Currently Watching: Fated Hearts (2025) 一笑随歌
Summary: Jin Xiu kingdom’s top archer, Fu Yi Xiao ft Li Qin, shoots the invading Su Sha Kingdom’s army leader, Feng Sui Ge ft Chen Zhe Yuan. However, she is separately heavily injured and loses her memory. Feng Sui Ge captures Fu Yi Xiao at a medical base and takes her as prisoner. After a brutal tit for tat fight, they realize they were each likely betrayed by someone close to them. They decide reluctantly to work together to solve this mystery.
Platform: iQiyi
Episodes: 38
Airing Date: October 2, 2025
Warnings – Some intense fight scenes that are not too gory but involves lots of blood spurts. Some interrogation scenes of especially the female lead may make you wince. It gets better after the first 2 episodes.
Initial rating: 7.8/10 [First 10 episodes] – Finally an actress worthy of a female soldier/fighter. Li Qin is absolutely captivating as legendary archer Fu Yi Xiao as she brings swift and powerful martial arts on screen as well as fierceness and grit to the character.
This is a high quality, fast paced drama with main male and female leads that do not go easy on each other whatsoever and romance is left on the backburner. Some side plots/secondary characters detract from the pace of the show and it is not as deep as some others, but otherwise, it is an incredibly fun watch so far.
Final Review: 7.5/10 – A strong, captivating drama that showed that a female lead is not a “weakness” but rather, the strongest shield the male lead could have. It is modestly detracted from a weak final 8 episodes and poorly paced secondary plot.
Fu Yi Xiao 付一笑 Li Qin 李沁
Top Archer of the Jin Xiu kingdom. Member of Zhen Nan Army.
feng sui ge 凤随歌 chen zhe yuan 陈哲远
First Prince of the Su Sha Kingdom
Feng Xi Yang 凤戏阳 Xia Meng 夏梦
Princess of Su Sha, younger sister to Feng Sui Ge
xia jing shi 夏静石 chen he yi 陈鹤一
Prince of Zhen Nan. Leader of the Zhen Nan Army and former lover to Fu Yi Xiao
Plot Overview
Jin Xiu kingdom’s top female archer, Fu Yi Xiao ft Li Qin, is part of the Zhen Nan Army. Feng Sui Ge ft Chen Zhe Yuan is the first prince of the Su Sha kingdom. He and his men are attacking the Jin Xiu kingdom gates but he is shot and heavily injured by a powerful arrow from Fu Yi Xiao. His army loses the battle and he is forced to retreat due to his injuries. Meanwhile, Fu Yi Xiao is also heavily injured. She fell off a cliff, lost her memory and the use of her left arm. Fortunately, she is saved by a female doctor and is brought back to their residence where Fu Yi Xiao slowly recovers. Feng Sui Ge also arrives at the secret medical base for treatment. He encounters Fu Yi Xiao only to discover that she lost her memory and realizes that she must have been betrayed, just like he was to lose the battle. He brutally interrogates her first and she remembers some of her past but is full of anger and vows for revenge. The two opt to come to an agreement and work together to find their respective enemies.
Initial Thoughts
This drama aired with little notice and initial commentary online says this is a dark horse drama. I’m personally having tons of fun watching this drama so far, primarily enjoying Li Qin for her swift and clean martial arts fighting. She just looks so badass in episode 1 where everyone is calling her super “Shuai” and “Sa” which are different ways of saying handsome but in a powerful way due to her fighting scenes. I would definitely recommend checking out episode 1 (though it is a little bloody).
While the story follows some similar tropes from other dramas, what’s different about this drama is that romance is entirely on the backburner. In the first 3 episodes, main male lead Feng Sui Ge captures and beats the living crap out of the main female lead Fu Yi Xiao to interrogate her because she is a key member of the enemy army. Because, YEA that’s what you’re supposed to do with an enemy and not go easy on her because she’s the main female lead and pretty. Don’t worry though, when she gets the opportunity in the next episode, she captures him, strings him up and beats the living crap out of him as well as revenge. That was super satisfying to watch because it shows that they see each other as equals and not romantic interests out of nowhere. All you want to say here is HELL YEA.
Additionally, Fu Yi Xiao loses her memory, but not her intellect. She is immediately wary of Feng Sui Ge when they happen to be at the same place and she maintains her wits about her. She doesn’t just easily believe everything he says because he’s the main male lead and forget that she has the skills of a battle tested archer.
