Minalapinou

This soapylicious revenge drama has some crazy imagery, like Yu Qig being ravaged while her family is feasting (pretty good metaphor about the whole toxic family profiting off of her body), giant bird cages, worm infested flowers...it's the kind of revenge drama that is running on vibes and style (the costumes are striking), and does it well. It's not without faults, the writing is okay-ish, sometimes bonkers and not always in a fun way (the whole dad revenge arc was too over the top with all his crimes, and everything about the kid made zero sense to me), the romance is enjoyable but just so-so, the beginning makes you believe that there will be more angst but no, she becomes his favored concubine and hidden weapon very fast and nothing really gets between them beside her secrets. I didn't care much about the tragic romance of the legitimate sister, I guess they were trying to say something about trauma bonding but it was clumsy. I love Deng Kai but I think he was a bit underused here. So overall it's a good revenge story with an explosive start (and first few arcs), but the rest doesn't really lives up to it.