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The Princess, the Hot Werewolf and their Strange Kingdoms.

This series had some fun moments and a cast that played well off of each other. However, if you look beyond the surface there’s not much to this series. The premise was strong. A king from a beastly kingdom needs a princess from a human kingdom to save his life and subsequently his people, with the requirement of love between the savior and the one to be saved being included in this very cliché story setup. For this reason, the beastly king kidnaps the princess and off the story goes…well sort of.

The show spends a lot of time setting up the relationship between Qi Pan and Kui Mu Lang, but not much else. We only see Qi Pa’s kingdom very briefly before she is kidnapped and there’s no insight into how the kingdom works who is on the royal court? Is there a royal court? Who are Qi Pa’s friends etc. We see her parents who of course want her to find her soulmate and that’s it. After she is kidnapped we don’t see how her kingdom is dealing with the kidnapping of their princess, only the royal guard looking for her when it becomes convenient to the story.

In the Beast kingdom, we do learn why many, not all, have beastly features, but beyond that, no insight into the inner workings of the monarch and the society it serves. Kui Mu Lang, the king, only has one right hand man and apparently no royal guards as people can access the palace grounds and the king (and Queen’s) quarters at will, to do nefarious things. Kui Mu Lang had powers but apparently no one else in the kingdom did. This was never explained. Did he have powers because he was the king? Or did he have powers because it was convenient to the story? Additionally, there were individuals who tried to kill the king numerous times, but when caught received a punishment of planting trees, copying the laws of the kingdom numerous times or no punishment at all. Odd.

Moreover, though the beastly city appears to be your typical Chinese kingdom, Daxia which is Qi Pa’s home seems to be a mix of modern experiences and historic Chinese customs. For Qi Pa mentions haute couture, makeup sets, high heels, having jet lag etc. while still dressing, for the most part, like a princess from the 16th century. Very strange. Additionally, when the audience did see the palace grounds for Qi Pa’s home, there was no one around. Just her and a couple characters, who seemed to only be around to prop her relationship with Kui Mu Lang. When she returned after going missing, there were no scenes of her reuniting with her family and when she decided to return to the beast kingdom, she did not inform anyone, but left her kingdom without a word.

There were a couple of antagonists in this series, Kui Mu Lang’s brother (Jing Mu) and some mystery man. Both spent the series failing at their nefarious schemes while Jing Mu whined like a 2-year old about no one paying attention to him. The endgame of their nefarious schemes wasn’t revealed until the last episode and even when revealed it still made little sense considering the mysterious man spent most the series mustache twirling and vowing to make Kui Mu Lang pay while Jing Mu whined.

Despite the storyline and world building for this series making absolutely no sense, the actors did the best they could with the material and seemed to have fun. Chen Zhe Yuan was pretty hot and looked good with Wu Xuan Yi. All of the couples had nice chemistry and worked well. With the leads being most interesting together when Qi Pa was interacting with Kui Mu Lang in his wolf/beast form. The series had a few really good scenes. Specifically, when Qi Pa and beastly Kui Mu Lang were arguing or angsty and there were some scenes that were funny. However, overall, the story was a disaster and execution just okay. Would I watch this again, nope. But I wouldn’t say it was a complete waste of 30 hours due to the actors being fairly charismatic which made the series, at times, entertaining.

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An Incoherent House of Potential

It’s difficult to give a coherent review on this one because the story was so disjointed. So in short the Fuma who are apparently an ancient Ninja group of Japan wants to remove those who are currently in power to install their own puppet master to do their bidding. What that bidding entails is never explained. But then in order to reach this goal, they kill a bunch of innocent people and are fixated on some ancient scroll that details the genealogy of the Hojo clan. The belief is that as long as they have the scroll they will succeed in their goal to rule Japan. Again, we are given no history on these clans and ninja groups. Some things are implied but never explained.

We spend several episodes on Haru and the reporter investigating all the mysterious deaths and disappearances only for the reporter to become irrelevant halfway through the series.

