Heartwrenching cycle of love and betrayal ended with poetic justice
The first time I watched this series it was such an emotional rollercoaster. Having watched it a second time, I am able to have a more detached perspective.The acting delivered here, particularly by the protagonists, was trully impressive to me. It was the reason I continued watching the drama in the first place, despite its emotionally draining tone. The story has some lighthearted moments, but overall it is a sad and tragic account of choices and their consequences and how destiny repeats itself.
XF is a sheltered princess used and sacrificed by two men she trust and loved, all in the struggle for power. Could they have done things differently? Maybe, maybe not. Both men had heavy burdens influencing their choices and thus decided that the end justified the means.
Even after what was supposed to be a fresh start, XF's journey is filled with heartbreak. She cannot escape the karmic relationship with LCY and falls once more in love with him, while LCY hurts and uses her as a pawn in his quest for ultimate power. LCY is also in love with her, yet his love is very selfish and all consuming.
I do not like tragic endings, but here I found it very fitting for the story and the characters' journey. XF was finally able to find peace and LCY was forced to live a long life without her.
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Every time I watch this show, it makes me feel pity for both of the main leads. Like I pity Xiaofeng because, her family was killed by the person she loved, but yet she couldn't hate him. I pity Li Chengyin, because he chose to betray Xiaofeng, and couldn't really get her love. Both of the main leads just make me feel like the other is a terrible person, like when I look from Li Chenyin's point of view, it makes me feel like that Xiaofeng is a bad person, but when I look at Xiaofeng's point of view, it made me feel like Li Chengyin was a bad person. I feel like Li Chengyin should have told Xiaofeng what he was thinking because it made Xiaofeng think that Li Chengyin hates her. I honestly don't know what was wrong with the queen's eyebrows, like it just looked funny. Not to mention but, I actually kind of liked the queen. I don't know why but the fact that she favors Xiaofeng more the Zhao Sese makes me happy. I feel that Xiaofeng shouldn't have killed herself in the end, I know she was doing it for the states but I think that after her death, it could have brought war again between the states. This show actually needs a season, of them reincarnating and just living a life without worries. Was this review helpful to you?
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Starting of the drama is good ,so fast they made up meet the leads without much entangled in the love triangle ,story was going so smooth till they fall into the oblivion river after that this drama getting so bored .. I didn't understand why not the writer bring their memories so soon though make them realised that they had connection between them but they took the story in different direction and then second lead who also betrayed her but she had soft corner for him as well as they had more scene together . Then when leads recalled each other the drama get over with the bad as well as sad ending .The Writer as well as the director didn't shown their love story much ,all the time they fight with each other and separated again and again .Few cutes scene were there among them but it didn't balance the drama .
A ver big disappointment with story.
I like lead actress acting ,she was good in all the way .
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Did I enjoy it? Yes. Why? Because I'm a sucker for these type of dumb plots, which I admittedly seen quite a few times. By this, I'm talking about memory loss, falling in love again, emperors that must be cruel to secure their throne, kind of helpless female lead that can only cry and forgive, etc). There were beautiful moments that triggered my tear ducts, but there are also moments that made me just fast forward. Maybe I'm dumb or disinterested but the politics didn't stick with me too much so I had a 75% grasp of what was happening politically and was here more for the romantic scenes.
In terms of the emotional roller coaster for viewers, I felt frustrated during the majority of the drama rather than nodding along and saying "Yeah, predictable plot but totally believable and they sold it to me, I can keep watching this bs." For example, there were a few times I was frustrated that Xiaofeng was so oblivious to what was going on, even if that's what her character is supposed to be like, which is unfortunate because I think the actress did phenomenally in every scene.
Another point of personal frustration (aka not a flaw in the production but rather as a heads up for viewers), as I was watching, the sweet moments that did exist between Li Chingye and Xiaofeng were enough to give me hope that maybe this is all leading to the ending that we all, if not most of us, want. The ending was unsatisfying to say the least.
I can't put it into words and maybe it's because I wanted a happy ending very badly, but the whole exposition leading up to the ending just didn't explain why it ended the way it did. It's not that I don't want to accept the ending, but it didn't make enough sense.
Despite me going on and on about how I didn't like the way things ended, I enjoyed the drama and finished it until the end. It is going to be a rough 52 episodes with a rough ending that matches how it's made you felt the whole series.
Li Chingye and Xiaofeng's characters were acted out well, and they're honestly what I kept coming back for.
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A tragedy that failed to touch the heart.
