Besides that, the story in PWY is completely different from Scarlet Heart Ryeo. This drama is all about revenge and love, love that conquers all, a tragic but beautiful love story.
Regarding the acting, both leads have amazing chemistry (It's good to know that they're dating) .
I'm now a fan of Tifanny Tang, I will look forward to see her in more dramas. She's amazing. The others actors did a good job too.
If you're looking for a historical drama that has action, suspense, drama and romance, PWY is the one for you. If you're unsure if you should watch or not because you're reading comments, please don't. Don't let you're decision depend on someone else, if you want to watch, watch it don't be afraid. It's good to take risks sometimes.
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Power-struggle, romance and jealousy
This drama will capture your attention within a short time into the first episode. The usual hygiene factors rolled in: handsome actors, beautiful actresses, good acting skills, great on-screen chemistry between the leads, exciting story, lovely cinematography and lovely ending theme song. I certainly put it among the top dramas I had watched.54 episodes is a good length for this story – sufficient to cover the story in sufficient depth with only a few lull moments. I had seen worse ones with draggy time-fillers.
Tiffany Tang and Luo Jin had this amazing chemistry and on checking the Internet they were married in 2018, no doubt falling in love while acting together in the numerous dramas they shared.
In this story, there were two classes of villains – the totally evil like the ChiYun family and the deceptive third sister whom you would hate throughout the drama, and those who showed a bit of conscience like the Tuoba Yu whom I empathised with at moments.
Storyline was quite sensible and realistic – no far-fetched scenes, at least none of those magical cure by internal energy transfer kind of crap, although there was a couple flying scenes in the first episode but the 'flyer' was aided by someone. These are interesting in fantasy dramas but spoil a period drama.
There were a few lovely music pieces like the ending theme song but the melody in the opening theme song is a little lacklustre.
However I must say a lot of similar themes were repeated over and over in Chinese dramas and in this – heros/heroines got framed again and again, disguise was so good they fooled everyone – wonder why no one picked up the difference in the voice, the villains were always lucky in their evil ways, and of course revenge which is a beaten to death theme in Chinese drama. If a couple of the framing scenarios were removed and the drama was shortened, it could work better.
I have a bit of a spoiler here – it had a sad ending although I cannot say it is a tragedy. The prelude of each episode gave away too much of how the story concluded although not the entire final ending.
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Story: 9.0/10
The story takes you on a journey of a girl and how she deals with trials and errors. And also meets a lover on the way. In all honesty, the only problem I had with the drama was that it was repetitive. To the point I had to skip some scenes because things kept on repeating. And I'm usually not the type of person to skip scenes. Other than that, it was very interesting and a thing I kept in mind was I had to remember new characters that were added to the story.
Acting/Cast: First impression was why did they choose this girl as the main lead? Well, after finishing every episode, I realized why. She was just amazing. That goes the same for Luo Jin and all the other actors in this show. Everyone played their role amazingly. And props to the villains in this drama because they did a good job for making me hate them so much.
Music: 8.5/10
I did not really pay attention to the music but hearing the opening song 54 times, it's pretty good. And they also played the songs at the right times in the drama.
Rewatch value:5.0/10
Mainly because there are so many episodes but I will probably go on youtube to go watch the cute little
clips that I liked in the drama :)
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This review may contain spoilers
Everyone Frames WeiYoung + Beautiful Shades of Blue
8/22/2021I really want to like this drama more and I am rounding this up to 8.5 (I debated to keep it at an 8). However, the repeated framing and dragging of the show prevented me from doing so. If this drama is about 40-45 episodes long instead of 54, the pacing would be a lot better. It has all the right ingredients: good general plot, great acting and characters (love strong, smart leads), beautiful costumes, decent background music and songs.
Negatives:
1 . Repeated Framing - The show is basically someone framed WeiYoung and tried to kill her, then she got out of the crisis due to her own wit or saving from others, then repeat again and again. I was bored from Ep 20-30 and lost my attention. It's so predictable that it's not fun anymore. It's unfortunate because I really like the general plot of the drama, but the pacing was off. This is my biggest critique of the show and why I did not rate it an 8.5, since I am judging it against other big historical drama.
2. Plot Holes/Plot - The writing is not very tight. There are also lots of convenient eaves dropping throughout the show by the villains. There are also some illogical/impractical plot holes and I noted down two incidents but there are more: 1) ChangLe tried to burn down the lantern shop but how could she walk in without anyone noticing? Where's the shop owner? Was TuoBaJun (ML) really so far away that he didn't notice anything until the store was half-way burnt down? 2) When WeiYoung (FL) and TaoBaoYu (2ML) were stuck in the secret room, why didn't FL shout out the location of the secret ring to open the door to ML? They apparently could listen through the wall/door with no problem. 3) How come all the doors of the rooms in the Li family are see through? Everyone can hear your secrets!! There's no privacy!!!
Positives:
1. Acting - I enjoy the acting by all cast members. Our main leads and secondary leads are great. You can feel their love and obsession, their pain and evilness. This drama has a large supporting cast and no matter they are veterans or the younger actors, they are did a pretty good job.