In the final battle the Tawaras are fighting the Fumas and are about to lose the battle when a group of ninjas whom we’ve not heard of or seen, show up to help them out. There were many story threads not fleshed out, that didn’t make sense or just there it seemed to fill time with no connection to the overall story.

The actors had strong performances in this, and there was the potential for a good story but it just wasn’t well, written.

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Great premise. Poor execution

I enjoy stories that explore multiple timelines, with sci-fi and even a love story thrown in. So when I read the synopsis for this show along with seeing the starring actors I thought this might be pretty good.

It started off strong, with what appeared to be a mysterious chase through a snowy forest only for the protagonist who looked to be trying to escape some threat strangely appearing in a world 10 years into the future. When this happened I thought now things are about to get really interesting. Only for the story to completely stall out in an effort to build a romantic rapport between the leads.

First off, though the situation was strange and understandably difficult for the leads to wrap their heads around what exactly was happening, it didn’t make sense that the very intelligent AI which could solve very complex problems couldn’t make the very simple deduction, based on the sum of all the events, that the anomaly of the FL showing up the way she did was connected to the Super Moon. But I gave that a pass. Then the ML allowed the FL to stay in his home for what appeared to be weeks, knowing that she had amnesia, claiming he was going to help her find her family, but his only attempt to help her do that was take her around the city.

He didn’t bother to take her to a doctor, who may be able to help her or look up missing persons cases. He just took her shopping and to different locations around the city. Hoping something would jog her memories. Ok. So the writers were killing time in an attempt to build a strong foundation for an eventual romantic pairing between the leads. Again, I let it ride. Then this guy from the FL’s previously life, decides to ask her parents to close the book on their missing daughter so that he can be free to move on with his life. I’m thinking because they were engaged to be married or maybe even were married. But nope, they were just dating. So why the need for the parents to let go so that he can move on with his life? Then he proceeds to do a live stream of a memorial service he’s orchestrated, without the parents consent, to declare his GIRLFRIEND dead. Again why? She was only his girlfriend. No one would begrudge him moving on with his life after she’d been missing for 10 years. I again suspended disbelief.

However, when the FL finally found out her name and pretty much had no interest in vigorously pursuing her past and who she was, I was too done. Instead she was more interested in making googly eyes at the ML. Sigh. Then wasting time on nonsense like opening dessert stores and avoiding her parents for reasons that were deemed legitimate but could’ve easily been overcome with a little creative thinking. But the writers wanted to stall the story and create unnecessary “angst” and “drama” for the FL. This show had an interesting premise, but unfortunately spent way too much time on the boring stuff and storylines that didn’t make sense but were forced on the audience to create the narrative the writers wanted , a love story at all cost, even if the story in which the love story grew made no sense.

The actors did the best they could with the material, but that was about it. I wouldn’t recommend not even wasting your time watching. There are many other love stories with a sci-fi twist out there, that does a much better job with execution than this series.

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Extraordinary Lies Nearly Clouds the Love in this Political Fantasy

This series started off so good and continued on to greatness, for the first 25 episodes. The mysteries within the plot and road to romance for the leads was highly entertaining. That is until it reached the final stretch and almost completely lost momentum. First off, the writers threw every trope and obstacle of angst you could think of at the leads. Deep cutting lies, betrayal, being from rival realms who hate each other, terminal illnesses, sins of the mothers, abandonment, endless missed cues and communications and so forth and so on. Then the SML was injected into all of this with his unreasonably psychotic behavior, resulting in it all nearly being too much.

It is tiring to watch the trope of the interloper who becomes obsessed with one of the leads because they were nice to them once eons ago, and when they see this person has no romantic interest in them , instead of moving on, they double down and are determined to force the one with whom they are obsessed to love them. It is illogical and frustrating to watch.

