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Ancient custom drama making reference to the Cold War !

This drama is a feast for those who like world history for it took titbits especially from the pages of the Cold War. New interest must had arose in the scriptwriter when in 2017, secret JFK records (US President John F. Kennedy, 1960–1963, assassinated on November 22, 1963—drama specifically aired few days later as remembrance of his 60th death anniversary) were made public by the National Archive.This gave fresh information to make historical conjectures about the past that precisely corresponded to the facts to expound on and comprehend why particular events transpired as they did. A captivating and illuminating drama results from combining some Cold War events with some of its colorful and charismatic characters, a masterful script, and the superb acting of all the protagonists and supporting cast members.
Spoiler Alert.
The ML, Ning Yuan Zhou, was a smart and visionary espionage chief who was demoted and sent to safeguard the Wu emperor in the war. He was the composite of 2 historical figures: JFK and the powerful Director of FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, whose 48-year tenure saw the assassinations of JFK and then his brother, Robert F. Kennedy (RFK), who ran for the presidency in 1968.
The FL,Ren Ru Yin, a cool and relentless vice section head of An female assassin espionage group who was frame for killing her benefactor, the An empress. She had to defect to Wu with state secrets, seeked asylum and assumed a fake identity as a Wu princess She was also a combination of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, a benchmark for style and class among wives of presidents, and RFK, who, as Attorney-General in his brother's cabinet was known for his ruthlessness and toughness in combating organized crime.
The opening of episode 1, "The Central Plains was thrown into a century of chaos when the last emperor of the previous dynasty was killed, split into many countries; among them 2 were the most powerful, Wu and An."(The Cold War, which lasted 45 years, began with the competition and antagonism between the US and Russia after World War II.)
The An emperor seized 3 cities from Wu and the war with Wu started. ( Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were invaded under Russian leader.Stalin and incorporated into the Soviet Union)
The Wu emperor listened to ill advisers to lead the war and got captured by An, leading Wu to a state of turmoil.( JFK did not listened to security advisers not to ride in an open-air motorcar in Dallas,Texas and got assassinated which shocked and stunned the nation into national mourning.)
The Wu emperor was captured by an An general with a modern revolutionary principle of fighting to end all wars. ( Che Guevara, with his romantically Latin good looks and long, wavy hair , was a legend for freedom fighters and a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla leader, 2nd in command after Fidel Castro of Cuba in the Cuban Revolution.)
The standoff between Wu and An occurred when Wu emperor was taken hostage by An who wanted ransom for his released.( The Cuban Missiles Crisis ,the standoff when US demanded that Russian removed Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba )
The FL, as White Sparrow, and her friend LingLong were to seduce Wu officials for state secrets in a banquet.LL was betrayed by her secret An lover and killed. (John Profumo,  the U.K. secretary of state for war met a model at a party. Unknown to him , she has a secret KGB lover. When the affair was exposed, he resigned but the Conservative Party lost the general election the following year)
Prince Danyang sending his army to ambush and killed the Wu delegation, going to ransom back his brother the Wu emperor. Countrymen fighting against each other. ( The Bay of Pigs incident, when Cuban exiles funded by CIA, landed and attempted to overthrow PM Fidel Castro)
The stunning announcement of unlikely marriage between Li Tong Guan and Chuyue by the An emperor shocked them and everyone else. He was an illegitimate son of a princess, while she was a princess from a powerful tribe. (Jackie Kennedy shocked and stunned the world when she married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, just months after the assassination of her brother-in-law, RFK. She was from the upper-class society of New York while he worked his way from telephone operator to tycoon.They lived separate lives, she lived months in America with her children, while he was in Greece with his children. She remarried for a variety of reasons, one of which was probably PTSD following another shooting death. She had sat beside her husband when he was shot,stood beside vice president Lyndon B Johnson, when he was sworn in to replace her husband and endured a two-hour trip back to Washington with her husband in a casket and her dress still smeared with his blood. The princess, depicted as a picture of forced composure with an interior full of agony and suffering, sat waiting for an audience with the emperor for hours on end in that scene, which was brilliantly enacted in epi. 22. )
The princess left the sheltered life of the palace as part of a delegation to An, where she witnessed the hardships and impoverishment her people had endured during the conflict.She was even occasionally thrown stones and rotten vegetables to help her comprehend the animosity and wrath, and she responded by promising to restore peace.(The involvement of US in the Vietnam War with actual landing of troops resulting in heavy casualties, contributed to a great deal of animosity and outrage that its leaders failed to anticipate. The scene where Qian Zhao held his mates' badges and forced the emperor to show respect for them was a poignant way for drama to honor the troops who lost their lives fighting in foreign soil. When Saigon fell in 1975, the Vietnam War came to an end. A few days before, there was a dramatic and massive airlift to rescue US citizens, South Vietnamese government officials,their families, and thousands of others by helicopters to the waiting US Seventh Fleet in the South China Sea.Depicted in the rescue of Wu emperor by aerial lift of cables from his island prison)
The drama dragged many episodes to rescue the emperor.From the tightly guarded pagoda prison with its many booby traps to an Alcatraz like island prison. (A parody of sharp contrast from the ridiculously easy fatal shooting of the lone assassin of JFK, Lee Harvey Oswald, to killing him at close range from another lone shooter, Jack Ruby, when he was being transferred from jail to court in police custody! Done in 2 days after the assassination and live on national TV! Real life is much weirder than friction! )
Betrayal was the drama's theme. The motive of the ML was to clear the bad reputation that his espionage organisation had betrayed the emperor in the war. While the Fl was to clear her name that she betrayed and killed her empress.The Wu and An emperors exploited and betrayed their people for their own greed and ego trips. The An Empress who experienced treachery from her father, son, and husband. The crown prince divulging his father's collaboration with the enemy country.There were innumerable such betrayals in the drama. ( In ancient times the punishment for betrayal was to pull out the roots.The writer put forth brilliant deductive speculation coupled with rumors of a connection to Marilyn Monroe, as both brothers did died of gunshots and JFK's only son died childless with his wife in a plane crash. The 2017 files also established that the Russians was not involved in JFK assassination, as they awkwardly put their defence on high security alert for attacks. The files also indicated that there was more than one shooter, as bullet holes demonstrated that the gunfire originated from multiple directions, confirming the conspiracy theorists' long-held belief. Writer theories were presented regarding the conspirators who ordered extermination with extreme caution in the ML statements of “gains and losses” and Zhong Sang ,Wu PM .This historical whodunit murder mystery can be solved upon all releases of secret files once FBI and CIA lift their blocks.).

