Excellent viewong
Just completed watching Princess Wei Young, another Mandarin costume drama. This time on Netflix. A 54 episodes series of an absolutely absorbing tale of love, treachery, sabotage, edge of the seat stuff. Excellent acting and chemistry of the two leads Luo Jin (dubbed the King of Cry by me from his role in Royal Nirvana) and Tiffany Tang. The two leads also eventually got married in real life 🥰. The wuxia scenes were also excellent ably supported by a stellar cast with some light hearted and heart warming scenes too. Costumes were exquisite. Background music was also enchanting.Was this review helpful to you?
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A common theme is that despite the stiffness and coldness of the characters when they find someone that they are comfortable with they act quite silly and I found it very cute.
Plot-wise, the start of the drama is heavy with conflict and twists and turns. I thought we would be in for more of that as the story went on, but the big guns of trouble that were brewing on the horizon ended up to be nothing. I’m glad that it wasn’t all heavy going all the way.
Towards the end anything that happens results in Wei Young being accused and dragged before the court – it seriously got so repetitive that I just had to laugh.
I’m not one to notice fancy scenery and filming but this show is really such a nice thing to look at. It makes mundane moments tantalising. I usually struggle to connect with Chinese over the top filming, but this show really captured some amazing shots and feelings with their thoughtful production and directing.
Servants
I was impressed with the servant’s immediate loyalty and sense of duty.
Heroine
Our heroine is indeed quick witted. The reviews did not overestimate her. She knows how to get her way very nicely amidst the bad guys wielding their power.
I appreciated her familiar way of treating those who favoured her. She teased them and fooled around with them all the time.
Tuoba Jun
“Destiny? I only believe in a man’s will.”
Sometimes Tuoba Jun says the right thing with the right smirk.
“How can there be disappointment when there was no hope to begin with?”
This actor is probably one of the few that looks better in historical Chinese hairstyle than a modern one.
Prince of Nan-An
This guy does not make good first impressions. But as the story goes on, I quite liked his subtle machinations and the way he played the others. The actor has a good way of playing his character to stand out yet be very secretive too. He has a number of lines that are really meaningful and his delivery is very nuanced. As it goes along, he becomes a standard villain type, but he had some really great moments earleir on.
Secondary Romances
Li Min De and Tuoba Di are very skippable initially – but as they go on, I appreciate their mature take on love. They are both emotionally impressive and sacrificing for the sake of their respective unrequited loves.
“We are both so silly.”
Jun Tao and Cheng De were mostly slapstick.
“You’re womanly. Very womanly.”
Korean vs. Chinese Drama
The make up on the Chinese actors as well as their hair is so caked on it seems fake and it really annoys me.
Romance. I have found that Chinese dramas like to have an extended rocky/cold relationship and then when it’s solid it’s so picture perfect solid it seems unrealistic.
I appreciated how they kept coming back to the zither as a focal point of their romance. As a musician I found it very touching indeed.
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There was one thing not convinced me that the enemy keep using the same face mask plot to disguise ppl appearance and repeating the same tactic many times by che yun jun and yet nobody discover that made me a bit frustrated.
Music and songs are good .
The costumes of this drama are well done.
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Couldn’t stop watching
I really had no idea what to expect with this drama..I had watched and enjoyed a few C-dramas but I was never as engrossed in one as I was with this.It does have some shamelessly romantic fluff in there (like way to give me unrealistic expectations for men) and While I wouldn’t call this a masterpiece or the best drama writing wise, I just couldn’t help but be addicted and drawn into it.
My biggest complaint (and in the grand scheme it’s a small one) was just how cartoony the action is...I’m not even kidding everyone moves like a freaking airbender, and it’s ridiculous...I almost stopped watching the first episode from it..glad I waited and didn’t judge the overall quality based on the action scenes.
Also..I didn’t exactly get bored, but things got a little repetitive with the main character constantly getting framed and having to prove herself innocent.
