Coroner's Diary

BEST DRAMA OF 2025!!!

The storyline, the acting, the characters, the chemistry, the visuals, the ending everything was sooo good. I loved how male and female leads both were smart, mature and very supportive of each other. None of them were childish or had stupid misunderstandings. Both of them were super green flags. Other 2 couples (Yan Li x Princess Ning and Bai Feng x Fu Ling) were really cute too. I was really happy that all 3 couples got their happy ending they deserved. The ending was really satisfying too. I hate open endings or when all good characters sacrifice themselves at the end but this ending was really good. All bad ppl got what they deserved. I hope cdrama writers take notes from this ending and give us happy endings more often. The crime plots were really well written and interesting. 10/10

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Full On entertainment series ..... Time well spent

great story, very well executed , excellent cinematography , great acting by entire cast , well styled and sharp looking leads (kudos to makeup and styling team for doing an excellent job !) and casting team .... over all job well done by every single department

One of those rare dramas you will enjoy from start to end. every character shone. so many adorable characters - from the grand old ladies , to the younger lot. all shone brightly, even the villains ...

Li Landi and Ao Rui Peng- looked their best and acted phenomenally!

this is one drama I will revisit , though the cases are no longer a mystery - there is so much to love in this drama

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COULDN'T HAVE ASKED FOR ANYTHING MORE

What an exhilarating series.

I love me a murder mystery. Coupled with a beautiful romance story, great acting, good writing and pacing; Coroner's Diary truly hit ALL the right boxes.

I'm a huge fan of the whodunit type shows like Midsomer Murders, Murdoch Mysteries, the Agatha Christie series' and the like, so the everyday mystery story lines we got to see in this show was really exciting to watch. All the stories were unique and well written.

Romance wise, this was also really good. I was worried the romance wouldn't be the main focus but it was! Yan Chi and Shen Wan were an absolute powerhouse couple and I loved their sincere devotion and love for each other. There were lots of kisses and intimacy between the two of them sprinkled throughout the show, so my heart was full seeing the couple grow.

Regarding the main plot of this series, I was absolutely invested by the time we hit the 30 episode mark. The pacing was reallllly starting to ramp up and things were finally being revealed which made me both shocked and amazed with the writing. I LOVED the plotline, everything was just so well done.

I'm so shocked that what seemed to be an unimpressionable series was not only able to grab my attention but keep me entertained and happy watching it. Overall really enjoyed everything about this show.

Side note, huge props to the Grandma/Great Aunt actress. That lady was the best Grandma ever, so feisty and badass, haha. Her acting was superb and the scene of her at the end being so emotional was so perfect to me.

Ah, i dont even know what else to say. I just recommend you give this a try!

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A Good Detective Series

I was craving a detective film when I came across "Coroner's Diary". I liked it very much. Although it was quite obvious from the very beginning who the culprit was in each and every case, I still enjoyed the thrill of the investigation and felt satisfaction when criminals were discovered and received retribution one way or another. The twist towards the end of the series was surprising in a thrilling way, to me at least. I liked that they didn't use the face-swapping technique trope. The twin brother motif felt more realistic and in line with the general atmosphere of the narrative. It was a logical story, well constructed and narrated; it didn't offend any sense of intelligence.
The actors did an amazing job, all of them. Especially those impersonating villains, who had to render hypocrisy, in order for us to be able to determine where they stand, what they think and why they acted like they did.
I also liked the romantic relationships, each of them being charming in their own unique way. Every couple was simply lovely.
In terms of cuteness, the best of all was, of course, the elderly royal aunt/ grandma. She was delicious as the energetic, joyful, warm and wise character, but also commandable for the way she cultivated family relationships. A very dynamic, adorable aunt we all wish we had (perhaps).
The music was fine and it served its purpose.
Two things were hard for me: 1)As a non-Asian, the multitude of Yan, Che, Chang and other homophones made me lose track of the characters sometimes, and I had to pause, review and recall everybody in order not to lose the sense of logic and continuity. 2) Many of the murders and the crime scenes were a little too gruesome for me, but this, I guess, depends on each person's sensitivity. Anyway, they were too much for me, and I had to look away from the screen sometimes. Other than this, everything was good.
The costumes were absolutely gorgeous, and this is the first reason I started to watch the series. I'm a big obsessed fan of those ancient Chinese outfits.
I am glad I watched this series, it's good and I totally recommend it.