BTW, the drama has OE like the JFK files. Is the writer venting on the viewers, or is it an act of betrayal?!!

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An inference to current affairs in guise of an investigation drama?

Was this an ingenious view by the writer on world affairs? A cover-up with a cover-up.
The title and initials LON are the same as League of Nations, an old name of the UN.
Spoilers Alert!
This hypothesis was mainly because the story had masks, man-made biological weapons, man-made balloon missiles, and man-made weather changes and mutated decoy empress.
The plot was simple a case of deception where the empress substituted her ill son to a healthy boy to safeguard her status.
There were 5 main characters:
The Bad Guys: FL, empress dowager and her son, Shulin, the 2ML. They started with deception and ended in extermination.
The Good Guys: 2ML ,Zhang Pin and Lan Yue and 1 2ML, the emperor. They were interlinked to their machinations.
In that supposition that the 5 main characters represented nations or aptly their leaders.
Zhang Pin: can compromise principles for the common good.
Lan Jue: fence sitter who can be influence to align to a side.
Shulin : seemly free on the surface but underneath is tyranny.
Empress Dowager: powerful and will do everything and anything, even sacrificing own countrymen to main status quo.
Emperor: rising power and bent on regaining lost prestige and lost territories.
The ending episode has a jerking, pulling the rug from under your feet effect. It was to highlight that the 2ML were abandoning their principle and goal.
The theme of the story was Justice. Was justice served? Yes, the criminals died. Was justice seen to be served? No, the criminals and their crimes were not exposed. What is abhorrence to justice is a cover-up. It’s a prime prerequisite and no abatement to the victims and the survivors of a crime if abetments were done. Otherwise it’s a pretentious and preposterous play.
The cast were exceptional good. 2 outstanding ones were Jing Bo Ran who played Lan Jue , the graceful, cool and elegant finesse official with panache for manipulative manoeuvres. Shi Yue Ling, who captured convincingly the imposing cold, menacing majestically empress dowager who spoke in a deliberately slow frost biting tone and a pair of sharp piercing eyes that can sent shivers down the spine.
The cinematography promotes a soporific, sinister, creepy atmosphere more potent in the hypnotic water vessels scenes. Fostered also by dancers covering their faces in masks or grotesque paints in primal ritualistic like dancing as though releasing inner demons into the air. At times the drama felt like a horror drama rather than an investigative one.
Re watch? Yes, control your inner demon. Don’t grade yourself to a lower

