Lizzy

If you like this genre with the scheming and palace politics then:
*Coroner’s Diary
*Sword and Brocade
*The Story of Minglan
*Legend of Zhuohua
*Blossoms in Adversity
*Are You the One
*Blossom
*How Dare You!? (with Cheng Li)
*The Rebel Princess

General Cdramas with a different feel to them:
*The Prisoner of Beauty
*Shadow Love
*Legend of the Female General
*Legend of Shen Li
*Pursuit of Jade

I really HATE the moral dilemma that this drama is creating with me. On the one hand HMH’s stunts look AMAZING. The plot has ALL of my favorite tropes (arranged marriage, enemies to lovers). The poster is gorgeous, the trailers look WOW.But… Aimi was literally 16/17 years old when it was filmed, and HMH is a like 11 years older than her. So when she was 16/17 during the filming he was 27/28 years old. Scenes of them together feel gross with that knowledge that she’s literally a minor in a romance drama with a massive age gap, even if there are no on-screen kissing / intimacy scenes. The undertones of romance, with BTS footage of him carrying her, hugging her or her sitting on his lap… it all just feels incredibly uncomfortable to me. Even the thought of me getting the “shipper feels” about their characters feels uncomfortable. I dunno how y’all can separate that. This isn’t a hate post, per say, but it’s hard having such conflicting feelings about it because lbr, a lot of things about this drama look so great.

I know that this is standard for a most Kdramas, but how is the product placement in this one? Subway completely pulled me out of other Kdramas like TPC and Goblin, for example. Kopiko was a little less annoying in dramas like Vincenzo. Is the product placement really distracting and out of place in this one?

Why are people shocked that YX died?? Wasn’t it like spelled out in the drama that he was going to?? Like even if the doctor did everything he could to treat him it would only give him three years? Like they didn’t even give the audience hope of his survival??? Not even a “oh there is this ONE THING that could maybe cure him if we are lucky”??? I thought his ending was incredibly fitting… much more preferable to him wasting away. I was never the biggest fan of his character until they let him break away from the love triangle, but for someone who was told all his life that he was worthless and would never amount to anything - his sacrifice was a big “F you” to the assholes who trampled on him. To a character whose life was out of control in many ways, him taking control of his death was very powerful and fitting. The show never intended for us to have hope of his survival. I don’t get why people are surprised… I’d rather this end for him than for it to end with him… dying a few years after the drama ended?

MangoTV

I remember loving the romance between the two of them, but I don’t remember when exactly they officially love each other. They get married really early, and they gradually grow to love each other as the drama progresses.

Oh I misread. Yeah it gets a bit intense

They resolve it very quickly tho? like literally they are good at the end of 34.

The drama concluded so the trolls are out, I see.

I love your enthusiasm! I hope we actually get to SEE him fighting this time. Most of his fight scenes in PoJ got cut even though he supposedly spent at least a month filming them. I hope it won’t be the case with this one!

I hope so, too! Thanks for your thoughtful response. I like it when the characters are developed equally, with one not being favored over the other. I may wait this one out to see how it goes, and maybe try to watch it separately from the fandom as to not be influenced by it.

yup

Looks really good, but I have always felt that this director pushes the feminism propaganda, oftentimes at the expense of well developed male characters. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Blossom for this reason, and PoJ left a really really bad taste in my mouth because of how dirty they did the ML’s development in favor of the Girl Boss agenda. I have nothing at all against capable FLs (Fated Hearts is one of my faves), but never at the expense of reducing the role of their male counterparts. I am hesitant after both Blossom and PoJ to watch this one, even if the story seems gripping.

I’m nervous about them doing Zhang Linghe dirty like they did in PoJ- Initially giving him a lot of screen time and then slowly fading his role into the background in favor of side characters that the drama’s investors are trying to promote. I also have a lot of bitter feelings about Zuo Yue’s role in PoJ as well, as she really pushed the Girl Boss agenda at the expense of the ML’s character development. I’ve never been a fan of boosting the female characters by dumbing down / marginalizing / weakening the male counterparts. PoJ left such a bitter taste in my mouth that I’m nervous about this one even though it sounds like a story I would normally like. PoJ started off so perfect, it was so hard watching it unravel the last 1/3rd 😔

The main couple do end up together though????? It just takes them a while to get together 😂

You mean the arc that lasted maybe ten minutes 🤣?

But it was the norm back then. The life expectancy wasn’t very long (like 50s? 60s?) and people’s bodies matured early to accommodate. Women were often married off when they reached sexual maturity because they needed to produce heirs and carry on the family line and clan. Even in a lot of literary classics there’s a substantial age gap - Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, etc. It’s OK if it’s not your thing, but you’re also applying modern-day morality to a culture that existed a LONG time ago.

I think I would have been perfectly happy with how it all went if she apologized for keeping it a secret that CXQ was harassing her, and at least validated the ML feeling hurt by it. I would have also liked the ML to apologize for completely shutting her out for several days. I think the thing that bothers me the most is that neither one of them said they were sorry or expressed an understanding of how their actions may have affected the other. Both of them just kinda brushed the role they played in the near divorce (!!!) under the rug, kissed away all resolution and that was that. It wasn’t enough to dampen my enjoyment of them, but it did leave me feeling a little bit dissatisfied.

Ok so don’t watch?

I loved it. The ML has a pretty terrible mom, and you kinda come to understand him a little more as the story progresses. I also really loved the FL. He has a mom who forces women at him, and he is torn between filial piety, duty to country and then his personal wants. It’s pretty good. He’s not a bad man, and the show also doesn’t romanticize (as much as other dramas) the plight of women living during that time.