So, I believe this is another PCC request to which the movie industry had to abide, this time illustrating the PCC policy regarding the integration of the rural population into the cities, Shanghari to be exact.
As in other movies set in the present times that I watched with great pleasure, the writer and the director do a stellar job with getting past cernsorship ideas I could not believe were possible to air.
Yes, the main protagonists are two female characters: one is the Shanghai born, financially succesful bitch, while the other is her sister in law, the good girl from outside the city, who married into this Shanghai family which exploits her work with no sign of thanks or recognition.
However, as the story progresses, not so are the two female protagonists who, in spite of their trials and tribulations, prove in the end to stay as they were in the beginning.
The real gem is that this movie adds layers and layers of parallel stories, illustrating the same idea: that marriage, be it fake or for real, works as a main vehicle for assending to the coveted status of Shanghainite, with one of the parallel stories taking a more dramatic turn, very much like in John Braine's "Room at the Top".
The real bummer are the last 30 minutes or so in the last episode, when the writer and the director team rush towards an ending which is counter to the whole previous development. But I take it, if that is the price to pay to go past censorship the previous hundreds of minutes of sheer brutal realism.
The acting of the Chinese actors is so good, at no matter what size of the role, that it aches. One feels like wanting to die and be reincarnated into one of them.
Very good are the male actors Feng Shao Feng and Zhang Song Wen, who, in their supporting roles could have fallen off the horse, but managed not to. The first had a very challanging linear and somewhat clinically depressed character, while the other was in charge with providing the comic relief.
To both of them, cudos, for walking on such a narrow path and yet providing rounded and powerful characters.
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Good, and yet ...
Again, another case od the very good Chinese actor cast in the so-so good script and directorial steering.What can I say: nothing new. And the scriptwriter gives it up completely in the last episodes.
It is all clichees. I have seen stories like this, delivered like this.
And when the characters introduce their lines with an obicuitous "by the way", you know that imagination just died ....
Now, really, how many times a month do you introduce your own words with "by the way", let alone during a daily conversation?!
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This review may contain spoilers
A dark story of falling out of love
I am merely repeating what was already said by other reviwers: this is a dark story of falling out of love.It was so dark and hearbreaking that from episode 70 or so onwards I could not stop from crying.
It is also beautifyully acted and produced.
2018 was definitely a superb year for Chinese cinematography, if we consider only this title, "The story of Yanxi Palace" and the "The story of Ming Lan".
It was interesting to watch how the same historical figures (Emperor Qianlong & Co) and the same palace scheming became the pretext, the backdrop for two very different stories.
And I do not mean that on the superficial level only, that is the good girl and the bad girl switching places in the "Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace" versus "The Story of Yanxi Palace".
I mean that "Ruyi's ..." is dark all around, taking you deeper and deeper into a despondent state, as despondent as the one the main female character was in.
While "Yanxi Palace" makes light of life's hardships, providing you with a sense of vindication each time the main female character (here is Lady Wei) achieves justice for her and others through sheer wits and clever scheming, all the while being in the underdog position. Comic relief proper is part of the script too, with the main male and female characters, but not only them, providing humorous lines or instances.
Case in point, for the very different treatment of the same facts: on a trip down South, the Emperor Qianlong indulges in entertainment provided by prostitutes.
The dark "Ruyi's ..." treats this as the ultimate downfall, with the good girl Ruyi kicking out the prostitutes and confronting the Emperor with cutting a string of her hair, to make final her decision to separate from him as her husband.
Whereas the lighthearted "Yanxi Palace" had Lady Wei (here she is the good girl) joking about the incident and suggesting that as the Emperor was entitled to enjoy the company of beautiful young women, so she and the other concubines were entitled to enjoy the company of beautiful young males, so she asked for more eunucs for her palace. This made the Emperor clear the room of prostitutes himself, in frustration at the ideas Lady Wei put in front of him.
However, there is one major difference between "Ruyi's ...", on the one side, and "Yanxi Palace" and "The Story of Ming Lan", on the other side.
The first one is a sound story, well written, perfectly cast and superbely acted.
And yet, there is room for only one charcter development: the Emperor emerges as the only one who shifts gears and thus is the main cause for all the drama.
Whereas the second and the third productions are perfect all around, meaning that the character and story development does not stop at one, allowing for multiple stories and characters to converge onto the main storyline, thus making both these productions richer in context, heavier in meaning.
Anyway, a joy to watch and re watch all three of them.
I hope you would enjoy them as much as I did.
