The Sword and the Brocade

Harem Drama Lite.

Is this you? Have you just read a certain fanfic for a certain fandom that is a Harem AU and now the story hasn’t updated for weeks and you are just craving that good concubine no. 3 feels? Are you really tempted to watch one of those big harem dramas like Yanxi palace but you see the 70+ episode count and you feel like it’ll be less painful to take your organs out of your body with your bare hands than sit through that many episodes? Are you just itching to watch a bunch of stir-crazy people fight over who gets to sleep with an average/mediocre/ok-maybe-he’s-cool dude? THEN BOY DO I HAVE A SHOW FOR YOU!
With a humble 45 (GOOD GOD! FORTY-FIVE?!?!?!?) episode count, the sword and the brocade gives you all that good “my love, I may have many in my harem, but there’s only you in the harem of my heart” feels while not actually making you want to crawl up a wall from all the palace intrigue melodrama. This is a show about two sourly yet genuinely good people slowly falling in love while every single character around them gets b*tch slapped by Karma! It’s fun…until it’s not.
I can’t in good conscience recommend this show though, mainly because I had such a negative experience making it through the last fifteen episodes of this show. It starts really well, it’s very gripping and there are so many delicious feelings throughout but the pace slows around episode 25 and just about becomes unbearable after episode 36. So maybe watch this only if you are very desperate for a Harem drama that isn’t as cut-throat or extreme as those palace ones.

You should watch this if you like:
1. Harem dramas
2. Murder mysteries
3. Happy endings
4. Meddlesome mother-in-laws (the real villain, everyone!)
5. Arranged marriage
6. Enemies to lovers but not very intense
7. Cinderella stories
8. Ming dynasty misogyny
9. Pro-monogamy harem plot…
10. Sewing (?)

Summary: The main character is the daughter of an unfavored concubine. Now it has come the time for the official mother to marry off her unfavorable concubine-born daughters in the most politically advantageous way. But best-laid plans of mice and men, everything goes the exact opposite way as she wanted, so now her least favorite daughter is married off to a beautiful, jade-like marquis of a man, instead of an abusive, drunkard womanizer and that’s karma for you! There’s a murder mystery, a skippable political plot, lots and lots of concubine drama, and the MOST unlikable, meddlesome, STUPID mother-in-law in the whole world, there too.

The story: I will give them a little credit. They were trying to say something, about women’s lives in the olden times, the terrible conditions of concubinage, the unfairness of the social hierarchy and they do manage to do that for the most part but it’s just so weak and it seems like they gave up on nuance very early on as they fall into the pitfalls of cliches and cinematic stereotypes of catfights that have proven to bring in excited viewers in the past. That’s my way of saying, they tried to be woke but realized it’ll make more money if they just go for the good old melodrama. I think Yanxi palace tried to do a similar thing but they achieved it with a lot more grace and elegance and the point was more solid there (even though that had its melodrama shenanigans too). There's also this bait-and-switch plot that is used too many times to show the change of tides in the plot that was cool the first time but got annoying when they did it over and over again.
The story also has something to say about getting lost in traditions and rules that can lead to denying people their agency to make choices for their own life. The show starts with this truly jaded man who has been forced into marriage and taking concubines and just putting up with all of this, even though he really couldn’t care less. He’s completely disillusioned about women and sees them as opportunistic people who will use sexuality and beauty to gain money and power. This is the best detail of the show because you can see how the female lead changes his perceptions throughout the show and finally makes it possible for him to figure out what he wants and what his problems were all along and how to ask for things that he wants.
But this also means that the female lead barely had a character arc! She was a pretty smart and level-headed person from the start and she is validated all the way to the end of the show. Her only change in the story is to fall in love but other than that she is a fully formed woman with a great understanding of herself and her principles from the very beginning.