By the time the show reached the last 4-5 episodes it had become exhausting due to everything but the kitchen sink having been thrown at our leads. But I hung in there because the plot remained highly entertaining, despite its faults. And Neo Hou and Lu Yuxiao, and to a much lesser degree, the supporting actors giving the show so much life. They were all so good in their roles and really jelled making them believable friends, lovers and foes. Neo Hou (Ji Bo Zai) and Lu Yuxiao (Ming Yi) had lovely chemistry that became more palpable as the show progressed. They could be funny, flirty and fire together. With their kisses and intimacy being some of the best seen in recent C-dramas.

Additionally, the SFL, the Princess, was a wonderful character. I feared she would become obsessed with winning the ML’s love but was pleasantly surprised when she turned out to be smart, strategic and very supportive of our leads. Overall, despite nearly going off the rails, this was a very good series. The story did , in the end, recover, due to some unexpectedly good twists and the HEA afforded the leads. Binging the last few episodes will be tough, due to all the angst and drama, but once the outcome is known, it is a series that will be more enjoyable upon rewatch.

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Beautiful Demons and Mortals Battle with Themselves and the World in this Mystical Drama

So this was mostly about a bunch of beautiful people, mainly the male characters, walking around looking beautiful , often huskily whispering their dialogue, with some modern C-Rock/Pop scoring over the impressive CGI….we’ll sort of. Lol. There is a story of adventure, self discovery , along with a mission to gain the means to stop the ultimate evil. We quickly learn who the villains are in this. After which each episode repeats the same story with Li Lun (a demon) in partnership with Chong Wu’s leader, having convinced some poor demon to ally with the former because they believe he’s going to help them get something they want. The only differences is the demon and the setting in which the conflict takes place. This was interesting to start but began to get stale after a few episodes. Thankfully, Li Lun’s villainy changed up halfway through the series.

The characters spend a LOT of time standing around calmly talking in intense situations where things should be moving quickly. Moreover, if something goes terribly wrong there were a LOT of moments where the characters literally stood there for 10 minutes starring prettily at the horror unfolding before them, doing nothing. For this to be a show about sword wielding mortals who were fighting powerful demons, the pace was at times a bit too slow. Again, many scenes dragged focusing on one “epic” CGI moment for far too long before moving the story forward.

Despite my qualms, thus far, the series has been incredibly engaging. The leads have fantastic chemistry especially Zhu Yan ( Demon ML), Zhuo Yi (Mortal ML) and Wen Xiao (FL/Goddess). These three have had some great scenes all together and when it was just one with the other. I really enjoy Zhu Yan. He’s a demon, but he’s far from evil. He’s mischievous and compassionate with a hilarious sense of humor. Love him. The brotherly love between him and Zhuo Yi is palpable while his chemistry with Wen Xiao is incredibly easy, natural , with some lovely swoon moments thrown in.

The acting is not award winning and doesn’t need to be. However, it does work for this series. I will say though, the actress who plays Pei Ji (Cheng Xiao) is a horrible. Her delivery lacks emotion and almost stops short of being deadpan. SMH. The series still has a few more episodes before it finishes but considering what has been shown thus far I don’t believe it’ll end happily for our heroes. :( If the series continues to maintain the compelling aspects of the story/characters it will have been worth watching, and will be worth watching again.

Update: Finished this series. Overall this was more character driven than anything. Though the story was quite interesting too. I will say the last 7 episodes were so good, but emotionally draining. Heartbreaking storytelling. Thus, binging may not be the best approach. As expected the ending was extremely painful to watch, but the bonus episode revealed that all may not be lost. Great series. Most of it will be fun to rewatch save for the last few episodes which I think many will not want to experience again.

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When gold-digging goes bad, well sort of….

To start it is believed, this is the typical story of the poor wholesome girl trying to fit into the world of affluence that surrounds her future husband. However, this conclusion is quickly shattered when it’s revealed that the FL’s entire imagine – name, family etc. is all a fabrication. With this reveal the story immediately becomes incredibly interesting.

The series proceeds with the audience watching the FL carefully and cunningly weaving her web of lies while tap dancing her way out of her duplicity nearly being exposed. Of course, her plan to build the perfect life doesn’t go as planned. For her wealthy fiancée who is nothing short of amazing has weaved his own web of lies.

