This review may contain spoilers
Very comfortably paced story with a sprinkle of romance
This series was quite beautiful, it tells the story of a family who faced the Emperor's wrath, lost everything, yet slowly regained everything through familial love and support. I love that all the side characters are actually quite fleshed out compared to lots of other cdramas, we know of the stories of the Hua family, what difficulties they have suffered and how that has shaped them. We are also blessed with an adorable side couple, and unfortunately, also lots of less adorable couples depicting the nature of marriage and love.
I really really like ML and FL's relationship. We have FL as a strong-willed, independent, smart, kind yet brave character, she basically one-handedly saved her family from destitution for life. Then we have ML, serving the Emperor loyally out of consideration for their uncle-nephew relationship. ML is like a sturdy wall behind FL, always there to silently support her when she needs it, and FL provides the humanity and familial love that ML might have never experienced before. The only thing that slightly ticked me off about FL was her overt directness to the Emperor, the one figure who literally has the power to make anything happen to her family, and had already doomed her family once. Her character makes her unafraid to stand up against him, but sometimes I just wonder, knowing when and what to say is also a skill, being too direct and righteous isn't always a good thing. But I still love FL, both her and the Emperor are the perfect examples of what comes around goes around, only one was saved by kindness and the other killed out of hatred. Can't say much about HYT's acting, I was never a huge fan since he leans towards the emotionless acting side, but for this role, I have to admit he's perfect for it.
Their romance is more like a side-story to the main plot, where FL and her family attempt to raise enough money to save all the men back from the North. But even though it's not the main focus, their relationship is really beautiful and pure, it's not like a fiery red hot passion, but more like a gentle stream of support and love shown through actions. I really like the overall story of the series, it's quite refreshing and new. I just really despise the Emperor, he may not be the worst kind as he is neither lazy nor over-indulgent in pleasures, but he certainly does not value life and lets his paranoia lead many innocent ones to die. One character that's likely overlooked by everyone is actually ChangQing (the Emperor's right-hand eunuch), unlike how many series portray eunuchs, he actually isn't corrupt and power-hungry, and he treats others nicely too.
Overall, it's definitely at least an 8.5 for me. The pacing dropped off a bit towards the end, and I felt that I definitely liked the first half of the series more, I felt like the latter half shifted the focus away from FL raising money to save her family and more about palace dramatics, which I do love but wasn't what I wanted from this series. In the end, it wasn't technically even FL or her family's efforts which saved the men, it was just a consequence of the Emperor's death, so it wasn't as satisfying as I had hoped.
I was curious whether they would kill the Emperor off, after all while he may be a cruel ruler, he did still manage to govern the country. Seeing the way he died was quite satisfying, killed by those he scorned, but I did feel it was a bit too sudden as I was also curious as to how his relationship with GYX would wrap up, guess we never know now. But they're in good hands now, a kid emperor raised with love by the Huas, and a benevolent royal grandma to help him.
I really really like ML and FL's relationship. We have FL as a strong-willed, independent, smart, kind yet brave character, she basically one-handedly saved her family from destitution for life. Then we have ML, serving the Emperor loyally out of consideration for their uncle-nephew relationship. ML is like a sturdy wall behind FL, always there to silently support her when she needs it, and FL provides the humanity and familial love that ML might have never experienced before. The only thing that slightly ticked me off about FL was her overt directness to the Emperor, the one figure who literally has the power to make anything happen to her family, and had already doomed her family once. Her character makes her unafraid to stand up against him, but sometimes I just wonder, knowing when and what to say is also a skill, being too direct and righteous isn't always a good thing. But I still love FL, both her and the Emperor are the perfect examples of what comes around goes around, only one was saved by kindness and the other killed out of hatred. Can't say much about HYT's acting, I was never a huge fan since he leans towards the emotionless acting side, but for this role, I have to admit he's perfect for it.
Their romance is more like a side-story to the main plot, where FL and her family attempt to raise enough money to save all the men back from the North. But even though it's not the main focus, their relationship is really beautiful and pure, it's not like a fiery red hot passion, but more like a gentle stream of support and love shown through actions. I really like the overall story of the series, it's quite refreshing and new. I just really despise the Emperor, he may not be the worst kind as he is neither lazy nor over-indulgent in pleasures, but he certainly does not value life and lets his paranoia lead many innocent ones to die. One character that's likely overlooked by everyone is actually ChangQing (the Emperor's right-hand eunuch), unlike how many series portray eunuchs, he actually isn't corrupt and power-hungry, and he treats others nicely too.
Overall, it's definitely at least an 8.5 for me. The pacing dropped off a bit towards the end, and I felt that I definitely liked the first half of the series more, I felt like the latter half shifted the focus away from FL raising money to save her family and more about palace dramatics, which I do love but wasn't what I wanted from this series. In the end, it wasn't technically even FL or her family's efforts which saved the men, it was just a consequence of the Emperor's death, so it wasn't as satisfying as I had hoped.
I was curious whether they would kill the Emperor off, after all while he may be a cruel ruler, he did still manage to govern the country. Seeing the way he died was quite satisfying, killed by those he scorned, but I did feel it was a bit too sudden as I was also curious as to how his relationship with GYX would wrap up, guess we never know now. But they're in good hands now, a kid emperor raised with love by the Huas, and a benevolent royal grandma to help him.
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