This review may contain spoilers
My first thought about this show was that wow, this is long, after mostly watching Korean dramas with 16 episodes I was a bit afraid I will get bored of this. However nothing was further from the truth, this show is very much worth watching, it never gets boring and there is always something new it shows us.Story: Basically it is about Tan Yun's journey from early adulthood till her mid-ages when he gets married to the then-current emperor and we can see her struggles to become a female doctress in a time period when only men were allowed to practise medicine. She nevertheless never gave up, we see a lot of fails and successses of hers, she always collects herself and stands up stronger than ever. She become proficient in medicine, her life long passion and gets recognition and respect from fellow male doctors. Her character is based on a real Ming dynasty female physician Tan Yunxian and the Empress Hang who lived a generation before Tan. Now the story also kind of mixes the story of these two time periods, so we see Oirat invasion, the capture of the emperor etc etc, but all in all it does contain quite a lot of historic accuracy, not to mention the show creators also did research on ancient medicinal methods, so this part was very well done. The show can be divided into 3 main parts story-wise, first Tan Yun's time with her family and learning medicine, second the Oirat invasion and her and the emperor being captured by the khan. Here we see a lot of scenes of daily lives of the steppe people who has their own costumes, and during this time she really grows up and becomes a survivor. Third part is the return to the capital and her becoming noble consort than empress, this is mostly about the new emperor who was in the beginning a naiv gentle man but we see how power and some influential political people ruined him and made him greedy.
This is what the best part of the show is, character growth and development is huge, not just for the main actress but for everyone! We never get bored of them because we see how their struggles and circumstances made them change (sometimes for the worse), develop etc. The love story is not really the most crucial part, yes she did marry the younger brother, however it is obvious her real soul mate was the original emperor, with whom she only gets a chance after both his wife and her husband dies several years later. There is a minor love-line with the Oirat khan Esen, I really shipped them, would have loved to see them together, but oh well.
Music, visuals: For the other part of the show, the music is not really special, it's nice but not something I would remember to mention, however it is obvious the show is low budget. I have never seen such bad costumes in a show before, you can clearly see the gluey attachment of the wigs!!! The fight scenes, especially the one with the wolves, oh dear lord, like watching WOW in its earlier stages, just worse. So visually it's really bad, especially for a show that aired in 2016 and not like in the 1980's. One warning though, don't watch while eating, some of the medical scenes are downright disgusting, so if you are sensitive, watch it after eating. A lot of people complained about the last 10 episodes, as it is indeed more slow-paced, but still it has value as it shows how humans change due to power. The last episode was a bit dissatisfying, and a bit weird, I didn't really got why she had a miscarriage, she was slightly pushed by her motherinlaw, but I never got why in chinese dramas they are so overprotecting pregnant women, just because a bit of a push you don't die and don't loose a baby, and you can certainly do more than just lie in the bed! It was weird for me and didn't make sense, and the same goes for why she really married Zhu Qi Yu, when at the time it was clear he was not the sweet loving man anymore. Anyway apart from this it is a great show and I think it really teaches us about life and how to overcome difficulties and never stop pursuing our dreams.
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
Abusive
The show hard to watch.. the lead character showed no sign of character growth, too passive to man she let beat her, she treated the one who loved her like crap and kept falling for a man who could never really protect her, lied continuously, beat her and wanted to change most of everything about her. It’s almost as if this show was saying it’s ok to get beat that is love.. he was pure evil. She lead the man who loved her to lion den.. she did not seem to have good judge of character.. the writers should have had a better story line than a woman getting beat from her father to her husband. They loss the title of the story and she still there trying to protect a man full of jealousy, greed, narcissistic , lier behavior. At least the ending could have been great Sad 😔Was this review helpful to you?
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
To long and ending was terrible...
I admit that I watched this for Shi Shi and found her character quite Stoic; a lesser person would have given up long ago!As said by others, the first half to three-fourths was very good, although I didn't like the pairing of Tan Yunxien with Empress Hang:
Historical fact vs the series:
Yunxian lived to be around 93-94 years old, while Empress Hang only lived to be about 29-30 years old...
Empress Hang was preceded by Empress Wang (Not Mei Lin) and followed by Empress Qian...
Hang was originally the concubine of Prince Jingta and was promoted to consort when the character played by Wallace Huo was captured by the Mongols , not after she returned to the palace when both her and the Retired Emperor escaped.
Consort Hang's son was made emperor, which promoted her to Empress, not her husband. And Yes, she did deliver rather than abort! As stated on another review, a little push would not have caused her to miscarry.
IMO, the whole captivity part should never have been portrayed in the series, but it was an interesting part but not historically accurate at all!
The series itself:
It seems that there was no one 'man enough" to control the first Empress Dowager, the royal female characters in the series were allowed to run wild, sort of. Some historians consider the Empress Dowager as being under the Emperor himself, but this series says otherwise.
I thought all three actresses of the royal family portrayed themselves as villians quite well; one can see why Mei Lin was such a nasty person, after the two other Empress Dowagers and her father got through raising her to be self-centered and greedy. It still blows my mind that after Yunxian saving the royal ladies' lives, they still plotted against her the way they did! And for Mei Lin to beg Yunxian to save their husband's life after she poisoned him...unbelievable!
The younger brother's character fell in love with Yunxian out of gratitude for saving his life, and his actions led her to agree to marry him; and for the emperor to back off her courting after seeing Little Brother loved her, showed me early on that his character was more mature than he acted at the time. However, the court players and the royal women turned Little Brother into a greedy Emperor, and as he said, he got what he deserved from Mei Lin ultimately.
The only good part about the Mongol imprisonment was Little Sister, who treated Yunxian as an equal; although there is no historical fact to this part of the series. The scenery was beautiful and a nice break from the Forbidden City.
Most of what else should be said has already been said by other reviewers; I recommend the reading of the other reviewers to fill in the rest of the review I planned here.
The story was good but artistic license spoiled the historical facts...
The music was great, but not perfect...
Had I known how it would end I would probably not have finished it.
I am glad the two remaining characters did get together, but it left us wondering what happened after the final scene ended!
Was this review helpful to you?
Was this review helpful to you?
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
Bad acting. Bad casting.
I just couldn't push myself to watch more than 7 episodes.Bad acting. Not believable. It looked like amateurs. The script didn't help to make it credible either.
I am not sure what to say positive. I was attracted to something different with the FL but I didn't like her constant low esteem. Plus her high-pitched childish voice was annoying. Both MLs were over-the-top acting. Most actors weren't credible either. I specifically abhor the maids who intrude all the time It is so ridiculous to think maids were allowed to speak up..
I jumped to the last episode as sometimes season 2 is better and if the epilogue is satisfactory, I generally put effort into watching the drama. But it was sad and even the happy ending was just bland.
Pity. I really wanted to like this drama. A pass for me.
Was this review helpful to you?