Plot: 7.5/10
Acting: 9/10
This drama has so much potential but they couldn’t execute it. The beginning was good and so was the last few episodes. But the middle was draggy and so many unnecessary scenes. The fact that both main characters had a messed up start but they lost their memories and was given a second chance. The writer could at least give us a once in a lifetime/until death do us part kind of love story before reviving their memories. That would have left a deeper impression on the audiences. However, they wasted it on her escaping the palace every night to go to a bar getting drunk with the same people. Or when the 2 leads meet they would bicker over nonsense.
Male lead: This character was the best part of the show. He was complex. He’s cruel, cunning, but for some reason we’re still rooting for him. We were able to witness his character development from beginning to end. Chen Xingxu did a great job here. Probably the only reason why I was able to get myself to finish.
Female lead: The actress herself was great. The character started out interesting. She was rebellious but naive and innocent. However, they didn’t give her any real character development until end. So for the most part of the show she was really boring to watch.
Second female lead: She was not the antagonist here, instead I feel so pity for her. She loved him with all her heart and was willingly to be the second wife. She didn’t want power or status, she just wants to be with the person she loves. However, he used her as a shield to protect Xiao Feng and every punishment goes to her. She did not deserved her ending.
Second male lead: This character was the worst! He was the shittiest to Xiao Feng. He was the one that threw her into Li’s scheme. Then he tried to revive the memory she jumped down the cliff to forget. No second male lead syndrome for me here. He deserved his ending.
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what i like about the show:
1. The lead has awesome chemistry
2. There acting is flawless and it will touch ur feeling and u wanna cry with them, will laugh with etc.
3. The story is definitely worth it, ending might be unexpected but its the most reasonable one. Even though its quite predictable yet it has the potential to keep u hooked up that's the specialty of this show.
4. There is no flaw in the story except i wish, i could see the uncut version.
Characters
Peng xiaoran: She is cheerful, carefree, lively, innocent, emotional and mischievous at the same time. They way she portrayed every emotion is so touching, u can literally feel her. U wont feel that she is a new comer....
Cheng Xing Xu: He nailed as the male lead, ruthless and cunning but loved the female lead immensely. I think in the whole show he is the biggest plotter.
Wei Qian Xiang : His character is very sweet, loved him to ...
But the chemistry between the lead is of different level.
i would have given this show more than 10 if there was an option to do so...hehehehehe...
will be my all time favorite.
Re-watch value: Definitely yes, this show is totally worth it.
I personally find is far better than AOL which was very illogical ...
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Very uneven quality
I have very mixed feelings about this drama. I really like that a lot of the shooting is done outdoors and the actors ride horses. A few fight scenes and battle scenes are shot quite well. A few plots are carried out very well and a few solutions are made to give the viewer satisfaction, but.... only a few.I had absolutely no interest in the fate of FL, who to me is a naive, spoiled, hysterical and boring character. I understand viewers who find her beautifully tragic, but her tragedy just doesn't speak to me.
What does speak to me is the story of ML, who is a remarkable, interesting character, who is full of a whole palette of colors and shades. To a large extent, he is the one who saves this drama for me. He is well acted and intriguing.
As for the music, it's ok, but I have a reservation about the lead track. I'm not accusing anyone of plagiarism, not at all, it just reminded me a lot of the music from the movie Red Cliff.
Is it worth watching a second time? I think it is. For me because of the ML, which is really interesting, which is very rare in dramas lately.
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Story/Plot: From the very beginning, the production marketed the drama as a tragedy. Most of the time--as many CDrama watchers would be familiar with--we are conned by the drama production by robbing our happy ending and resenting the writers for leaving us with heart break after 50-70 episodes. But GMP's strength always lied with it's tragic ending. You can even say that the story, narration and even the development are woven to give that exact ending, tragedy.I'd like to point out that Li Chengyin will always have a very complicated relationship with the viewers. It was easy to hate him because of all the things he did, not just to Xiao Feng but to everyone else around him. As Gu Xiao Wu, he was young and innocent but his choices has always been selfish. There were moments where his love for XF was borderline obsessive and toxic, one would think he didn't love her at all. But there are light indications that he did loved her, more so as Li Chengyin than he did when he was Gu Xiao Wu (he protected her in the Eastern Palace, he would always go out of his way to assist her, help her, guide her but most of all, he would always jump after her without hesitations whenever she jumps to her death).