Now, back to the good.
The costumes are nothing short of gorgeous...The main leads have incredible chemistry and I honestly believe that’s why this drama works so well..there’s many other very likable characters and even a twist villain I wouldn’t have expected.
Definitely give this drama a shot. I’m not saying it’s perfect, but I think it’s worth your time.
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This review may contain spoilers
This drama is definitely one of the best I've ever seen. The story is beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time. If you're looking for a strong female lead, a romantic, funny, yet serious male lead, and a villain that is so cunning you end up loving, then this is the drama you should head for. For people looking for a happy ending, I would say try this out but don't expect a "they lived happily ever after" type of ending, it is more of a bittersweet ending for me. My heart never seemed to rest and my tears wouldn't stop at some point but that was expected. Some things to talk about tho, the first few episodes are pretty boring, though maybe some people might find it important to the plot. But there are many things that didn't really sit well with me. In the story the main girl's name isn't actually weiyoung but they never really put any effort in revealing her real name, which you can only catch a little but at the beginning. Not only that, the main girl never seems to have a proper resting period before another problem is thrown at her.
The ending was pretty rushed but it still concluded in a semi rational way so I give it a pass. Overall I would recommend this to anyone because it really is a nice story.
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A revenge plot like any other that revolves around the royals and nobles. I'd say I loved the story.
There were loads of repetitive plots that involves palace/family conspiracies and hence the reduction of rating for the story. They were really repetitive, especially when the conspiracies thought of by the female villains was really simple and unentertaining. However, it fully showed how remarkable the female lead was. How smart, fierce and strong she was. And it was really gratifying to see how Princess WY turns the tables against the ones who framed her. She is kind, but once a villain goes over her limits, she doesn't forgive. She is not the usual lead who is all about justice and leave her villains alone so that they could harm her over and over again. (Although some still do, because they have a "huge life" (a direct translation of 'ming da' which means that they are lucky enough to not die easily in chinese)
The love lines was really cute and I really enjoyed the interactions between the two leads. Especially so when I know they are dating irl. I ship them so bad.
Acting:
In my opinion the acting in episode 1 was so bad. I couldn't tolerate it and dropped the drama straight away. Only to come back because of the main leads who ended up dating irl, cause I was just so curious about the male lead who succeeded in getting pretty Tang Yan as his girlfriend.
The 1st episode feels a little awkward, a little pretentious, maybe because I had no idea what was going on.
But I'm glad I gave the next episode a chance, and I got hooked.
The chemistry between the 2 leads was really good. The crying scenes, anger scenes were so good it got me hooked. I cried withe the characters, I felt sad when they were sad and happy when they were. I'd say their acting deserves a good rating. I had all sorts of emotions when I watched it, my mood went up and down along with it.
But there were a few supporting actors with awkward acting. Hence the reduction in rating. (One of them would be Cheng De (Tuoba Jun's follower), who I found his facial expressions to be really awkward.)
Music:
I did enjoy the bgm, opening and ending songs but did not really pay much attention to it.
Rewatch:
Overall this was a really good and intelligent drama. I rewatched it myself becuase the romance scenes were worth the time.
Of course there were still flaws and loopholes in the story like any other, but I'll overlook them because the story itself was still amazing.
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Intriguing
Wow this is first time i so enjoyed a drama of this many episodes,I so loved the pace of this drama it literally kept you watching and intriguing. The story line was a bit different and the characters were nothing much but exceptional, they played they part so well.
It had everything in it love, hate, vengeance, greed, revenge, you name it this drama delivered. The setting was really good and the way they loved stood the test of time and every single difficult moment together.
I did find it a bit annoying that no matter how much trouble the sisters went through to get rid of weiyoung yhey failed bit somehow they so blinded by they own greed that could not accept they wrongdoing.
Although the ending was not what I expected. She did come out stronger than ever.
Overall a good watch and well paced, no dragging or reapting of dialogues.
