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Underwhelmingly disappointing
NGL, my biggest motivation to watch Si jin is because of Zhang Wanyi. I watched the Rise of Ning, then Are You the One, then Lost You Forever. His acting blew me away. He was a different person each time, and once I start on a new drama, I completely forgot about his role in his previous drama. He was that good.And then I watch Si Jin. Don't get me wrong, the actors were not bad, but all the acting skill in the world couldn't save the badly written script/story. This story is a comedy, but there were a lot of tell and don't show, which can come across as crass at times. The story was fast, too fast at times, that I worry i might've skipped an episode or two (I didn't). The palace intrigue was shalow and comes across as naive at times (we can just be buddy2 with enemy nation that killed our people! Hey nobody had ever thought of trade, the female lead aka the saintess gave the brilliant idea and now there's no need for war!). Jiang si (FL)'s decision often defy logic and come across as juvenile story telling given the situation, for example, her brother was nearly killed due to a minor action that offended a grand princess's daughter. But guess what, she mocked a crown prince in retaliation, put a knife on said grand princess's daughter's neck, without worry about her family's safety, even though it was emphasized again and again that her family is important to her, her action doesn't actually show it. The weirdest part is that nobody actually held her responsible for it!
Zaang Wanyi is an independent actor that doens't have an agency, so he can be picky about picking a good script, however I have no idea what made him pick this one tbh.
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Is no one going to talk about this?
I got a lot of recommendations for the double, and I tried, dropping, retrying, only to finally decide to drop the show, which is such a shame because I really want to like the show. It has all the elements that I usually would love in a show: smart FL, intrigues, i even like ML's actor and yanxi palace. I think both actors are amazing in their own rights. BUT!!!:1. the actor WJY in this show is the wrong casting. She is pretty, but is far too old for the role, especially when her supposed fake parents looks like her sister and brother, and ML looks like he's in his early 20s. She is supposed to be younger than ML and same age as Tong er and the dead lady she replaced. This jarred me out of the show many times, especially because of the 2nd point.
2. Make up. Yes! I'd never thought that i'd ever drop a show because of their make up, and yet here we are. The make staff seems to put thick and lighter shade make up on the actors but forget about the neck. They all look like theyre wearing white masks. It doesnt help that the make up on ML and FL are on the thicker side, and FL's particularly in a way thats unflattering and made her look like shes in her late 30s or early 40s (I believe during this show she was in her early 30s).
3. The scene when tong er came out of the carriage and ppl booed her for being plain and unsophisticated, and then FL came out and supposedly blew people away. It was so weird because the actor playing tong er, her fake mom and even the dead lady she replaced was all very pretty and somewhat outshined her. None of her "woah so pretty" moment worked, it even jarred me out of the show and out of the suspension of disbelief that shes 20.
It was that bad to the point that I wonder if the casting choice was intentional and if she was being purposely bullied. I mean, what kind of casting director would choose side kicks that grabs FL's spotlight and make her look old, her fake parents looks like her siblings, and she could be ML's sugar mommy. Even her make up was very bad.
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