While going through Netflix, I saw the cover of the show and clicked on it out of curiosity. I read the description and though “ok, why not?” Not gonna lie, I clicked off in the first episode because I found that it was really weird and fake (the flying and the fact that adding on a tiny moustache means they’re boys even though they clearly look like girls are to blame for that). I left it for days until for some reason I decided to give it another try. I forced myself to watch the first two episodes and then got hooked. I was addicted to it! I did find it super cheesy at times and the editing was a bit off and looked fake sometimes, but I weirdly couldn’t get myself to dislike it or stop. Keep in mind that this is my first Asian show experience.
The storyline overall was pretty good and keeps the viewer engaged. It was very creative and at times unpredictable. That being said, it was my favourite part! A lot of c or k-dramas are very predictable, but this one was great. The acting was on point and the chemistry was outstanding. If I keep talking I’ll spoil it, but overall the plot was good and I completely recommend it. The end is what made me very sad. If you don’t know yet, the ending of many Chinese dramas are sad (I was expecting a happy ending as it was my first Chinese drama), but it weirdly didn’t leave me completely disappointed. Although it was sad, I was satisfied to see that there were no cliffhangers. It did take me a while to accept the ending, that’s for sure.
Although I was very sad, I got curious of who the actors were (as I usually do) and I was so happy to know that the leads are married in reality. I found that so cute and it weirdly gave me the feel of a happy ending for the show. After this show, I got hooked on Asian dramas and until now, I’m addicted to them! This show was the opener for my cheesy Asian drama obsession and I’m grateful to it. Worth the watch!
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In the first half, I felt while there were some flaws to the writing (like it wasn't as neat or as clever as it could be and there were some plot holes in character's personalities and events that happened), but I could definitely brush it off because it's a drama so whatever and in comparison to a lot of others that I'd seen, its quality is really quite high. If this had been my first historical drama, I probably would've been completely satisfied.
I was impressed with the leads acting, especially as I've always heard great things about Luo Jin and he was really really good, almost to the point i didn't want him acting this tiresome plot anymore, because I feel it to be such a waste. The chemistry was also evident and very natural which is I guess why they became a real life couple XD
However, the plot revolved around WeiYoung and Prince Jun being extremely clever and using their wits to escape all kinds of situations, and yet, half the time they'd do really REALLY dumb things, which would get them into trouble and it wasn't consistent at all. Another thing to add is when they were being "clever", scheming and creating these master plans that would afterwards be praised by everyone around them, they'd honestly not even be that smart and sometimes didn't even make sense and it felt like they were treating the audience like they were dumb enough to not comprehend logic . I couldn't help but compare every scheme to the likes of MingLan's in The Story of Minglan, which follows a very similar story. Her scheming, cleverness and how far ahead she could plan was on another level and the writing was just so much more advanced that I wasn't impressed by anything Weiyoung did. To add to this further, the Prince in Goodbye My Princess, who was in a very similar position to Prince Jun, is honestly the biggest mastermind schemer I've yet to watch in any cdramaland, and the way he manipulated situations was on another level, so I could just not be impressed at all with any of the writing in this show.
But still. Most historical dramas turn into garbage when they get stretched to a million episodes, so this is still one of the better ones out there.
But just to be more difficult, once I reached about 2/3rds of the way in, I really couldn't take the dragging and consistent rehashing of the same conflicts and same obsessive evil people that just wouldn't die. Every event would turn into a mystery case that would always end up with the Emperor being involved, which honestly lowered his status a lot, because the randomest of people would just be allowed to walk in and argue with him with 0 consequences. Ranks and titles of people would get thrown around and removed all of the time, so every time someone was demoted or promoted, it just felt like whatever. Still those ranks were used to threaten people, somehow, so it felt like consequences weren't taken seriously and people could get away with anything. Also, just for drama/plot, the same evil people were trusted again and again even though everyone had already established their crimes and they should've been outcasted by the main cast a long time ago. This made everyone have 0 personality because they didn't stick to any type of morals and seemed to have a memory that couldn't last long enough to remember the people who betrayed them. All of these issues are mostly caused by poor writing and stretching the plot to a huge 54 episodes.
