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Corpsing:

During the scene where Lan Wangji gives Wei Wuxian a piggyback ride, upon a closer look the audience can see that Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo are already laughing.

Dawson Casting:

• • Around the time The Untamed aired, the actors for Lan Sizhui, Jin Ling, and Lan Jingyi are 20, 22, and 24 years old, respectively; although their characters are only around 15 to 17 years old.
  • Inverted with Wang Yibo, who was in his early twenties while Lan Wangji is in his early-to-mid thirties. Although this is played straight in the flashbacks, where Lan Wangji is a few years younger than Wang Yibo’s actual age during filming.

Playing Gertrude:

• • • The actress who plays Madame Yu was born in 1989, making her around 29 during filming, only two years older than the actress playing her daughter, Xuan Lu, and her adopted son, Xiao Zhan, who were both 26-27 while filming. Xiao Zhan and Xuan Lu are also examples of Dawson Casting, since Wei Wuxian is supposed to be around 15 at the start of the series, and Jiang Yanli only a few years older.

Directed by Cast Member:

• • Bian Jiang (Lan Wangji’s voice actor) is also the voice director of the series.

“Do It Yourself” Theme Tune:

• • Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo (the actors for Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, respectively) sang the ending song of The Untamed.
  • Xiao Zhan, Wang Yibo, Wang Zhuocheng (Jiang Cheng), Liu Haikuan (Lan Xichen) and Yu Bin (Wen Ning) also sang their respective character songs.
  • Chen Zhuoxuan (A-Qing) sang alongside Sun Bolun in the Yi City theme song “Gu Cheng”.
  • Although Zui Xue is the lead singer, Zheng Fanxing (Lan Sizhui), Guo Cheng (Lan Jingyi), and Qi Peixin (Jin Ling) sang some lines in their collective character song.

Dyeing for Your Art:

• • A mild example. In the canon of Mo Dao Zu Shi, Lan Wangji is taller than Wei Wuxian. However, Wang Yibo is a few centimeters shorter than Xiao Zhan, so he wears pumped footwear to make him appear as tall as the latter.

Executive Meddling:

• • Implied; not for the series but for the Nanjing concert — one of the final promotional events of The Untamed. The concert lasted for two days (November 1 and 2), and majority of the cast appeared on the second day and gave their own performances to promote their characters… with the exception of Zhu Zanjin (Jin Guangyao) and Wang Haoxuan (Xue Yang), who only watched from the backstage when their characters’ theme songs were performed on stage. After some digging, a few fans speculated that this was because they were the only actors who weren’t affiliated with the company that sponsored the concert, hence why they were sidelined. The entire situation is explained here and here.

Never Work with Children or Animals:

• • Downplayed; in the scenes where Fairy would chase Wei Wuxian, the crew got a hard time getting the Husky to chase Xiao Zhan unless they baited it with sausages.

Promoted Fangirl:

• • Xuan Lu was already a huge fan of the novel long before she got cast as Jiang Yanli.

Role Reprise:

• • Some of the voice actors from the donghua and the audio drama adaptations of Mo Dao Zu Shi return in the Live-Action Adaptation to dub over the actors playing the characters they voiced. There’s Lu Zhixing as Wei Wuxian, Bian Jiang as Lan Wangji, Qiao Shiyu as Wen Qing, Tang Shuiyu as Jiang Fengmian, and Qiu Qiu as Wang Lingjiao.
  • Other voice actors from either adaptation are also lending their voices in the The Untamed, but they’re not playing the characters they previously voiced. For example, Wang Kai ^note  voices Jiang Cheng, Su Shangqing ^note  voices Jin Guangyao, Chenzhang Taikang ^note  voices Xiao Xingchen, Liu Sanmu ^note  voices Xue Yang, Liu Cong ^note  voices Wen Ruohan, and Zhao Yi ^note  voices Nie Mingjue.
  • Hikaru Midorikawa and Toshiyuki Morikawa, who voiced Jiang Cheng and Lan Xichen, respectively, in the Japanese dub of the audio drama will return to voice the same characters in the Japanese dub of the live-action drama.

Separated-at-Birth Casting:

• • Although they were cast as either uncle and nephew or father and son, the resemblance between actors Qi Peixin, Zhu Zanjin, and Cao Yuchen is so uncanny that — given their ages in Real Life — you’d expect all three of them to be long-lost brothers.
  • Ji Li (Nie Huaisang) and Wang Yizhou (Nie Mingjue) have such similar facial features that from appearance alone, they can convince any unknowing passerby that they really are brothers.

Star-Making Role:

• • Simply put, The Untamed serves as a major popularity boost to most of the actors, especially for Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo. By the end of 2019, both had already become two of the highest-rated actors in China.

Throw It In!:

• • In an interview, some of the cast members mannerism or improvisations made it into the show.
  • Jiang Cheng’s eye-rolling wasn’t directed, he just did it because it seemed to fit the situation.
  • Lan Jingyi’s actor says that when he dropped his chicken wing it was something he and Lan Sizhui’s actor claimed happened as a coincidence, but thought would be funny and it was kept in the final cut.
  • Nie Huaisang’s actor was told to just dust off Jin Guangyao’s hat, but he accidentally touched the blood on it. The director liked it so much he filmed an extra scene of Nie Huaisang looking at the blood on his hand that made it into the final cut.

What Could Have Been:

• • The series was implied to have originally featured a romance between Wei Wuxian and Wen Qing. But after severe backlash from the fans, the script was rewritten almost completely.
  • Several of the actors initially auditioned for different roles:
    • Most notably, Xiao Zhan, Song Ji Yang, Wang Zhuo Cheng, Ji Li, Guo Cheng, and Qi Pei Xin originally auditioned for the role of Xue Yang. They were cast instead as Wei Wuxian, Xiao Xingchen, Jiang Cheng, Nie Huaisang, Lan Jingyi, and Jin Ling, respectively; although Song Jiyang managed to briefly play Xue Yang when he was pretending to be Xiao Xingchen.
    • Zhu Zanjin, Yu Bin, and Cao Yu Chen auditioned to play Lan Sizhui, Nie Huaisang, and Lan Xichen, respectively. They were ultimately chosen to play (in the same respective order) Jin Guangyao, Wen Ning, and Jin Zixuan.
  • The filming crew originally planned to have Wang Haoxuan wear fangs since Xue Yang has canine-like teeth, but the idea was scrapped because he ended up looking too vampiric, and it got in the way when the actor would speak his lines.
  • According to Zhu Zan Jin, Fatal Journey was originally going to be about the Venerated Triad, but the idea was scrapped because any plot they had in mind was too large to be covered by a movie’s runtime length.