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Plot that won't make you gripe!

I like how the story is being unfold in a "calm manner". By that I mean, it doesn't make you gripe over and over because some plot were being told in a way that makes you gripe so much, like making the FL/ML suffer over and over and over to no end before they overcame the challenges.

Now, this is the interesting part, where usually "calm" plot may not work very well, but this drama, specifically , is able to make it interesting, unfolding different layers of plot calmly with a nice touch. It's not contrive, but interestingly mystifying and surprising as well, blending in with great, simple romance, friendship and display of FL's extraordinary wits.

The way the FL solves cases with ML and also, the nature of FL being determined, smart, able and trustworthy strengthen the FL role along with the interesting way the plot sets in. It keeps me going without feeling overly contrive and believable.

If you like drama that is sort of a surprising mystery type, with romance, loyalty + friendship that is "calm' (won't have heart attack type, but keeps you relief, wanting more), then this is definitely for you.

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Only one flaw: acting

This is a high quality plot line and plot delivery. I am so impressed and I know it will stay with me for a long time. The soundtracks are beautiful. Some scenes make me cry a ton of tears. I usually prioritize heavy romance but it is not the focus of this one at all. And I don't mind because all the other pros. I cant name them all and possibly others have praised many aspects already. I just want to admit one thing; chemistry is good but acting is off. I love the ml appearance he is god-like handsome but he is not there yet. Cant wait for him to work harder and reach higher acting level. The fl is ok but still - something is off. The other leads also have pretty off moments here and there. But you know it doesnt matter that much. Still solid 9/10. Highly recommended!

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One of the Best Investigative Thrillers in a Long Time!!

It’s been a long time since I thoroughly enjoyed an investigative thriller. It is so good that you had wish for S2!

The best part about this show is the female protagonist smashing age-old practices left and right. Shen Wan aka Qin Wan belongs to a noble family and is a brilliant coroner as well as medical practitioner. Yes, you heard it right, she is a coroner. And the fact that she takes pride in her occupation is what sets her apart from most coroners in that era. The show has a historical setting, so it is atypical for a woman to choose to be a coroner; women who do so are considered as ominous. And yet, Shen Wan destroys these old age believes and proves that women are adept as men. Joining on her revenge crusade is Prince Yan Li, the heir of Prince Rui and the Emperor’s nephew. Both get entangled investigating a common case and from there, there is no turning back. There is oodles of romance in this show but it takes a setback to the investigation. Both Shen Wan & Yan Li give preferential treatment to their cases than themselves.

Read the complete article here-

https://kcdramamusings.wordpress.com/2025/07/29/coroners-diary-series-review/#more-1998

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Coroner’s Diary : Bones, Secrets, and Justice

🔹 Definitely would rewatch it! The mysteries were gripping enough that I’d happily dive in again.

✨ That moment when the last note fades and you realize a song captured the whole mood—did you feel that too with this drama?

📖 Overview 🎬
🔹 38 episodes, historical mystery and romance
🔹 Adapted from the web novel The Powerful and Favored Coroner Imperial Concubine by Bu Yue Qian Zhuang
🔹 Li Lan Di as Qin Wan: clever, perceptive, and always holding back just a little of what she knows
🔹 Ao Rui Peng as Yan Chi: calm on the surface, steady fire underneath, quietly protective
🔹 The story begins when Qin Wan disguises herself to escape her family’s tragedy, using medicine and autopsies to uncover palace secrets
🔹 Great for fans of slow-burn mysteries mixed with romance and court intrigue

✨ How It Felt Watching 💙
🔹 From the very first case, I felt pulled into the tension of each discovery
🔹 Seeing Qin Wan balance healing with crime-solving was both moving and exciting
🔹 The tone stayed emotional, hopeful, and touched with sorrow
🔹 Themes of justice, perseverance, and trust ran through every turn
🔹 Fans loved the clever investigations and emotional pull, though some said the last stretch moved a little slowly

🎭 Cast & Performances
🔹 Li Lan Di as Qin Wan: every thoughtful glance made me believe in her quiet strength
🔹 Ao Rui Peng as Yan Chi: his steady support made their connection feel genuine and natural
🔹 The supporting cast added the right mix of tension and warmth, making the story feel fuller