The acting: Despite all the problems I had with the plot, I actually liked the two main actors. I prefer the more subdued and calm acting that Seven Tan did here and I also liked Wallace Chung’s acting. Not sure about the couple's chemistry, though. One was more into the romance than the other, I thought. I’ve also decided to add a new criterion to how I judge the acting, by judging the ensemble’s acting as a whole and basically judge how well everyone’s acting worked together. I have to say, here the acting was very homogenous. Everyone was on the same level. Shout out to He Hong Shan’s acting, she gave this very bratty voice to her character and it was brilliant. It made you want to slap her so bad! I also feel bad for Daddi Tong. I didn’t like his character but he did a good job and I hope he’ll get male leads in the future so he can be less pitiful.

The music: This is probably the best part of this show. The background music is just okay but the soundtrack is very romantic and it really worked well for the romance. As a whole the production was fine. Nothing special to say about it.

Rewatch value: None. Unless you’re THAT desperate for a harem drama that isn’t in the palace actually.

The negative: There’s a lot of weak writing in this show. For instance, there’s an attempt made to connect the political stuff with the harem stuff and the murder mystery all together, and yeah they’re connected but I don’t think anyone who was watching cared even a little for that political stuff, and for good reason. It was boring and very simple and it just took up a lot of space that had nothing happening in it. The other problem was the pacing. The show has a lot of little arcs and these did not mesh well together. Instead of having one big arc and small arcs intertwined together, each tiny arc is resolved separately. This means that we end up with the same story over and over again. Getting rid of a bad concubine? Three separate arcs that are solved one at a time, fighting over the second male lead being a potential homewrecker but with different intensities? Five different arcs! It just makes the show feel like a broken record because they keep arguing over the same things over and over again. After episode 25, everything just turns into a Groundhog Day. Everyone just goes around each other repeating the same issues again and again and each time only one thing is resolved until FINALLY, it’s all over. Really this show should have been 30 episodes. It was too long.
There was a lot of nothing in the show too: getting on and off carriages, purring tea, just moving from one place to another. You’d expect them to omit these in editing.
There’s also a bit of a negative bias in the story. Those women were all victims. The mother-in-law was a monster and she created this poisonous environment that only nurtured poisonous snakes. But the story somehow puts the main character on a moral high ground over these other victims. Even though there was no reason for her to be holier than the others. It’s not even her fault, it’s just that the show gets so twisted around itself that it ends up reaffirming the traditional values of women that the show was criticizing at first.

Overall: This show came into my life just as I needed it. I did binge some twenty-something episodes of it like my life depended on it. It’s a skippable watch unless you know mandarin and can just let it play in the background then maybe it'll be better. Just be ready to get annoyed.

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Good drama

This is the first time that i write a comment here, i personally like this drama because the story is good, both main leads have great chemistry in their acting. I am looking forward to the remaining episodes, hope to see how the two main leads begin to fall in love with one another. Even though the first two episodes were slightly boring, however i was glad that the following episodes bring so much joy and excitement to the audience, it is so funny to see how the main ML wanted to come close to the FL and yet he is too prideful to express his affection, but he did not stop drawing close to her, he did many things to capture her attentions, that was quite cute and funny.

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I'm tired of being angry after this drama

I can’t even begin to express how relieved I am that I wasn’t born in China during this timeline as a woman. Men treating women like objects, collecting concubines, and then turning around and saying, “Oh, I didn’t know you had feelings,” is just infuriating. And then the women are constantly fighting for the chance to live, only to be blamed for everything that goes wrong. The FL’s life is a mess—growing up as the child of a concubine, and what changed after getting married to a man most likely twice her age is NOTHING.. And nothing changes! After 45 episodes of pain, Old Lady Xu finally says, “Oh, what a good person she is,” but only because she’s about to be executed. The ML is also a walking red flag—he makes you question if men ever emotionally grow. This man ruins a woman’s life just because his wife and mother said so, and then after she dies, he just keeps on living like nothing happened. Also that abusive piece of trash who dies halfway through the show? Don’t even get me started.

Not gonna lie though, the second male lead? Hands down my favorite. He’s honest, smart, and probably written by a woman who knows what’s up.

