K-Drama 
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Royal intrigues and shoulder pads
Overall I liked this drama for it's story line and character consistency (well, most characters were consistent). The overall plot was the ''lost princess'' trope, but there were many side quests interspersed into the story and they were concluded within 3-4 episodes each, which was kind of new for my watching experience.Acting was OK. As oring as I found the side character relationships to begin with, in the end the FL and ML best friends provided a more moving relationship arc than the leads. Lots of shoulder pads, they did a lot of male acting.
The camera work was pretty but editing was questionable, especially the slow motion moments, that often didn't make sense for the tone of the moment and were too many in total. Music was not memorable, except for a few darker tunes when the antagonists appeared on screen, which made me chuckle.
Plot was easy to follow and guess. By ep 4 I knew who was the big bad and that whole plot line was very dissapointing. It didn't help that they threw in more antagonists as the series progressed, because they were all so easy to deal with that they posed no real threat. Overall, the protagonists had a way too easy of a time dealing with their controversies, although the FL was dealt a ridiculous amount of attacks against her. Story wise it just looked like something to make everyone like her, because there was no character growth through these ordeals as she had already gone through hell as a child, which solidified her personality as a head strong, scrappy, street-smart, quick witted lier who would do anything to get out of a sticky situation and stand up for the ones she loves. How quickly she became a loyal subject who would do everything according to the law was also a leap, but that at least was within the confines of logical character development.
The ending made no sense and did a huge disservice to the series. Normally I expect the series to run up to 40 episodes, so 32 is a bit short, and this story just felt like it was cut off as quickly as possible after the FL made nonsensical choices. In my opinion it made no logical sense for the character to all of a sudden be willing to leave everything behind for a nation she only recently remembered to be a part of. Yes, she's a champion for the under dog, her family was slaughtered and survivors were being tortured and imprisoned, but the 180 she did looked to be more for the sake of drama than a logical story and character development, which was very dissapointing.
The closer to the end the series drew, the more rushed everything felt, starting from a one night martial arts learning to apparent double and tripple crosses with no clues how or when they were planned, especially taking into account the shear size of some of the plots. Ah, we have a problem, what's the ieasiest and fastest way to deal with it - let's just jump to that.
The whole court drama was a let down, they tried to make it more than it was, but it never amounted to more than Emperor and Ministers yelling at each other and then FL getting smacked, slapped, attacked or thrown into dungeon for it. For all its female empowerment, the series sure didn't hold back on violence against women. No relationship on the show felt genuienly real and I hate to say it, because at least here there was shown some good female relationships. But that was mostly because the hole premise was built on emancipation, girl bossing and womens power. I just wish it had more nuance than ''men are always evil'' and ''women are jelous snakes''. But OK, I'm being very picky, it was still miles better than other plots.
The ending, on one hand, was unusual, as the FL and ML didn't become a couple, but it also felt very rushed. Maybe there will be season 2, I wouldn't mind watching that.
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Mafia game of cat and mouse.
Everyone's a spy in this drama in that Mafia game way that makes you start suspecting everyone on screen. It's family feud on steroids. On one hand, Zi Yu is a good guy fighting for his love, not too proud to lie if needed. On the other, Shang Jue is being a spiteful lawful good out for his brother's blood and the poor thing is being gaslit left and right. It almost doesn't matter that there is a whole bunch of spies out to get them, they could easily kill each other, given the green light, and save everyone precious time and mental load. Seriously, the emotional bandwidth needed to separate all the brothers is somewhere in the nuclear region.The plot was OK, fairly straight forward and predictable, but the acting was very good which made it more interesting to watch. As everyone has been fangirling over the brotherly relationship between Shang Jue and Yuan Shi, I too have to say that their performances (together and separately) were the standouts of the show. I usually pay attention to characters who make me want to punch them (in a good way) for some reason and Yuan Zhi achieved this very quickly. Besides, nobody does fury like Ryan Cheng, his glaring is on another level.
