且试天下 (Who Rules The World) is an 2022 wuxia series out of Zhong Guo. The series stars Yang Yang and Zhou Lusi. The supporting cast include Xuan Lu, Lai Yi, Liu Ruilin, Zhang Feng Yi, Zhang Tian Yang, and Carmen Lee. The cast is quite massive as there are characters in 6 states and the larger Dadong empire. The series runs 40 episodes and was released over 5 weeks. I caught this via Youtube and now on Netflix.
The series is about Yang Yang's character of Hei Fengxi and his adventures in the martial world. Bai Fengxi is his opposite in many ways. Will this "opposites attrach" storyline lead to an happy ending? As the story goes, they face many obstacles on their way to love. From jiang hu to the imperial courts, they must overcome obstacles and enemies' plots.
I initially started this series on Tencent Youtube, but transitioned to Netflix, which is a week behind the broadcast in Zhong Guo. Which meant we had to wait. This was a very intriguing series for being simple and very complex in other areas. I liked the simplicity of the 6 states reporting to a master empire. I liked that each state had a leader much like the emperor of their state. The leaders were free to interact with the population without protection etc. I also liked that they had classic wuxia elements like Qinggong (輕功) and Neili (内力) but didn't make them all powerful.
I also enjoyed the love story and how the leads eventually got together. The inner fightings of all the groups involved were interesting and kept me in the series. All in all, I liked the series and already started re-watching bits and pieces of the earlier episodes. It would be impossible to watch the series from the middle.
Lastly...the leads were awesome. Yang Yang and Zhao Lusi did an amazing job of being able to act out their duo lives. They were both hard NOT to like. Yang Yang is definitely one of my favorites in the early 30s category. Zhao Lusi continues to impress me since seeing her on the acting variety show and "I Hear You".