Things eventually crumble with both she and the ML having no room to deride the other considering each had contributed their own deceptions that led to the disaster that blew up their marriage. In the mist of the leads trying to work through the lies and rebuild their marriage on love, this the series, incorporated some ambition career moves for them both , nice personal growth and shocking corporate treachery.

There was always something interesting going on. However, the show did overdo it with the struggles the FL encountered, and the interlopers to the leads and the second leads relationships was insufferable. Their presence in the story was simply to cause unnecessary drama. Moreover, after all the drama around the ML’s secret kid, the writers decided to undo that fact in the end. Again, drama for drama’s sake and completely unnecessary. Additionally, the ending to the corporate storyline was a little wonky and the series created all the drama with the son, but once he served his purpose we didn't see him again which was odd.

That aside, this was a really good series. The love story was lovely. Zhao Lu was fantastic as the FL. Great acting. She and William Chan had a natural chemistry that made their coupledom absolutely believable. Xu Yan and Shen Hao Ming were such a bada** power couple who could make any business deal happen. Loved them. This was an enjoyable series. One that I will rewatch often.

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Horribly Written Series that Offers Some Entertainment Value

Upon finishing this show, I found I enjoyed its entertainment value, but after the need to know what happens next being fulfilled and thus wearing off I found that overall this was not good. This series had no world building. We didn’t know who the emperor was ruling. What the set up of his kingdom looked like. Who was on the court. I don’t believe the audience even got the name of the kingdom. And it wasn’t revealed that there were two races of people living in the kingdom, human and demons, which was causing its own issues until nearly the end of the series. Though the ML is the Fox emperor (demon), he’s not seen doing any ruling over his kingdom. For he spends most of his time painting, hanging out with the FL and killing those who are “bad” and drinking their blood. It’s odd because his origins are a white fox). But since when does a white fox act like a vampire? Foxes are indeed carnivores, but have never been known to be associated with the vampire lore.

Moreover, the emperor had no guards. So those who wanted to kill him could roam about the palace grounds and his bed chambers unfettered. Granted he did have supernatural powers and was more than capable of taking care of himself but he did have weaknesses and being that he was the emperor should’ve had a guard protecting him and the palace at all times.

As a plot point the audience did see in part why the SML wanted to overthrow and kill the Fox emperor. The latter was killing innocents to satisfy his bloodthirst and the people in the kingdom were suffering in poverty. The emperor explained why he killed those he killed, which wasn’t a justification for what he was doing. And basically shrugged off his subjects starving and being taken advantage of by corrupt officials, saying he’d seen this behavior for 1000 years and that humans would never stop being corrupt. So you’re not going to try and make things better as emperor? Note, killing those whom he deemed corrupt without working to put some system in place to fight corruption and help the people is not making things better.

Worse when he finally got the FL to fall in love with him he abandons his kingdom leaving it to be taken over by whomever wants it, so that he can happily live in obscurity with the FL. SMH. Though the FL claims she cares about the suffering of the people she joins him in this life without a second thought.

The show haphazardly throws in a racial element surrounding the demons being unfairly persecuted by humans, but it falls flat considering everything else that’s wrong with this series. What the series does get right are the comedic moments, the visual effects and the chemistry between the leads. The leads had some smoldering close moments. The heat between them was emanating from the screen. Also it was a fairly entertaining show. Despite the series being horribly written it sort of worked for the previously mentioned reasons and the fact that it was only 240 minutes. If you’re purely looking for a passable love story with no logic but reasonable entertainment value you might enjoy this. Is this worth watching? Maybe. Depends on the viewer. Is this worth rewatching? No.

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CSI Meets Crime Solving in 16th Century China

A disfigured woman is shunned by society due to her “ugly” looks and knack for reading the dead becomes a lead investigator in unraveling a myriad of conspiracies in the town of Heyang. The cases and her investigative methods (along with the help of her love interest, the ML) were interesting as were the layers surrounding the crimes that revealed a bigger conspiracy.

