Why Chinese Paladin 2 wasn't filmed (credit to chinesepaladin.org)

After the success of the 2004 Chinese Paladin drama starring Hu Ge as Li Xiaoyao, Liu Yifei as Zhao Ling’er and An Yi Xuan as Lin Yue Ru, many fans were left dying for more. The ending was so sad that fans have even produced their own alternate endings in the form of video & fanfiction to fill in the void in their hearts.

However, is a sequel actually possible?

Although the drama was based off the game, there were some drastic changes made in the story, characters and relationships. For one, and I think this is the biggest problem, is that the protagonist of “Legend of Sword and Fairy 2″ is actually Wang Xiaohu. Does the name sound familiar? That’s right, Xiaohu is Li Xiaoyao’s dotty unattractive friend who appears in the first episode.

In the original game, he was supposed to be a 10 year old boy who lives in Li Xiaoyao’s hometown. He looked up to Xiaoyao as his idol and wanted to be like him one day. Li Xiaoyao is supposed to be heroic, righteous and filial, though he is far from that in the drama adaption. While there is nothing wrong with a bit of character change, this makes Xiaohu’s relationship with Xiaoyao already quite different… and Xiaohu’s character in the drama isn’t that appealing.

Moving onto my next point, another Chinese Paladin sequel “killer” is the ending and the director’s choice to kill off all the main characters (apart from Li Xiaoyao). Aside from Zhao Ling’er, none of the other characters are supposed to die. Lin Yueru is supposedly “revived” in the end, and neither Ah Nu or Tang Yu sacrifice themselves. Liu Jin Yuan is nowhere near as significant as he was in the drama, and also does not die. Now that most of the main cast are dead, what would happen in a sequel? It sounds like something quite hard to pull-off well.

Therefore, instead of creating a drama based on the second series, the company decided they would jump straight to Chinese Paladin 3, a prequel to the original series which occurs 50 years before. This seems to resolve all of the problems we discussed above. The prequel has a much stronger story-line than Chinese Paladin 2 (which sadly turned out to be a flop).

 Let’s just hope they will film Chinese Paladin 4 and 5 in the near future! I will definitely be waiting for it :)

-Posted by ChibiJennifer @ chinesepaladin.org

My Notes:

I totally agree with ChibiJennifer's views, and am also waiting for PAL4 or 5 to be turned into a drama!

I saw in a youtube comment somewhere that apparently, the CEO of the company stated that PAL4 will be turned into a drama, and will start filming late this year :)