Wonderland of Love

a well combined drama

The drama was well combined with matters of politics, romance , history, comedy, friendship and so on. I am an anti fantasy drama lover. I am so glad this drama was fantastic partially but it was not a typical fantasy drama actually. The female lead's statement ' once I get pregnant I will kill you and let my son ascend to the throne,,,' This apparently confused him first but he later became so happy remembering the romantic night. Her statement is quite unique and unforgettable for me. Also his confusing look was so lovable. The two characters in the sketchbook were really cute. The fighting scene of the first night of their marriage was quite stunning. The male lead usually star in a fantasy drama but I wish he could star in more decent and realistic dramas in the future because he is so versatile. I'd rather love him in traditional costumes.

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From Boy to Man

I am more impressed with Xu Kai than ever before after watching this drama. Even waiting a little while to gather my thoughts, I am still at a loss for words in regards to his skills.

Let’s go through the production. Fir the most part the scenery, stunts, buildings and battles were well done. There were a few wobbly swords, a couple of pre-sword strike dye pouch bursts, and awkward extras in the battle scenes, but not in every scene, so they were negligible. The Candyland trees on the plains were a bit much, but they did lend a bit of sweetness to the story between the leads. And the fake horses with the yellow eyes were laughable - and it’s obvious that they are used because a lot of the up-close scenes looked like they were on rocking horses.

The rest of the scenery was beautiful and each location added depth to the scenes rather than detracting from it.

There are a few characters that were so annoying I almost fast forwarded through the scenes they were in. Tge Emporer and his sons were like watching clowns crawl out of a smart car in front of an oncoming train. Cringey bad characters.

Lady Gu (aka the silk stalker stuck in her imaginary world was just as unpleasant as the ML’s father and siblings. She feigned her purity of heart, while colluding with her father the traitor to eliminate the FL. As if her crazy self was even qualified to be something she couldn’t handle. Her annoying maid had a voice like a mosquito and was just as whiney.

Now that they’re out of the way, I can talk about the story.

The script writer did a very good job setting up scenes and the profession from one to the next. The transitions were smooth without a lot if repeat from the previous episode in the first few minutes.

The characters were all brought to life by each actor (even the annoying ones). I was also surprised to see that Liu Yuning had such a small roll, however, he pulled the quirky character off in his usual professional way. He should have had more screen time!

No on to Xu Kai’s performance. It didn’t matter if the scene called for martial arts, war scenes, or anything else for that matter. His eyes, facial expressions and movement was flawless. In one scene where he was angry that emotion was not only on his face, but his neck started turning red. I the last could of episodes, he was heart broken and it was all over his face, in his voice and reflected in his voice. There were two particularly poignant scenes where his body was shaking with fear and his crying was powerfully portrayed. So much so that I had tears streaming down my face and not just sitting in my eyes. He also did fabulously with the martial arts stunts.

The FL was an excellent choice for thar roll. She was tough being a general in the army, but put her in a beautiful silk dress and she carried off the sweet girl who could turn into a sword bearing guardian of the underdogs. She was an excellent actress for this role. She too performed extremely well in the martial arts scenes.

The music was pretty good. I am certain I heard Xu Kai’s singing voice several times.

Overall, this was a great drama, and well worth the 40 episode watch. It will be on my watch again list, that’s for certain.

It’s worth the cringey characters. Watch it, you won’t be disappointed!

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I have no patience for the bad plot and the ML didn't do a good job (imo)

"Wonderland of Love" is a historical Rom-Com by Xu Kai and Jing Tian. The kung fu is awesome in this drama, and Jing Tian did a good job playing the army lieutenant. However, I dislike Xu Kai's character and acting ability.

Xu Kai can't act, in my opinion, especially in historical dramas. I dropped every historical drama he was in, like Snow Eagle Lord, Lost in the Kunlun Mountains, Court Lady, etc.

I have a higher tolerance for his modern dramas like Falling Into Your Smile and She and Her Perfect Husband, where I finished the dramas but not historical ones. He is very handsome but a one-dimensional actor with the same facial expression for every emotional scene.

I gave it a 6.5 rating because I didn't like the plot and could not continue after watching 8 episodes.