In knowing of their sad ending, the audience relished on every interaction they had, whether it be shouting at each other, sneaking out of the palace together, slapping one another to downright XF stabbing LCY because we know that is all we'll ever get. No matter how the story pan, they can never be together in this life and that may have been the reason why I invested so much emotion to this drama to begin with. And it's not just the ending that is sad, watching XF trying to survive in the palace to LCY slow descend to evil had been heartbreaking since we saw them as innocent and naive in Danchi. We were all holding our breath to the moment they remember eveything. We anticipated it, but it didn't make it any less sad. But man, those editing between eps 45-52 were atrocious not to mention those cut scenes we were robbed off.
Acting/Cast: Chen Xing Xu and Peng Xiao Ran deserve all the praises for portraying LCY and XF. Especially since it was their first lead-role drama. They were amazing and I can't imagine another couple playing the leads as well as they did. Other cast were outstanding too.
Music: The music was great. It's the type of soundtract you keep on repeat long after the last episode had aired. Fave songs [First Encounter by Chen Xing Xu and Peng Xiao Ran] [Love Hurts - Female Version]
Rewatch Value: I'd say you rewatch it for the angst. Not much drama can give you as much heartache as GMP gave me. I you're looking for triggering some sad feels or just wanna have a good cry or two, then a must rewatch. I rewatched it solely to see CXX and PXR tbh. hahaha
Final words: I would have given it a 9 or even 10 if not for that lousy editing around the end episodes and the cut scenes we so deserved. But because we were robbed, I gave it 8.5 which is still higher than normal.
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⭐⭐⭐⭐This will end up being about 8 stars for me. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Not far into this and I've been shattered into a million pieces & I like it. ;-) This show is so beautifully done. You KNOW where they are going in this show (tragedy x100) and yet you can't seem to look away. The acting is fantastic and the chemistry between characters is awesome. I do have some nit-picky issues with the show on a whole, but nothing worth mentioning at this point. I'm just going to sit back and continue to watch and let my heart hurt.
03/22/19 So, I've seen up to ep 48 at this point and I believe there are 4 episodes left. This (as expected) is most definitely a tragedy of epic proportions. Everything about this show is beautiful and heart breaking.
My problems with this show are as follows.
✘ The first 10 episodes are truly amazing. You see a build up, an epic crescendo, and then a crash back down to earth. The next 35+ episodes? Not so much. We see a LOT of blah blah blah our main girl getting stepped on and left out of the loop, therefore doing stupid stuff in her ignorance of what LCY is thinking.
✘ We're supposed to feel a sense of the two main characters (even with their loss of memories) building up to falling back into a deep love again so that when they regain their memories the heartache will coming crashing in all over again. However, you only feel to an extent that LCY has fallen in love with XF even though he treats her like dirt in order to protect her and further his revenge agenda.
✘ Point #2 above is a major problem because as a viewer you then have to watch episode upon episode of LCY subtly loving XF yet XF getting mistreated by LCY and therefore cannot truly open her heart to him because she doesn't see what WE as viewers see. It makes for an impossible build up of emotions that we're expected to feel because we know that no way in hell would XF fall for LCY based on her own perspective. As we know, she can't see what we see.
✘ Finally, the last issue is pacing. It seems a lot of time is spent on LCY convincing the world he loves SeSe and despises XF (again, to keep XF safe and to further his agenda) and not so much on the tragic love story we were expecting because of the AH-Mazing first opening episodes before the jump into Oblivion Falls. (no idea of the real name, but I like Oblivion Falls. LOL)
✘ On another note, an issue I also have is that I am on 48 out of 52 episodes and there is a LOT of plot points out there and I'm unsure if 4 short episodes is enough to tie off all those plots without rushing and being done unsatisfyingly (totally a word!) to us as fans/viewers. Pacing would have affected this imho.
?I LOVED LOVED the first 15-ish episodes. I've enjoyed the rest for sure. A few changes by the writers and this show would have hit my list of top 6 favorites, but it's still worth the watch for sure.?
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A supposed wonderful love story shattered tragically by inexorable revenge. + Prepare your Hearts~
Just 1 piece of advice. If you ever encounter my review and is contemplating whether to watch this show or not due to its obvious sad ending; Then I highly encourage you to do so because you're about to miss a good drama if you don't!!!I have always hated such tragic and sad ending stories ever since, and this is most probably the very 1st time I was not able to feel overly disappointed and irritated on how such story ended.
Even though this drama showed cruelty, betrayal and revenge over and over again, the entire context will just make you understand how and why they have decided to do it that way. I admit that I terribly hated it at first but eventually you'll realize how brilliant the writing of this story is and how well thought the entire drama is (story wise). Yes!! It may not be the most reasonable and logical plot you usually encounter out there but this story surely offered something new; it was an act of driving a drama in a complete misery without dragging and making the entire story non-sensical instead making it substantial and worthwhile.