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In a word- eandearing

So let’s just first address the fact that this is a harem drama with the ML beginning the show with several wives. I initially put this show on hold for this reason, but after taking a break from a string of more intense shows, I decided to pick this one up. I’m glad I did. The reality of it is that having multiple wives was the cultural norm, and that marriage was rarely about love. Regardless of this, the show did a great job of both showing the reality of life for women who lived during the era of harems and concubines while also catering to what appeals to the audience. It was not long into the show when it became clear that the ML, bound by a sense of duty and filial piety, was guilted and manipulated into these marriages. While there may have been a faint glimmer of affection with his first “main wife”, who died early on, it was clear that he harbored no love for his other wives. He buried himself in work and avoided his home and the scheming women that needed to use whatever underhanded means necessary to gain status in the house. Some have criticized the ML for this because he had sired two sons, but I cannot say that I blame him. Which men don’t become workaholics in order to avoid unhappiness and strife in their home? He also gets called out for his neglect of them later on and is held accountable. For those of you who are hesitant simply due to this being a harem drama, it honestly was not as big of a deal as I thought it was going to be. There was one concubine in particular who was terribly awful and villainous, but the ML ignores pretty much all of his concubines throughout the show and develops a romance with our FL, who takes his late main wife’s place as matron of the family. The ML does not harbor feelings towards anyone else, and he does not sleep with any of his concubines during the duration of the show. He does, however, have two sons at the start. And a little spoiler alert- he doesn’t have any concubines by the end of the show.

All that aside, I LOVED the slooooowww burn romance with the leads. I love the “love comes after marriage” trope and this show did it well. The ML, tired of the schemes and being surrounded by people who only wanted to use him for their own agendas, assumed the FL was no different… until he began to notice that she didn’t participate in the scheming, she didn’t get caught up in petty power struggles, and she didn’t not care whether or not he liked her or not. It was incredibly endearing watching the ML catch the feels for our gal, and doing the dance of pursuing her while also respecting the fact that she takes a lot longer to fall for him and initially resists his advances. The age gap between the two shined, as he was much older and had experience *ahem* (I love me a good age gap with an experienced man 👌🏻) It was endearing watching her begin to get flustered and begin to fall for him as well. The angst between them was believable and well done, and it was AWESOME seeing our gal chase after him after she severely hurt his feelings and unintentionally betrayed his trust while pursuing her agenda. It takes a looooong time for them to iron out their individual differences and get on the same page. I also wish they had a liiiiiiittle bit more screen time. When they finally do learn to communicate and acknowledge their feelings, we are blessed bed cuddles, a bit of pillow talk, and more skinship. I wish there was more, though. Sadly, after they got together they got a lot less screen time. I missed the romance a little.

Although this is a drama concubines and scheming women, it also showcases the awesomeness of women without being preachy. The FL is basically the Chinese version of Elizabeth from Pride and Prejudice (actually this whole show could be compared to Jane Austen). She’s astute, confident in most areas, and overcomes the scheming with kindness and assertiveness. She maintains boundaries and holds her own, and wins over the hearts of almost everyone. It showcases how other women needed to backstab, compete and claw for status in a culture that is so oppressive towards them. Even the most hateful female characters have their glimmers humanity, and my most hated character felt more human at the end of her story arc.

In terms of complaints, well, there are a few. I had to suspend my disbelief at several points during this show with very conveniently placed pieces of evidence as the FL is investigating the murder of her mother a year after she died. At times the plot was inconsistent, probably with how scenes were cut. The show probably could have concluded in less than 45 episodes. I wish there was a little bit more screen time with the leads, especially after they acknowledged their feelings for each other. We didn’t get as many scenes of them after they “got together”. And if it wasn’t already clear from the synopsis, this show probably won’t be for you if you can’t stand plots centered around scheming and power struggles, and villains who are bitchy, entitled and don’t take responsibility. Oh, and the mother in law isn’t great either lol. Her character made a dramatic shift in the last bit of the show, almost unrealistically.

So if a Chinese version of a Jane Austen novel sounds like your cup of tea, I encourage you to give this one a try.