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More like “Wandered-Land of Love"

The drama opens with a spark that immediately pulls you in—the banter between Li Ni and Cui Lin is sharp, witty, and exhilarating. Their battle of wits sets the tone for a promising start, and I found myself leaning forward, eager to see who would outmaneuver the other. The dynamic between them is one of the strongest aspects of the show. And look, I’ll admit it — I was probably a little biased. I found myself rooting for Li Ni more than I should’ve, even though half the time I wanted to smack Cui Lin for torpedoing his plans. But to be fair, she wasn’t wrong. Their clash stems from different goals, and that tension is what makes their early interactions so compelling.

Unfortunately, about a third of the way in, the momentum falters. Li Ni’s choices start to feel questionable, driven more by emotion than strategy. I get it — he was never the “conquer the world” type and didn’t have that ruthless drive—but when you’ve got an entire faction depending on you, a little more grit would’ve been nice. His lackadaisical approach becomes frustrating. The fatigue set in for me here, as the narrative lost the sharp edge it had in the beginning.

What really pushed my patience, though, was his father, the ultimate poster child for ungrateful dead weight. Li Ni literally risks everything to save this useless man, only for dear old dad to turn around and shower affection on his incompetent, shameless sons instead. That was the moment my eyebrows permanently migrated north.

By the time the drama heavily leaned into its romantic subplot, I was done. The lovey-dovey couple moments were so cloying they felt like toothaches, and I couldn’t push through the cringe. Despite a strong start and flashes of brilliance in the character dynamics, Wonderland of Love ultimately lost me before the finish line.

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Story is good, actors are good but this is the first drama I have watched so far wherein the female lead has a petty character and does not show that she loves the male lead as much as the male lead loves her. He has always helped her, saves her always, doing things for her even at the cost of his life. She always takes advantage of his love for her & knows that he will always let her have her way, she has not shown any acts to show that she loves him as much as he does, and very inconsistent. At first she wants him to be the crown prince & will not marry him if he is not citing that the court will make things difficult for him and he will not be able to save himself and his loved ones if he is not the crown prince but when he became the crown and with the knowledge that he will be put in different difficulties, she will not support him and even told him she will not marry him when he is doing it to protect her & her father. In one of the scenes, she and her father talked about their army eventually being dissolved as they expect since the court is wary about their military power so she should have understood his decision to give in to the condition of disbanding their army in order to save her & her father but she was petty to even blame it on him and was angry/hateful to him, always saying things like "just kill me" like when Chengfeng was supposedly killled, she was also being petty blaming it all on him when before that Chengfeng betrayed his army and caused the death of many of his men and she had the gall to be angry at him when he has the right to be angry at her. She cannot blame him of he did not believe her at first because she had been tricking from the start even with their bets, she is kind of cunning and sly and she even put at risk the life of the young imperial grandson and did not regret her action.
The worst female lead character ever!

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Meeting your match

Wonderland of Love (WoL) is a surprising enjoyable ride, following the love story of Li Ni and Cui Lin.

For the review, I will mainly use Cui Lin’s nickname, Ah Ying, when referring to her since this is what Li Ni likes to call her by.

Li Ni’s and Ah Ying’s meet cute began with a fight for food supply and reclaiming of the cities to save the “king” that was being held hostage at capital.

What was intriguing from the get go was the battle of wits between the two of them, who held different armies. Smart and capable as they were, we couldn’t tell who had the upper hand nor who to root for as they competed for the same resources and gain the upper hand.

Li Ni and Ah Ying quickly turned allies when they unwittingly figured they worked more effectively together. The interactions remained fun to follow as they maintained the playful friendly flirtatious rivalry between them. … until the dynamics started to change by episode 16-ish when it seemed like Li Ni became the stronger one, be it from moral code, family power, or affection shown to other.

For the record, I still like Ah Ying a lot. She is one of the cunning, decisive, and likeable female leads that’s hard to come by in an idol drama. The slightly disappointed part to me was the troupe-y plot devices used to create the necessary tension between female and male leads to move the story along.