Very serious atmosphere most of the time, a lot of glaring, poker faces, lying, pretending and playing innocents. What little lighter notes of comic relief there are, fall into two categories - Gong Zi Yu and his very timely, boyish and quirky remarks every once in a while; and his cousin Gong Zi Shang who always has playful music in the background and is portrayed as a men-obsessed, borderline stalker and theatrically juvenile. The cooky and over the top performance just wasn't hitting the mark for me, though props to the actress for staying true to the character till the end.
Sets are beautiful, I would've liked that they are used more than 2 dimensionally, as most of the shots are parallel to the ground level, especially during fighting, which makes it a bit boring. Music was good, costumes were beautiful. The wigness of the female wigs did make me cringe occasionally. Fighting choreography is more artistic and pretty than functional, which suits fantasy settings.There are also some plot and logic holes through out the story that are quite glaring.
Exposition dump at the end was just lazy and then end it on a cliffhanger? What the hell.
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Overall meh
Not terribly well acted or cast. Some of the choices made for the way emotions were portrayed were at best interesting and making be laugh out loud (the Crown Prince's ''and who do you suspect?'') or just badly acted (Mei Lin trying to cry when one of the other women was killed). ML is OK when he doesn't try too hard to be intimidating or playing up the crazy. FL is very good at angry frowning, but other emotions are not quite there. The only good standout is Princess Zi Gu, casting was solid.The plot is interesting enough, though nothing ground breaking. Camera work is OK but either editing lacked or there were too many plotholes no one othered to fill. Post production sound design were not good, you could hear that someone was standing in a booth and voice overs don't match the acting, especially with FL. Costumes are OK, nothing special. Fight sequences at least are decent.
Overall, though this is definitely not the best drama I've seen, I still watched it for some reason. Maybe because the last drama I watched was Lost You Forever and I was just happy to see something that didn't make me want to gauge my eyes out for the majority of the drama. I actually had to go and find who the ML for this drama was just to make sure it wasn't Jing from LYF, because they look eerily similar in certain moments.
There was zero chemistry between any characters, and I mean any. Not talking only about romantic pairings, even siblings and subjects. Everything feels like a performance, but flat and uninspiring. Closest to affection was the Emperor and Concubine Yin, but the age difference was too off-putting.
One plot point I did enjoy, and will give props to the writers for coming up with it, was about the husband marrying into the family, sitting in the bridal sedan and all. Haven't seen that before, at least when it wasn't for some disguise purposes or other shenanigans.
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I have some strong feelings about this one.
As this is an older drama I'm not going to go much into detail as there are many good recaps already, I will just drop my thoughts and feelings here and oh boy did I have some feelings while watching...Lost princess in reverse harem and she's not like the other girls trope.
Everyone needs therapy.
A mother killing herself right in front of her son because she misses her husband/his father too much, after just stabbing her brother-in-law to death to avenge the said husband at said husbands funeral. Then, five minutes later, the nice grandmother dies on them. And then the Aunt has to leave both children to go and fight a war, she of course dies. Finally, Grandfather separates the two trauma bonded siblings (I think they were siblings, not sure) by sending the girl away. This is comical levels of childhood trauma.
So much bad CGI. Even the arrows sometimes are not real, tf. There are constant continuity errors in editing as well.
Plot is disjointed and I could only start somewhat enjoy watching it after ep 35 when it was finally clear that Xiaoyao woudn't stay with Jing. Once I finished all episodes, the story actually is interesting and there are many avenues to explore for next season, but it didn't change the fact that the writing felt one dimensional.
Acting , however, is very good, they do a good job with a mid script. The kid actors were really good at portraying characters that were not written to be children. Sets are nice, some seen in other dramas, but the CGI really kills the mood and vibe so hard. Costumes, wigs and what real sets there are are nice, but overall the drama feels low budget and not in a good way.
