The Song of Glory

No good deed goes unpunished.

This is a melodramatic story about a badass assassin Shen Lige and Liu Yikang, titled Prince Pengcheng who was best known for reforms that heralded a golden age for the short lived Liu Song dynasty (420-479). In real life, Liu Yikang was probably a dull and dusty fellow who promulgated legislation and ably shouldered the burden of tedious administrative tasks artfully dodged by his brother the allegedly sickly emperor Wen. In this romanticized account, Pengcheng falls in love with the beautiful and deadly Lige, who helps him drain the swamp and weed out a bunch of corrupt and rebellious aristrocrats who are disenfranchised by his reforms.

Shen Lige (Li Qin) must be one of the strongest, most badass, most lethal and most gorgeous female leads of c-drama. She makes a grand entrance and her character is awesome up until the bitter end and is the strongest selling point of this drama. Li Qin's acting is so superb her Lige is powerful, engaging, fierce yet still feminine and her expressions are nuanced and emotionally on point. Initially I was not convinced on her pairing with Qin Hao - he is obviously quite a bit older and her "lao tou"/old dude jokes did not help. But Qin Hao is a very compelling actor and in no time, I was rooting for Lige and Pengcheng. While their chemistry is not sizzling or deeply passionate, they are both smart characters that are clearly on the same wavelength and make a formidable team. That said, I feel an actor of Qin Hao's caliber was somewhat wasted on a role such as Pengcheng - he would have made a far more compelling villlain. I also did not like the noticeable skin smoothing they did on him which obscured his micro expressions.

All of the characters in this drama are just simply fantastic. How can you not love Prince Jingling who has the best, most subtly comical facial expressions? Or the completely adorable, wholesome loving, humble devoted goodness that is Shen family? Or the mischevious Zijin and Lige's loyal assassin fraternity? There are so many wonderful, well written characters that are charismatically portrayed and interact with so much chemistry and rapport that you can't help falling in love with them. Guard your hearts carefully though because one of the key takeaways of this drama is that no good deed goes unpunished and compassion and mercy is repaid with treachery and murder. Of course we can't expect all of the characters to survive but there have to be enough survivors to keep us invested in the drama and this one barely makes it. The deaths also have to be "good deaths" at the hands of a worthy opponent and not at the hands of say a puny mutant ninja flying cockroach.

Very much like its predecessor Weiyoung, the villains in this drama are quite enjoyable almost cartoonlike caricatures with very dramatic, somewhat comical facial expressions. Lu Yuan is an excellent, overpowering villian. And Consort Sun relishes hamming it up so much at many points she appears on the verge of cracking up with laughter. However, there are also too many repetitive petty villains with cliché motives and too many lives. The main villains and in particular the mastermind in black (whose identity was obvious quite early on) are interesting characters that should have been better developed instead of digressing into sibling rivalry, green eyed monster and excessive bitch slapping tropes. Unfortunately, the villain spotlight was hijacked by the very pretty Shen Leqing, a well acted but two dimensional character with pedestrian motives. I guess in life and in art, men can see better than they can think.

The story writing is where this exhausting melodrama falls down hard. The plot is predictable and smacks of Weiyoung. Heavy suspension of disbelief is needed because from the get go, a lot of things that don't make sense happen. I rolled my eyes so often that I can no longer tell if my right and left eyeballs have exchanged sockets! But the acting is so delightful and there are so many thrilling moments that for the first 20+ episodes I went with it. At some point however, the excessive plotting and the rollercoaster ride of emotional ups and downs as beloved characters are mowed down with reckless impunity while petty villains survive against improbable odds becomes simply too much. The drama peaks in the mid-30s after the most well developed villain is felled and it further loses momentum after some of my best loved characters are gratuitously killed off. It limps through some repetitive sub-plots towards an unexpectedly good ending which I almost missed because I wasn't that motivated to finish. I find the writers of this drama guilty of writing under the influence of alcohol. They tortured my eyeballs with cruel and reckless depravity and are hereby sentenced to writing commercials for the next 15 years. The surprisingly fitting ending qualifies them for probation after 8.0 years, which is also my rating for this drama.

There seems to be some confusion over the ending so I am copying my a spoiler tagged explanation of what happened from the threads to the comment section of this review.

