General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20267 min read

Paladin Legend (又见逍遥)

Paladin Legend (又见逍遥, also translated as Sword and Fairy or You Jian Xiao Yao, literally "See Xiaoyao Again") is a 2024 Chinese television series adapted from the 1995 single-player role-playing game The Legend of Sword and Fairy (仙剑奇侠传). Directed by Yang Long and written by Li Zhe, it stars He Yu as Li Xiaoyao, Yang Yutong as Zhao Ling'er, and Xu Hao as Lin Yueru, and ran for 40 episodes of about 45 minutes each on Tencent Video and iQiyi from April 2 to April 19, 2024.¹^•² It is the second television adaptation of the first game, following the 2005 series Chinese Paladin starring Hu Ge and Liu Yifei, and it was made with the explicit goal of following the game's plot more closely than the 2005 version.³^•⁴

Key fact	Detail
Original title	又见逍遥 (You Jian Xiaoyao); announced as 仙剑 ("Paladin Legend"), renamed in December 2023⁵
Source material	The 1995 game The Legend of Sword and Fairy by Softstar Entertainment²
Broadcast	40 episodes, April 2 to April 19, 2024, Tencent Video and iQiyi¹^•²
Main cast	He Yu (Li Xiaoyao), Yang Yutong (Zhao Ling'er), Xu Hao (Lin Yueru), Li Chuan (Liu Jinyuan), Hu Yixuan (A Nu), Ye Shengjia (Tang Yu)⁶
Douban rating	6.4 from 21,019 users; 16.5% five stars, 9.6% one star¹
Hupu rating	Rose from 8.0 to 8.2 within days of the premiere⁷
Standing among adaptations	Third-highest Douban score among Xianjian television dramas, behind the 2005 and 2009 series⁸

Spoilers

Plot and cast

Li Xiaoyao, a young inn attendant who dreams of becoming a great hero, meets Zhao Ling'er, a descendant of the goddess Nuwa, and escorts her on a journey to find the Water Spiritual Bead, which can end the drought plaguing the land. Along the way they are joined by the headstrong heiress Lin Yueru, the scholar Liu Jinyuan, the Miao girl A Nu, and the loyal guard Tang Yu. The six confront the Moon Worship Sect leader Bai Yue, who schemes to destroy the world. In the ending, Zhao Ling'er and the cult leader die together, and Lin Yueru sacrifices herself in the Lock Demon Tower to save her companions.⁶^•⁹

Wang Jinsong played the Moon Worship Sect leader and Wu Yue the Drunk Sword Immortal (Jiujianxian), with Ding Xiaoying as Ge Luojiao and Tian Yu as the Yangzhou governor in supporting roles.⁵

Production

The series was filed for production by Shanghai Tencent Penguin Pictures in November 2020; a crew notice appeared in March 2021 and filming began on November 19, 2021, at Hengdian. Penguin Pictures was the production company, Taiyang Yiyang the contracted producer, and Softstar Technology (Beijing), the game's developer, held the copyright. Concept and character posters with the cast announcement were released on June 21, 2022, and in December 2023 the title was changed from 仙剑 to 又见逍遥.⁵

The English title went through its own changes: the project was announced as "Paladin Legend," later renamed "Sword and Fairy 1," matching the international name of the game franchise.²

Fidelity to the game

Fidelity was the production's stated selling point, and it is the source of both the series' praise and its arguments. Where the 2005 series took large liberties with the game's plot, this version keeps the main storyline intact: Li Xiaoyao escorting Zhao Ling'er back to Nanzhao, Ling'er's awakening as the Nuwa descendant, the cult leader's plan to end the world, and Ling'er's sacrifice to seal the water demon. It also adds an original closing device in which Li Xiaoyao travels back ten years and tells his younger self what "xia," the heroic ideal, means.⁷

