Emjay

In a fan perspective, you are in the right place, mdl of course, then there are imd, reddit, tiktok, twitter, fb. These are some of the international platforms to talk about Cdrama. WeChat, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu are the platforms in their country.

They should made a villain somehow as great, strategic and powerful as the ML character to level-up the field and make the political plot poignant. I detailed this in one of my previous comments. All the villains either meet their demise fast or are incompetent.

Global recognition actually is not what they aspire. A successful Chinese drama should do well first in their own country for it to be a resounding feat for the drama production team, director, screenwriter, artists, crew etc. Though international fame can maneuver another aspect of marketing or promotion for the drama. It should be first well-received domestically. That is their target audience. So if you will see, some dramas are popular abroad but not in China or vice-versa.

TPOB is a fusion of classic Disney fairytale movie and Chinese historical drama. Just make it in an ancient costume setting. So if you are into this kind of trope and cliches, this drama will resonate to you. If not, then you would question some of the plot direction and character development in this drama.

Thank goodness, it was resolved quickly. I stopped at ep 13. Ok so it is safe, I will continue.

How many eps and what eps are the main leads conflict, I mean Ming Tan distances herself from the Prince?

Waiting for thurs, I’ll marathon ep 22-36 👀⚡️

What specific historical drama do you want? Is it political-driven, romantic, rebirth, business, suspense etc. There are many new chinese drama coming this June or this year like Yang Yang’s Immortal Ascension, Chen Yi’s The Journey of Legend, Hidden Shadow, Eternal Fragrance , Flourished Peony 2, A dream within a dream ( another Liu Ning ning drama), Moonlit Reunion and many more. But you have to wait for these. If you can’t wait anymore, there are wide array of old historical drama that you can watch that will suit your taste.

This is a happy ending for the lead couple i think though there are some characters who will die. You will like this if you like
Love story. This is one of the good rom-com dramas of 2025 for me.

Hahaha! Really accused?! That is asking, if anyone that does not know the background story that is why that person is asking. It is called inquiry. It is my first time to encounter that someone use the term “accused”. You do think negatively. Second, she speaks almost like this all the time, not only when she is with the ladies.

If you like love story and romantic cliche sprinkled with comedy, this drama is for you.

Accused? Really? You are so petty! It is not accused, it is inquiring.

It is because people nowadays, romanticized “love” too much to the point that it became the means and ends of all things. We have forgotten that a genuine love entails dignity, commitment, loyalty etc. Passion and deep emotions are glorified in the expense of logic, value and self-empowerment.

In their country, you are considered handsome if you look like mannequin idols. Regardless if you are talented or not, that is the definition of being visually-stunning for them. The Chinese perception of their artist talent as well as their preference on their drama is different from us international fans. But sadly, the true gauge of success for these Chinese celebrities is for them to be well-received and famous in China. Their domestic entertainment is billion so they don’t rely on international market.

I wonder why Manman is always whispering even when she is mad 🤔

Yes, that’s how it goes in China. However, this drama is doing great in many aspects like 30k + tencent heat index, traffic, data charts. And the best part is Liu Ning’s great portrayal have silenced his detractors. Moreover, it’s another Song Zu er’s comeback drama.

Romantic idol drama usually doesn’t win major awards like feitian, magnolia…

This will go up because it has only few raters. When the drama is finished, more raters will come in.

So far for this year 2025 🏆 Flourished Peony actually is the highest if you will look into the average number of rater 345,000+ viewers.

So this is how douban rating works.

Highest-rated costume C-Drama in #Douban in 2025 so far. The "Legend of the Undercover Chef" season 2 scoring high is not surprising, this is starred and produced by veteran actor, Zhao Benshan, and domestic fans always favored the works of veterans due to the quality of script and writing style.

1. Legend of the Undercover Chef 2: 8.2 from 31,000+ reviewers. Main Lead: Zhao Benshan (playing dual role). Network: Tencent

2. Flourished Peony: 7.8 from 345,000+ reviewers. Main Leads: Yang Zi and Li Xian. Network: Hunan TV, Mango TV

3. Under The Moonlight: 7.4 from 34,000+ reviewers. Main Leads: Hu Bingqing and Zhai Zilu. Network: Youku

4. The Demon Hunter's Romance: 7.3 from 70,000+ reviewers. Main Leads: Ren Jialun and Song Zuer. Network: iQiyi

5. Love of the Divine Tree: 7.1 from 110,000+ reviewers. Main Leads: Deng Wei and Julia Xiang. Network: iQiyi

https://www.facebook.com/share/1EBkHVUmNU/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Btw, I always read your drama reviews when I want to watch a certain one. I am a fan of your eloquent narrative reviews 🏆 I hope you continue to do so. 🥰

If you remove lady yulou parts as one mentioned below, the more the political plot will suffer. Actually, if you will analyze, there is no great villain in this drama that can match the hero. If only there is that one great male villain or leader counterpart in Qiao’s clan. What a miss, they made this clan weak with MM imbecile family members. It could be a pivotal point for the vengeance arc to take height. Like what the initial promise at the beginning of the story of the long-withstanding hatred between the clans. It will be a head to head war or conquest with Qiao having a leader almost the same calibre of Wei Shan. That would be epic. It would thicken the political drama aspect. Qiao Man will have a hard time making a choice between her clan and husband. Then, the power struggle or dominations between nations will be laid out as well. As I said, a big chunk of the middle part episodes was heavily focused on love. There is nothing wrong with the romantic aspect because it is the main ingredient of the drama. However, some parts became mundane and trivial. The plot twist should be working at the background like capitalizing on another villain, Liu Yan. While the leads are all lovey dovey, Liu Yan can be shown in the drama slowly setting up his land conquest and domination as well as his vengeance on his rival, Wei Shao. After all, he was humiliated that his fiancee threw herself to the other side of the fence. But no, they just remember him now that they need to even the plot to gear up for the near end of the drama.