Solid political & romantic drama with INCREDIBLE lead
[After abandoning Nirvana in Fire fairly early, and almost bingeing all of The First Frost, this is only my third CDrama ever. Though I've read MANY regression stories in Jnovels/manga/Knovels/Manhwa/webnovels]Let me first get out of the way that the absolutely incredible performance Zhao Jin Mai as the incredibly well-written Li Rong, the titular Princess Royal, is indisputably the best thing about this series. I enthusiastically checked out what else she's been in as a result and even started watching Amidst a Snowstorm of Love before finishing this series.
Yes she's distractingly, incredibly beautiful, but it's matched by her performance as this capable, strong, sassy, caring Princess Royal who's risen (in the prime timeline) to be a political juggernaut. The many layers of this character, and the tragic fact that no one else in the world truly understands her, is one of the fascinating things about this series. How do you trust someone who admits she's chasing power? How do you trust her when she says she's doing it for you but then also says she's doing it for the Family but then also says she's doing it for the Commoners...Can they all be true? Can you risk it being a lie? What if it's all true?
The rest of the cast deserves praise, too. Zhang Ling He as Pei Wen Xuan (our main male pov) and Chen He Yi as Su Rong Qing make up the rest of our central love triangle. And it's an interesting love triangle in that it's clear very early on that both men were sincerely and deeply loved by our lead at least at some point, and it colours their relationships throughout the series. (honestly, I was hoping for a poly ending fairly early)
The cast gradually expands overtime, with characters revealing themselves to have multiple layers or sides such that they feel complicated and the resulting complicated mix of politics and events feels a natural result rather than anything contrived for the sake of narrative. (Cheng Guo as Shangguan Ya, He Qiu as Qin Zhen Zhen, etc etc)
Even the King, who for most of his airtime serves his role well as this central power to be feared and approaced with caution, has his moment in a GREAT scene where someone rages at him, pointing out all of his flaws and failures and desires and his actor's reaction gave me a new level of respect. (One of my favourite episodes).
It's this blend of great acting with very well-written characters that helps make this series notable.
But that's not all.
The REALLY interesting thing about this series is it's view on power and morality. Our central character is the main vessel for this philosophy in her refusal to hold grudges or chase revenge when she sees so many schemes as less of a personal affront and more simply a natural result of the corrupting influence of power and the Imperial Court.
It's not personal, it's just business.
But then what do you do when, in this rat race, someone could get enough power such that now the entire nation could suffer greatly?
So many times the issue of the corruptive nature of power and the natural desire to chase it is raised in this series and our characters both consider how it affects themselves but also take it into consideration when dealing with their enemies.
There's also the commoner vs noble class philosophy. It's obviously supposed to be a reference to Communist China but really you can make it an allegory with pretty much any modern day system of democratic government vs the older system depicted here. But it was interesting to see a series where the monarchy is pro-commoner/egalitarianism. (it's not the first I've seen, but interesting to see in a Chinese Imperial Court story)
The OST is solid, and the ending theme is so beautiful I have watched the entire credits many times just to listen to it.
Also, at 40 episodes I was worried it'd go too long... but I actually don't think that's the case. And episode 32 onwards is probably the best of all the episodes.
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