Specific scenes dropped or altered in 2005 were restored. The Drunk Sword Immortal now meets Li Xiaoyao at the inn door asking for wine and agrees to teach him at the mountain shrine on Ten-Li Slope, as in the game, rather than appearing abruptly from the grass. The quest for medicine on Fairy Spirit Island restores the sick aunt, the boy Wang Xiaohu who provides information, and the boatman Zhang Sige who helps Li Xiaoyao cross the water. Costume and prop design, the statue imagery of Fairy Spirit Island, Ling'er's thunder spell, and soundtrack tracks such as "The Inn" and "Die Lian" (Butterfly Love) come from the game's original score.⁴ Reviewers on Douban noted the use of the game's background music and detailed restoration of monsters, costumes, props, and spells, while still finding points to criticize.¹

The changes were not uniformly welcomed. Viewers attached to Lin Yueru counted a mixed ledger: her character arc, ending in sacrifice at the Lock Demon Tower, was kept and given screen time, but her fighting prowess was reduced in the battle against the Zhenyu Mingwang to elevate Li Xiaoyao and Ling'er, and she received no dedicated item in a silver-jewelry merchandise collaboration that even included the Drunk Sword Immortal.¹⁰

Reception

A split scorecard. On Douban the series opened at 6.4 in late April 2024 with about 12,000 ratings, 16.5% five stars against 9.6% one star, and the score remained 6.4 as the total approached 30,000. On Hupu, a forum whose users skew toward male gamers, the score climbed from 8.0 to 8.2 in three days. Commentators attributed the gap to audience composition: Douban raters included viewers expecting an idol drama or attached to the 2005 version, while Hupu's game-playing audience matched the series' game-faithful approach.⁷^•¹

At broadcast, viewership was weak. One tally put its market share at about 1.2%, and an industry roundup described the series as having flopped quietly, with heat hovering around tenth place in its opening weeks.¹¹^•⁴ Critics judged it not bad by the standard of 2024's other Xianjian adaptations, Sword and Fairy 4 (Douban 4.3) and Qi Jinzhao, based on the sixth game (5.0), but not strong enough to rival the 2005 series.¹²^•⁴ Despite the modest score, it placed third among Xianjian television adaptations on Douban, behind the 2005 Chinese Paladin and 2009 Chinese Paladin 3.⁸

A later second life. About two years after broadcast, the series drew renewed attention. In August 2026, discussion threads reappeared simultaneously on Xiaohongshu, Weibo, and Bilibili, with viewers comparing the adaptations' treatment of characters and some going back to play the original game. On Bilibili, content creators posted daily episode-by-episode reaction videos, one reaching episode 28 by August 20, and comment sections filled with explanations of the game's settings. Viewers who returned to it described the middle and later episodes as the strongest part, and one wrote that the remake clarified points the 2005 version had left obscure.¹¹^•⁷ On Rakuten Viki, where the series streams with English, Hungarian, Polish, and other subtitles, it holds a rating of 8.7 from about 4,600 users.¹³

International release

The series was distributed internationally under the title Sword and Fairy. In Japan, NBCUniversal Entertainment released it on the U-NEXT streaming service in three batches, episodes 1 to 12 on February 5, 2025, episodes 13 to 26 on March 5, and episodes 27 to 40 on April 2, with Japanese subtitles, followed by rental editions on the same schedule.¹⁴

Context in the franchise

The series was one of three Legend of Sword and Fairy television dramas launched in early 2024, alongside Sword and Fairy 4 (天河传) and Legend of Sword and Fairy 6: Qi Jinzhao (祈今朝), all adapted from different games in the franchise; the games' stories are mostly standalone, so the dramas can be watched in any order.¹⁵^•¹⁶ The franchise's rights holder listed the three dramas as the basis for further adaptations, including planned sequels and short dramas.¹⁶ The 2005 adaptation of the first game had been the first television adaptation of a video game produced on the Chinese mainland and a milestone in bringing the xianxia (Chinese fantasy genre of immortal heroes and magic) genre to mainstream audiences.¹⁷

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › International serial drama and telenovelas › East Asian drama series › East Asian web and streaming serials › Titles My to So

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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