Drama Rec: Cage of Shadows (樊笼)

[aurumcalendula]

(23 × ~15 minute episodes)

Nan Yanzhi infiltrates the mysterious Lingya Tower to find an antidote, navigating its deadly challenges with assistance from her mentor Zhuang Wujiu and allies she makes along the way.

I really enjoyed Cage of Shadows! It's a wuxia-ish mini drama with a mostly female cast. I loved the emphasis on Nan Yanzhi's and Zhuang Wujiu's relationship and concern for each other and I thought the fight scenes were well choreographed!

Considering the short runtime, I thought many of the side characters got a decent amount of character development and/or backstory. I wish we'd gotten a bit more of Chilan Tuya's backstory like we did for Dao Niang and Jiang Man. I suspect a decent amount of footage was cut, since some of the flashbacks of Nan Yanzhiu and Zhuang Wujiu got a bit repetitive.

I'd assumed A Qi would be like Xiao Tianhu in Soul Sisters and be Highlight for spoilers! *an ally with a crush on one of the female leads who doubles as a theoretical (albeit unrequited) love interest if you squint. Instead he turns out to be more like Zhao Mu - a villain who gets one of the female leads to agree to marry him to save her actual love interest the other female lead and gets killed at his own wedding.* On a related spoiler note, *I think Zan Hua, Shen Nian'an, and Mr. Wu might be the only halfway decent men in this (the first two end up dead, and the last two barely have any screen time)*

Off the top of my head, content warnings include: Highlight for spoilers! *animal harm (to a very fake looking animal imho), death of a parent, domestic abuse, forced marriage, sexism, sexual assault (mostly in backstory flashbacks), suicide, violence*

The ending: Highlight for spoilers! *It comes off to me as an implied happy ending - both are seriously injured but are still moving and their friends have come to save them.*

It can be officially watched on iQIYI's website with (I think) human translated English subtitles.