promising drama with a good story, which falls a bit in the acting department towards the end
Avoiding spoilers as best i can, this drama is a case solving mystery style drama with an emphasis on feminism and women's treatment. There is an overarching story, but it's not super obvious until the last ten or so episodes.So first, the good things. This drama is visually stunning. The sets and backdrops are beautifully purposeful and aesthetically pleasing. The costumes are stunning. Bai Lu's in particular have such pretty embroidery detailing, and the fitting is fabulous, but most of the cast have at least one or two show-stopper outfits. The music is great too, I've already added a bunch to my playlist!
Bai Lu is very good in this, she plays a cold but charming Fl who's goal is to find the truth in every case she undertakes. She's cold but never to rude and treats those around her with respect which i find a lot of her male counterparts in these types of dramas do not. Her acting really impressed me in this drama, I didn't even relise id seen her in other things, and her face, especially her eyes are very expressive. you could pause the drama and show the screen cap without context to someone and they would be able to tell how shes feeling. It was a great line, subtle but not invisible and not overdone!
The ensemble cast is charming, especially the women are well written and have a range attittudes. I especially appreciate the emphasis on female code/friendships, especially because a lot of the tiems these historical dramas have a bad habit of being full of catty women that just hate on each other the whole time. This drama has a bit of that but its treated very senstaivly, and instead of just blamming the women the systems that caused them to act this way are awknoledged and criticized. Its done very subly too, so it doesnt feel preachy and anoying just very real. Honestly the writing and acting from most of the cast is very very well done, especially the first case with the princess, that one made me sob, and i really enjoyed the relationship between the FL and the princess.
The cases! I throughly enjoyed them. There were a few less interesting ones, but they were never bad enough for me to skim through them completely, and the good ones more than made up for it. As always i apprecieate the feminist nature of the cases, and although the endings often made me sad it was nice to see such heartfelt stories about different status's of women in the palace. i also lliked that the drama hightlighted men who were just as sensative about womens issues. It didnt make this a male vs female issue, it highlighted that it is a systemic issue that affects us all.
Some people have issues with the pacing, but it didnt really bother me. i thought that the cases were interesting enough that I wasn't hurrying to figure them out. But i do love these types of dramas to i might be biased!
okay, on to the not so good.
The ML. i actually have no gripes with the character itself. i enjoyed how he was a bit of a loner but never rude or demeaning, and i thought that the drama balanced the ML and the Fl very well, in terms of case solving.
Honestly where it fell flat was Wang Xingyu's acting towards the end. This is by no means hate, i knows hes quite young but honestly his acting was a bit poor in this. He was fine in the beginning, because the script required him to be a bit mysterious and in the middle when he was supposed to be a little more obvious about his emotions he was good enough but towards the end it seemed like he couldn't quite handle some of the emotinal scenes. It took me out of it soo bad because I just felt absolutely nothing. it felt like an amateur or someone in a high school play and was extremely jarring. It was especially bad in comparison to Bai Lu, who is much older than him and a veteran at this point. The camera kept flipping between Bai Lu's expressive eyes and WXY who just looked like a very pretty wax statue.
In the Double, and in Kunning Palace and now here it just kind of seems like hes playing variations of the same character, and once i noticed that it was hard to ignore. I'm not sure if it was a directing choice, or they told him to act like that, or its just inexperience but it was really distracting.
Final Thoughts:
i really enjoyed this drama, and i think you'll like it if you like case style mystery dramas, revenge dramas, or dramas with a strong male lead. All of the relashionships, especially the female ones, are really well written and the character motivations are well thought out and feel realistic. i related to a bunch of the women, even the villains.
All of the issues ive listed with it are towards the end, and negligable if you like WXY's past characters. Definitely watch if your a Bai Lu fan, shes great in this.
Was this review helpful to you?