I have never disliked a romantic pairing more than I do Xiaoyao and Jing's relationship. One thing is if there's no chemistry between the actors, but whatever the hell this is is worse. I pretty much like every other character in this drama, except for these two. She's a flake and he's a doormat, a perfect match. I understand the psychology behind both characters but put together they infuriated me to the point that I couldn't watch any of their interactions (not the fault of acting).
Not going to watch season 2, I've suffered enough.
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How absolutely effing dare you?!
My all time favourite drama. One of - if not the - first cdrama I watched and it has set the standard for me that not many series out there reach.Story - at the time transmigration trope was absolutely new to me, same as everything else about cdrama world, andt it caught my imagination. It's very cleverly written and extremely well acted, and didn't leave many plotholes for me to nag about. There's an excellent balance between drama and comedy, I've rarely laughed as much as during this series, but when the drama hits it hits HARD.
Casting - absolutely amazing. Both actors show a great range of abilities, being equally well versed in dramatic and comic scenes. Supporting cast was good, but this is one of the dramas where the leads are the best.
Filming - camera work is great, editing is very good and it makes the drama dynamic and easy to watch. Sets, costumes, makeup are beautiful and well used. Music is good and even the sound effects don't make me want to cringe.
I've rewatched this show many times and will again in the future. I love it. Watch it, it's worth it.
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Unexpectedly delightful
Very interesting plot, modern themes looked at via fantasy lens. There's a good balance between mystery adventures and slow romance with a pretext. Acting is good for the most part, somehow everyone seems very natural in their roles.Camera work is amazing, very dynamic and overall attention to detail in each scene is well thought out and prepared (whenever they spent time in dungeons you could hear faint sounds of whipping in the background, I mean...). No continuity errors that I could see, editing was good. Special effects are good, especially the four seasons palace inside the main manor, very cool. The parrot was funny though.
Costumes and wigs are good (except for some of the extras, come on, if you are going to do close ups from behind, at least glue them down so they don't look like helmets), especially loved the white cultivators uniforms with hats that masked the face, super cool look. Even the music was good.
Unfortunately, the main leads have no chemistry between them. And I still have a gripe with FL acting blank, the character often asks for it, but there is a difference between someone hiding their emotions and someone not able to act layered characters. This wasn't good, however ML was. Supporting cast was not standing out.
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If you ignore inbreeding, child torture, cannibalism, mass murder, forced breeding and non-consent - then it's a lovely show.Camera work is OK, CGI and special effects, with some exceptions, is above average. Music is OK. Longest wig in any drama I've seen so far, but the costume department is doing well, even if these cultivation outfits aren't my favourite. Each phase of the characters have their own outfit and FL is upgrading herself like a pro Munchkin player, the final set was pretty cute. Most of the time areal stunts are good, I think I only saw a few times where the actors looked like they were hanging in ropes.
Plot is a bit unhinged, not because of twists but because of how brutal and vile are the things being done. It's all well hidden by the pretty outfits and faces, but some of the stuff is seriously unhinged. Big props for writing an actual emotional toll it would take for someone to kill another human, it's a solid character development for the FL (granted, it only lasts half an episode) and overall they do the whole ''travelled to another dimension and now have to live a dangerous life cause of my boss/bf'' story line very well. The way FL portays the new her in the demon realm is impably acted, down to her changing posture. ML is so so, the acting just doesn't reach the level of brooding needed for the character, honestly he doesn't have the charisma for a ruthless villain, while the more light parts suit him much better. So, although his character has this emotional growth that happens, it's very low key because of the way he's played.
A few things that stayed with me:
''Go to sleep.'' Where, sir? You just blew up the place and it's still burning. And then he magicks her a hammock amidst the fiery ruins. What is this nonchalance?
There is a surprising amount of kissing, not just for a Chinese drama, but any TV show in general. The leads have good chemistry, but I'm starting to suspect that all that Soul Manor healing is just plain old sex magic.
