The Prisoner of Beauty Episode 36

More than a drama: Love, loyalty and everything

It was good to see Xiao Qiao's father now the new head of the Qiao clan. I was so happy that Wei Yan returned with his troops. The fight scenes from Bi Zhi and Wei Shao were extremely good. Most fight scenes are not that good, but this one was good and full of tension. Qiao Fan throwing herself down from above was a good ending for everyone. E Huang always loved the people she married. But E Huang always looked for love in the wrong places and after learning the truth, she took her own life along with her absolute fate. It was good to see Wei Yan win. Liu Yan, who was after revenge, got the death he deserved by not winning the war. It was good to see Master Zhen Shi for a short while 😻 It was a great feeling for Grandma to welcome Wei Yan like the head of Bianzhou. The reason Qiao Fan and Bi Zhi ended up like this was because of Qiao Fan's greedy father. The 4 generals were talking together again, but Wei Liang was not among them as before 😭😭😭😭 The 4 generals are now 3 😭😭😭😭 Xiao Tao coming to Wei Liang's grave with an orchid, was proposing to Wei Liang even if he was not in this world 😭😭😭😭 My eyes got swollen from crying in the scene where Wei Liang said goodbye 😭😭😭😭 I wish Wei Liang hadn't died. Unfortunately, some lovers cannot be reunited. Wei Liang and Xiao Tao were also among the lovers who could not be reunited 😭😭😭😭 I hope they marry each other in their other lives and live happily ever after. As the last scene, we watched a happy ending with Wei Shao, Xiao Qiao and their child Feifei. It was definitely a 10/10 drama. It became one of my favorite cdramas 😻🫂

Read More

Fitting end

My biggest complaint of this episode is giving YuLou entirely too much screen time without getting to see her death. 😝This took away from far more interesting characters or battles. That being said, it was a fitting death of her Liangya lover to be killed by both Lord Wei and BiZhi. I liked the irony of Shao pushing BiZhi’s blade. It was good to see them united. The advisor’s contempt of women made him disgusting. I actually thought he was a decent advisor initially but the taunts to BiZhi…I am glad he was silenced. I hope the same for the Qiao advisor. He is a pos too.😝 Yan was so brave and so timely. I wish they would have spent any time at all showing him in battle instead of YuLou mourning her seen face and poor fate😝🙄 He did Wei proud and will have a good future. Qu got Liang home and he was given honors. I loved Liang’s character, but here again I wish more time would have gone to the living and fighting. We needed to see the tides turn more than grieve the dead. It would have been nice to see Shao’s first reaction to baby girl and get welcomed back. To see BiZhi and son wrapped up in the good side of Qiao family. A chance to say goodby to Fan rather than YuLou killing her escort and denying love again. She is like a siren in this drama with a black widow ending for all of her spouses. I was glad to see bully general defeated. That was a good moment. The acting and production were top notch. Some of the writing was not.😝 I was entranced by the leads love story and wish them all a happy future. It is well worth the watch in spite of the flaws. This story successfully reunited two clans and overcame the betrayal and mistrust that divided them. They have forged a more promising future that benefits all the peoples of the canals. They are happily going forward with travel rather than war. May they only know peace from now on.

Read More

Solid original story and characters, butchered by a terrible scriptwriting. Actors did well

If you decide to watch this drama. know that it will hook you (as it hooked me) with a dark and serious note of political turmoil, explaining the reasons of a deep clash and hatred between two clans, once united in a common vision and a great project of canal constructions. Unfortunatelly, just after the initial 5-6 eps, it will turn into a fluffy beating around the bush romance.C-drama scriptwriters regularly have the following problem: they can't decide a genre in which their story should be set, they can't accept a simple fact that if you open a serious plot, you must keep that "promise" and you can't suddenly turn it into an idol-drama. Personally, I don't disdain a fluffy romance either, if it is true to itself. If I am not in a mood to watch fluffy stuff, I'll pass, if I am, I'll watch it. But what I hate is the BETRAYAL of the initial expectation the author(s) of the story created. Because it means, the author(s) is manipulating me and challenges my intelligence.Actually, this or these poor screen adaptor(s) challenged my intelligence even in those initial episodes, when the FL tries to prevent the main male antagonist (Liu Yan) of flooding (and killing many people) the downstream of a canal by... burning the sulfur bags hidden by the bad guy in the granary (!) of Panyi city and destined to blow up the dam on the canal. Burning sulfur in that granary, doesn't only means: you, a smart FL, will explode yourself, but you will also intoxicate the whole Panyi to the death with sulfur dioxide (SO2) to the death, provoking probably a greater damage than the flooding. I've thought, ok, it's a C-drama, no big deal...But later another "granary plot" didn't make any sense and it regarded the main female antagonist, Su E Huang, who was able to take out of the Wei's granary a resistent wheat seed sent from the FL's clan, cook it and sent it back, in order to force the ML to choose between his (Qiao) wife and his (Wei) cousin, who was supposed to preside over the granary. At this point, I've decided to check if these things happened the original novel, just to know who to blame, the author of the novel or the screenwriter. Neither of these two happened in the novel. The novel isn't great in its narrative but it is well structured in plots, actions and political intrigues. If the screenwriter sticked to it, she (they) would have done a much better job. Instead, she (they) felt smarter, a better artist, able to re-wrote a perfectly logical and rational story, by making it totally illogical just to make an idol drama.Because, very differently from the drama, the novel MADE SENSE ALL THE TIME, its characters and their decisions, plots and motivations were realistic, both on the protagonists' and the antagonists' side. It isn't a great novel but it makes sense, it doesn't offend your basic knowledge and intelligence. Did this dumb scriptwriter ever attend an elementary school? If she did, she would have heard of communicating vessels principle: you can't raise the level of the marsh by DRAINING the downstream and so on.The amount of nonsense is not limited to the actions, the screen adaptation totally unnecessary exaggerated and/or twisted practically all original characters, making them nonsensical as well, Manman is this superpowered and superskilled woman (who would have blowned up herself in reality in the first eps), Daqiao is a woman totally comitted just to one man to make such a dumb decisions, and all the male characters are basically dumbed down.Last but not least, the drama adaptation failed to maintain the atmosphere, the geist of its time, in many episodes.On the positive side, the chemistry between actors is ok, the direction is mainly ok. the artistic department also greatly did its job, horrible wigs aside

Read More