The Double

There is a running theme about putting on a show in this drama, and for much of the first half, it is certainly an entertaining one. Xue Fangfei is cruelly betrayed by her husband Shen Yurong, who buries her alive at the behest of psychotic Princess Wanning. From there, we follow Fangfei as she is rescued by the noble Jiang Li, who faces an unjust, untimely death and whose identity Fangfei assumes on her quest for revenge for the both of them. Along the way, she crosses paths with the powerful and intimidating Xiao Heng, who is on his own mission to clear the imperial court of corrupt officials and to seek justice for his father's wrongful death.

This drama has a lot of similar beats and characteristics as The Story of Kunning Palace, and had I watched this one first, I may have rated it higher. Unfortunately, it is too much of the same thing and nothing much profound is developed. Expect a lot of juicy plot and not much on the side of multi-dimensional characters or logical world building. The problem for me with these types of dramas is that without spending the time to build a story, themes and characters, the end product tends to fall flat at the climax because it is ultimately "just a show" without much substance. For example, the final conflict with Prince Cheng feels unearned. More build up with his character and his collusion with the other antagonists (Shen Yurong and Wanning had so much more potential for something truly interesting) may have helped to make that storyline work.

At the end of the day, it was still an entertaining watch, especially if you are in the need to see the good guys win and trounce all the evil guys and gals out there.

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A very enjoyable drama with interesting story and plot development, an outstanding cast, excellent cinematography, lovely music pieces and excellent chemistry between the leads.

Xue FangFei was the daughter of an integrous magistrate who was wrongly accused and sentenced to death. She was murdered and buried alive by her husband whom she loved. The husband was a very conflicted personality - in the drama, you would witness his struggle. Rescued by Jiang Li who eventually died due to ill-treatment, she took on her identity.

She assumed two huge responsibilities - how to get Jiang Li's stepmother to admit her crimes, and to investigate and exposed the mastermind behind the extermination of the Xue family. To return to the capital, she made use of Duke Su, known for his ruthlessness, and for which she received both help and retaliation.

Of course, you have Wu JinYan (Xue FangFei) of Yanxi Palace fame as the lead actress, acting once again an intelligent woman seeking and upholding justice. And then, there was Wang XingXue (Duke Su) who had a flair for selecting and performing well in good dramas. His last four dramas were all above rating of 8 on mydramalist.com; the Kunning Palace was one of them. He is certainly very young to have earned these accolades.

The plot was interesting as both FangFei and Duke Su had their share of scheming and being schemed against. You watched wondering what they were going to do next to counter the traps set for them, and whether the dangerous schemes they set for their antagonists might backfire. And for sure sometimes they did. When Duke Su handed over his army tally to the Princess to entice her brother to hasten the rebellion, you would expect him to have also a back-up plan to re-secure his power besides relying on the army from an ally. But he did not - I thought this was a pretty dangerous and foolish gamble.

This, as I understood, was the adaptation of a novel with some significant changes from the original story. The original was more of a supernatural setting but this was more down to earth.

It is worth pointing out here that the sound track was outstanding - one of the best in Chinese drama and witnessing a return of good music pieces to dramas after the pandemic. I love the theme songs and the two instrument pieces played at the entry examination.

Whenever there is an actress who is significantly older than her male counterpart, or acting a maiden much younger than herself, there is always the question whether they would be able to bring out the chemistry. Very often they do. So I would say to viewers not to discriminate on this basis. The camera, make-up and excellent acting can often overcome this.

There was however an unexplained scene - how did FangFei escaped from being buried alive as she was tied up and knocked unconscious. It showed Jiang Li finding her near a river, but how did she get there?

While the story and plots were relatively original, the themes of fighting for the throne and revenge for misjustice were a little overused and somewhat stale and cliche. They made good stories for a period drama, but would be nice to watch something of a different theme for a change. However, if you have not watched as many Chinese dramas as I have, this would not affect you.