Even better was the big conspiracy was simple, yet intriguing. However, in the last 10 episodes the story started to lose steam. The episodes begin to drag and spent too much time on story threads that were boring or made the main story thread more complicated than it needed to be.

Though the leads were passible as a couple, they looked good together. I actually preferred the ML with the original actress who played the FL when she was scarred and “ugly.” They had good chemistry and I liked the idea of the FL not being this raving beauty. When the storyline called for the FL’s face to change it took several episodes for me to warm up to the new actress in the role. Moreover, when I did warm up to her, I begin to find interest in her interactions with the SML. I liked the potential that was their relationship. It was too bad that there was no chance for them to explore a romance considering their natural chemistry, which wasn’t quite there with the ML.

The acting was good from everyone. Both FLs were the strongest actresses out of the younger cast. The actor who played the ML struggled, at times, when he had to get emotional. The “love” story was anemic at best. I think the leads worked best when they were in that mode of distance and “sexual” (though there wasn’t much sexiness going on. lol) tension rather than when they became a couple. Some of their “romantic” interactions were awkward. I think because their chemistry was mediocre at best.

Thankfully the series didn’t spend much time on their “love” as the focus was on solving the conspiracies at hand. The show started off really good but meandered towards the end on unnecessary storylines. The story could’ve been tightened and completed in 18-20 episodes, rather than 32. That said, this was worth watching. Is it worth a rewatch? Maybe.

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Uninspiring Title. Nonetheless Solid Horror Flick

The act of a couple selling their home leads to strange and creepy circumstances that put their daughter in danger. It was obvious pretty early on that the husband had some role in the strange incidents happening around his and his wife’s daughter. The movie did a good job at incorporating some creepy and suspenseful moments. Having me waiver between the motive for the weird happenings being sinister or some ritual to protect the daughter from some unseen force, but with rotten food, black crows and a mysterious malevolent figure frequently appearing it became apparent that some evil plot was afoot. The nice twist was that this explored a similar theme as Annabelle Creation. Where in this case the husband had lost his 7 year old daughter, from a previous relationship, years earlier, to a horrible accident, and inconsolable with grief he made some terrible choices in an attempt to bring her spirit back to life.

Of course his attempt wasn’t as innocent as he was being led to believe and as a result he was duped into helping an evil priestess plot to regain a new body to possess. I felt for the father’s grief but I could not understand how he could essentially sacrifice the daughter he had with his new wife for the daughter who died. Moreover, it was unconscionable that he was asking a 7 year old to consent to her body being possessed by the spirit of her dead half sister.

The ending was confusing. It was clear that Ing’s body was taken over by Jaa. But it seemed for a second there that she’d become possessed by the evil entity as she appeared to have killed Ing’s mom. We later learn she survived, and killed Rattree whom we never see alive again after the attack. But last we see Ing/Jaa she appears to be a sweet little girl with no indication that evil resides within her. This was an entertaining horror movie with some nice twists. Definitely worth watching.

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Little Substance, Save for the Beautiful Eye Candy

Not much going on with this series except the hotness of the ML. Lol. I did like how he was immediately attracted to the mousy FL, but the storyline was somewhat ridiculous. The FL’s mom is running a modeling agency and tricks her into becoming the ML’s manager under the guise that he needs an interpreter. Mind you she’s never been a manager in her life. She is a teacher, but somehow she’s able to be the ML’s full-time manager while also being a teacher. SMH.

She lives with her grandparents. With her grandmother being a sweetheart while her grandfather was just insufferable. The way he constantly scowled and was so overbearing was annoying. When he was having his health crisis, I was hoping he’d kill over rather than live on, that’s how annoying he was and a hinderance to what little story was happening in the series.

The ML’s storyline of moving to Thailand from the U.S. in search of his sister was questionable. There was no explanation as to why he and his sister were living on the streets in the U.S. and an even bigger question, why his sister was white, blond-haired, blue-eyed woman. Of course, the ML had a shady past that was literally keeping him awake at night, but it was nothing that I cared to know about. Again, the story just meandered from modeling job to modeling job for him why he and the FL went through their push pull thing.

