AleksandraSucur

She may SEEM so, but she is neither hypocrite nor psychopat. Before "taking advantage of a coffin", she was even more brazen when - as a daughter in deep mourning - publicly showed off with a dance to draw attention of Wei Jun.
Such a weird behaviour is indeed due to her personality and "whatever it takes" attitude to achieve her goals. Being determined to uncover the treason which killed her father and defeated his army is not a sign of mental insanity but of her fighting spirit to achieve justice and truth. Besides, she is carefully (=tactically) weighing and is (rationally) aware the costs of these acts before she puts them into practice. And from her pov, the cost of appearing hypocrite & psycho, loosing the reputation etc. is still a small price to pay to uncover the truth.

I agree, we are probably a different, more experienced, generation... Maybe that's also the reason why we understand Chu Yu's "whatever it takes" attitude... as well as why this attitude stirs up admiration in Wei Yun. I agree with you, Ding Yu Xi delivers this character impeccably. He is an actor who can play anything. Generally speaking, today the younger generation of C-actors has more talented and better trained and skilled actors/actresses compared to 10 or 20 years ago.

I've got you don't like this drama and that's perfectly fine with me.
But if you dislike my answer to ZK_LX, why do you attack an unrelated AI (beside, I may use Deepseek) instead of me?

I haven't read the novel but from reading comments of those who've read it in this section, I've got a general idea on certain differences and think that:

1. the screen adaptation actually may have IMPROVED the original story making its characters' actions more logical despite it sharpened (as all drama adaptations and in particular "idol-dramas" do) conflictual issues among them (FL relation with her sister and mother, grumpy maid...). Until the story maintains its intrinsic logic, I personally don't have problems with screen exaggerations... 3 or 10 years of age gap makes no difference to me if the story I watch is convincing and a person can be an "alpha" at any age. If I continue to watch it, it means it still convinces me, otherwise I'd drop it.

2. you've said the FL is "showing off" but I've read that the most showing off scene (her dance scene to grasp the attention of the eldest bro) was taken from the novel. That means her character have certain contradictory traits even in the novel, at least she is capable of taking the initiative. And I am sorry to say, I have problems with that particular scene taken from the novel for several reasons:
i. her sword dancing felt so off, why would a mourning daughter welcome another general in such a "showing off" way? Belonging to the same military class, she and her bro could have had hundreds of other ways to approach Wei bro and show him the stolen crossbow mechanism. Despite the Chu family decline and the fact the emperor dislikes groupings of military families...
ii. this single scene was probably the reason the production (mis)casted Victoria Song, because she is a professional dancer, but as an actress... I remember her only in Luoyang, and I remember her, alas, as a major miscast in that drama: 0 chemistry with the ML, bad in delivering her lines, just looking ok in martial arts moves. Ok, in that one, she was playing side by side with Huang Xuan and Wang Yibo and her underperformance was more noticeable, but in this, less ambitious drama, she has the same stiff face and evidently a wrong idea of how THIS character should be played.
iii. as I am contemporarily watching other dramas, it's natural to compare them, wondering about the functionality of certain things they have in common. For instance, I am currently watching Whispers of Fate, too, in which the ML actor also started as a dancer and had a great dancing scene, but which was totally functional to explain the story, hinting to the audience smth important (sublime, celestial) about his character.
iv. on the contrary, the dancing scene in FfL wasn't functional, it failed to convey important info about the FL, the BGM didn't fit and it wasn't even well choreographed, so it felt too long.
3. Both the novel and the drama take smth from the real (Song dynasty) history, in particular the Wei family is loosely inspired by legendary general Yang Ye and his sons (Song style is particularly noticeable in their armors). I appreciate the authors of both have chosen fictional dynasty name while focusing on certain great issues of THAT time while telling their own fictional story. Among these issues, the loyalty and/or betrayal towards a country, a homeland, is certainly explored in both. Because, "mountain and river" may mean many things in Mandarin (but the idiom is written and spoken differently, but even in that case, it has nothing to do with "cats and dogs"), while 山河 stands just for the country, the land one perceives as his/her country 😌

It's not your fault at all, I think it's the actress's stiffness in expressions combined with some small loopholes in the script which failed to explain better the reasons why she acts differently with two bros.

