This review may contain spoilers
Not worth watching unless you are a massive fan of the leads!
The first few episodes were okay, but the show got really boring after that, so I marathoned through the entire show in half a day just to watch Liu Tao’s part, lol. She was the star of the show, in my opinion! I really loved her character transformation from a pampered, sheltered, naive but kindhearted, not the sharpest tool in the box but well-meaning princess to a neglected and heartbroken woman who walks on eggshells around the man she loves and does everything she can to please him, an empress torn between her home country and her new country, to a hateful and vengeful empress embroiled in harem affairs!! Her villain arc is not well written, but it’s more about the character and the director’s vision.The show was really long without moving the plot forward for a large part of the show. Most of the characters were one-dimensional, and the show didn’t explore the characters’ intentions and purposes in a way I would have liked. And don’t even get me started on the hypocritical king who got no repercussions from any of his consorts whatsoever. I know the show is about Mi Yue, but I only liked her character until she parted with her first lover. Her character development seemed backward and inconsistent throughout the show. I absolutely loved Sun Li in Empresses in the Palace, but both her characters, Zhen Huan and Mi Yue, seemed like they could be the same person at different timelines, which gave me deja vu in some scenes. Despite having stellar leads, everything went melodramatic and even caricature-ish two-thirds into the show, though I blame it on the directors, not the actors.
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The lead actress can’t act
With increased irritation, I’m trudging through this dense and boring historical drama hoping something remotely interesting happens, however, it’s taking for-fu@king-ver to get plot advancement. It doesn’t help that I seem to have developed an intense dislike for, Sun Li, the lead actress who- with all apologies- can’t act her way out of a paper bag. I’m sorry but Ms Li’s acting is the same in every period drama she’s been in. She always does a doe-eyed ingénue who, despite being unfairly treated, goes through life singing kumbaya and has never met a potential enemy she didn't love. Seriously, who wrote this screenplay? Sigh. I’ll give it a dozen more episodes to see if the pacing and story development move faster otherwise it goes in the dropped category pronto.Was this review helpful to you?