Overall, I was debating whether to give it a 9.5 or a 10. Eventually I settled for the former for the last two reasons above.

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a good late-night entertainment, but that's all

the plot really got me since ep 1, but perhaps the great plot, when u have a lazy direction you cant expect much, so i acknowledged that i wouldn't receive a show i could lay on entirely when a 30yo actress got a role of a 18yo girl, and the ending no satisfied me, but i really enjoyed jinyan acting, the political intrigues, the relationship between the main characters, overall was a good bad drama, kept me entertained for two days<3

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Best Strong female lead I have ever seen in the c-dramas

Episode 11 was truly excellent, very moving - where she played the zither, it made me teary and the #1 reason why I have to finish watching.
She played the piece 'The Spring Fading into White Pear Blossoms' a folk tune expressing a woman's lament about her fate, filled with sorrow and grief as if she experienced great injustice.
To add the lyrics of the song " Even the moonlight can't bear to wander, watching me helpless and forlorn. Who's giving up so easily?
In my opinion, one of the best performances of the main leads and they nailed their roles, great acting and chemistry even with zero or less kissing scenes, that did not stop me from dropping - plus all the supporting casts delivered. Kudos to the script writers. I have nothing negative to say about this drama. I liked the story, worth watching until the last episode.

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Best Asian Drama I've ever seen and superior to any Western Revenge Movie or TV Show

This is the first time I give a 10 to any drama and with good reason.

While slow at times it never becomes tiresome keeping me on the edge of my seat for it's entirety, with it's gripping story, Oscar worth acting - specially from Wu Jin Yan (FL) - and then there is the OST, god how good can a OST be???

While the story is heavy and grounded, there are some wuxia-esce and humorous moments that could have broken the pace or my interest in what was happening but even those moments were perfectly made and weaved through the story allowing us to breath between heavy drama moments.

Then there is the chemestry between both ML and FL that allowed them to act on a realistic and slow burn romance, never over the top realistcally built through their struggles that contributed to the first drama that I consider to be perfect...

They even gave us a happy ending in the special episode but I would not be sad if they kept it as it ends in episode 40...

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exhausting after episode 24

No doubt the main couple is very well chosen, and are very good and nice actors. And the series was quite enjoyable until the beginning of episode 24. After that it becomes really heavy, as if the writter had pulled all the string of its imagination downwards to prolong the show to some 40 episodes. The series then plunges into the madness of some of the most wicked characters, masochist or serial killer, so vicious it becomes simply sordid to depict as well as to watch them, a kind of unhealthy voyeurism into the disturbed physche of some dangerous psychopath, definitely not my cup of Chinese tea/series. I am quite sad that because of the leading pretty faces, most viewers did not discern some things were going too far, but it is their problem after all.
Having jumped prematurely to the end of the series to check it would not be an irreparable disapointment, I found out the torture did not stop there, and I decided to resume the flow only up to the last happy images of the last episode for the main couple. For after that we are left on this kind of very 'refined' double interpretation enigma, typicall of those 'lofty' series which refuses to give a frank happy ending because it is so called artistically cheap, even if the viewer/client loves it but will anyway be left frustrated.

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Satisfying story of revenge

Who else loves a great, satisfying revenge story? I sure do! I've watched revenge dramas before and this one hits all the marks--great story telling, wonderful plot twist that keep you on your toes, and an intelligent FL who seem to be playing 4D chess using with the characters as pawns. The ML is also smart and together they compliment each other well. I love seeing how the FL's schemes play out--it's SO satisfying seeing how she used her wits to make a mess of her enemies and also coming out on top each time. I love smart FL who is not only witty, but is a brilliant strategist. The only slight disappointment is the ending... no spoilers, but I only wish they had ended it differently. I also would've loved to see more romance between FL and ML especially with how much chemistry they had.

Overall, this drama was one of the best I've watched in awhile. I was hooked since episode one and literally binged watched it on in a few days. It's SO good, leaving you feeling so satisfied--revenge is best served cold!!! Love a good revenge story.

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