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Too high expectations leads to disappointment

The story is about a Prince who is trying to make reform to government and is meeting constant objections from the ministers who are not happy with him changing the status quo. His only option is to align himself with the Shen family and get their massive military power as his backing. Good thing for this is the previous Emperor has left an edict bestowing marriage between the 4th Prince and the daughter of the Shen family.

The FL (Li Ge) is an orphan raised by a wondering Shifu. She, her sisters, and brothers were raised and trained as assassins that go after Lords and ministers who ignore the blight of the common people and enrich themselves. To this object, their biggest target, and the worst of the of them all, the one born into privilege and power but is weak and corrupt, who only knows how to protect these ministers, is a Prince. To be more precise it is the 4th Prince Peng Cheng.
Hence the drama starts with our assassins, acting as a dance group, get themselves invited to said Prince’s place for the Consort Dowager’s birthday. Here is where my problem starts, the lead assassin Li Ge(Li Qin) is on the roof behind where the Royal family is sitting, the rest of the female assassins are on stage performing. You’d expect, for someone who has been preparing to kill this target for well over a year, would take this opportunity when they were distracted watching the dance and everyone is relaxed to jump down from the roof and shoot him straight. No- what happened was while she is up on the roof, the female dancers threw away their costumes and shot arrows toward the stage the Royal Family was sitting at. What happens when something like this happens? Obviously, everyone comes to attention, guards rushed in and surrounded the Royals, and this is when the FL decided to jump off the roof and shoot her arrow. It is so illogical, I caught myself screaming “why didn’t you shoot from the roof?!” at my unsuspecting screen. I was upset to have met such an outrageous thing in the first episode. But I will say this, if you leave common sense out the door, the entire assassination performance was eye catching. As you may have guessed, the year-long planned assassination went south real fast. We see a lot of fighting scenes here; I am a sucker for those, and they were pretty good.
Anyway, after the failed assassination a lot more story went on and I met my second problem. FL was trying to ambush and kill a minister that has killed one of her sisters in front of her in that faithful night, and while she is at it she runs into, you guessed it, 4th Prince in disguise. I should point out that said disguise is a mustache. Not a full-blown beard but a thin mustache. And FL did not recognize him. They made such a big show in the first episode about how they planned this assassination for a year and our lead assassin did not recognize her target because he had a mustache. [Sigh] May I ask how they had planned this assassination? Did they not do any recon? Were they told to shoot at the one sitting in the middle? How the bloody hell do you not know what the person you are supposed to kill looks like?
You will consistently run into illogical plots/scenes like the ones I point out above throughout the drama. Once or twice may be annoying but it’s forgivable if there are other exceptional stories to make up for it. But this drama neither had the sense to limit its flaws nor did it have the solid interesting plot to fall back on.

You might say I’m nitpicking, but I assure you I’m not. This drama, which is studded with talent, suffered from truly poor script. Honestly, it devolved fast with its regurgitated plot, the never-ending cycle of set-up, getting caught, getting free, getting set up again, crying, getting free, getting set up again. The plot became unoriginal, the dialogue unimaginative, the scenes draggy and the whole drama became riddled with clichés. I at one point even watched a few of the episodes without subtitles, since I was confident, I would not miss anything important. To add to this, one of the major antagonist was a “love rival”. Imagine writing in a harem drama in this setting. There are a million dramas with this same plot already, why would you bring such cliched story to a drama that should have focused more on the politics and the reforms and basically anything else especially since the FL was supposed to be a badass.
The top acting could not save this drama. I mean what can these actors do with such truly abysmal writing. They are actors not miracle workers - to be fair I count it as a miracle I watched it this far and it’s all credit to their performance.

Another issue is the palace design. This created a great disconnect with me. Don’t get me wrong, it was beautifully designed. It had pools in the rooms, huge sculptures, and I would have been impressed with it if it was a wuxia drama. However, for something that is supposed to be a historical, this did not have the beauty and authenticity of ancient Chinese architecture. I like the feeling of ancient palace designs, the aura, and the mood it sets - this one did not do that for me.
As for music, they had one. There was one song that played on a loop through the entire drama. Nice song, but it was just that one. They may have thrown in another one in there, but I did not notice.

As if I didn’t have my share of issues with this drama, they went a step further and added split screens (side-by-side shots) like a music video. If they had done a fade-out shot, I would have thought I transmigrated back to the early 2000s.