There were instances I felt that she overused Li Ni’s affection for her and / or she got turned into a weaker party. Was her hidden weapons only used for Li Ni? Where’s the independent cunning female lead we were introduced to at the start? It wasn’t that Ah Ying had the obligations to return Li Ni’s affection the exact same way he was doting her biasedly (on some level) or troupes like obsessive SML cannot be used in stories. It would’ve been nice to see a little more layers in Ah Ying and her development that’s present on Li Ni’s side through their love journey …or maybe I fast forwarded too much to see that side of Ah Ying.

On the other hand though, I recognised that a lot of conflicts they had were realistic and consistent with their characters setup. Li Ni may be loyal, upright and capable - but he is also impulsive and idealistic. Cui Lin is indeed cunning, pragmatic and overbearing - but she is also caring to her loved ones, willing to make the necessary sacrifices for the bigger goal and is resourceful. I guess this made them perfect for each other.

The real pity is the one dimensional supporting characters and slightly draggy plots. With weaker supporting cast, WoL’s story plot were less engaging and felt cliche-ish at some parts. They could’ve totally cut the story to 24 - 26 episodes and it likely would’ve made no difference to the enjoyment of Li Ni’s and Ah Ying’s love story.

Acting wise, I like both Xu Kai’s and Jing Tian’s portrayal of the characters and their chemistry. Believable enough for me to invest in Shi Qi Lang’s and Ah Ying’s romance in WoL. Lovely enough for me to swoon for those romantic moments and ignore the cliche-ness way of showing them on screen.

All in all, WoL is the typical idol drama that has a strong start, which somewhat feel draggy troupey halfpoint, and finishes off with an okay-ish, predictable climax. It’s still an enjoyable drama when one has the right expectations for it.

With both capable leads who are complement to each other in terms of wits and great chemistry, WoL is overall a fun and enjoyable flirtatious idol romance story.

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Excellent acting & engaging story.

Excellent, can definitely recommend it. A good mix of political maneuvres, romance, battle, comedy with excellent acting by most of the main cast. The plot is clever, often coming up with something unexpected, akeeps you engaged, and gradually unfolds a few mysteries as it goes along.
It starts just after a rebelling general, Sun Jing, killed the Emperor and the Crown Prince to take the throne. The protagonist, Li Ni is the outcast son of the Emperor's brother and lives on the border as a soldier in charge of repelling invasions. When he hears about Sun Jng's uprising, he decides to fight his way to the capital and restore the throne to the Crown Prince's missing young son, Li Xuanze. The story follows this journey and the aftermatch, and pits several adversaries against each other in shifting alliances - Li Ni's West-Pacifying army, Sun Jing's supporters, the Cui army protecting Yingzhou from Jieshuo invaders, and Jieshuo invaders themselves. Through it is woven encounters with the "Commandant" of the Cui's army, a feisty, beautiful, very skillful fighter. She is the strategist, with Liu Chanfeng at the head of the army. Their relationship and the involvement of Li Ni is the driving motif behind the plot.

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Salah satu drama terbagus di 2023

Gue ga tau harus mulai dari mana. Ini pertama kalinya gue nulis beginian.
Padahal ga terlalu suka nulis juga, tapi karena drama ini bagus banget, gue termotivasi untuk meracuni user2 lain khususnya yg dari INA untuk cobain nonton drama ini.

Dramanya ringan untuk kategori perang dan konflik kerajaan. Tidak terlalu banyak presure, jadi pas nonton dramanya bawaannya senang aja gitu.
Jalan ceritanya menarik banget, ga kepikiran untuk skip satu adegan pun.

Mengenai akting, gue suka banget sama akting semua pemeran yang ada di drama ini. Bener2 top! Parah! Aktingnya xukai superb banget disini. Keren ya, dia itu bisa "berbicara" dengan matanya
Gue suka sama interaksi Xukai dan Jingtian di drama ini. Semuanya nampak natural dan ngalir gitu aja. Ga ada adegan yg dipaksakan, bener2 se smooth itu. Bener2 ga nyangka kalo mereka punya gap umur yang lumayan jauh, artinya chemistry mereka di drama ini tu bener2 top notch!! Exceptional ceunah. Hehe

Gue juga paling suka adegan2 yg di take di dalam hujan, sumpah keren banget!! Slow motionnya, musicnya klop!
Semua aspek dlm drama ini tuh overall bagus. Dramanya recommended!!

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