Action/War historical C-dramas

amazing drama, like a masterpiece. the leads were strong, capable and loyal people, not only to the empire but to the people they swore to protect. the story starts with the FL pretending to be her brother that was sick, so she took his idendity when she was a kid and fought and beaome a general., but because of a misunderstanding where reinforcements did not arrive to save the ML's father, he thought the FL became evil. of course, since she always wore a mask and pretended to be her brother, he did not know it was her. then her brother wanted his identity back and plotted to kill her but failed, so she decides to expose the entire truth and enlists in the ML's army as a man, and trains and fights to become even better. here, the story is funny as we see the life of the army, and the ML quickly find outs the FL is a women (ep4) and starts to care for her. through battles, msytery plots, they fight to bring the villains to justice, and then he finds out her real idendity and even though he wants to her for causing his "father and armys" death, he knows her true character and never hates her, and so we see the leads apart just for 2 episodes, untill then the ML finds out the whole truth, that her brother was the villain. the dual personality of the FL when she was the soldier and next to the ML as more "childish" was well done,  because at the time she was concealing her identity. then her more mature, with her assumed identity, chef's kiss.

overall: no deaths excepts one minor general, some kisses between the leads, amazing plot, badass FL, green flag of ML that stood for the FL and did not stay in her way of letting her fight her own battles and supported her, the villains were annoying but the way they got what they deserved was well executed, the last battle with the leads was beautiful with the darker sceneries and the leads wearing black and white. we get around 5 scenes of "battle" or figting, which is good, just wanted a bit more,

wished the two little kids and Mimi did not die

finished july 2023

bittersweet ending

loved the badass female lead and the interaction between ML and FL

happy ending for main leads. loved the friendships. Good story

bad side: Hua song and the instructor Guo died, and the reformed bully as well

Overall it was a good drama. The beginning was more of a comedy, with mystery and then it became more heavy and serious. Loved the FL, she was strong and stood for what she believed in, and the ML as well. They liked each other almost from the start and had constant bickering which was really funny to watch, also the fact that they were from different armies made it even funnier. We see both the leads being strong and extremely smart, they know what the other is thinking and go along with each other plans. There were however certain things I did not like which is why it's just this rating. First of all, there were a lot of villains, or annoying characters that took up quite a lot of screen time, which bothered me: the jeshuo tribe, the annoying Cui Lin/Lie Cheng Feng, the Lady Guo, the sons of the emperor/brothers of the ML and even the emperor himself. The Lady Guo never got a chance with the ML who turned her down plainly and simple, the brothers of ML thankfully died and so did the fake Cui Lin and the emperor was so immature and finally did the right thing in the last episode and abdicated the throne for the ML. The ML never wanted the throne but had it temporarily (10 years) alongside the FL as empress until the former crown princess was old enough to take over. 

Final verdict: the "Bandid brothers" of the ML died which was unnecessary and I hated it, loved the sidekicks of the leads, Taozi and Xie Chang Er which were so cute together (and had their happy ending) and the leads got their wish in the end and went to defend the border and lived with their kids.