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“As You Like iI”, its a double win!

Congratulations to Wu Jinyan on her comeback drama in her forte of revenge-driven FL and Wang, Xingyue to his breakout drama as ML.Their hot chemistry, acting from them as well as other supporting cast with a story telling in fast paced and suspence manner contriburted a lot Without a doubt, Yuzheng, a producer and showman with a flair for building buzz, had this double motivation. He also no doubt believed in the Law of Attraction since, a few weeks after the death of the NFL star turned actor who was charged with the double killing of his ex-wife and her male friend , he announced the show's premiere. That was sensational trial dubbed “the trial of the century” with overwhelming evidence which he succeeded with an acquital; for the drama opened with a husband killing his wife, the FL.However there is no doubt of the writer's opinion for he demonstrated that in the court trial when the FL's glib -tongued and quick wit which was comparable to Portia , from Shakespeare “A Merchant of Venice”, successfully defended her father against corruption.The scene mimicked the famous speech of Mark Anthony from “Julius Caesar”in distinguishing the fake and real honorouble man for the hard evidence was in the assets.Anybody can swear and say 10,000 words but action always belied the words between the false and the true. ( The FL's huband ,SYR, was like Brutus, one of "Julius Caesar's" closest friends, a seemly honorable man who betrayed and killed ,out of ambition. The antagonists SYR and the princess were the “Anthony and Cleopatra”of the drama,,a love relationship using each other for their own ends and ended up in nothing) )

Uundoubtedly the writer like me admired Shakespeare for his abilities as a poet, playwright, and life coach who understood the value of effective communication. In "Romeo and Juliet," communication problems led to tragedy since he didn't realize the poison was phony. JL has miscommunication problems with her father .She didn't tell her father that she didn't PUSH her stepmom. .The father was also at fault for he didn't ask why did she push her stepmom? Specific asking will get you what you're looking for and specific answering will get you off the hook.

The value of support, whether it comes from friends, family, or immaterial possessions like money or power, is another lesson imparted by Shakespeare as life coach. Like Caliban in "The Tempest," support is the magic that will make everything work.Due to her lack of support from her family and the Ye family, her maternal family, JL was sent to ZennyHall.She mistook her stepmother and father for someone who loved her more, so she angrily shoved the Ye family away when they came for her. JL burned her bridges. The FL(/XFF) on the otherhand, when she took over the identity of the dead JL got the the help of Mdm. Liu, JL mother's friend and the ML (the emperor's strong right hand because he was modeled after the Black Prince, the formidable, extremely competent warrior heir to "Edward III"), she left Zenny Hall. Initially she make Tong,JL,'s maid her strong supporter whom she treated like a younger sister.She build bridges within the family with no outward display of hostility towards people who don't like her, the half sister, female cousin,and stepmother whist,getting in good books with the father, uncles,aunts, male cousin and grandmother.Sought out to the Ye. the estranged JL's maternal family and help with their problems,get assisstance of the ML when needed, build a circle of friends and not enemies for even her spurned blind date became her accomplice! For without support its walking through life on bare feet.