There was the required interloper or two who were inserted into the story to cause unnecessary and oftentimes silly drama. But again, there was no substance to the storyline. The ML (Luke Ishikawa Plowden) was stunning in this. He is a beautiful specimen of a man and was very believable as a male model. Probably because that’s his day job. 😉 Lol. Overall, this was just okay. Would I rewatch? Perhaps some scenes to see the ML shirtless and gazing longingly at the FL. Lol. But other than those shallow reasons, no.

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A Human Liar Detector and her Musical Genius Find Love In the Mist of Lies and Crime

This started off interesting. There were some entertaining “cases of the week” where the FL had to decipher lies from truth. I like how she used this “gift” to make a great living. I also liked the music business storyline with the ML (Dong Ha). Dong Ha, living a secretive life due to his shady past was quite intriguing as well.

It was nice to see him become human again once he moved outside of the city amongst people who didn’t know that he was famous and his relationship with the FL was cute. However, this series started to loose momentum about halfway through.
Though the ML/FL looked good together they didn’t have any chemistry. Both were kind of flat. Though Min-hyun is doing a good job at spreading his wings into acting, he needs more work in order to become a believable ML as there was hardly any charisma exuding from him here, and perhaps that was due to the lack of chemistry with the FL.

I was expecting more to happen with the ML’s life once things started to come to a head about his past but besides a few paparazzi snapping pictures of him as he left a hospital that was it. The media who’d been relentlessly trying to track him down at the start of the series seems to have gone on holiday. There was virtually no impact to his songwriting career. The mom’s burgeoning political career was thrown in for good measure to add drama that was essentially window dressing, but not much happened with that either. Honestly, I didn’t think that storyline was needed. It served no purpose except to try and make the audience think the ML had indeed killed his ex, when we all knew that was not where the story was going.

The FL skills did come in handy in clearing the ML’s name. But then once it was obvious, he was innocent the show went from somewhat entertaining to downright boring. They really could’ve tightened the story threads and ended this series in 10 or 12 episodes. Unfortunately, they took it to 16 episodes, with the last 3-4 being pointless. Those episodes were so boring I ended up fast-forwarding through most of them.

Despite the lack of story, the ending was nice. Those who are fans of the main couple will be happy. Is this worth watching? It’s one of those shows where I think viewers will fall heavily across all spectrums as to whether they liked this, hated it or feels it okay. This wasn’t the worst series I’ve ever seen, but it wasn’t really good either. Just okay. Would I rewatch. No.

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New Meaning to “Woman” Power

The love story between Pa’ner and Qianfan was so well done. I liked how they almost immediately got thrown into each other’s orbits due to circumstance and as a result started to heavily rely on each other which eventually evolved into love. They had their issues in the beginning, mainly with trust from Pa’ner due to the hurt she’d experienced in her previous relationship but they were able to move on from that and have a healthy relationship until the past, which had nothing to do with either of them, nearly destroyed their relationship. What I liked about Qianfan is that he was tough, smart and could kick butt, but he was at his core a good man.

This series was good and different in the way it presented the FL and her friends. They were all independent women, during a time when women should not have had independence and were determined to make their own way. They were smart, innovative and most importantly resilient. They went through it due to their status and some of the men in their lives who were horrible people but they persevered. I really liked how the plight of the FL aligned so much with the Empress. The latter made some horrible mistakes which did not reflect well on her character at all, but I understood why she made those choices considering there were several people at Court who were trying to destroy her simply because of her less than honorable past.

The storyline with the FL’s ex-fiancé was a bit much. He seemed to go from a half way descent guy to a mustache twirling villain who would kill anybody who got in his way, simply for plot purposes. Also I found it odd that Ru Zhao disappeared from the story after what he was doing was discovered by Song Yinzhang. He was an official who was well known in the Capital. I would’ve thought him drugging and raping women would’ve resulted in him being destroyed by the community and his destruction would’ve played out, at least a little on screen. But that didn’t happen. After Yinzhang caught him in the act of trying to rape her that was the last we saw him on screen, even though the show spent quite a bit of time on their relationship.