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God, this was so boring.
As per usual, every misunderstanding could've been cleared up if they actually TALKED with each other, not AT each other. And as per usual, the second lead couple had a more interesting relationship story line than the main leads. Overall - I've never skipped forward so much in any drama but still watched it until the end.Story line - boring. Visuals - sanitized. Filming - don't even get me started. Costume department - office is not a runway. Acting - good. Music - ???
And now some random thoughts to prove I suffered through all 30 episodes.
The dude has endless supply of umbrellas and I'm convinced he wears jackets just so he can them off to cover the FL.
Dad and ex-fiancée are both narcissistic assholes, setting my teeth on edge every time I see that face on screen.
Is everyone constantly being pursued by new and old love interests or is it just rich and beautiful people?
Nobody's crying, like at all. I can't tell if it's a good or bad, but there is a lack of emotional depth for sure.
This is not a good drama for women's empowerment. A huge red flag is that even this Mrs Tang is a big boss lady and owns companies and whatnot, upon meeting their contact for business the first thing the man says is ''you look prettier than before''. The hell does that have to do with anything?
If one of my first interactions with in-laws involved me getting hit, even by accident, I would walk out so fast they would think I was road-runner. Although the relationships across the board are light and more or less functional, there are quite a lot red flags and glossing over of more serious issues. Leads have good on screen chemistry, but it's very friendly and sweet, not exactly fireworks of epic love.
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All in all, not a bad watch.
I wouldn't go as far as to call it a drama (if not for the last epsiode), but it's a very light watch with a historic costume background. Whimsical characters, pretty sets, decent acting, not very engaging plot and not very good fight scenes. The big battle flashbacks were good, but everything else was a bit meh, especially FL, who's supposed to be this well trained and battle experienced young woman, but the actress just didn't give that feeling. I don't think these leads are very good at action sequences, decent, but not their strong suits, while they played well off each other socially and it was fun to watch them interact.Some random thoughts jutted down while watching:
Now I know why there are so many historic dramas being made - it's basically a cute army and patriotism propoganda.
Crown Prince is a cat-lady. And the actor's mannerisms reminds me of Jeff Goldbloom.
The whimsy is a bit over the top for me and the comedy often falls flat.
Finally someone is treating thin paper and wood walls as if you CAN walk through them.
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This series is so infuriaTING!!! I love it....
Subtitle: '' ''Close the gates and release the dogs'' IS in the Art of War.''This is an ultimate meta-drama; anti-trope, anti-box, anti-expected plot progression. At some points I wanted to scream and pull my hair out because character action didn't make sense, but you just have to wait and really watch it till the end for everything to make sense. An interesting take on prejudice, pre-determinism and fate, where your belief about what your life is or should be and what other people are like, makes you the main character and everyone else is just an NPC. Or are they?
This is the second attempt at watching and now I remember why I quit the fist time around - humor is quite a bit over the top (at the beginning). Very slapsticky, doesn't feel natural and this time I will say it's the writing not the acting, cause physical acting is good, just the script is unnecessary ridiculous at times for my taste. But, at least the drama knows what it is and leans into the absurdity. And when the scales tip towards the end, the drama is DRAMA, but then it again ends very light. Don't miss the end-cut scene from modern times, it's very cute.
Beautifully shot and edited, and all (very few) slow motions were spot on. Loved the music, yes it was modern at times, but still worked well with the plot.
This drama really buries the leads of who's doing what and why until the end. A reflection of real life, on some level, as you're not always privy to other peoples reasoning and life experiences that shape their decisions, letting you believe that they are assholes for no reason half of the time. You will likely not realize who's the real bad guy until late into the drama, that is, of course, unless you are one of those people who don't believe that a child plotted his other mother's murder at age 9. Not to mention the wonderful take on writers responsibility of their characters in the story world they create and how absolutely insane some twists can sometimes be.
