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Youthful Glory: Spoiler-Free Mini Review

Aug 11
3 min read

Updated: Sep 9

Title:

Youthful Glory (2025) 韶华若锦

Platform:

MGTV (Mango), iQIYI, Viki, Youtube (free)

MDL & Douban Rating:

8.2 & 5.8

Genre:

Period (Tang-ish) Idol Romance

Episode Count:

30

Parental Guidance Rating:

PG-13: Some martial arts and fake throat slashing-- the usual

Starring:

Song Wei Long (Everlasting Longing)

Bao Shang En (Generation to Generation)

Dai Lu Wa (Moonlight Mystique)

Ke Ying (A Familiar Stranger)

RBTS Rating:

4.9/10 Stars: Youthful Glory is a fluffy, brainless romp in the same vein as Royal Rumors (but YG wasn't as funny) and Les Belles (nor as good), but couldn't overcome an unlikeable Female Lead and a suddenly serious third act.


Cast From Left to Right: #SongWeiLong, #BaoShangEn, #DaiLuWa, #KeYing, #BaiShu


Synopsis:

In the eleventh year of Chengkang, Prince Jiang Xu of Dingbei, who had guarded the border for eight years, returned to the Daxian Dynasty to investigate the case of embezzlement of military pay for the Dingbei army. Unexpectedly, there were many connections behind the corruption case. In order to find out the real culprit as soon as possible and clear the court, Jiang Xu volunteered to marry Ming Tan, who was also a general's daughter, so that the Ming family would not be exploited. As the conspiracy was gradually revealed, Jiang Xu discovered that the murderer's corruption was related to the economic lifeline of the entire Daxian Dynasty, and he had to pull out all the stops and uproot all those related to him in the Dynasty. Unexpectedly, the Ming family was framed due to Jiang Xu's thorough investigation, and their family was ruined. @MDL



Spoiler-Free Mini Review:

Youthful Glory is a fluffy, brainless romp that stumbled when it tried to add stakes it never paved the way for. The first half is a somewhat comedic set up that has our leads skirting around each other, which was fun. Of course, once they "get together" the intrigue dissipates. This is an opposite attracts situation where the fearsome military man and the girlie noble lady are forced to interact and marry. The Female Lead, Ming Tan, was a tough character to swallow. She reminded me of Emma a la Jane Austen, but had none of the redeeming qualities. I wish I could've taken the FL from Les Belles and swap her in lol. The dubbing was straight up bone chilling; it did not fit the age or character, and took away from the overall performance, which was already as bland and crumbly as a nature valley bar. I didn't vibe to such an extent that I thought I just didn't like Bao Shang En's acting, but after seeing her other perfromances, I think she's fine, but the combination of the dubbing and writing did her no favors. In Ming Tan's defense, at least she had cool hats. Her bun wore a hat that made her look like Pharrell, so it wasn't all for naught. Although someone needs to put an AirTag on her stat, because she is snatched up like every episode.



Song Wei Long (ML Actor) is not a strong actor and he couldn't save this. Jiang Xu was your basic powerful army dude, and he didn't have much chemistry with his FL. Also, message to this man: CoMmUnIcAtE. I did really like the secondary couple. Dai Lu Wa (Bai Min Min) is always outshining the female leads of her dramas, and it was fun to see Ke Ying (Yun Yi) in a full length drama.




Overall, Youthful Glory's cons outweighed the pros. It wasn't terrible and I finished, but there are better of the same sort out there. Lastly, the few martial arts scenes were a crime against eyeballs everywhere.



Random Side Note: I hear tell that the novel, Little Cardamom, that the drama is adapted from is actually pretty fun, and I think I will pick it up in the future.


Story=2.5 (Hardly enough story for 24 eps, let alone 31), Acting= 2 (FL was yikes & the rest of cast left many crumbs) , Production Quality=2 .5 (not great), Ending=2.75 (Points for wrapping up all the storylines, but the show really ended on ep 29 but then lingered until ep 31 for unknown reasons), Enjoyability= 2.75 (The first part was a fun, silly time but then dragged and ran out of story).



Trailer:


Director: #MinGuoHui (Swords into Plowshares, Miss the Dragon)

Screenwriter: #ZhuYi



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