2. Romance - One minor criticism I have is that I want to see more scenes and romantic development between ML and FL before they officially fall in love. Their love story is so strong, romantic and heartbreaking that I wanted a stronger foundation or evidence. Having said that, I love their relationship - their undying love and trust. I love seeing their banter and their open communication. I was pleasantly surprised that ML is quite funny and outgoing, and not the cold-on-the-outside-but-warm-on-the-inside type. You can feel the chemistry between the two leads and believe in their romance. The other romance/obsession storylines are pretty well-developed (though a little draggy). It's so sad that in a way, none of the significant relationships ended well. I am not as interested in the romance between the Little Princess+Prince and the two bodyguards.
3. Costumes - Blue is one of my favorite colors and I LOVE the different shades of blue in the costumes. You see light blue, royal blue, navy blue, indigo, dark blue, etc. Most of the time, Chinese dramas are dominated in gold/red/white in the palace, and blue/yellow/pink for the ladies. I am so happy to see that it's different here. Aside from that, their costumes, jewelry and head pieces are elaborate. Not only does the royal family have elaborate head pieces, but the ladies have beautiful hairpins and flower arrangements that match each of their outfits. I love seeing the different designs and patterns on the male characters outfits. The ladies dresses are all beautiful and multi-layered. Aside from the color palette that I enjoy in "Legend of FuYao", this is the only drama that I am so obsessed with the costumes and really pay special attention to each outfit.
4. Music - I would like to praise the use of background music in this drama that did not overpower the drama itself. I've seen too many C-dramas where the music is so loud that I couldn't hear the dialogue, or the songs are played over and over again when a romantic scene occurs. The music in this drama complements the scenes and let the acting speaks for itself without the use of music to manipulate viewers' emotions.
Overall, I like this drama. I wish it had a happier ending after what the leads have gone through, but I am satisfied with it. If I watched this drama before the many historical dramas I've watched, I might have given it a solid 8.5 or higher and be less critical.
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Revenge & Romance
THE PRINCESS WEIYOUNG (Jinxiu Weiyang) was a very entertaining C-drama, with more soap (soap opera vibes) than I usually care for in my dramas, but still very beautiful to look at it and highly enjoyable with a very lovely cast. The story is interesting because it begins as a revenge drama and morphs into a romance drama with many twists and turns along the way.While it took me a while to connect to the main heroine Princess Weiyoung also known as Li Wei Yang / Feng Xin'er (Tiffany Tang) she was a strong likable lead and when paired with Tuoba Jun, Prince Gaoyang, (Luo Jin) there was real chemistry. They evolved into a real power couple, even with many obstacles in their way.
I LOVED many of the side cast as well such as the cunning and calculating Tuoba Yu, Prince Nanan (Vanness Wu), the adorable and deadly Li Changru (Mao Xiaotong), the loyal and devoted Li Minde (Liang Zhenlun), the quirky and daring Tuoba Di, Ninth Princess (Chen Yuqi), the adorable and loyal Bai Zhi (Mu Le'en), the loyal bodyguard Jun Tao (Wang Yanzhi) and so many others. There were so many great characters in this show.
Overall, Princess Weiyoung was a very enjoyable ride, even with the intense melodrama and outrageous plot twists. Very memorable.
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At first i am at doubt to let myself dive in to some historical Chinese drama with loooong episodes... sad ending.......
But this drama made me realize to give chinese historical drama a chance.. I am not disappointed that i watch it.
Here are the reasons.
1. The story is superb.. Although at some point i curse the script writer for always making the female lead suffer but later on i'm loving it because it makes her more stronger and more smarter. I like how she solve it all and make those people who try to frame her suffer the backlash.
2. The cast is amazing. They portray there own characters well, from the main lead to the supporting characters, even those bitches and antagonist. I love the romantic moments of the side characters making me root for them.
3. The Ending.. I will not spoil anything but i will tell you that it is a bitter sweet ending. I am both satisfied and unsatisfied with the ending.
* Reasons to be satisfied:
-all the antagonist die
-main leads ending up together with a child (extra points for me)
-There is peace throughout the land
* Reasons that i'm not satisfied:
- antagonist die a sudden death, i want them to suffer more that to die easily for everything they have done to those innocent people.
- what happened to supporting couple in the story? Did they get married? I'm confused
- I want it to have a second season. There is so many questions that i haven't get any answer.
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Ok but how cool is it that the main leads are married IRL!?
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The plot is well planned as some characters are not drawn from the real Northern Wei historic era, the fictional characters were well written and acted together with the non fictional Northern Wei characters, kudos to the story planners.
Costumes, props were all nicely done. Story was not draggy, for certain part of the story where higher authorities instructed for evidence gathering, evidence was gathered by the next second of the show and not dragged for the evidence to be shown only after 3-4 episodes, its really well done. This is the type of drama plot that most wanted to watch but seldom seen.
On the overall, i would strongly recommend this drama, you can do a short read up on Northern Wei history to know more about some characters that will appear in the show, on the other hand, without history base is perfectly fine, this drama is easy to understand with no hidden agenda and storyline is clean with no twist and turn for guessing and thinking. I did not give a perfect rewatch value as i feel there is no one who will rewatch a drama series unlike a movie which last around 1.5-3 hours. A drama series can last over 50 - 100 hours of screen time unless you are exceptionally bored or the drama cast involve your family, friends or idols. This drama is definitely worth watching.
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