The wrap up was so so, but I ignored the nonsense and completely suspended my disbelief at that point (yes, it took me 40 epdisodes to give up reason), because sure, why wouldn't the Noble Consort throw divorce papers at the Emperor and why wouldn't he run after her like a puppy?
A special mention for acting goes to father offthe FL, Mr Song, he did such a great job at playing the politician father while maintaining a perfect balance between comedy and seriousness while always being just a breath away from scheming comic relief with great physical acting, his eyebrows did a lot offheavy lifting. And second mention is to Song Yiting, sister of FL, whose last line in the last episode made me scream laugh out loud.
Love the way the Seventh's Prince always calls the Emperor's bluff on whatever threat he issues. Malicious compliance at its best.
Some of the ML scenes were shot on a green screen for some reason?
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I might actually rewatch this some day
My thougts in no particular order, written down while watching the episodes.Music was actually memorable, in a good way.
Finally, the FL (who has a naturally perfect RBF) is emoting. Hurray! Really good acting on her part, equally on drama and comedy relief. Everyone embodied their characters really well. Nthing much to say about ML, he was good at acting and portrayed the character's struggle in great detail. Oh, yeah, every time he came on screan next to other people, all I could think about was ''he's so tall''.
I love historic dramas, but by gods I hate what they do with the horses. It is fucking painful to watch.
This is the wildest ''I can change him'' trope I've seen so far. My bigest tripe with the overall balanced and interesting plot, is the amount of personal growth FL needs to put up with from the ML. Even if sophisticatedly written and human, abuse should never be excused, which is what happens here. ML behavior is always excused by something, and yes, he changes, and yes, he comes to love her, but in no way this is a healthy relationship to begin with, so not glorifying that.
The humor is natural, good natured and doesn't feel forced. Comedy is well written, easily played out in between drama and shows the complexity of characters.
Plot is easy, excellently written and slow paced. This is not a fast romance, but a very slow building of human relationships. All twists are easy to follow, it's always clear who the bad guys are. Good guys are super loyalists.
The two leads are such dorks when it comes to each other.
Second lead relationship is meh, but each character by itself is interesting, general Liang Wei being the main comic relief and the actor is great at physical comedy. Xiaotao is the only character I found murky because it was never clear what her deal was (or I missed it). She's still a well flashed out and consistent character. Also not sure abut Mr Wei, the way he was acted out was... odd at times. I got the idea that was behind him, but the physical acting sometimes was weird.
Good camera work, scene setups and sets. Finally no unecessary slow motions.
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Supporting characters steal the show
I liked it, overall. Good acting, good, sometimes even clever, plot, couple of nice twists, lots of dying and betreyal.The best thing in this drama was Fan Shuai Qi playing Bu Shu Lin. The best woman-pretending-to-be-man acting I've ever seen. The maleness was convincing, the aspect of knowing she's pretending was convincing, her playing a female character was convincing. Just across the board phenomenal acting.
One other thing that really made an impression was the absolute insanity of the levels of gas lighting of the 5th Prince Xiao Chang Qing. Obviously, he was meant to be the bad guy, albeit a complicated one, but the pure torture he was subjegated to from the FL as to weather she was or wasn't his deceased wife, was on another level.
I knew that Queen grandmother was the main culprit early on, because out of all of them she seemed the nicest one and that's just never true. But I liked the overall character set up and presentation where it was never trully black and white with any of them, it made the series more interesting.
Again, I'm not super happy with FL's no expression acting. Maybe I'm the problem, I don't know, but this is a trend among female actors that emoting is either extremely reserved or not present. Unless it's ugly crying and then some do it very well, but a lot of times it's just like watching dolls on a screen. There are micro expressions, sure, and the overall vibe of the actress, but it just feels flat. Especially next to Fan Shuai and He Yu.
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Only I'm allowed to hate you.