To give you all more insights— The Male Leads' of this drama were all highly conflicted. The ML is highly driven by revenge and eventually greed that he's ready to take every possible step needed (even if it has to inflict inexplicable damage to his most beloved one) just to achieve his goal. While the 2nd ML was initially burdened by his supposed fate and responsibility that made him cause great pain to his loved one but immediately realizes everything and sorted to doing all his best to make sure that the FL won't suffer from any of it over again.
This drama can make you feel how grief and pain truly is in the most heartbreaking way. How sorrowful love can be. and how can revenge and vengeance ruin everything for you slowly but surely. The amount of anguish it can make you feel may be overwhelming at times but this drama was able to balance it by presenting lovely and bickering scenes from the Main Leads as well as giving us reasons why it has to be done in the first place.
One of the major issue I found over the Protagonists of this show is... ML lack the ability to express his feelings does making the FL even more indifferent from him. While the FL is simply too carefree, earnest and pure to even do something bad or even realize all the scheming happening around her; which causes their great misunderstandings and eventually grew them apart.
Story - 10, Up until this very moment I'm still thinking whether to give this drama a perfect 10 or not. One thing about this show is that, as you watch through it you'll realize the real purpose of the story and how it was created while thinking of the best possible outcome on how to make the story beautiful yet heart-wrenching. It may sound cruel and heartbreaking (cause it is lol) but that's also the greatest asset of this drama. If only they gave us happy ending. ><
Acting - 10, The set of actors and actresses on this show were really good. They all delivered their characters with such intensity and accuracy that you'll see yourself getting drawn to them naturally and effortlessly.
Music - 10, I'm so drawn to the Music in this drama. Specially those sad and dramatic scene inserts. I often find myself getting all emotional and teary-eyed about it. Kudos to the music and sound department.
Rewatch Value - 10 Unexpedtedly, I enjoyed this drama so much to the point where I don't feel any hatred and remorse after finishing it. I'll surely still watch it if given a chance and that's because of its overall good story progression and plot.
Overall - 10, Despite the sad ending and heartbreaking scenes, this drama proves that a good writing and script can cover and mend all that. It is a 1 in a million drama everyone should definitely watch. Don't get intimidated by its outcome and instead enjoy the long-ass-ride. I swear to god, it's all worth it~!!
IF you find my review helpful please let me know.
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Excellent for most part except the end
This drama was excellent for the first 42 episodes. In my mind then, I was going to rate it a full 10. On the positive aspects, the lead actress was stunningly pretty and the lead actor very handsome, and they had amazing on-screen chemistry which made their flirting scenes very romantic and sometimes amusing. The story was interesting, romantic and full of suspense, characters were complex and the cinematography was great. If there had been a tightening of the plot, this drama could have rivaled some of the other top drama productions.But after the 42nd episode, it started going downhill, the plot weakened and it ended with a ridiculous ending. It was melodramatic. Xiao Feng spent a lot of time with Gu Jian but the two did not have much on-screen chemistry. There was a lot of screaming and shouting at each other. The three lead characters were going absolutely crazy, each insisting on getting ahead with their own ways and refusing any compromise. The ending was meant to be dramatic but it ended up as an anti-climax. After all that ChengYin did for her, I was expecting Xiao Feng would eventually be won over. It reminded me of the ending in 'The Rise of Phoenixes' - a let-down.
The christian teaching of forgive and forget could give the characters a life. The princess was so driven by hatred, she did not know how to love properly. The crown prince was so possessive and vindictive. Had he cut some slack, the princess might have been won over.
If you absorbed by the tearjerking you may overlook some of the flaws in the plot.
Chinese dramas always mixes in some ridiculous wuxia medical methods which always mysteriously cure someone of severe injuries. And this drama is no exception. I can accept this in a fantasy (xianxia) story. For a supposedly historical romance epic, it spoils the realism of it. And the 'forget thy love' ravine was a further strain on this.
Additionally, there was some major illogical views - the crown prince pretended to be nasty to the crown princess in order to keep her from harm. I do not understand this logic as no one was planning to harm her. In fact, it made the empress more angry with his concubine and made enemies out of the princess and the concubine.
There were a lot of stupidity in the story. The crown prince was plotting for the empress to fall into his trap of trying to assassinate him. Yet there were no hidden bodyguards near enough to protect him and he ended up severely injured.
A weak script spoiled it for the production team. However, it is still worth watching if you are not too critical.
I thought I was going to re-watch it but after the ridiculous ending, I decided not to because it had spoiled my mood and impression of the drama.
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