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This review may contain spoilers
Underdeveloped story filled with clichés and steretypical troupes
I wasn't attracted to this drama when Netflix kept putting it up on my recommendation because, despite having a female protagonist, I had a feeling it would just be another stereotypically C-PeriodDrama offering that plays out in a male dominated storyline where the female protag still needs men to rescue her at every turn. In the first few minutes, it seemed that this might not be the case as the princess protag was actually cherished even though she wasn't a prince (where usually having a prince is the utmost achievement in Asian monarchies). Plus she seemed to be able to take care of herself as she displayed some martial arts abilities. Unfortunately, an episode later my suspicions were proven to be correct and I realised that the first few minutes had been lies to bait me in. I did end up watching the rest of this series because I have a certain weakness for men in period drama WITH LONG HAIR!!! And Princess Weiyoung, unfortunately, really really delivered on this!Firstly, don't watch it if you're expecting a series with a good female protag. She's not. Otherwise, read on for spoilers...
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To say that I was disappointed with the storyline, or the lack thereof, is an understatement. Maybe it was too much for me to expect that the trigger for the princess's journey would also be the task that was on her mind. Because of the machinations of an ambitious general, her family gets wiped out in a fake coup allegation and her people are enslaved. Her father and grandmother are killed before her very eyes and the people involved are seared in her memory. True, her grandmother had advised her to not pursue revenge and instead pursue a simple life of stability and happiness but when she meets someone whose identity is, by a quirk of fate, quite intimately tied with the perpetrators of the dastardly deeds she had decided on exacting justice (because what is revenge but justice obtained through other means?) for her father and her people already... so why didn't she commit?
For the rest of the fifty-four series long blah we get a repetitive cycle of Weiyoung being framed then saved, framed then saved, framed then saved... framed then saved, repeat, rinse and repeat cycle again. She is a passive recipient of events and plots happening to her and is able to escape from them from many, many deus ex machinas interventions. When she elicits the attention of a prince, of course the stereotypically favoured heir of the emperor, she gets support and a savior all in one. There seems to be nothing done in her part to source out whom her enemies and allies really are, what their weaknesses and strengths are, and what resources are available to herself to really use. When one plots after another is resolved in her favour, she doesn't seek to tidy up the loose ends to ensure she is not a victim to the same tactics again ie using the same disguise techniques to imitate Weiyoung and implicate her in a royal murder. And like a bad Mary Sue plot (which is SO synonymous of Asian writing, unfortunately) we get every powerful male in the region lusting after her and fighting each other to have her and, of course, women who are mad at her because they lust after those men, with the exception of the princess Tuo Ba Di who does not resent her but is instead her ally.
I expected a series about a resourceful and clever princess who somehow fights her way to clearing her father's name and that of her kingdom's. What I got instead was a series of a trophy woman who is at the mercy of other women's jealousies and is saved by the men whom those women lust after. None of this is new. What is worst is the methods are always the same. Each. And. Every. Time. Something happens. Weiyoung is blamed. An evidence is planted. She begs for time to investigate and exonerate herself. She is helped/rescued or she has planned a counter from the beginning because of some BS reasoning and lack of logic but in the end she is cleared. The martial arts skill we saw in her at the beginning is nowhere to be found again later on and an episode where the schemes pivots on a maid copying her disaster relief plan was just WTF. Maids aren't educated to read or write well, if at all. The Li family themselves noted how Weiyoung could've come up with such an elegant plan given her country education so how the eff would a simple maid have been able to read her writing and copy it out speedily and legibly in the first place?!?!