I had such a huge expectation for this drama and what a letdown it was.

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Amazing Acting | Brilliant Ending

This is the story of Liu Yikang, a real historical figure in the Liu Song Dynasty (420-479 AD). It was one of the most tumultuous eras of Chinese history. The aristocrats were wealthy and powerful, and the commoners were poor and suppressed. Parricides, filicides and fratricides were rampant. Historically Liu Yikang’s life ended tragically, killed by his own beloved and trusted brother The Emperor. The drama stops short of his tragic end (fortunately or unfortunately?).

In this drama, a lot of the events and villains are fictionalized. Though Liu Yikang (played by Qin Hao) is a real figure historically, his beloved wife Shen Li Ge (played by Li Qin) and her family are fictional. Despite their more than 10 years age difference, Qin Hao and Li Qin have very courteous chemistry together as a couple as there are no passionate kisses nor hugs (just a peck on the lips or a lean on the shoulder). Nonetheless, such chemistry doesn’t reduce our enjoyment of the plot and story. There are quite a few nail-biting close calls and frustrating near misses scenes throughout the drama, keeping the viewers sitting at the edge of the couch and captivating our full attention.

The drama starts with a bang, introducing Shen Li Ge as a beautiful and talented assassin. Li Qin is so beautiful that she looks amazing in every costume and hairstyle that she wears. As a fearless badass, Li Qin is convincing without losing her elegance. Her acting is on the notch.

Qin Hao is a veteran actor. He has the charisma as a powerful ruler. At the beginning of the drama, many viewers complain that Qin Hao is too mature to play the role. But Liu Yikang was exactly as this age during the time of the story. As the story develops, Qin Hao melts together as the Liu Yikang character; he gives a very convincing performance.

Both Shen Li Ge and Liu Yikang are facing a faceless mastermind. Despite taking down various powerful aristocrats who conspire to hurt them and their family, the plot continues to the very end, eventually revealing the identity of the mastermind behind all the destruction and killings, and his motivation for doing so. Though going through a lot of hardship and heartaches, Shen Li Ge and Liu Yikang combat the villains hand in hand and continue to outwit them with their determination and conviction.

This drama is filled with tropes, such as evil sister, falling off cliff (but not dead), loss of memory, accidentally kisses etc. There are also multiple unnecessary deaths just to make the characters martyrs. Many of the logic is illogical with flaws and plot holes. By the end of the story, there are still multiple unexplained loose strings.

I believe the visual director has had a field day with the palace décor. This is the first time I have ever seen such European inspired décor of the palaces with giant statues and water fountains. The mother consort’s clothing even matches her walls and furniture which may be a bit on the wild side of the imagination.

The ending is very typical of Chinese dramas – open to interpretations. Overall, if you like slimy infallible villains who always seem to outsmart the good guys, you may find this an exciting watch. If you’re an emotional person and have a tendency to invest deeply into likable characters, you may be in for some heartaches. For me, this is quite a good watch mainly because of the two main characters, Shen Li Ge and Liu Yikang and the fine acting of the actors.

With my epiphany which came one day later after the final episode, I find the ending brilliant. This is a drama strongly recommended (despite the tropes).

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Greater than the sum of its parts

After an emotional roller coaster ride and having invested so much time into watching this drama over the past month or so, it's only fair that I write something about it.

Story - Based on a real-life historical figure (google Liu Yi Kang), with added spice by the scriptwriters, this is a semi-biographical and mostly fictional story about love and betrayal, court intrigue and political rivalry.

Acting - Superb and on point by every single member of the cast. You will learn to adore the protagonists and despise the antagonists with equal tenacity (and savagery).

Casting - The cast looked neither out of place nor out of depth. Kudos to the production team for selecting the right people for their respective roles.

Music - Personally felt drawn to the closing credits' song (which is also the main love theme), Hiding My Heart by Bibi Zhou. BGM is generally dramatic with certain tender moments throughout.

Overall:
What it is - Serious and intense, strong and courageous FL, intelligent and stoic ML, clever and ruthless villains, excellent martial arts choreography, and probably the central theme of love based upon mutual understanding and respect that ultimately culminates in sacrifice for the greater good.

