Katie Cruz

After watching The Unclouded Soul, I got so excited because I didn’t have to wait long for this drama to air. Honestly, my expectations weren’t high since I wasn’t too sure of the FL actress. I first saw her in Weaving a Tale of Love, and I had mixed emotions with her acting there, but with Hou Ming Hao, there wasn’t a doubt that he’ll do great in this drama. And sure enough, I was enthralled. While it was a great drama, the message of the story didn’t sit right with me. I’m all for female empowerment, but the Rong family striking down the male family members if they made a slight wrong move was pretty bad. The grandmother really got under my skin. Her character didn’t earn my sympathy throughout the whole story. The most trusted person in her life was Shan Bao, but just one slight mistake, she wanted to disown her. Like, really? This is the granddaughter that held your tea business successfully and you treat her like this? The sisters Yunxi, Yunyin, and that other one were a couple of spoiled brats here, but we got character development for Yunxi and Yunyin, except for whatshername. She was never nice to Shan Bao, even until the end of the story. Her character was just there to annoy the viewers. And oh, I forgot about Yunshu. Despite of what she did to the grandma, I didn’t expect her to stay around. I did not like her one bit. I knew her family were not treated well by the grandma that’s why she had her grudges, but she didn’t have to treat Shan Bao like that, challenging her position in the family. Now on to the husband selection. OMG. These men just drove me to the wall. I was expecting her cousin, Wen, to be a potential friend by Lu Jiang Lai, who was named Lu Fu Sheng by Shan Bao since he lost his memories after his accident, but NOPE, he decided to be a jerk and backstab the one who saved him all the time. I didn’t understand the part where a man had already been selected to be Shan Bao’s husband, but all the other men still had some time to stay at the Rong mansion, so they had plenty of time to scheme. Like what the heck was that? They should have all gone home once someone had been selected. Anyway, let’s move on to Jiang Lai, the ML of the story. He was a secret imperial inspector who went on investigations. The moment he slit that bad guy’s throat without mercy, I knew the drama was going to be so good. Cunning and ruthless ML’s always have me on a chokehold. He played a funny and cute character when he was Lu Fu Sheng. Originally, he wanted to infiltrate the Rong family to investigate the Wei case from 10 years ago, but came across assassins one day while he was in his sedan. He was saved by Shan Bao. She had him investigated. She found out about his background but still withheld information until he got into serious trouble. They were both at fault, in my opinion. They both had secrets to begin with, and were not always honest with each other. The FL actress only had one facial expression, and that really bothered me. But then again, maybe the cold, stiff part of her character was really needed. She was just too pretty here. And Hou Ming Hao? OMG. His makeup was too thick here. That distracted me too much, to be honest. I had to look past that and focus on his acting chops. He was pretty good here, especially the fight scenes. I love the fight scene with his dad. I love how Lu Jiang Lai wasn’t blinded by riches and titles because he was right, they only bring hatred and agony. I already knew right from the start that he was the son of a high ranking government official. I hate his father. Jiang Lai had a great reason not to accept being the heir. He went ahead and chose Shan Bao instead. I’m just disappointed that the last few minutes ended with him chasing her at the dock when Shan Bao and her sisters were getting ready to leave, but hey, I’ll take it, rather than having an ending with one of them dying, you know. It’s also nice not seeing the usual wedding ceremony between them, because hello, they’ve already done the deed, like twice now. Kissing scenes were scorching hot. *chef’s kiss* Overall, I enjoyed the drama despite some flaws. It was entertaining, especially learning about tea etiquette at the end of each episode. Everyone delivered a great performance.