General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Twelve Legends (十二谭)

Twelve Legends (十二谭) is a 2021 mainland Chinese web drama set in the Republican era, co-produced by Youku and Tangren Media and adapted from the novel of the same name by Ni Luo (尼罗), the author of Wu Xin: The Monster Killer (无心法师)¹. It stars Gulnazar (古力娜扎) as Ye Ming, a demon transformed from a night-luminous pearl and Jasper Liu (刘以豪) as the stone demon Jin Xingjian, and ran for 32 episodes on Youku from March 27, 2021¹. Despite a well-known source novel and a prominent cast, the series drew wide criticism for its special effects and loose storytelling, and commentators treated it as a cautionary example for the Chinese fantasy-drama genre².

Key fact	Detail
Original title	十二谭 (Shí'èr Tán)¹
Production	Youku and Tangren Media; directed by Chen Shuliang and Jia Fang; screenwriters Zhang Chao and Ni Luo³
Broadcast	Premiered March 27, 2021 on Youku; 32 episodes; Taiwan streaming on myVideo, LINE TV, and KKTV from April 28, and LiTV from May 3¹
Filming	Opening ceremony October 21, 2019 in Hengdian; wrapped January 20, 2020⁴
Main cast	Gulnazar (Ye Ming), Jasper Liu (Jin Xingjian), Gu Jiacheng (Lian Xuan), Liu Chang (Yu Shaobai); unit leads include Deng Enxi and Chen Zheyuan⁴
Premise	Jin Xingjian, transformed from Nüwa's sky-mending stone, searches for eight seals to help Ye Ming survive a thunder tribulation³
Reception	Widely criticized for cheap special effects and weak main plot; described by Jiemian as a "negative example" for fantasy dramas²

Spoilers

Premise and structure

The story is set in the Republican era. Jin Xingjian, a celebrated expert in seals and stone inscriptions, is in fact a demon transformed from one of the stones Nüwa used to mend the sky, and has cultivated into human form over several thousand years⁵. He loves Ye Ming, a woman who transformed from a night-luminous pearl, and to help her survive a periodic thunder tribulation he begins a journey to find eight seals³. Around this main thread, the drama presents a series of stories about small demons in the Republican-era world, mixing comic, stirring, moving, and sweet episodes⁶.

The structure follows the source novel. Ni Luo's book was originally serialized as short stories, each devoted to a different demon, with Jin Xingjian and Ye Ming as connective figures appearing across the pieces⁵. The drama kept this unit-drama format, telling eight human-and-demon romance stories as self-contained units². The first unit concerns the fish demon Xiao Yu (played by Deng Enxi) and the young wharf heir Bai Yushu (Chen Zheyuan)⁷.

Production

The drama was announced and began filming with an opening ceremony in Hengdian on October 21, 2019, and finished shooting on January 20, 2020⁴. It was held back for more than a year before release⁵. The production team said it aimed to reproduce the historical look of the Republican period, and the qipao costumes used hand-made frog buttons copied from photographs of real garments⁴. Gulnazar frequently performed without physical props because of the fantasy setting⁴.

Reception

Special effects. The series' largest wave of discussion came on its premiere night, when a scene of two carp demons leaping from the sea as mermaids was mocked as "five-mao effects" (五毛特效, a slang term for visibly cheap computer graphics) and trended on Weibo²^•⁵. Critics noted the mismatch between the fish tail and the human body at the join, and water splashes that appeared suspended in mid-air⁷^•⁸. Gulnazar responded lightheartedly in an interview, saying of the two fish, "I am an ordinary viewer just like everyone, you understand"⁹. Jiemian's analysis attributed the poor effects mainly to the separation of post-production from on-set shooting, with the effects supervisor too little involved during filming².

Story and pacing. Reviewers found the main plot thin and scattered. The unit stories were said to pass too quickly, with little transition between them, and the main thread was not established before the units began, leaving viewers confused about Ye Ming's identity even ten episodes in⁷. Because the unit format compressed the main storyline, nearly 80 percent of the 32 episodes showed the male lead silently waiting on a female lead who resisted him, with the truth between them revealed only in the final 20 percent². The first unit's romance was criticized as developing too fast, with the fish demon falling for Bai Yushu simply because he fed her⁷.

Comparisons. The series aired just after Si Teng (司藤), another Republican-era fantasy drama on the same platform, and was repeatedly measured against it to its disadvantage². It was also compared with Wu Xin: The Monster Killer, the 2015 adaptation of Ni Luo's earlier work by the same production company, which holds a Douban score of 8.4². Commentators framed Twelve Legends as a "negative example" for the fantasy genre, and placed it within a broader decline at Tangren Media, whose recent dramas had underperformed after the successes of Chinese Paladin (2004, 2008), Scarlet Heart (2011), and Wu Xin: The Monster Killer (2015)⁵.

Aesthetic notes

A more positive reading emphasized the show's visual style. Its color palette is darker and more desaturated than Tangren's earlier fantasy dramas, using large areas of yellow and low-saturation tones that reviewers read as fitting the turbulent late-Qing-to-Republican period and its mix of old and new ideas¹⁰. The series continued Tangren's tradition of "BE aesthetics," tragedy-tinged romance, ending with Jin Xingjian once more shielding Ye Ming from a thunder tribulation after a vigil spanning a thousand years¹⁰.

Genre context

Jiemian's retrospective placed the series in the history of Chinese fantasy drama. The genre flourished in the early web-drama era, with The Ferryman (灵魂摆渡, 2014) exceeding 5 billion total views across its series, and Wu Xin: The Monster Killer (2015) setting a quality benchmark². From 2017, as web-drama and television censorship standards converged, fantasy dramas had to avoid or rework demon settings, and the genre increasingly merged with romance and suspense formats². The same analysis found that nearly 80 percent of fantasy dramas run 30 episodes or fewer, since fantasy plots demand tight pacing and the settings carry high trial-and-error costs; Twelve Legends, at 32 episodes, exceeded that norm².

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 Sp to Z

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

Notice something wrong?