What it isn't - Light-hearted drama, weak and silly protagonists and antagonists, poorly executed action sequences, bad CGI, monotonous dialogue

-SPOILER ALERT-

This drama had a really good start, the first 20 episodes were outstanding. Action-packed and fast paced.

Then it slowed down in the next 10 episodes to focus on court machinations. Plenty of dialogues and unraveling of plots.

The following 10 episodes picked up the pace against the backdrop of full scale war.

Finally catastrophe, in the closing stages, resulting in a hugely tragic and dissatisfying end.

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Waste of time

At first I enjoyed this drama, there were some twists and turns and then it became quite repeated and predictable to the extent where I was just skipping many scenes. Although, you can tell what will happen next but it was still a bit enjoyable until they decided to “fix” the viewer’s prediction with an awful ending in a failed attempt to throw people off their tail. My expression at the end wasn’t of sadness but was “Is this what i spent time watching for many hours?”
It’s time to start checking the end of these dramas so you don’t get disappointed. I’m done, it would have have been slightly acceptable if it was just a sad ending but it turned out to be unreasonable. This drama is a total waste of time. If you want to waste your time and piss yourself off at the end...then, watch it.

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This drama is very good for the most part, for so many eps. I have to say that the ending was such a let down. I will go to more details about it laters.

Story: Female lead Shen Li ge is an assassin. The male lead Peng chang wang is a king of a city.( to me his identity his kind of confusing... hes not the official king yet he still has officials met with him regarding poltics etc) The female lead wants to kill Peng Chang wang , but she fails and one of her friends die. Female lead takes on her identity to become her , because her dying wish was for her to find her long lost parents. Female lead finds warmth through her new family. At the same time the " younger daughter" who isnt blood related ( not 100% is whether she isnt/or not) gets jealous for all the attention Shen li ge gets. The person that killed her friend aka evil dude is named Lu Yuan. Shen Li ge is trying to do everything she can to get him to face the punishment he deserves, and at the same time the King ( peng chang wang ) is also trying to collect the evidence of all the evil of Lu Yuan. so the female and male lead becomes friends without knowing each other identity. Shen Li ge ends up marrying the king , and she changes the way she views of him.

one big main focus is encounters with Lu Yuan, trying to collect his evidence. Shen Li ge is so bad ass , I love her. There are many fighting scenes with her and Lu Yuan. She is a true heroine. I love her character. The king is also really kind, smart. He loves Shen Li ge a lot. Second focus is on war/ trying to get the government into a new system.

The actor that played Lu Yuan did a splendid job of being evil !! He was such a despicable character. On the other hand i couldn't. stand the evil sister....

There were also some super super heart wrenching scenes!!! oh my gosh , my heart. Made me cry sooo much !!!

Besides the story there was always this mystery person/ character who was the mastermind behind shen li ge becoming an assassin. He was the one that manipulated and tried to control people / and he obviously didn't like the king . The story behind him was finally unfolded in the last five episodes but I felt that it was such a disappointment. the reason behind why he did all the evil control was like wth?? Also the ending was kinda rushed and was like what? why ? the whole story barely talked about the actually king king , but in the end he sends a decree .. and make that kind of a ending ( dont want to ruin too much)

For 53 episodes it was over all pretty good!

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Good Start but Failed to Finish in All It's Glory

This show had so much potential! It started out interesting. The FL was a force to be reckoned with and the ML was interesting. Even with the plot contrivances to allow the leads to interact, I was ready to suspend my belief because I'm a sucker for court intrigue. The first 10-15 episodes were well-paced and kept my interest. However, after a certain development between their relationship at the latter part of the series, I thought the plot began to drag and I felt like it was going in circles. The palace intrigue no longer became intriguing but more like plot check-ins. Characters who were supposed to be smart weren't as smart as I thought. I felt some characters regressed as the story moved along. Even the plot twists did not feel earned because it sometimes came out of the left-field; there was no previous indication of such plans that made the viewer. I lost interest but forged on because I wanted to see the bad guys get their comeuppance, which literally took forever because apparently they were all made of Teflon. So many random things happened that honestly did not move the plot along or made much difference at the end, but was put there for drama's sake. And the ending was "no comment."

**Disclaimer: This review is my personal opinion. If you love the show, more power to you friend! I'm not a hater or a stan. I'm just a Xennial drama watcher who has watched too many dramas and have become too picky for my own good! Much love.