As a criminal drama - good. As an office romance - jesus take the wheel. Just because two people of the same gender are interacting intimately on screen doesn't automatically mean it's good TV.The acting is not... good. The most consistent is the meekness of Lee Chae Ha, while Ju (Kang) Tae Seon is all over the place (really can't do desperation and sadness). O Ja Hyeon was cringe, there's a way to do crazy, psychotic and unhinged that doesn't require constant laughing. Darling, you are not Joker.
This series feel like a potentially good criminal drama with a badly written in relationship. The story idea is good, but the script is fucking awful. Plotholes upon plotholes, string editing leaves you feeling like there are chunks of context missing, and, as in many BLs, the scenes are desolate as if the main characters are the only people in the world, more so, the only gay people in the world. It gives low budged feel, which it probably is, and I guess not many actors want to be associated with this industry. This would've gone so well if they paid more attention to fleshing out the mystery of who's-done-it, rather than splicing in that relationship as the main attraction. Those two aspects felt completely separate and not because they didn't make a big deal of the main couple being gay, which is the way these stories should be told, but because it wasn't a good or coherent enough story telling.
Every character on screen felt like a solo player, their relationships didn't matter, only their past did. I wouldn't call what the main couple had chemistry, as we like to call it. It was angry, sad and flat at the same time. The only part I liked was when they finally revealed who the son of the casino director and the police chief was. Predictable from his first very questionable remark and the writers did try to bury the lead with a red herring, but in the end that break from the nice persona to a broken, exploited child was quite good. He turned just like both of his parents, they must be so proud.
That first time kissing - so, that's assault. Jail,straight to jail. No rhyme or reason why anyone would take shit like that from someone they work for. Granted, Korea is notorious for bad work culture, bullying and toxic behaviour across the board, but this is as if all three were rolled into one big, fat, toxic, red flag. Going to your employee's home at night? Acting like an entitled asshole, choking and sexually assaulting them? Yeah, sure, that's totally normal. And the other guy acts as if it might as well have been a slap to the face or a push on a shoulder. How often does this actually happen for it to be portrayed as a behaviour one immediately doesn't consider chargeable? And, of course, the meek male lead instantly falls for the abusive boss, because the only way to survive in this harsh world in Stocholm Syndrome.
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This is what happens when your intrusive thoughts invade while writing a fanfiction.
The story itself is actually boring, but the acting, that still somehow manages to be mediocre, is what makes it all gloriously unhinged. I burst out laughing a lot purely because of the ridiculousness of the plot. And still, they somehow managed to play one of the best enemies-to-lovers trope I've seen so far. Not because the acting was good, but because it was insane.The actress playing He Weilan was really good at portraying being hopelessly in love. The switch to assassin-self was meh, but her cover-identity was spot on.
Lots of neck grabbing and biting. Honestly, after episode two I just kept watching cause I wanted to know who else is going to get bitten. You have to totally suspend your disbelief regarding anything and then you will enjoy this series.
Unfortunately all the themes of womens empowerment and equality in relationships get lost in the slew off other nonsense. With long teeth I will admit that the FL keeps true to her character throughout, but only barely. One think I will say, the leads, as a couple, have very good chemistry, once they get to the lovey-dovey phase.
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This is my comfort show
Maybe I love this show because it's one of the first Chinese costume dramas I ever watched and it has certainly set a standard for me. The story is good, the acting is good, the fight scenes are well shot, what little comic relief there is hits the spot. It might be a bit politics heavy on occasions though.All in all I've rewatched it several times, always concentrating on a different aspect, be it the romance, the fighting, the politics, it balances all those historic aspects well. The characters are well portrayed and feel organic in the settings they are put in. And yes, I have critiques for this show too, but I'm biased and close my eyes at an occasional plot nonsense or overly dramatic crying at the skies at an inappropriate moment, because this show gives me a nice, warm feeling, I smile when I watch it and it's nice.
I just love this drama, what can I say.
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