The Untamed / Mo Dao Zu Shi (MDZS) fandom starter kit

Useful links, where to watch, some meta commentary, and other things that will hopefully get you started in this fandom.

written by Caroline aka avawtsn in 2021, last reviewed and ported into website format 24.12.08

Canon and Adaptations

The Untamed, aka CQL or Chenqing Ling, aka the "web series"

• Viki
• Netflix
• Amazon Prime
• Youtube (first 3 episodes only)

I’m tackling this first because for a long time, it was the most complete visual adaptation and the intro for many (English-speaking) people into the fandom, but it's been amost 5 years since I started this guide (as of 2024) and this is no longer the case. The web novel's been licensed and translated in full into English, and the animated series and webcomic have both finished up in their entirety. There are people who are discovering the novels before the show once again (party like it's 2017) and it's been kind of wild.

But still, with the show being so widely available on streaming services like Netflix, it's as good a jumping off point as any.

For those about to jump into this show without any c-drama experience, my biggest piece of advice is that it’s going to overwhelm you with an oblique plot and a huge cast of characters immediately and you should not expect to keep up with it. Not the first time through.

C-drama veterans, you probably won't have as much trouble with it, but I expect this intro isn't for you to begin with.

The show begins in media res during a climactic battle sequence with tons of voiceover information that will wash right over you. It then gives you the explicit, emotional death of the protagonist and very little context as to why it’s emotional for these various characters.

For Sherlock fans, my basic shorthand is that the story opens to a wartime Reichenbach scene with lots of voiceover commentating on the political goings on in the world at the time; it’s too much. Barely one or two episodes beyond this, it then embarks on a 34 episode flashback (out of 50 episodes) to fill in the gaps for what happened in Wei Wuxian’s first life.

So. Don’t expect to keep up your first time through. The cast is so huge that even through the color coding of all the clans (it’s seriously like Power Rangers, the color themes) names and faces and clans run right through your brain cells and pool somewhere outside your recollection. It’s actually fine.

But truly, one of the absolute best things about this show is its incredibly high re-watch value. Subsequent watch-throughs will be mind-blowing for all the things you pick up on after you know what’s going on, but the first time through? Don’t worry if you spend a lot of episodes fairly lost. It helps a lot to have a buddy to stumble through it with you.

Adaptation and translation

The web series is far and away the most adapted of the adaptations. It made the largest plot changes (yin iron!) and censorship accomodations. The novel's explicitly and unambiguously gay romance (with kissing! And sex!!) was very much written out of the show because of Communist Chinese censors.

But the text is still pretty damn queer in subtext, as queer as they could make it and modified with love, especially as you get used to the trope language of Chinese dramas in general. There are your more universarilly basic UST things like wrist grabs, extended eye contact, swooning -- and then more subtle, culturally specific tropes, like lucky money, rabbits, marriage rites, and traditional wedding gifts, all of which make it very clear that the leads are meant to be romantically entangled. It's a censored BL, but it speaks the same language as a het romance. It's more a question of getting the foreign audience viewer acclimated and familiarized with things that a Chinese viewer can take for granted.

But at the bottom of all that work, I think the story is incredible and worth sticking around. And the fandom itself is fic-rich and huge and absolutely worth any amount of diving into. My friends and I have been in this soup for over four years now and it's still going quite strong.

The show used to be available in its entirety for free on youtube (officially, on WeTV's channel), in addition to paid streaming services Netflix and Amazon Prime. Unfortunately, WeTV pulled all but the the first three episodes. Having said that, the show is still available for free on Viki, albeit supported by ads. (Viki also has a paid tier of content but CQL is still available for free tier accounts.) No matter what translation you work with, the subtitles will likely take some getting used to.

Examples:

• "myrmidon" instead of "servant"
• "Childe" andinstead of "young master"
• "confidante" instead of "soulmate"

I specifically didn't have a huge problem with the Netflix subtitles, but I was extremely frustrated with the subtitle timing specifically, especially in the early episodes, which is a very particular kind of frustration. Viki has the reputation of perhaps being the most romantic translation, being that the subs come from fan translators, but they all have their own little quirks.

I haven't been back to check Prime's subtitles in ages, but it was barely better than machine translation garbage when I did look. Early lines I took note of: "why you chose to save me?" and "nothing to be regret" (instead of "to have no regrets").

Unfortunately, poor translations and/or poor subtitle timing mean that it can be alienating as hell to try to watch. After I muddled through the first handful of episodes on Netflix, I definitely switched to the animated series (which was incomplete at the time, 23 episodes available out of a final 35) before switching back to the web series. I understood the happenings of the live action series much better for having a secondary adaptation to get me through my gaps of understanding. If you’re so inclined, you might try to do the same, especially if you’re more comfortable with a format like anime than xianxia c-drama. Having said that, the animated series is not easily watched, but I'll put that in that section.

Gay rating

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