There were other plot holes which I won’t get into, but despite those storyline issues, this was a really good series. My biggest gripe though with the writing is that the writers spent all that time on Pa’ner and Qianfan talking about getting married and their plans after marriage only for us not to see the wedding. The series ended with the audience not knowing whether they got married or not. Huge ball dropped there. Still a good series and worth watching.

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Tears, Tears and more Tears

I like the backdrop of the story being about sound editing for movies. With that said, the series was okay. The supernatural twists and the reasons for the betrayals were interesting, especially the story with the FL and her fiancé. But there was too much whining and crying over what was, which made it difficult to believe the FL and ML would fall for each other when they were so emotionally entangled with their Exs. Additionally believing that the FL still wanted to be with the ML after learning what he’d done to her wasn’t believable, despite her being a woman who was pathetic in her desperation for love and would be completely broken by any rejection.

The funny drunk girls were not funny at all. Seeing the FL and the ML sister get plastered every night, sometimes getting falling down drunk was not funny or interesting to watch. It got old very fast as did all the crying, whining and brooding.

By the end, I was more happy the series was over than happy that the main couple got their HEA. I really didn’t care that they were running off into the sunset because their “love” became so insufferable I didn’t care if they ended up together or not. Despite all this, the acting was good and the story was strong even with its flaws. The long suffering was just too much. Perhaps this is a series that should be watched in small increments rather than a binge so that the viewer can really appreciate the story and not get burned out by all the tears and angst.

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The Past Outshines What Should've Been An Intriguing Present

There seemed to be a crisis every episode with this series, especially during the present day. The historical storyline from 1500 years earlier was way more interesting than the present day story. The present day had promise until the ML became possessed, then he spent most of the series walking around with an "evil" look on his face, brooding about why he was delaying in completing his mission in killing the FL. That got old fast.

The leads had nice romantic chemistry in the historical storyline. Perhaps due to the kind of star-crossed lovers aura and thus angst that embodied their love. Strangely the present day version of them lacked the same emotion and connection.

I found myself mostly fast forwarding through the present day storyline because it just wasn't that interesting, so that I could continue the story from the past. But once the story from the past finished, circling back to where it left off in the first episode I just couldn't garner the interest to keep watching. So I stopped.

If this was only a historical drama I think it could've been really good. Would I rewatch what I did watch? No.

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Very Good Series that Became Overwrought with Too Much Betrayal

I mean good grief. Almost all the main characters in this were betrayed in the worst way by someone or several someone’s who were closest to them and whom they loved. It was a miracle that after all the betrayal any of these characters could trust anyone much less find love.

The story starts off strong and builds for the next 20+ episodes. The palace conspiracies and scheming in Yuling and the mystery behind why the FL was betrayed by her fiancé and “brothers”created binge worthy intrigue and drama.

All the characters were complex and well written, save for the ML’s sister - the princess, who was unreasonably naive and stupid purely for plot. The death camp plot also didn’t track. For the lady who was running it , raising the FL from a little girl to be an adult killing machine looked about the same age as the FL. And the SML who was behind the camp looked younger the FL. Lol.

The show was great up until the last 10 episodes where it started to drag. The writers did an excellent job building the story to a fantastic climax in episode 25-26, but then sort of reset to continue the story with plots that should’ve been wrapped up in earlier episodes. The story became so overwrought with backstabbing and ridiculous plots for revenge that it started to get exhausting to watch. Before those last 10 episodes I never felt to the need to FF through the show but found myself doing so due to unnecessary angst and drama.

Still the show was very good. The leads had nice chemistry and a beautiful love story. All the actors performed well. Costumes were beautiful and the sets looked great. Though there was a love story it was the B, maybe even C story. This was mainly about conspiracies, lies, betrayal and revenge. It could’ve been a 10/10 if the last 10 episodes had not weighed it down. Despite this I would watch it again.

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