Fu Yi Xiao and Feng Sui Ge are the best parts of this drama and their chemistry is better than I expected. There’s some back burner political machinations happening, and an overly naive princess in the mix that causes a bit of annoyance to the viewing experience because everyone else is operating on a much higher intelligence level. Otherwise, this is a fun watch for October.
Sadly, while Li Qin has garnered quite a bit of popularity over the last few weeks due to her appearance on Season 7 of Diva’s hit the road, it has not translated into viewership for this drama. Fated Hearts has done only middling in terms of popularity. It breached 7500 on iQiyi’s popularity index by it’s 3rd day of airing and that’s it. I personally do think it deserves higher ratings but alas, it’s unclear if it’s due to people being on vacation due to China’s long holiday break right now so they’re not watching TV or if it’s because the marketing team doesn’t have money to spend on marketing. And I’m not even kidding about the marketing team being poor. The official Fated Hearts Dou Yin account even changed its name to add in parenthesis that it’s a “Poor Ghost That is Working Hard to Promote the Drama” to indicate that no, it doesn’t have money to spend on buying popularity. I actually am dying laughing at this name change. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen before for a drama’s official account and it’s becoming a meme now. We’ll see if popularity picks up for this show. If it does, it’ll be entirely due to word of mouth (unless the production company suddenly drops a ton of marketing on it).
What I Like
A Female Soldier/General Who Actually Looks and Acts Like One!
We’ve had three female generals in dramas over the past few months, and Li Qin’s Fu Yi Xiao easily stands out as the best of them. You can immediately tell she has strong core strength and her fight scenes have real power and intention behind them. When she wields a sword or goes in for a stab, there’s a visible flow of strength in her movements that’s missing from many other actresses’ performances.
Are the moves themselves overly complex? No. But at least you’re not rolling your eyes at her believability as a fighter. When she kicks, for example, it’s a sharp, aggressive strike, not a slow, dainty motion. My only quibble is that the director relied on too many quick cuts in some of the action scenes; I would’ve preferred longer, continuous shots to fully appreciate her movement and form.
Li Qin also delivers the look. That fierce, commanding gaze that makes you believe she means business. In the photos above, you can see her presence as a powerful archer. In the drama, during her brutal interrogation scenes, her expression shifts from pain to seething anger and revenge. That level of 狠, that raw, ruthless intensity, that adds tremendous credibility to her portrayal as a lethal warrior. I often say that some actors and actresses (Chen Zhe Yuan included, at times) have “blank stares” on screen. That’s definitely not the case with Li Qin as Fu Yi Xiao. Commentary online say that this is the type of role that fits Li Qin best rather than roles like Lin Wan’Er. I tend to agree.
Chen Zhe Yuan’s Enunciation
I came into the show with zero expectations for Chen Zhe Yuan, but I was pleasantly surprised by his enunciation. He uses his own voice for dubbing, and his speech is clear, easy to understand, and emotionally expressive. Acting-wise, he’s doing a decent job and his chemistry with Li Qin is actually better than I expected. (Also, credit where it’s due, in a recent livestream he pointed out that no one noticed he was mounting and dismounting his horse one-handed, so we’ll give him applause for that too.)
High Production Value
It seems like whatever funds weren’t spent on marketing were invested directly into production, and it shows. The costumes are gorgeous, and the hairstyles (especially Princess Xi Yang’s) are incredibly detailed. According to behind-the-scenes footage, the opening five-minute battle sequence, where Fu Yi Xiao shoots Feng Sui Ge as his army attacks, took five days to film. The result was well worth it: the scene looked fantastic and set the tone for the rest of the drama. You can clearly see that money and care went into this production.
What Is Suffering
Second Male Lead’s Acting:
Xia Jing Shi’s actor Chen He Yi is definitely being carried by his voice dub. If you watch his scenes closely, his performance comes across as quite wooden. He struggles to convey emotion, which is a problem since this role requires a lot of subtlety to mask his true motives and intentions. Because he can’t express those nuances effectively, much of his character’s inner world ends up being explained through other people’s narration instead of shown through his own acting. So when Fu Yi Xiao reveals something about his true actions, you find yourself thinking, “Oh, really? I didn’t pick up on that, but I guess I’ll go with it.” which leads to a subpar viewing experience.
