Deirdre19

Yes, he did the riding himself, you can clearly see the face when he's galloping through the street. But in this one scene where the horse reared (I think it was 1st episode), I don't think it was him on the horse. The shot is taken at such an angle that the rider's face cannot be seen. Even for a proficient rider this would be a very challenging stunt to perform, so it seems reasonable to me that this was a stuntman.

Yeah, Wu Lei is quite good with the horse, it shows immediately. I've seen JT in several dramas, riding while holding a spear/sword in one hand and the reins in the other, he seems to know what he's doing. I'm a rider myself, so some details are very obvious to me.
Some of the worst fake riding that I've ever seen was in And the Winner is Love. They actually used fake horse-heads and the movement of the riders are completely out of sync with the sound of the hooves. That was so painful to watch...

It was definitely him on the galloping horse, the cut with the rearing horse was very cleverly done, because you don't see the face of the person on the horse. I had to reverse/repeat it several times to see that there was actually a cut, so I don't think that was the actor.
For me it's already a big plus that he always does these riding scenes - I've seen some really cringe-worthy fake riding in some other dramas

The Protector General (Hua Liuli's father) has just won an important battle and forced the neighbouring state Jinpo to surrender. The whole Hua family is fighting at the border and hold the power over the army.
When generals become very (too) powerful they can be a threat to the imperial family, as in previous dynasties the generals then removed the emperor to seize power. So the Emperor will be suspicious as soon as some general becomes too popular or powerful. This is the reason why Hua Liuli was sent back to the capital as a sign of loyalty to the Emperor (in the drama version she is considered a sort of "hostage").
Right now as the two states have entered peace negotiations, there seems to no longer any need for a powerful general and some officials are asking for him to be removed from power, which makes the situation very dangerous for the Hua family.
There is a Chinese saying that features quite prominently in the novel:
蜚鸟尽，良弓藏
When all the birds are gone, the trusted bow is no longer needed (my translation, Chinese speakers feel free to correct).
It means that the general has served his purpose and now that the purpose is gone, he can be dropped.
Hua Liuli was born weak, but got better and now pretends to still be weak to manipulate people. If she appears weak they will lower their guard and feel sorry for her.
As the children of the imperial family and a high-ranking general it is normal that they would have known each other since childhood. The who-is-who of important families was a popular pasttime before TV and internet.

Quite honestly, I think there are some trolls going around down-voting everything that doesn't have their idol-boys in it.

JT has perfect comedic timing, that's what makes Be My Princess so funny. There is a subtle irony in his acting that many casual viewers seem to have missed. Towards the end, every time he says "Princess" with that stiff face, it totally cracks me up!

This drama is a goldmine of quirky little details that might be easily missed. The acting for of all characters is pretty decent and the chemistry between the two leads is spot on.
Also, it so far managed to avoid quite a few of the usual c-drama tropes and for once there is a clever and reasonable FL. The story is interesting with a good pacing.
So based on this alone, it more than deserves the 8.3 rating.

That was a wonderful scene! Especially because what the Empress Dowager told him (to look out for the little things that could show a person's heart) exactly matched Hua Liuli's actions.
There are a lot of such subtleties in this drama, but not everybody seems to notice them.

It really depends on who the actors are. Anything with some pretty idol boys will easily go beyond 8 without being any good whereas some quite good dramas with "normal" actors will fall in the 7 range for no reason. There are also some dramas in the 6-range.

Hmh, we seem to have different ideas of what a robot acts like... 🤣

Oh, and yes, good choice, Jeremy, the dark red is definitely your colour!

I just love the way the script-writers are playing with the gender stereotypes in this drama. Here the FL gets to grill meat (usually the epitomy of blokish behaviour) while the ML has trouble chosing a pretty outfit to meet his girl 🤣
This is just wonderful, creative writing! I hope these guys will get to work on many big projects in the future!!

Quite honestly, if a drama is well produced, with good acting and a decent script, I really don't care whether it's BG or BL. True equality will be reached when BL or BG will no longer matter.
I guess one of the reasons that BL dramas are so popular is that C-drama scriptwriters just cannot seem write any decent female roles. Even if the character was ok in the underlying novel, they have to dumb down every single role take away any independent thinking or rationality until they all behave like five-year olds.

Yeheee! It's nice to have goals in life 😂
So what's next on our 🤡 to-do list?

Hahaha, sadly that type of guy does not only exists in C-dramas.

BTW the cat-thing seems to be completely made up by the scriptwriters, but I love it!!!
I wonder, after this drama, how many kitties will have the misfortune of being called FaFa ... 😾😿😾

Based on what I ready in the novel I think there is some conspiracy around this. His mother died when he was young and he was a sickly child, but as soon as the emperor brought him to live in his palace (looking after him and feeding him) he got better very quickly.
It's also something that the Crown Prince and Hua Liuli have in common, they were both sick as children (in the novel it's not all pretense, she really was a weak child because she was born prematurely).
There is a nice anecdote that Hua Liuli recalls regarding the Crown Prince. When she was a child he had heard that the country's top general's daughter was sick and sent her a wooden horse as a gift. Every time she didn't want to take her medicine, her mother would mention the sickly prince who had sent her the wooden horse and who had to take ten bowls of bitter medicine per day. It was only later that she worked out that nobody could take ten bowls of bitter medicine per day and this was just her mother's exaggeration.
In the novel there seem to be a different relationship (other than the wooden horse, none) between them as children. So far I have not come across the mention of any poisonous letters that she may have sent.

She died when he was young.

No, you haven't missed him, he only turned up now. Before there was only a brief shot of General Awa being captured by Hua Liuli's father (I think it was right at the start of the first episode).

Kick-ass FL in the opening scene... I'm in!

I was very surprised this turned out to be a wolf... to me it looked like a fox every time I saw it in the closing credits. Also, a fox being the symbol of cunning would suit him better in my opinion.