before. She didn’t seem fully believable as having been a general in the past.
Exasperating Moments - Spoilers Ahead
Episode 26 – first of all, both Xiao Jue and He Yan are on the battlefield. I’ll give praise to the war scenes which looked like it was expensive and took at least some effort to put together. However, both of the main characters aren’t wearing any helmets. Umm. That’s not safe. But then, in the midst of battle, He Yan sees Xiao Jue get overwhelmed by enemies. She loses sight of him and fears the worst. In the midst of battle, she is running over to him, crying as she shoves bodies away to look for him. While people are still fighting all around her, she is crying in desperation that he might be dead. But then as she is being targeted by the enemy boss since she is now distracted, Xiao Jue reappears and saves her. She lets out a cry of relief and runs to hug him.
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BATTLEFIELD. HELLO???? I could not.
Episode 34 onwards – Episode 32 was definitely a climax of the show. I would have preferred if the drama just ended there, or at least kept some of the sweet romance stuff afterwards. However, the drama needed to wrap up another big conflict. My question is, how the heck did the Emperor be swayed by Chu Zhao in literally one conversation? The Emperor should know that Chu Zhao literally betrayed his teacher so he may not be the most trustworthy. No one said anything about the Emperor over thinking things so quickly? And then in the end, the Emperor blames Chu Zhao for problems that were caused on the battle field, not himself. Wow…..smh
Yan He – Though this was a plot line that followed the book, could the drama make it ANY more obvious what was going to happen to this guy? Like come on. You could see it from a mile away.