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Shadow Love chinese drama review
Completed
Shadow Love
1 people found this review helpful
by Ordinary human
16 hours ago
38 of 38 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 8.5
Story 6.5
Acting/Cast 10.0
Music 9.0
Rewatch Value 7.0

For those who love excessive romance

I don't disdain romantic dramas if done well and for Cheng Lei (Ryan Cheng) I can stand the romance genre.
But here we went to the extreme. From ep. 12 to 22 is a succession of images between the two protagonists who play doves. Very few advances in the plot and I was about to drop it from frustration, fortunately then the action resumes after ep. 22.
This is the classic case of a writer who wants to try her hands at something she doesn't know.
Hong Wan Ling is an accomplished web novelist with lot of her works adapted into dramas, all of her novels are Xanxia genre but here she wanted to try her hand at Wuxia genre with little elements of Xuanhuan failing miserably.
The plot revolves around the war between two states and the Palace intrigues with the addition of the romantic part between the female general and the OP ML (Xuanhuan element) ..... too bad that the part relating to the warfare is utterly superficial and ridiculous. Little fighting, no scouts, a military camp in the middle of the forest exposed to easy ambushes with a general who is more often at home than in the field.
The palace intrigues are childish. A Crown Prince who is publicly humiliated by his Prince brother is an absolutely inconceivable thing for the time. But everything is fine as long as there is romance.
The actors had to adapt to all this and did it in a very good way despite the drag of 10 episodes full of honestly boring dialogues (I don't know how they resisted). The last episodes she cry and cry and cry and ....cry.
The actress Song Yi is not suited to the image of a general, too skinny and her voice when she gives orders is shrill. Unfortunately, she failed to convey to me the image of a strong woman who grew up in battle
Ryan Cheng has proven once again that he is a great actor who manages to go from a cold and imposing character to a kind and smiling one in a second. I've always said that his eyes speak volumes.
ZYY Empress Dowager Qin She was exceptional in her role, she perfectly conveyed the weakness and madness of a woman consumed by her obsession.
In the end, if there hadn't been endless moments of geekery and repetitive dialogues about how good, strong and perfect she is (but how many times does she have to hear it to be satisfied?) it would have been a much deeper and more apt drama


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