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a show where both leads are string and intelligent

I have read that this is the sister piece for Princess Weiyoung, so I was a little unsure. Personally I liked this show better, inlace of silly "harem" backstabbing, this was a semi-intelligent political backstabbing drama, Every once in a while the show lost its intelligence.... example the assassin leader that raised them and only wanted revenge changed his mind in like 5 minutes which was a let down. Mainly though the show had intelligent people and stayed clear from the normal overly simplified bad people.

Here's what I liked....
the acting was great especially ML and FL. I have never seen the ML in another show and was very impressed with his acting and portrayal. The FL has always been just OK when I see her, not annoying but not one of my favorite actresses. Her acting in this show convinced me she is good and just needs better roles. All of the acting was great, the Royal Mother was the only one that was over the top with her acting and the second ML was clearly out of his league. Watching him vs the ML it was glaring how much of a gap there was. Hopefully he gets better over time. I liked the relationship between the ML and FL leads. While they were not overly romantic, it was mutual trust and caring for each other. I look at that as more realistic and lasting love vs the physical love. SPOILER ....I also really liked that the 2 brothers didn't turn on each other and remained close despite some instances where there seemed to be a distance,
I love the family relationships with the FL and her family - both her real family and her adopted assassin brothers
The story was solid, maybe a little too long, but it kept me interested. Again I was happy to see the FL being friends with the Princess (other wife) and good friends with her sister-in-law. Of course the adopted sister was bad, but that was the only harem type action besides the royal mother. With that said it was more interesting than a Princess Weiyoung where the ML was stupid 90% of the show, and everyone was a cardboard villain or harem girl. However, it wasn't the most complex plot either. Do not confuse this with The Rise of the Phoenixes.

Here's what I didn't like....
The last villain, I get why he did it but it was like all of a sudden here's the "real" mastermind out of no where, but we will still solve that in like 2 episodes. It took over 30 to remove the first bad guy and he was being used by he mastermind. Crazy how easy it was to catch him.
The production value was OK, clearly not a giant budget and shows should stop showing people riding horses in closeup... it looked so bad I laughed out loud.
Music was OK, I cannot say I remembered any songs or melodies. One background music sounded like music from another show so it was distracting.
The ending was not as bad as Princess Agents, but I have no idea what it meant. SPOILER.....Some people say she wasn't;t dead and the 3 year time jump was there little cottage where he was protecting her from emperor's edict. That doesn't;t make sense because the Prince was happy and had an imperial order, so there was no reason to hide her other than to prevent gossip? of course why the FL would drink poison and give up so easy is a mystery, unless she really didn't want to cause any additional issues for him (I mean the bleeding knees from kneeling, etc.) but if that is the case where was her body. My take is that she killed herself with the poison in the garden and on the swing. He basically is in denial and couldn't;t see her as dead (so no body on scree) and 3 years later he goes to the cottage and cooks all of the food poorly like she did and basically still acts like she is alive. Probably not worth watching the last episode since there is no closure (other than the new laws are god and helping people and the ML and second ML have really ugly looking mustaches!)

Overall... I have this as an 8/10. I may change it after a bit, I tend to make my reviews even lower the longer I think about a show.

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Cant express,,, What the f.....

The initial story is quite curious, and makes you wonder what the real reality is

even though I think the drama is quite good in the delivery of the story, and the details that are conveyed, the required scenes are quite complete, and although there are complementary scenes that are not shown, only a few can be tolerated, but at the end of the story, the irregularities of the story are getting clearer, everything things happen suddenly, flashback sequences that are not clear when, and unnecessary actions! ,, feel like stupid!

I can tolerance sad ending but ,,,,If the ending wasn't like this my rating might be 80 or 85, especially because the ost is pretty good





die die die die, character die die die die is the scriptwriter has a grudge against his character?,, even though it can have a CLEAR ending, BUT WHY IS THE ENDING LIKE THAT?! ,, SO FL LIVE OR NO?! ,


Why li qin serious costume drama always end like this? Omg OMGGGG




Contain spoiler

My question ?
1. From when sun work with mastermind? And is she know who is wan er?
2. ‎if not wan er ,who change the incense?
3. ‎why hongdan?? Why?no reason!
4. ‎how about his senior at last?
5. ‎so FL live or not? If not ? Can she drink and.... ,and bury herself?

