Alaskan

The Prisoner of Beauty is a beautifully filmed drama. Although it’s a love story, there are almost constant conflicts and power struggles, as well as good friendships and nice secondary romances, to keep things moving. I thought that the actors were great, especially Song Zuer, Liu Yuning, and Liu Duan Duan. I think that what saves this drama from being the typical enemies to lovers story is the FL, who seems to be more suspicious of the ML and more cunning and slower to trust than usual but also has a strong moral core. I assume that the title refers to the female lead, whose beauty is used by her family to ally themselves with a historic enemy but also, I think, to the antagonist who uses her beauty to manipulate and scheme and turns out to be her own worst enemy.

The humor didn’t always land with me and I thought that the ending left some loose ends but I enjoyed this drama.

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I struggled with this one because I really can’t stand the lead female character. I think she’s supposed to seem daring and confident but she’s actually pretty stupid, arrogant, and smug. When she charges straight towards trouble we’re supposed to swoon (like the male lead) over how straightforward and brave she is but it’s actually more like overconfidence and conceit. She does not stop to think about how much she endangers others and her confidence is sadly misplaced, given how often the male lead needs to rescue her.
p.s. It’s frustrating when a drama ostensibly about a strong woman actually undercuts the strong woman argument by having the male lead save her over and over again. Are we supposed to find that romantic? Adorable? ugh.

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