Interestingly, despite being a vengeance drama, this one will remain one of my favorites since I discovered the formulaic phrase "petty and pathetic," which I will use as a daily habit for forgiveness and letting go.When someone wrongs or anger you, you always want to be ahead of them like Octavius/Augustus Caesar of “Anthony and Cleapatra”.Hence when I read haters, antis or rude comments, they are wallowing in pettiness and being pathetic for I 'm moving forward as its difficult to help those who don't want to help themselves.

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Sript-writer wanna be another  Hans Christian Andersen ?

Watch this drama like a fairy tale for the main leads were like Cinderella, saddled with wicked families from step-mothers,half-sisters, half-brothers, and own father from the FL's side . Hans Christian Andersen may be the mainstay of the script-writer's bedtime stories for the plot started off with “The Little Match Girl” setting for the FL , as a poor pedlar with her nanny who eke out a living after being thrown out by her wicked stepmother and her own selfish father, the PM. She dreamt of warm and cozy home and saved her money to live that life with her nanny.,All that came to naught when the nanny was kidnapped and she was blackmailed to be the substitute bride for her half sister as the groom was a dead war hero.(ML) Naturally as with fairytales, the main leads fell in love when the ML returned home, as its was a false report spread by his enemies.
When the drama progresses into "The Emperor New Clothes" storyline, get ready for some entertainment. In an attempt to bring about enduring peace between the two countries, the half-brother of the ML, the Cang emperor, was scammed into having his military hero wed the enemy's princess. This is extremely wrong because in the original, a young boy pointed out the swindle to the emperor, who then became aware of it. .The writer should nevertheless be aware that viewers don't enjoy that the victim is still in the dark about the scam and that the plan work out for wrong side.
Fairytales typically serve as moralizing tales, and in this drama, the obsession with love is represented by "The Little Mermaid" arc. As in the original, tragic narrative, love cannot be forced because the prince did not love the mermaid. In this case, Liang, princess who was saved by the ML, believed that she and the ML were meant to be together. The Liang princess made numerous attempts to win the ML's love and affection, but in the end, she was more like the cruel and heartless "Snow Queen," who killed all who stood in her path and ultimately perished.(The production crew even selected a younger, more attractive love interest for her, but she refused to understand that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.)
The drama ended in the happy ever after both for the main leads and third couples.
Verdict? . It was enjoyed as a fluffy fairytale for the main leads and supporting couples all have chemistry Visual for main couple were good and it helped that I only looked at the ML as being someone in his 30s as per plotlines and the FL as much younger. Writer though has to reread HCA again to horn his skill.

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Abandoning  principles for shortcut to success.

What attracted me into this drama was the 1st epi. of a reporter going undercover to expose a scamming housing estate .They did a market survey and founds victims made up of lonely and rich middle class retirees whose children lived/studied abroad.(kinda wish writers do market survey to find out whether viewers prefer their O/S Endings or not?!)

The plott is mostly focus on 5 main characters 2FL-XLH, chief editor of a financial magazine,and JYD, an investment capital manager, 3 males ZH, husband of XLH, YS,-JYD's boyfriend and ZD, director of a robotic ihealth company. Both ZH and YS were directors of investment capital firms.

When the two women were set up by their superiors and subordinates, they were initially enemies. For XLH it was for her position and JYD as scapegoat of her boss,Wu, who  had siphoned off money to set up a robotic ihealth company. Both women fought back to get back their positions,They eventually became friends when they realized they were set up and they had a mutual friend in ZD ,who both were trying to get funds for his firm.JYD', got back her post when her new boss,YS, found her capable and believed her evidence that Wu and his people set her up. He was also attracted to her.

Don't expect much romance as it will fizzle out for both ZH and YS out played ZD to get his company,legally but morally wrong.. ( ZD ,without funds , found himself facing police investigations for buying smuggled components parts,hence forcing shut down of his company, comitted suicide) They both did that to get rank up as partners in their respectives firms for their motto in business is being a wolf and not a sheep. The 2 women eventually found out and left them.
I enjoyed this drama for its women power as the 2 FL conducted themselves in cool and calmness when facing their enemies and doing business in principled ways ,not being sheep following low ethics and moral codes .

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