Finally I'd like to make a comment on its genre of "big female role" which means the entire plot and characters all focus around the leading female character. I personally, just cannot handle shows like this because in reality, the whole world does not revolve around one person, so to watch every single male character fall for her and to watch every female character despise and plot against her, is honestly, soooo tiring, especially when the writing is poor and the schemes aren't actually very "clever" and you wonder why all these people even LIKE her or are ENVIOUS of her. This is my own opinion of course and I am sure there are many who enjoy these types of shows, I just for one, cannot stand watching the almost mindless devotion that every supporting character seems to have for this one person, it is too fake for me. But I would also like to add that this show's version of it didn't really annoy me till the very end.
To sum up, while this seems like a negative review, its the 4th best historical drama I've actually seen, so anyone who's new to this genre would probably enjoy it. I am aware that the two dramas I mentioned, GBMP and Story of Minglan, came out after this one, so if anything, they have actually taken inspiration from this, but all i can say is both far surpass this one in every way so you may as well just watch those two first and then this one XD
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FALTU
All were OK until when a face mask can be used to be someone else is really too far fetching. Really ridiculous story writing... shows the writer is just plainly out of idea to twist the story. This is a historical fiction drama and not historical magic just think that the way story was told is kind of same old same old... there is a lot of downtime and the drama in it self could have been better.... the obstacle that the princess has to go through isnt that fun to watch... but I do love the cast....Was this review helpful to you?
the scenes are beautiful but the clothes and hair accessories were kinda weird esp the ones for weiyoungs wedding and queen headdress, also i didn't like some of the actors, they just didn't fit some of their roles. love the songs they were so beautiful too
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The Princess Frame-up
Using my personal rating system of "loved," "liked," "meh," & "nah," this rates a “meh”—which is kind of surprising since I actually got all the way through it (albeit with a lot of fast-forwarding). There are way better dramas out there I have on my on-hold list, so I’m not entirely sure what the appeal was here.Things I liked:
The leads’ interactions were cute and there was no forced chemistry between them (which I guess makes sense since this is apparently where the two actors met & fell in love?). I liked the grandmother of the Li family who always stuck by LW no matter what—and, of course, her “mother” who unconditionally loved LW even when she knew she was not her daughter. I also liked that LW’s character had a great deal of loyalty and affection towards her adopted family—she never tried to use them to get meet her goals. I also liked her cousin, his crush on her was cute, but I did FF through all his interactions with the 9th princess—yawn.
Things I did not like:
To be fair, this is a classic telenovela-type drama where characters make decisions to further the drama of the plot and logic never really comes into play. So to criticize its lack of logic is like criticizing rain for being wet. ;P
I (personally) do not like inaccurate historical settings/stories. If you’re going to go so far off the reality that you’re basically only using the names of real historical figures then just make up a fake dynasty, country, world, whatever, if you need to instead. That’s just a personal preference.
Like any good telenovela, most of the characters were two-dimensional. And one bat-$*** crazy jealous woman trope per drama, please, it was a bit exhausting to have two of them in this one. All the ‘bad’/’evil’ characters’ obsession with LW was tiring after a while. She’s literally ONE woman, a minor member of a noble family with ZERO power and yet everyone thought that killing her was the solution to all the world’s problems. The cycle of crime, frame LW, LW exonerated was so boring. Once or twice, sure, but constantly!? And each time, everyone took the frame-up seriously until LW proved her innocence. Seriously, if she’s innocent EVERY TIME, surely we should start believing her!? That or acknowledge that she’s just a really clever serial killer and have her executed.
This probably says something about my personality, but my favorite character was Tuoba Yu, the main antagonist. He was probably the most “three-dimensional” of the characters, but he was also written to make decisions based on drama and letting the good guys win, rather than what someone with his planning and scheming ability was actually capable of—in real life, I’m sure he would have won if he was as clever as he was initially portrayed. Though, SERIOUSLY, wtf with the hair style!?
And it was a toss-up as to who would make the better emperor. To the common people of the day, as long as there was no war—or if they were at least winning any wars they fought—I doubt they particularly cared. And corruption and incompetence was such a foundational part of the government systems, that not even a ‘good’ emperor would be able to do much about it. I would have been equally satisfied with an ending not based on historical events (however loosely) where TY gets to be emperor and TJ & LW elope to go live as commoners somewhere.
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I think I really enjoyed the first half of the story, and the battle of her just wanting to do everything for her own kingdom. But then after a while I think the story got a little lost, and then it was just all very messy near the end.
I think I ended up just skipping to see what happens near the end! - Soo much drama going on as well, it was really confusing to keep up after a while, and a little draggy. So I wouldn't say I enjoyed this a lot.