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Romance of Li Ge and Yi Kang

SOG was one of the few romance costume dramas with an actual love and romance story and chemistry between the ML and FL actors. The ML and FL started off, not on the same page, but the romance kicked in quickly, and maintained the momentum.

The writer and director should have kept the number of villains at two, and cut the drama length by 20%. Grand Consort stayed too long in the story line, backstabbing and front-stabbing Yi Kang, and stabbing herself in the process. Given the attention to detail and filler throughout the drama, the writer and director should have done a better job wrapping up the story. Instead, they gave us yet another ambiguous costume drama ending.

Cons: Too many villains, fillers and flashbacks, MV scenes, disruptive singing, editing, drama length
Pros: Acting and costumes

Favorite characters:
Shen Li Ge
Peng Cheng Yi Kang
San Bao
Shen Ting Zhang
Shen Zhi
Shen Feng
Xie Yun Zhi
Huo Yun
Wang Zi Jin
Chen Shao Xun

Least favorite characters:
Grand Consort Sun - villain
Wan Er - villain
Xiao Xin - Li Ge's maid
Madam Shen
Xue Qiu - villain
Lu Yuan - villain
Shen Le Qing - villain
Wang Mi An - villain

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Every villain got what they deserved.

The show started off real fast paced (but slow burn towards the middle) as FL was carrying out an assassination on ML, Peng Cheng Wang (Prince of Peng City), the regent of the historical Liu Song Dynasty. The assassination turned out a disaster (of course, duh). She hid in an orphanage and was later found by Madam Shen who recognized the jade bracelet she was wearing, immediately identifies her as the Shen’s long lost daughter abducted as an infant during a battle in the north. The bracelet was actually given by her best friend (another assassin of course) with a promise to help find her birth parents, before the bff died as a distraction so FL could flee the botched assassination venue. FL grabs this chance and takes refuge in the Shen Mansion, a family of top general of the empire, as she plans for her next move to finish her failed assasination on ML and Minister of War Lu Yuan. It seemed like the team of assassins were driven by the belief planted by their master that Lu Yuan was a corrupt official and Peng Cheng Wang was an incompetent ruler who covers up for the corrupt officials in his court. They both needed to be killed because of their crimes to Liu Song Empire and its people.

Ironically, as she keeps on failing to kill Lu Yuan, she met a merchant who was also investigating Lu Yuan and this dude manages to convince her that killing won’t stop Lu Yuan’s corruption as another would just fill up his spot. The merchant, whom FL calls as Old Man (she was 18 and the dude was supposed to be 30+), convinced her to team up with him and topple Lu Yuan using rule of law. Things happened and they later developed feelings for each other. Then the decree came that the daughter of Shen family is bethrothed to Peng Cheng Wang as reward for their contribution in winning the war in the North, and FL decided to take this chance to kill ML on their wedding night. Meanwhile, Lu Yuan’s smuggling of weapons for private army was foiled, but the Shens were implicated as Lu Yuan slips out of their grasp with a mere slap on the hand by ML. This only angered FL even more and her hatred for ML grows. She got her biggest shock on the wedding night, as she only saw the face of the Peng Cheng Wang she hated to the core as she stabs her poisoned dagger into his belly, and he turned out to be the Old Man she fell in love with. She tried to kill herself after stabbing ML as to not implicate the Shens for her assassination crime, and because she regretted her actions, but ML instructed his personal bodyguard to take her away so the imperial guards wont catch her. Later things happened, plot after plot, surprise after surprise, villains after villains, misunderstandings and slanders came one after another, and they stick together through thick and thin.

I love the FL character, she’s one badass assassin who doesnt let injustice to happen. She thrives in jianghu, and is smart and witty enough to stand up against the palace harem bullying (yeah come on how can anyone bully an assassin, right?). And having an elder sister (the first wife) as back up does wonders to her too. She doesnt really need any saving, she can take care of herself although of course ML will need to be the saviour every now and then, even though he’s inferior to her in terms of fighting skills and brawn, so he depended on his power as regent and his scheming and manipulating skills. She is also very intelligent and isnt one of those characters who love to panic and jump to conclusions with baseless suspicions . I guess she learnt a lesson after being fooled by her master into wrongfully thinking that ML is a bad person when he was not.