I agree it may look incomprehensible, but there are at least two good reasons for her distrust: 1. in her life, she trusted and was betrayed by the Gu guy who left her and married the duke Ning's daughter (although he could have had his good reasons for doing that) 2. being older than him, she still perceives ML as too much boyish... Even on the battlefield, his father and bros left him at the back, the character (very well performed by the actor btw!) actually gives these vibes of so. "in the rear" of his great and mighty brothers, so she also may have an idea of him as not particulary fit for great challenges. Besides, his initial hostility to accept her as his bro's widow made her think he would never accept to cooperate or coordinate with her in the investigation of crossbows which killed her father and defeated his army.
Now, the question why she trusted the eldest bro more... Well, we can't say "she trusted Jun", she just trusted he was not THE TRAITOR who gave the blueprint to the enemy and it seems logical to me: he is a great general with great responsabilities and morals, who was fighting on the battlefield just like her father and bro and had no motives to work against the interests of his fellow soldiers.
It is also logical for ML - especially after we've seen the letter left by his bro and after she saved his life (for the second time, btw) in the secret chamber - to apologize first for being so distrustful towards her.
Could she apologize to him as well? Yes and no. Yes, for the reasons you've said. No, because apologizing isn't in her "alpha" character, she is not a "proper lady", she is a martial artist who doesn't bother herself with what other people think of her, a person of action rather than a person of talk, and who leaves her doings to speak of her. We may not grasp well these traits because the FL actress fails (imo) to deliver this character in full (she delivers well her "serious" traits but not that well her "acting like a scoundrel" side). Maybe this isn't entirely her fault, maybe it's the script or direction, but we've recently seen several other actresses able to perform such "more than one personality" FL's, even in worse written dramas (and which I've rated lowly) than this one (eg. Tian Xi Wei in Moonlit Reunion, Zhou Ye in Legend of Female General...): the audience knew exactly when they were "switching" from serious to unserious, giving depth and making sense of contradictory traits of the characters they were playing. Victoria Song has very few facial expressions, her face is constantly stiff.

all dramas having a "bunch of military sons" are more or less inspired either by historical general Yang Ye of the Song https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Ye and his sons' (browse the sons' names too on wiki, there are many movie and drama references) lives or many fictional stories, folktales, plays and novels written since Ming period to nowadays based on these characters.
This drama mimics the historical Liao-Song conflict under different dynasty names.

three lifespans in this order: sadistic, sexy and sweet.
One knows the actor/actress is skilled when able to catch the attention and "create magic" even when performing the most cliché roles within the most cliché, nonsensical and forgettable plots.
I knew He Lan Dou was this kind of actress, but didn't know Jerome Deng is also this kind of actor.
These two are able to keep the watcher's attention till the very end of otherwise totally unattractive story.

totally agree with you, bravo!

yes. And her sister and mother, too

I feel the same about the alliance, but if it was a normal environment, there would be no reason for ML to abandon that place...

The first 4 eps were sufficient to stir up my curiosity on "what will happen next", given the premises laid. Despite the storytelling already showed certain flows, related mainly to the FL (her hardly convincing sword dancing show & bickering with her ex, her relationship with her sister...), I'll continue to watch it

yes, the Song generals fighting against Liao (Khitans).
The style used in the drama also mimics the Song era, in particular, the armors (although the helmets seem to be a bit exaggerated)

😂😂 True, that move was so awkward. Jumping from the horse, her body should have been vertical and not horizontal if she tried to choke him with her legs, but thinking better, why would she chose to land on him at all? It's such an illogical move for the first strike, especially for a woman. Well, we laughed at least, lol

yes, but for how much irritating, that template can actually work well in stories, although it's mostly used in rebirth revenge plots (which seems to be the one in the original novel), so it's probably not the problem with the character design.
I am not saying there are no flows in character's early presentation and development (her show on the roof, sword dance, dialogue with her ex etc. - objectively, that entire scene wasn't thought well and her dialogues with her sister are off, too) but I think the story still has smth interesting to tell us, despite these initial flows. And I continue to think this actress was a miscast, this one is not completely able to deliver a "mixed" character which shows one ("shameless") face in public and another (serious and thoughtful) in private

I agree with you there's smth off with the FL, but I think it's the actress and not the character.

It doesn't look like a rebirth plot at ep. 1.

His first strike in their first fight was... opening her legs (at 31'19''). Indicative what will happen next with these two 😂😂😂

oh, you're right, ofc. But as for the time being, we have no knowledge of other people from "Tang" family (except for a certain Tang Bing, young male, in the cast list)
My question was for those who read the novel and ofc, for all the rest, who maybe missed this detail when he was presented in Sword City gathering

So, Tang Lici is the emperor's brother-in-law? And where's his wife?