She ends up being a personal servant to an emperor who was ignorant of his general's, and his son's, ambitions and agrees to free her people from slavery but will not clear her father's name of the fake rebellion and, as a princess of Northern Liang, she sees absolutely nothing wrong with that. JC. Has she no pride? The emperor basically claimed the iron ore mine, that this plot was borne from, allowed his subordinates to be the ones who dirtied their hands and still kept the credit. She saw nothing wrong with that! Even when she does reveal who she is to her beau, she still does not mention her original name. By the end of the series, we get her giving her conditions to prince Nan An that her people and father be cleared of this fake treasonous coup but we never get to hear any edict on that front. Like everything in Asian cinemas, the male POV takes over to the point where the struggle becomes Tuo Ba Jun's struggle for the good of the Wei empire (the very ones who took over her Northern Liang empire) and he becomes the main character and we never really remember her ID as the Northern Liang princess anymore. Goddamn, I was cursing and laughing at the ridiculous plots every single episode, especially the latter episodes that insinuate she has terrible calligraphy. It was just a way to show how the man is superior to her, even having to teach her how to write calligraphy when she would've had the same royal education that he had and she also had no problems writing out her disaster relief plan.
Having said that, I did watch it till the end as there were a few promising arcs that I was hoping the show would develop: Minde and princess Tuo Ba Di, general Chi Yun Nan and Hong Luo and Cheng De and Jun Tao. Two out of three ain't bad. The writers should've really went into the potential arc for Chi Yun Nan and Hong Luo though as I found her background and their relationship interesting and there was a lot of baiting in their interactions to suggest that he has feelings for her but, alas, the ineffectual princess and her Marty Stu beau dominated the screen. Pity... because HIS HAIR!!! And he has earrings!!!
What I was pleasantly surprised about was the prince Nan An character though. He was very nuanced and incredibly unpredictable. I was about to dump this series until we got to the episode where we discovered his childhood trauma. Then this char became interesting. Plus... HIS HAIR IS GORGEOUS :D And I was also glad to see Li Chang Le drop the stereotype of an eternally-longing-woman-with-an-unrequited-love and just drop that obsession already. Nevermind that she swung to hate instead, at least she broke out of that eternal limerence state, unlike her cousin Chang Ru.
Watch value is probably a 2 or 3/10
Rewatch is a 1/10
Presence of male chars with long hair 10/10
These don't add up to the 1/10 that I gave this series but that's coz the only thing that made sense were the hair anyway :P
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This review may contain spoilers
Repetitive schemes
First 20 - 25 max episodes are interesting, then later half the story gets too boring, repetitive, ExaggeratedFL has good relations wid almost all the other characters, 1st half she was good later not that interesting
ML didnt leave a prominent mark in whole drama, although his acting is good
Actor who acted as Tuoba Yu's was on point in all his scenes
Chang le's costumes when she becms wife of ML were beautiful, it suited her well
Actor who played Chang ru((seen her in "love020" thr she played almost similar character)), in this drama acted pretty well, but her character is a person wid pretty face but an evil, utter evil heart...... no humanity, shz so obsessed wid tuoba yu ((tuoba yu wid FL, chang le wid ML)) n for it she does all kinds of despicable things, the others - chang le, tuoba yu also are the same
i specifically mentioned her cuz she acted pitiful, no one knew of her schemes till almost the end, that means she acted so well in front of all as well as an actor
Overall the drama would hve been more interesting if the story had variations & not repetitions wid same characters plottings, n FL lead as the culprit every single time
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This review may contain spoilers
Well, Another Chinese Cinderella drama to its finest!!!
So Ima tell ya what I think about this drama. First off, I will definitely say its a Chinese adaptation of Cinderella. FL became lowest illegitament class daughter, gets plotted pick on by step mom and sister. Some light comedy romance but mostly serious politics and mainly Revenge/Love driven story. There are lots of happy tear moments and some Angst which no one really likes but dont let it turn you off. Moral of the story is, don't be a doush or payback is a bitch!!! I don't really like drama without happy endings but this is one of the few exceptions. It's a bittersweet happy ending at that. If you haven't seen it at this time of review, even in 2020, a 2016 drama of this is remarkable, I definetly enjoy most of it.Was this review helpful to you?