One of the most pitiful but righteous characters must have been Princess Consort Xie, ML’s first wife. He had to marry her in accordance to the emperor’s decree, but never loved her. Never consummated the marriage and Empress Dowager had to make it a rule for him to have dinner at specific dates at the Princess Consort’s place or he wouldnt have even visited her at all. For someone who loved her husband in totality, her heart was so pure that she never envied the love FL gets from their shared husband when she entered the household as concubine. Instead she saw FL as a companion, BFF, whom she was willing to protect and support. I almost thought the Empress Dowager would be able to corrupt her mind against FL due to envy (like the plot of most drama), but it never happened. She stayed true to her character to the end.

Although I like this show, i find that the repetetive plot of getting poisoned, memory loss, faintings, fake deaths to be pretty annoying. I love the part where they dismantle the villains plans, but the journey to get there is quite annoying with things that I mention above. I find the scenes after ML got stabbed by FL was pretty dramatic and admirable, him braving his way through the pain for several days before succumbing to his injury and went into coma, as to cover up for his newly wedded wife’s actions.

Also I cannot wrap it around my head how come these assassins dont know how their target looks like? That is so messed up. The production couldve made the merchant’s disguise better and not reveal his face throughout their time together, maybe FL recognizing ML as the merchant on their wedding night using the tokens they exchanged if anything at all, but they didnt. It was quite early through the show that FL saw through his fake moustache and took it off (revealing his true face), I really thought she would identify him as Peng Cheng Wang but she didnt! So the whole team of badass assassins didnt even know how their target looks like before killing them?! These righteous assassins killing corrupt officials to keep them from ruining the prosperity of the nation didnt think that knowing how their target look like so they dont kill the wrong person was important. Really? 😑🙄 So messed up.

There were so maaaaaaany fillers and side love stories which I fast forward most of them, but I just need to give a special mention of FL’s handmaid XiaoXin as super duper annoying with her loud and unruly character. Looks much too exaggerated. So they wanted to make her that fun character who brights up people around her, it just went overboard. Characters like this would never survive in the palace as palace maid, she’d be dead by day 2! I was fascinated by ML’s personal bodyguard Xu Zhan too, he looked so feminine that when he wore full body armour and helmet during the North war, I didnt recognize him and thought he was a female character i hadnt noticed before! I also cannot wrap it around my head how they could let Zijin tag along to the north border for the war too. I could understand when FL wanted to go cuz she definitely has the qualities to fight a war, but Zijin? I almost thought she had hidden talent or skills to contribute, with those dramatic horse riding, serious look on her face and wearing full body armour including helmet, but when they were ambushed by the enemy, she became a burden to Shen Zhi (her love interest who is also FL’s eldest brother of the Shen family) as he needs to fight while holding her hand to protect her. What a disappointment. So they made her go to the north so ML, as regent and commander of the north army, could grant them a marriage 🙄 just for that. Bleerghh that is just too cheesy, man. Another annoying characters are Shen Leqing and Lu Wan. One a conniving scheming vengeful ungrateful person who didnt know when to stop, while another was super naiive and stupid who wasnt even sure of her bro’s crimes and yet think that he was wronged and decided to get revenge. Such easily-manipulated expendable pawns.

———-*SPOILER BELOW THIS LINE* ————

I *love* (-_-) how every good characters can get sliced and stabbed with swords, stuck with arrows and still can jump around the next day (or in an instant in FL’s case) as if nothing happened. With exception of Shen dad and elder brother, their deaths are pretty gruesome and tragic. But the rest of the characters are a-okay with all those injuries, so no worries!

The ending is one of those with question marks. At first I thought FL killed herself so Peng Cheng Wang would not be stuck between his love for her and the emperor’s decree of not sparing her as she was an assassin. It went pretty dramatic with ML’s joyfully running to meet with her only to see the place empty, dropping the decree he was holding. Then there were flashbacks of the FL drinking (poisoned?) wine and later looked dead, but the next thing they show was events three years later with ML doing great in court, and later went to the secret place FL brought him once upon a time, and there he dined with the joyous FL. So another fake death? Sheesh.

I thought they’d have kids by then though. I was a little disappointed that there was no 3yo dining with them at the end. Though I can say it’s a happy ending. At least to me. But because I am one of those who hates sad and open endings, I’m taking off 1 star due to this horrible Ep53. Wished they had ended the show at Ep 52.

