General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20264 min read

A Journey To Love (一念关山)

A Journey To Love (一念关山) is a 2023 Chinese costume drama series produced by Shanghai Linmon Pictures and iQIYI, written by Zhang Wei, directed by Zhou Jingtao and Zou Xi, and starring Liu Shishi and Liu Yuning. In 40 episodes, it follows Ren Ruyi, a former assassin of the rival state of An, who joins a small escort team from the state of Wu and travels with its leader Ning Yuanzhou and four companions from Wu's capital to An's capital.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Original title	一念关山 (Yi Nian Guan Shan)³
Run	First aired November 28, 2023; iQIYI member finale December 23, 2023³^•²
Format	40 episodes, about 48 minutes each¹^•³
Lead cast	Liu Shishi as Ren Ruyi; Liu Yuning as Ning Yuanzhou; with Fang Yilun, He Landou, Chen Haoyu, Chang Huasen, Chen Youwei, and Wang Yizhe⁴
Production	Shanghai Linmon Pictures with iQIYI; chief producer Qi Shuai, producer Fang Yanzhi, writer Zhang Wei²
Reception	Douban 7.5 from 63,000 raters; iQIYI heat value passed 10,000 within six days of premiere⁵^•⁶

Spoilers

Premise

The story is set in a world of rival states. The Wu emperor has been captured by An, which demands 100,000 taels of gold and a royal envoy to come in person and escort him home.⁷ The young princess Yang Ying volunteers for the mission disguised as a man, and a six-member team forms around her: Ren Ruyi, formerly the top assassin and left envoy of An's intelligence organization Zhu Yi Wei, who was framed and left the agency; Ning Yuanzhou, head of Wu's Six Paths Hall intelligence service; the wanderer Yu Shisan; the clever youth Yuan Lu; and the palace guard Qian Zhao.⁴^•⁸

Ren Ruyi's personal thread runs alongside the mission: she wants to investigate the death of Empress Zhaojie, who had been kind to her, and clear her own name.⁷ In the finale, the two states unite against an invasion by the northern Pan people, and the team members fight to defend the border town of He County at the cost of their lives.⁹

Format and production

The series describes itself as an original costume legend road drama, combining wuxia action, court intrigue, and a journey structure in which the plot is strung together by the trip from Wu to An. Commentators noted that this borrowed the mobile dramatic space of wuxia, in which knights-errant move through the world, rather than the fixed palace settings of most female-led costume dramas.⁷

Location shooting. Director Zhou Jingtao said the crew traveled to uninhabited areas of northwest China to shoot on location for the sake of story completeness and visual aesthetics; producer Fang Yanzhi joked that "everyone ate a dozen jin of sand." Art director Shao Changyu built the visual design on real locations, emphasizing the beauty of the desert and of period costume. The weapons and fight choreography were designed around each character's personality.²

Writer Zhang Wei, who had written the 2022 hit A Dream of Splendor, said she wanted the blend of road story, adventure, romance, and friendship to open a more varied expressive space.²^•⁶

Reception

The premiere set iQIYI's record for the highest first-day heat value of any 2023 series on the platform, and the show topped several popularity rankings during its run; on the Maoyan professional index it held roughly the number-one position among dramas.⁹^•⁵ Its Douban score stood at 7.5 from 63,000 users in December 2023, and the show's main Weibo topic drew 180 million daily reads.⁵

Criticisms. As the run progressed, early praise gave way to disputes. Critics found the obstacles the team met on the road thinly conceived for an adventure story, and a suspected leak of an early script led some viewers to accuse the production of expanding the male lead's role at the expense of the female lead and supporting characters; Liu Yuning's live-stream response did not settle the controversy.⁶

Industry significance. For Liu Shishi, the drama marked a return to costume drama after six years away from the genre. For Linmon Pictures, whose reputation rested on contemporary-realist series, the show's commercial and critical performance opened the costume-drama market to the company, which scheduled further costume titles for 2024.⁶^•⁵ Although registered as an internet series, it also received a satellite-television broadcast on Zhejiang Satellite TV, part of a growing pattern of web dramas moving to prime-time television slots.¹⁰^•¹¹

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026