This review may contain spoilers
Usurped Throne, Cursed Offsprings.
It tells the story of a wrongfully imprisoned prince and a commoner not so commoner girl navigating through palace struggles, revenge, politics and eventually love.
What I like:
The acting.
Every single character delivered their part naturally and effortlessly. Special mention to the crown prince Ning Sheng, you're telling me he's not a villain in real life?
The budget.
I've watched a handful of palace dramas but have never seen a filming location(The palace specifically) as detailed, grand, luxurious and realistic as this. Despite how grand the palace looks I find the clothing for female characters mediocre or even below mediocre.
What I don't like:
Conveniently placed characters.
Minister Xin who "works" for the crown prince is actually our ML partner with the same goal as ML. The top girl at Lanxiang brothel who serves high ranking officials is also with ML, they have the same goal. Our ML was able to convince general Gu Yan who also works for the crown prince to betray him after ONE conversation. The eunuch/spy the emperor planted by ML side got soft hearted and delivers info beneficial to ML and even defends him instead of only reporting as he was told to by the emperor. Now I don't know if I like this particular aspect of the drama or not cause I do like my main characters overpowered but witnessing this in the first few episodes made me feel his opponents are weak and doomed from the start. I wanted to feel some fear for ML.
Guilt doesn't let them think.
It genuinely infuriated me how the crown prince, second prince and fifth prince easily fell for traps. Why did they? Cause they've been overcome by guilt and are scared of being exposed at any second. A saying in the drama goes "A clear conscience is a soft pillow to sleep on at night".
The pacing.
The beginning was good but from episode 40 the drama started to lack something, i didn't know when I stopped caring about it. Watching it felt like a chore I just had to get done, in the end I couldn't bear it.
Neutral about:
The emperor.
He has the looks of emperors you see in ancient scrolls, has the aura of one and doesn't fret in the midst of troubles. At first I liked him cause he is resolute, owned up to his mistakes, knew what was going on in his kingdom and how to tread in handling his officials.
The romance between our leads.
They do have chemistry but because of how the drama was written their love story became more and more ridiculous!
Should've spent my time watching something else.🤷🏽♀️
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
Shallow but watchable
WHAT I LIKE:• Gorgeous female costumes, hair and makeup depsite not having a high budget.✅
• Strong female characters that won't throw away their lives for a man.✅
• Support and trust FL, ML and SML have for each other.✅
• Villains aren't completely bad and one dimensional, there's motives behind their actions.✅
• ML and his mother being kind and brave enough to take FL in after what happened to her family.✅
• Lu Yuxiao. She's convincing in every role she plays.✅
WHAT I DON'T LIKE:
• How the story is written... Even mini dramas you see on TikTok have more compelling writing that keeps you on the edge of your seat guessing. In this drama the writing is undercooked, they're ALMOST there but then fumble it. Whenever they're solving a problem they make all the answers so obvious to the audience or you've already seen this exact scene in other dramas a billion times and can tell exactly what's going to happen next.
They could lie to other characters to get what they want and when the characters find out they accept the fact they've been deceived(even if it's for a good cause, where is your shock?...) so fast, and suddenly trust main characters 100% and follow up with the plans of the main characters. Every act plays in favor of main leads, their plans never fail.
For example a female character's husband is a cheater, he has cheated on this said character multiple times, one time the character tried to confront one of her husband's side girl and changed her whole mind after hearing what FL said(FL saw her coming into the room and said that on purpose too) about women being tools of men, why make life harder for ourselves.... does that mean this character would have gone ahead and confronted her husband's side girl and stay in that marriage forever?? Can't tell if the writer did this on purpose or not. What should I be excited for then?
Do they think the audience is dumb and they need to spell everything out? Where's the jaw dropping moment? Plot twists that make you stay up late watching? But to be fair I didn't have much expectations from the beginning.
• The dubbing not matching the actor's mouth movement and you can tell it's not the actor's own voice.
• Dull male characters. Both ML and SML seem to be just there. Can't tell if it's once again the script that doesn't let them shine or their acting itself.
Would've rounded up my score and gave it an 8 but it's not on par with other dramas I've given an 8.
Watch if you have nothing else and want to pass time.
Dropping cause I can't be watching one episode for a week.
Was this review helpful to you?