🎵 OST 🎧
🔹 As Dust (若以尘埃) by Zhou Shen
🔹 Don’t Sigh (别叹) by Huang Xiao Yun
🔹 Bottom of Your Heart (是你在心底) by Curley Gao
🔹 Wind and Rain (风雨) by Li Lan Di
🔹 This Love (此爱) by Ao Rui Peng

🎨 Visuals & Production
🔹 The palace halls felt rich and shadowed, while the crime scenes had a raw edge
🔹 Costumes were elegant yet restrained, matching Qin Wan’s life between healer and investigator
🔹 The candlelit mood gave each reveal a quiet intensity that stuck with me

🏆 Final Thoughts
🔹 What worked: the mix of autopsy mysteries and palace intrigue felt refreshing and emotional
🔹 What didn’t: the final arc slowed down, but the ending was worth the wait
☕ SpillTheDramaTea’s Rating: 9/10: a delicate blend, comforting with a subtle kick

✏️ As SpillTheDramaTea, it felt like unfolding an old scroll page by page, slow, steady, but rewarding in the end.

✨ Which case left you holding your breath the most?

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Romance, mystery, and macabre

What a journey I’ve been on as I watched this drama. Truly a brilliant show—acted, directed, written, and produced with excellence.

Pros:
* The romance — Very rarely do you find a couple like this. For one, our actors were brilliant and their chemistry was fire! They were so at ease with a multitude of kisses. Secondly, they are committed to each other. Totally and completely. No messy breakup or miscommunication. When they decide to be together in episode 16, they never—and I mean NEVER—go back on their word to fight side by side for justice. If you love Song Mo and Dou Zhao in “Blossom”, you’ll love Yan Chi and Shen Wan in “The Coroner’s Diary”
* The leads — I already know I love Ao Rui Peng, but I was new to Landi Li. They killed it! Their acting was just plain phenomenal. More than that, these characters were written phenomenally. Shen Wan is a FL for the history books. Drama writers, take notes. She is strong, brilliant, determined, just, and loyal. Yan Chi? Drama writers, take notes again. He is brave, resilient, protective, kind, and fiercely in love. Class one green flag.
* The writing — Very rarely I have I been able to finish an ancient historical detective drama. This one, though? It was top tier. The cases are so intricate, and the overarching political plot ended up being absolutely mind blowing.
* Production — The costumes will blow you away. The makeup will too. The OST? Excellent. The sets? Excellent. The action scenes? Excellent.

Cons:
* Gore galore — I love American cop shows so I didn’t expect to be a wuss when I watched this. I was not prepared for the level of gore that would accompany some of these murders. There were five murders in particular where I could barely handle looking at the body. There’s a serial killer arc in the second half that left me almost nauseous with how brutal the murders were. Violence, in general, is perhaps abnormally abundant for a romance drama, especially in the last half.
* Pacing issues — Typically in the Chinese mystery shows, a case will be wrapped up in two to three episodes. This one averages about five episodes per case, with every case having more than one murder involved. This lowkey annoyed me because I often was more than ready to move to the next case, but they’d just kill off someone else and it would drag out another episode.
* This last one is just an opinion thing so I won’t even call it a full con, but I think we deserved to flesh out our ML’s past much more. We got way more screen time of FL than the ML, which is fine, but the ML’s backstory ends up being integral to the main plot and so the fact that we barely see any of it kinda felt unfinished to me.

Overall, I get the hype for this show. “The Coroner’s Diary” is one of the best Chinese dramas I’ve watched this year. Definitely recommend.

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Got my attention in every episode

With Chinese dramas, I have a tendency to fast forward or skip episodes even with the great ones. I mean it’s not easy to fill in stories even when the plot is great. This drama builds the lead and supporting characters extremely well, the subplots are relevant to the character development albeit some may find them too long but I personally enjoyed the variety nod mysteries. Reminded me of Quincy, ME (dating myself). There is enough twists but not to convoluted that it hurts your neck. A satisfying ending leaving you hello ng good for rooting the main characters. As I said before a well written story will always keep the reader or audience glued. In a society we’re women were once treated so low they aborted girl babies I am glad to see heroines emerging in stronger leading roles. I hope they do more of these kind of shows showing the strength of a woman in a male dominated culture.