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Brilliant but unnecessary ending + Needs better scene arrangement & sequencing.

Just to give a quick insight about this story, I wanna say that It was wonderful yet sorrowful. They did so well in making the plot well-balanced despite their straightforward takes of its unexpected turn of events... however, still managed to make the whole narative look manipulated and misarranged.

First of, I wanna commend this production for consistently staying away from clichė plot till the very end. That was very unexpected and satisfying! Just the thought of not having to bear through such ridiculous scenes already made this experience more delightful and light to me. Not to mention how we were given such spectacular and highly intelligent protagonists who were capable of taking absolute control of any situation they were thrown into and overcoming them with outstanding wits and teamwork. Made this drama even more amazing for me.

But!! we must bear in mind that no matter how good something is, It can never be imperfect. This story, in spite of executing most of the scenes in a viewer-friendly manner can never escape some questionable plot holes and glitches that can be found at the most crucial places. The way they dealt with the antagonists felt so wrong... Like you knew it was a bad decision but refused to judge it since you're not even half through the story yet. But as it progresses the more you find your opinions right and reasonable.

After finishing this show, my opinion still stands firm about how Lu Yuan deserves to be the final antagonist. I honestly think that everything went weak and bland right after they've dealt with him. Like he is the truest antagonist there is! so right after he passed away, the other major conflicts on the story has immediately become a child's play. Xie Hao is simply an overconfident official who thought highly of himself by pulling some grand scheme he can never control. While Wang Mian is an old man who's planned on his revenge for more than 2 decades only for it to be trampled right in front of his eyes. No matter how and where I look at it both of these guys just doesn't have it. They have aspiration, will and is bold enough, unfortunately, they're both incapable of pulling it off successfully. And, Oh, Please! Do not let me start with Grand Consort Sun and Shen Leqing! These two deserves to die even before Lu Yuan but they never did and I will never understand why no matter how much anyone try to explain it to me. Cause they may have been useful to create some discords and conflicts but they were never relevant enough to last that long! God, gracious! An utterly bad decision to keep them till the last 10 or so episode of the story.

Lastly, "It's all in the past" is my most hated phrase in this drama. The way they use it as a means to move on from the death of Shen Tingzhang and Shen Zhi gives me so much grief. I know it was wrong to keep yourself caged in the past but I also stand firm that we need to occasionally look back at those events to realize how some people deserves the worst from us.— Never forgive those who're unforgiveable.

P.S. Evil is hard to extinguish. Once an Evil, Always an Evil.

Story - 9.0, Would have given it a 0.5 rating higher only if they gave us a happier ending. I can never accept the fact that they went over tons of clichė plots all throughout the story yet still pull this kind of ending. I have long accepted that they misjudged their plot arrangements and all but I never predicted them to do it once again. Overall, the drama is good. They just tend to eliminate the wrong characters at the wrong time and keep some for longer time for nothing.

Acting/Cast - 9.5, Main CP is good. Although, it took me few episodes to fully absorb their chemistry but right after that it worked out magically. Lu Yuan and Xue Hao have been exemplery all throughout and I've got little to no complain about the side characters. The only thing that probably stood out to me the most is the inconsistency and awkward acting from Herman Li and Deng Ying at times. Specially during the first half of the drama. P.S. Ren Yun Jie is one of my fave character in this drama and hello, there Tian Xi Wei!

Music - 10, I love how it sounded natural and authentic which is very suitable to the time/era the drama's set. + Excellent and I'd say even perfect control and choice of music. I vibed so much on how laid back and comforting it sounded all at the appropriate and accurate moments.

Rewatch Value - 8.0, The overall story is good. Good pacing and character progression but watching it over again will be tough for me. Considering how displeased I am with its ending and the way they eliminate their characters in a wrong time really left a bitter taste in my mouth. I'll forever complain on how they misarranged those events and characters which impacted the story so much. This drama could've honestly been better with proper arrangement and sequencing.

Overall - 9.0, After intensive deliberation and consideration... and even after all my rants and complains. I feel like this drama and production still delivered a good story that can be enjoyed by different types of people. It just that I have my own conclusion and expectation for this story thus it made me feel so many things. All I can say is that bear my words in mind and watch this cautiously with expectation.

IF you find my review helpful please let me know.

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