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Most underwhelming series, after The Story of Minglan
This one and The Story of Minglan, of 2018, have the same original author. However, what a huge difference screenwriters and directors make ... The Story of Minglan was a rich tapestry of characters and story lines that put that production in a class of its own. Superb! 'while this Love like the Galaxy, of 2022, was one is a pain to watch. Other than superb acting, everything was underwhelming. Soooo, so lacking. Sooo, so schematic that it was painful to watch the poor actors delivering so well on skinny characters which had nothing to deliver other than cheesy monologues; horibile sound track, with tunes which sounded like free downloads from the Internet, and the list can go on. I give a ten for perfect make up. And a 20, again, to the wonderful Chinese actos. But other than that: a pain to watch and see what botched job poor screenwriters and directors can do from work originally created by a very good writer.Was this review helpful to you?
No, no, no
This is a disaster.Deadpan face female lead.
No chemistry between the male and female leads.
Action that picks up once in a while, but most of the movie is carried by exposition of feelings, rather than acting of feelings, with long pseudo dialogues which are in fact monologues.
Over the still water of countless cheesy scenes comes thundering down the music, overpowering dialogue, acting and everything else in its path.
Hard to watch are all sorts of stupid decisions on the part of the scriptwriter and director.
Imagine that the main protagonists are in the middle of full scale war, and for the purpose of professing their love, the whole battle around them simply disappears. Literally. What was a field full of fierce warriors becomes an empty set. And this is a recurring feat on the part of the scriptwriter and director.
Or script inconsistencies that show how long are the distances and how hard it is to cover them, to then see, in the blink of a cinema frame, how the main characters pop up in cities far apart.
Ridiculous.
I, honest to God, have no idea why the score for this movie is so high.
As viewers we are suspposed to suspend logic, to enjoy a story, for years or months do not pass in a few hours of movie.
However, once our heads are inside the story, having accepted the premise, we should not have our sense of logic and consistency trashed.
It is disgraceful.
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Very underwhelming
I got here, at this series, because I followed the work of both leads in the 2018 production of the "Story of Yanxi Palace". That was a gem and a reference point to me, when it comes to Chinese dramas at their best.This is why I was shocked to see the lack of chemistry between two actors who played being in love before, albeit a doomed love, in the "Story of Yanxi Palace".
Also, the lead actress did not really look like her former self not only in terms of acting, but also in terms of physical appearence. She did not look older, but different. And that was strange.
The story line sometimes feeled like in a stop and go movement, and overall I kept on going till the last episode just hoping that I will be proven wrong in all my negative assessments.
I was not.
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Beautiful and dark all around
This is a beautiful, dark and superb drama. It is dark both in subject matter and in aesthetics, but boy, what a treat ... No love interest present there, yet there is a quest for the truth which resembles the singlemindedness of a smittened lover. It is intense, it is fast paced, it is consistent and it is all rounded. And it is relativelly short, as Chinese series go. So, I am not saying anything other than: do watch it and enjoy it as much as I did.Was this review helpful to you?
Booooring
Acting aside, everything else was boring.The plot, boring. I have seen it done dozens of times: enemies to love, blah, blah, blah.
The director taking a break from the commandments of what drama is for most of the series, with action picking up in the last three or four episodes.
The rhythm was so sluggish and the story development so inexistent that I started to feel awful for continuing to watch it.
Why, oh why do I do that, I kept asking myself.
The answer must have stayed in the acting. The actors really deserved better.
The music was another story: pretty unobtrusive, at the beginning, to really barging in at the end.
Where did this series get this high score from?
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Great entertainment
I really enjoyed it. I was impressed very much of how consistent were the setting, the lighting and the mood, as the action progressed from daytime into the night. Also, the fast pace and the overall rythm of the action packed movie were consistent throughout.Wonderful experience, on all levels. Cudos!
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This review may contain spoilers
This is a 24 episode sequel to a 32 episode long series, under a changed title: Flourished Peony..Either way, it was too, too long.
The story did not need a total of 56 boooooring episodes to be told.
Half of its length was due to characters reminiscent of past events. A story that is self referencing to the point of nausea it's too painful to watch.
ML and FL forced to forever smile at each other it was another source of pain.
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Brilliant acting, insulting storyline
This sequel to Royal Nirvana has one merrit only: it brings to its obvious end the strained relationship between father and son, Emperor and Crown Prince. The weaker link breaks and the Crown Prince commits suicide in one of the most beautiful scenes I saw depicting such ending.But the rest was a complete and utter mess and nonsense.
Case in point: the whole of Royal Nirvana was about a man not recognizing the woman in front of him was the one he was smitten about.
And it ends with him realizing who she really was.
To then get in this Royal Nirvana Special that he takes her as one of his many concubines, while also neglecting her for three solid years, and keeping her into a virtual house arrest.
WTF???
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Stunning acting, insulting story line
First off: magnificent acting and haunting music. Also, I loved that the music did not go over actors' lines, as so often you get in Chinese drama.The big downside is the quite insulting story line to the viewers intelligence.
I mean, there are stupid scripts. But this script is calling the viewers stupid.