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Good Storyline Drama by Wallace Chung & Seven Tan

I hardly watched Mandarin speaking drama but except this The Sword and Brocade. It is highly recommended. The storyline is good. I watched and rewatched before bedtime, kind of addicted ! I have not heard of Wallace Chung, a HK actor. This is the 1st drama I watched that played by Wallace as lead role. I really feel like falling in love for his character. Wallace as Xu Lingyi is such a cool calm, powerful guy and of course every lady would love to have a husband like him. Seven Tan and Wallace Chung does have good chemistry and many romance moments along the entire drama. Wallace does have very good height and high nose feature. He does look extremely handsome in this drama.

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Could've been better

I really enjoyed the drama up until the 26th episode. Shiyi went from being a naive country girl to a wise lady who seemed like she could read minds with the way she could predict how her enemies would act. Then comes episode 28 when she suddenly lost her wisdom and she actually believed Lingyi killed her mom. She told an Ou guy she'd only met a few times about her wanting to find the killer when she suspected it might be the Ou family's doing but she never thought of seeking her husband's help whom she was supposed to trust as much as he trusted her when she was framed. Plus, Shiyi has the habit of making promises and telling people around her not to worry, confident she could handle things, and then she fails. At the latter part, the writers needed her to be stubborn about quitting Xianling Pavilion and for Lingyi to be a doormat spoiler husband so they could stretch the drama with more misunderstandings and make it longer, which honestly was boring already and I skimmed through just to finish. It wasn't even shown how Lingyi prevented her from being executed. It's a case of writers underestimating their audience and treating them as dumb.

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Decent drama

The drama was mostly enjoyable, although the slow-burn romance between ML and FL started to get really painful by episode 30. After being married for two years, they still had no sex, slept in separate beds, and had very PC tropey interactions where the female recoiled from the male as soon as he came near her. That could've been flushed out a lot better without taking 30+ episodes for them to finally confess and consummate, when it was evident much earlier that they had feelings for each other.

Some of the story lines were very cliche but in reverse. If there was any miscommunication or a misunderstanding, it was all planned. Every cliche trope was a scheme between Shiyi and company, which wasn't very clever or original. It felt more like a cop out from making an effort to create something meaningful. The writers recycled old tropes backwards in a gotcha way with lots of flashbacks to show what really went on, instead of coming up with something original.

I did like the nature of Shiyi's and Linyi's relationship being based on mutual trust and respect, instead of following the same old cliches where someone felt wronged or betrayed due to an asinine misunderstanding, and then we were back to square one.

MIL was unbearable throughout the entire show - a pompous, shallow, narrow-minded geriatric moron who only fully started to appreciate Shiyi when she was about to get executed, which was a lazy way to completely avoid holding any character responsible for their wrongdoing. I would've much rather preferred MIL being poisoned or "accidently" falling down the stairs. She was just terrible. And, the biggest letdown was how the story treated Ou Yanxing, who was the nicest character. He was treated completely unfairly - banished forever because of the actions of his stupid relatives.

Although, the drama had a happy ending, it didn't really feel happy. ML was a terrible and negligent husband and a grown man completely unable to make his own decisions in everyday life, although he was a military hero. He was also incapable of standing up to his mother and let her get away with some very terrible schit, just because she was an elder. I didn't buy the filial piety trope. Mommy dearest wasn't just a moron, she was a cruel moron who punished Shiyi without any evidence while always reminding her that she was the "matron" of the house. A matron who had no power but all the responsibility. Because of Lingyi's callousness and negligence, a lot of women suffered, which made me wonder why we should cheer for him and Shiyi at all when their relationship was built on the backs and tears of other women. It was rather convenient to banish one concubine, poison another, and send the last one away to live with her son. The Ming dynasty was a nightmare for women.

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Great characters with mediocre story, my perfect rating would be between 8 and 8.5

Well, my suggested rating is 8.5 so I will go with that but if I could, I would like to give this drama something like an 8.2, which co-incidentally happens to its actual current rating. The beginning starts off absolutely amazing and while the middle and ends are not horrible, they finish off into something mediocre just due to plot pacing.