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A Good Crime Drama with issues handling multiple romances

This is a review where it sounds like I'm going to be harsher than my score would indicate but honestly let me get this out of the way now

If you enjoy crime shows that pull no ppunches and will handle subject matter that is DARK...you're good cos you got that this show (even if some of the cases seemed to drag on but we'll talk about that) but if you are someone that wonders

"How do they handle the Main Character and his Sidekick?"

Well in my opinion that is where this show had issues

When the show opens and we see Shen Wan on a boat where the boatsman gets murdered we sort of know this show is going to handle murder pretty brutally...see what happens the second we get into Jingzhou if you don't believe that!

Within the first little bit of the time there we meet the "Black Armor Guard" and the two main members of it: Yan Chi and his Deputy Bai Feng

If you need a good idea of how violent Bai Feng can be all you need to know is he gave an order for everyone to clear out ,a guard refused and well...that was the end of him. Later on he shows his temperment more when he storms down to a prison cell and goes after a prisoner. I will remind you that he's not the lead character but had that kind of energy

Meanwhile there's Yan Chi

I sometimes think the expression

"Stand there and look pretty"

is what we need to say to Main Characters if they aren't supposed to do anything when we first see them because guess what? It's basically how the scene went. Oh and Bai Feng deleting the guard went unnoticed in the scene

The pace of crimes that were shown in the series was actually...not bad but you wondered if there weren't "smaller" cases that could have been used in the show because ,when cases take around 2 to 5 episodes that kind of tells you something with the way they pace out stories in the series and I can tell you I started to wonder what was going on

When it comes to the actual "Romance" stuff I tended to wonder (outside of the one for the main characters that got resolved around episode 30 give or take) what other ones would get focused on

Well we had Yan Li and Princess Yonging so that was cool

...

Oh and there WAS Bai Feng and Fu Ling...although that one is the most confusing of how it was wrote because I love a good "slow burn" arc as much as anyone but my issue was here that...it didn't REALLY feel like they were going to give anyone invested in it the payoff vs. either Yan. Like you could literally watch almost any scene they (Bai Feng and Fu Ling) were in and sort of look at them and go

"Yeah if you ship them you're getting hosed"

Because there were few scenes where I sat there and went

"Eh maybe"

Because it genuinely felt like they didn't have an "Arc" as they did a "rushed romance" (IMHO)

Now one thing I have to say about Cheng Hong Xin is this

Dude can steal scenes

EVEN IF he isn't in a speaking role in a scene he does things that make me crack up laughing...even if its not intentional he does things as Bai Feng that makes me go

"Protect this dude"

There is a scene ,and Lord help me I wish I knew the episode when Bai Feng says and I quote

"My legs are shaking"

I need to find that scene cos...oh boy its lived in my head rent free and will never go away

Basically Xin is a treasure and we need to protect him at all costs...and I put Bai Feng in Cyberpunk 2077 so there's that too!

One thing from a plot persopective that I didn't get was this (well okay the "Romance" section)

Explain to me how ,Bai Feng is probably the most level headed of the two with him and Yan Chi when it comes to relationships and HE gets bullied?! No I'm actually curious about this cos if this was supposed to be part of his "romance arc" with Fu Ling they never found a way to convey that...they DID convey that Bai Feng is "Smoother than Yan Chi" so there is that plus for sure

Also there is some confusion (at least for me) with Bai Feng's rank:

Bai Feng was referred to as "General" but ,in listings on here, he is called a "Deputy" so that's confusing but it's fine...just sommething that I thought was odd

Okay so overall why did I give this a 7.5

Story - It's not bad but if you go in expecting evenly fleshed out romances...don't. I can recommend a Thai BL Drama that does a better job of that honestly

Acting - Despite my qualms with the story the Acting is great and Ao Rui Peng does great job of not just being the "Serious General" but can also be funny when he needs to be. I talked about Cheng Hong Xin in his role and even Landy Li (Plot Armor and all) did a great job as Shen Wan. No complaints there

Music - PERFECTO and a big reason is when they had tp do a scene that showed a breakdown of how the crime happened that was awesome AND the opening theme is haunting as hell

Rewatch Value - Honestly...if this didn't have romance in it I would go higher because the cases are fun to watch through but its the "baggage" of having to shoehorn in romance that makes me go

"Ehh..."

Like remove the romance its 10/10 but having romance in crime shows just doesn't work for me as a viewer and reviwer...its NOT what I signed up for

take care

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