I mean, we all know what "susspenssion of disbelief" is.
We all use it when reading a novel or watching a play or a movie. It means that we know a lifetime does not last for 90 minutes. We know people cannot fight with 1000 degrees rotation in mid air. We know all that. But we accept it as part of the storytelling.
However, when a door knob is turned and the door fails to close, one should get a solid and logic explanation for that: either it was a real world mechanical problem, or it was a magical world magical problem.
Logic has to apply at all times in story telling, either using realistic explanations or magical solutions for a magical world.
Or, "Royal Nirvana" sinns in the utmost for it challenges the sense of logic people hold.
First off, at the very core of the plot is the fact that the ML is smittenend with the FL, and yet he is totally unable to recognize his soul mate when she stands in front of him day in and day out, as a maid in his household.
For the story goes that they had talked behind the screens, never in full view. However, he had glimpses of her figure, even of her face, and most importantly they TALKED extensively.
So, how come, when the FL emerges as a maid in his house he simply cannot recognize her voice?
From that point onward it was a nightmare to watch, for I felt constantly abused by this lack of respect the writers showed us, the viewers, with depriving the story line of its "inner logic".
If that was not enough, the poor ML character had all the traits of a personality disorder type, providing an erratic behavior that offends again, the need for logic and structure a viewer has.
Case in point: he is smittenend by the FL, and yet happily adjust to a married life to a second girl; he binds his and the FL hand together to avoid being forcefully separated from her when he is ordered to stay at a shrine, but once the confinement is over and he returns home, he puts the FL to work in the laundry department. After the two of them spent all that time in close proximity, while binding their minds and souls, he just cast her in the heavy work division in his house. Why? Oh, why?
Only to justify more beatings and torture the FL is subjected to?
In fact the personality disorder ML, who is first smittenend with her, then is not reconizing her when having her under his thumb as a maid (which was actually slave status), resorts to all sorts of phisical punishments against the FL: he grabs and knocks her around personally, orders others to beat her for hours, and lets her be exposed to near death experices.
To then say he was sorry ....
WTF???
The other huge relationship the ML has is with his father. That goes a little bit smoother in terms of logic: the father is a cold and abusive man, the son is a frightened kid earning for recognition and love. The father is also the Emperor weary of his kids overthrowing him, and the ML is the Crown Prince eager to prove himself. That it ends with the weaker link collapsing under the pressure and commiting suicide is only befitting.
The suicide scene in the final frames of "Royal Nirvana Special" I believe to be one of the most beautiful scenes ever.
Masterfully told and performed.
In fact, that story, of father and son, Emperor and Crown Prince, is the satysfying one, one that does not call you stypid.
I could go on with a laundry list of attacks to the comandement of "inner logic" and storyline consistency, but I really do not believe that it is worth my while.
Anyway, once again, stunning acting.
The actors took out of the garbage bin this drama.
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Great minds think alike
I had just finished watching the July 2025 release od "A dream within a dream", when I stumbled upon this title, released in 2024.In a nutshell, both stories take on the Chinese drama industry, while supposedly dealing with a regular costume drama type of plot.
Both these titles did a superb job at it.
This title is dramatic, crisp and clear, while"A dream within a dream" is downright irreverently hilarious.
Cudos two both teams.
They did a superb job, and their almost simultaneous release shows that not only great minds think alike, but also that the industry had it long coming, that kind of criticism.
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Good actors, poor everything else
This is another case of the Chinese actor being abused, forced to acting inside a terrible script and likewise directing .Up to episode 30 or so there was still some action, but after that both scriptwriter and director gave up.
So, instead of action, we get repetitive scenes of one main character after a another speaking to themselves or their helpers, at best, describing action, instead of inacting it.
We also get some beautiful sound tracks, that are used and abused on full blast in each and every episode so that actors voices are almost always covered up.
Then you have the complete nonsense of characters having a conversation in one set and then continue it in another set, or even a different season. You know, the kind of different one cannot escape from noticing, since the dialogue starts in sunny, golden fall and ends, a few lines down the road, in bitter snowy winter.
You know the kiss of death came to the scriptwriter when he or she uses and abuses the "by the way" introduction of dialogue.
That came about by the same time with the other signs that imagination and professionalism were slowly dying.
Anyway, the real history seems far more interesting than the made up plot of two women obsessed with killing the third, as their perceived rival .
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Slow start, fast pick up
The feel of the drama was initially like a so-so middle of the road, safe kind of thing.Even the lead roles were carried by not so stunning looking actors.
But boy, did it pick up quickly, delivering twists and turns, and story and character development that made watching each episode a thrill...
In the end, even the looks of the lead actors grow on you, for the quality of their performance.
As always, an ode here, to the Chinese actor in general, who proves time and again that a part, however small, may never stay so if the actor is great.
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