Characters: Now, to start off with, the characters are great and basically the highlight of this drama. This is in part due to the superb acting on everyone's part. I believe this drama wanted to convey the struggles of various women at the hands of the patriarchal system and unintended negligence of males and they did it quite well. There was one of the Xu family concubines who my heart just completely broke for and the only scene which brought me to tears. Despite her actually being in the wrong, I hated everyone for doing this to her.

The female lead was amazing. Calm and competent female leads are my absolute favorite but they are sadly few and far between. While it may seem like Shiyi is letting people walk over her one, in her position there are certain things she cannot do and two, she focuses on what is really important. I also appreciate how it is not easy for her and we see how she has to work very hard to obtain success. While I dearly wish there were more of these types of female leads, I know part of the reason why Shiyi is so great is due to Seven Tan's amazing acting; she really brought this character to life. The male lead was also pretty good and I like how his character gets some development too. I appreciate the second male lead because his character had an interesting conflict and he knew when to back off.

The plot is what brings that drama down. I believe the drama wanted to express too many ideas, some of which contradicted each other and it showed. For example, it wanted to show how conservative and rigid this era was but also resolved certain conflicts by completely ignoring this. For example, ***SPOILER*** women should not be seen in public, especially concubines. But there is a soup kitchen arc where are all seen standing on stage in front of a large crowd. There are also scenes where Luo Furen is furious at Shiyi for not making it official with the Marquis then furious when she does. Certain plot points (like Zhun) popped in and out based on convenience. The multiple they-knew-all-along conflict resolution scenes got a bit stale towards the end. Finally, it was a little exhausting having conflict after conflict with no room to breathe.

The music was nice, it added a nice auditory aesthetic but all the fade-to-black transitions and somewhat choppy editing ruined some of the visual aesthetic. I think it would be an okay re-watch. Overall, the plot could use some consistency but the themes were well conveyed and the characters stayed very consistent with appropriate development which still make a good drama worth watching.

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Its just so Pretty

My overall impression of Sword and Brocade is its just so pretty...

- The look and feel - everything is beautiful - I love Shiyi's room asthetics.
- Each costume is beautifully detailed (especially the lady characters) The embroadery is beautiful.
- Their love story is beautiful. Learning to trust and love was realistically portrayed and I really felt the beauty of their married relationship.
- All the prettiness certainly made up for the couple of glitches (eg having a mustache in the 2nd to last scene and then not in the last scene)
- The OST is simply beautiful and tells the story beautifully (you just cant go wrong with Charlie Zhou).
- Wallace Chung and Seven Tang protrayed Lingyi ans Shiyi beautifully and reamin 2 of my all time favourite actors
- Rewatch rating - 10 - to appreciate the finer details once you've watched the story

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Alas, the binge

*Minor spoilers*

Being a big fan of The Story of Ming Lan, this series definitely gave off a similar vibe when it comes to the complexity of a multiple-wives household and being blanketed by a strong romance. And as I always tend to mention, not a big fan of the romance genre but this was another one that I couldn't help but to fall for.

While the romance here was just as fun and idealistic as TSML, I love that they wrote in a "realistic" rift that occurred between the couple in this one- one that had me in steady tears for quite a few scenes and episodes. The FL/ML had great chemistry and both were strong characters, though not as savvy and cunning as the two in TSML. The schemes between the women were pretty standard form but were still more interesting than the ones you come across in some palace dramas. The series also does a good job tastefully highlighting the perspectives of each woman, reminding us how difficult it was for women to live through an era where the only available weapon of survival really was through the art of manipulation, forcing women to have to work against one another.

The series has minimal actions scenes and mainly focuses on the couple's romantic evolution and the dealings within the different households. There is an underlying political conspiracy to work through which helped keep the overall plot together. And although the plot itself wasn't the strongest with some holes and some repetitiveness, it was still one that had me binging episodes in an unhealthy way.

If you are a fan of TSML, I'm pretty sure you'd find this one enjoyable. And in an era where monogamy is morally preferred, who knew I'd be rooting for a ML who already had a wife and multiple concubines in-place prior to meeting the FL?

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