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Strong female leads, Re-watch value, great relationship dynamics
I loved it and have re-watched it several times. Its memorable, interesting relationship development, great, believable acting, the girls of the Li clan are resourceful, cunning yet also extremely pretty- kinda makes it feel unrealistic but I suppose helps make the show more memorable. I actually liked the development of the antagonist's relationship with Tiffany Tang's character Li Weiyoung. I thought Vanness Wu did an amazing job for his antagonistic portrayal of Tuoba Yu. Although towards the end you start to think "why does he like Weiyoung again?". I felt that some of the minor characters relationships seemed a bit much- such as Cheng De and Jun Tao's there was nothing there, like someone had just gone "oh yeah lets have them do that." However I did like the developments for Tuoba Di and Li Minde's relationship- it began one-sided, but became real- it felt like there could have been more to offer. In terms of the story, I thought it was interesting, although you start to get a bit tired with the repeated tricks of framing the lead female etc. I thought the costumes and the setting were spot-on. Its definitely a classic and something of a landmark for historical dramas. High re-watch value for sure, don't miss it!Was this review helpful to you?
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The show is one of those fast ones. It starts off sort of fast and is also very interesting. Princess Weiyoung is interesting to watch and it is really easy to understand and keep up with the show. I also like how the show doesn't always have the main leads winning. Like usually in other dramas, the main leads get everything and win, whereas in this drama lots of things go down for Touba Jun and Weiyoung. Honestly, Touba Jun shouldn't have married Li Changle, because even if it was a deal with Touba Yu, he still shouldn't have done it, because I feel like Touba Yu would have saved Weiyoung even if Touba Jun didn't agree. As for the 9th princess, I don't even know if she knows what's going on in the palace. Because she been sick and injured. And I feel like Li Changru has always been evil since the beginning.Almost every person in this show is destroyed by love and hate. Like Touba Yu and Touba Jun both like Li Weiyoung so Changle and Changru become evil. But the ninth princess, however, didn't become evil after knowing that Li Minde likes Weiyoung, that's why her life can't be destroyed by love and hatred.
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Characters: Some of the characters were well developed - others not so much. I liked that the main character was smart but there were also times where I got infuriated at how slow she was. The eldest sister Chang Le had no redeeming qualities and fell in the category of the cliched evil love rival. The second sister's development on the other hand was pretty impressive.
Acting: Quite average - Once again the second sister had some pretty nice acting skills.
Rewatch: It was a long and tedious 54 episodes with a few spots of happy scenes void of misunderstandings. I don't think I could do it again.
Overall, not my cup of tea. I completed it - kinda. But there were many areas where I just started tuning it out as it moved way to slowly and was full of annoying misunderstandings. If you are a romance fan, it may be worth a try. If you don't want angst and melodrama, stay away...
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I watched so may times, and got so many others to watch this show. Highly recommend!!!
STORY:
2 kingdoms hate each other, one got taking over, girl(XinEr) try to get revenge. Took the place of a minister bastard daughter(WeiYoung). Fell in love with enemy’s grandson(Jun).
Im about to call XinEr as WeiYoung now bc she took WeiYoung’s place.
The minister highest wife and kids(WeiYoung half siblings) try to make WeiYoung look guilt for everything and framing her which doesn’t work out. They are doing this because they want the daughter (ChangLe) to marry Jun, but Jun is in love with WeiYoung.
WeiYoung solve many of the enemy’s kingdom issues. And gain higher positions.
As more people see WeiYoung’s beauty and intelligent, more men started to like her, including BaYu, the enemy’s son.
WeiYoung and ChangRu(WeiYoung’s other half sister) were very close. When BaYu started to show interest in WeiYoung, ChangRu got jealous as she had a crush on him since both were kids.
BaYu like WeiYoung but also want her because some many people like and trust her, and marrying her will raise he’s likelihood to be emperor.
Many people died.
In the end, WeiYoung and Jun where together.
_____
WeiYoung is smart, strong, independent, and power women, that played a huge role.
ChangRu was annoying.
ACTING/CASTING:
It was smart that they casted Tiffany Tang and Luo Jin together as they have worked together in other dramas and they are a couple.
MUSIC:
All in my playlist so that tell you I like it.
REWATCH VALUE:
100% yes. I rewatch this drama every few months!
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