Second Female Lead’s Naivete:
Princess Xi Yang was saved once by the second male lead, Xia Jing Shi, years ago, and fell head over heels in love with him ever since. Sheltered by her brother and her adoptive mother, Empress Zhuang, she never learned to question her own feelings more deeply. While this setup serves the plot, she’s definitely the character that makes everyone roll their eyes. She knows full well that the man she likes only has eyes for Fu Yi Xiao, yet she still insists on marrying him. Like, come on! What are you doing!? She also completely ignores her older brother who loves her dearly because she loves Xia Jing Shi. So you’ll disregard the warnings from someone who’s known you your entire life and has your best interests at heart for basically a stranger. Sigh… It’s frustrating because Fu Yi Xiao, Feng Sui Ge, and Xia Jing Shi are all operating on a completely different level of intellect, and viewers are forced to come down to her level of childishness and naivete. We’ll see if her character matures as the story progresses, which I’m assuming will be the case.
Final Thoughts
This was honestly SUCH a fun drama to chase. It ended up breaching 9100 on iQiyi’s popularity index, which is not necessarily high, but this definitely exceeded expectations. It was one of the few dramas this year where almost every day, the popularity increased. The discourse online on platforms like DouYin and RedNote (Xiao Hong Shu) and Weibo were so fun to follow. Fans and casual viewers wanted the show to do well. For once, there was no fighting between the fans of the leads. Instead, each fanbase was working together to support this drama. This was helped by the fact that Chen Zhe Yuan and Li QIn had adorable public interactions/comments on Weibo to each other as well as fun marketing events where they were very friendly and comfortable with each other. It was a boon for CP/relationship shippers of the couple.
Additionally, on Li Qin’s part, to help support the fans and the drama, she asked for marketing help from her actor friends for the first time in her17 year career. It was really touching to see all the people who publicly commented on Weibo to try to market for her. The list included many of her old co stars like Huang Jing Yu and Zeng Shun Xi, plus all of her cast mates from Divas Hit the Road S7 like Gong Jun and Zhang Wan Yi. Most importantly, none other than mega idol Xiao Zhan, Li Qin’s dear friend and former costar, also reposted her marketing video. I would like to assume that helped boost some numbers since the post immediately shot to the top of trending topics and was also was liked over a million times. This shows the strength of Li Qin’s character that so many of her friends would support her.
But what about the drama itself? Most of what I described above still holds true. Li Qin’s Fu Yi Xiao is such a badass!! If I can make ONE recommendation, it’s to watch episode 12. That episode has such an intense, emotional but brutal fight scene with Fu Yi Xiao and her childhood friend who betrays her. The scene itself showcased Li Qin’s acting and fighting abilities where you can actually believe how hurtful the fighting was both emotionally and physically. What’s MORE important is that Feng Sui Ge didn’t show up to save the day. Instead, Fu Yi Xiao solved the problem entirely on her own and only when she defeated the guy did Feng Sui Ge showed up. That completely upended preconceived notions that the guy needs to swoop in to save the woman. Even on the floating comments, people at first were like “Feng Sui Ge WHERE ARE YOU? save her!” Only to then say “oh, my bad! She is totally strong enough to save herself”. THAT is what it truly means to be a 大女主 or a strong independent woman.
In contrast, throughout the drama, it is literally Fu Yi Xiao who is Feng Sui Ge’s BIGGEST shield. She saves his butt multiple times at the last minute and when she’s not around? That’s when problems occur. I absolutely LOVED the fact that the moment they get together, she is NOT his biggest weakness, as many other dramas would say. She turns out to be his biggest asset instead. When he’s confronting his father, the Emperor? SHE is the one who steps in to help him keep his head on straight. When he’s about to be blown up by the Chancellor? SHE is the one who snipes the burning candle out of the way and figures a method to escape the sealed chambers. This really is a 双强 or double strength couple where the male and female leads are absolutely on the same page. What’s more satisfying to watch than that?
There were problems with the drama though, particularly in the end game. Second male lead Chen He Yi COULD NOT ACT to save his life. He is exceptionally wooden when the character Xia Jing Shi is written to be quite complex and engaging. All of the scenes with Xia Jing Shi and Feng Xi Yang felt very forced because she acted circles around him. That’s why Feng Xi Yang and Xia Jing Yan’s CP or relationship ship actually took off when those two met because their chemistry was electric while Xia Jing Shi…faltered.
The whole storyline about going to the Wind Rain Alliance after Feng Sui Ge is critically injured was rather unnecessary. It detracted from the momentum of the show which in my view peaked around episode 26-27. The last 8 episodes or so felt a bit tacked on, like the drama didn’t know how to resolve the entire conflict.
Overall though, I absolutely loved the chasing experience of the show. It is one of my favorites of the year!
-Karen
The voices throw me off. Somehow the cadence seems too fast compared to the many other Cdramas I watch. I’ll go back and give it a 2nd try.
I gave it a 2nd try and wow! it was really good. Acting and writing.