Rampie

Zhou Yu Tong looks good here in wuxia costume and long hair. Way better than in her modern dramas

Nah, the emperor is the one who's lucky. Consort Yue has the perfect personality; good wife, wise mother.

It's not bad but the problem is that I'm not a fan of xianxia. That drama is basically the only xianxia drama I've ever completed lol.

There is a third wheel there though, Chang Heng. Except he's not evil/scheming so it's not too bad, but it's still love triangle because he was FL's first crush, and he later reciprocated but by then it's too late because FL is already with ML. Also he basically has a bad ending because he didn't meet his romantic partner ever.

The "poor" partner here is a doctor. He has a prestigious career, high education, and doctors can be considered upper middle class in terms of socioeconomic status. In most cold CEO tropes, the poor partner is nowhere as high up as a doctor, many ended up working for the CEO (and hence subordinate relationship), so the power balance of course is going to be different.

It's funny to see when FL is much older than ML no one complains but when it's the other way around you see some commenters hurling insults like ML is a creep or grooming or whatever, and he should date women around his age instead.

Her personality is just bad, immature, unruly, and petty. Big difference compared to Hua Liuli who is wise and able to turn enemies into friends.

Not being taught how to be a lady isn't really a good excuse, look at the FL in Fake Princess who's literally a bandit, or SFL in My Heroic Husband who's also a bandit, they are so much better as a person overall even though they are raised in the wild.

The only reason I managed to finish LLTG is because the emperor, his consorts, and the princes are all very interesting good characters.

I agree this is actually quite boring. There are investigation/detective period cdramas that I enjoyed more, eg. Imperial Coroner, Maiden Holmes, Warm on a Cold Night, I've Fallen for You, etc.

LLTG FL is not strong at all or very bright, more like annoying and naive. Too trusting even until the end, always causing problem and needs ML to save her from distress multiple times during the whole story. She's selfish and immature too. The best female character in that drama is actually Consort Yue...

It's just 10 years real age gap; it's actually pretty common if it's just 10 years age gap, I've known some couples irl. Not every girls like young pretty boys, some are into older men.

I dropped My sassy princess I couldn't stand the FL she's really annoying.

This thing is so hilarious lol. Fun and relaxing to watch.

MDL ratings is biased against the more light-hearted shows with simpler plot; sitcoms, slapstick comedies, satire, and those where comedy is the main tag will have lower average rating. In fact I would argue that the only "genre" that hurts rating more here than those tags is "modern political drama" because the pro-CPC messaging there offends most foreign viewers.

The viewers here favors dramatic heavy plot ones with a lot of emotional ups and downs. Things like good romance scenes, chemistry, and ML played by popular male actors are the main driver for high rating here... as for tags, the tags that increase rating the most are steamy kiss and feminism, those dramas with those tags are always rated higher than they should be.

Exactly. I love these dramas with few stress factors, also watched uncanny destiny. Is there any other dramas like these? I feel like most of them are too stressful with annoying misunderstandings, depressions/tragedy, and/or very evil villains coupled with helpless protags.

SoML is soo boring it's very hard not to drop. Has romance tag and all that but it expect me to watch boring a dozen or so of episodes where the ML and FL are literally toddlers lmao. Luckily other dramas have ML and FL starting as adults in episode 1 rather than little kids.

Dramas where every couple naturally only ever get drawn to their partner without any sort of love triangle/love rivals are the best imo. Love triangles are annoying, even more so if one of them is scheming/plotting things.

I mean age gap should not be an issue if both parties are serious about their monogamous "real love" relationship.

It's much much better than no age gap but keeping mistresses or cheating, or worse, players who are just playing around tasting everything and never being serious. Healthy relationship is always better than anything that is less healthy.

In the drama "Crush," ML's stepmom is his friend (same age), and he resented her only because she married ML's dad, but she is actually a good character so it's pretty unreasonable for him to do that imo.

Yeah he is nondescript that's the thing! He's probably too big name to play as eunuch.

Well, Meng Dehai only got suspended from the party for a year I think? Not even jail time, it's not bad. Yang Jian is a great in-law though, he even massaged his paralyzed mother in law, and the way he felt insecure was relatable imo.

The thing was that Yang Jian was poor, he was a good cop who's not going anywhere because he didn't have the right guanxi (connection), then Gao tempted him with a wad of cash and ofc he got tempted. Like I mean the Meng family is not rich either because Dehai is clean, you can see that he needed the money to raise their living standard. He can't even afford to buy a house and still live with his in-law in that small cramped house lol. Not to mention he needed to support his elderly mom as well.

Their situation is a real problem that actually needs to be addressed. We have clean officials not going anywhere and living at middle class level. Meanwhile the businessmen and private sectors are wealthy and can afford luxuries that they can't.

Society is unfair, Gao Qiqiang felt it too, he was bullied when he was powerless and poor. Harmless law-abiding people (such as Gao when he was still a fishmonger) should be protected, but instead he got screwed by the dirty system, so it's not really a surprise when he stand up and play the dirty game himself. But actually he was a good-natured man, the way he treat his siblings was the peak ideal older brother role. Heck, he even play house with an old widow who come with a kid and a daughter from a man he killed basically, and still go crazy over them.

In most other dramas, I usually hate the villains and glad when they got punished in the end. But this drama make me sympathize a lot with the villains, some of the moments were really emotional; the last farewell scene between Yang Jian and Meng Yu was so touching, while Gao and Huang Yao final moments was peak tragedy I can't help but shed tears. Huang Yao is basically the most tragic character, since she participated in the dirty accounting as an intern she won't get away completely, and she is left with no one at all in the end (in China where guanxi and criminal record is everything, she's basically screwed). All the money/assets she has would be seized as well because it's all dirty money from Gao, and she is left with no career unlike Meng Yu or Qilan who have a job.

> really should have called the "scheming matriarchs' - man all those mothers, concubines and their maidservants were the worst!
Dont get me wrong - this is one of the better period romance dramas - but man you can just feel the misogyny and internalized misogyny from that time and its hard to watch sometimes.

This is quite common in period dramas. Meanwhile I just came from watching a modern drama (The Knockout) where all the females are "good" and all the male villains (hardcore criminals) treat their daughter, wife, sister, mum, mother in law, etc like queen. It's so funny watching all the male members of families going to jail/get executed/die while the females survive unscathed, even though obviously they also benefited from the misdeeds/crimes committed by the males around them.

Mysogyny and polygamy might be rampant in ancient times, daughters treated like goods to make alliances, etc, but in modern "political" drama, the cliche goes the other way around with men being afraid of their wives, willing to die/do anything for daughter, etc.

His face looks like a generic ordinary police in China... maybe it's why the Chinese audience find it relatable.

The thing is what other roles do you expect him to play? He definitely does not fit the ML role in romance dramas which are played by pretty boys, and he also doesn't have a badass face to play villains. Also by this point it's hard to imagine that the character he plays isn't a detective or a policeman, lol.

Another thing I want to say about An Xin is, he literally abandon his love/romance, which I presume for her safety and because he thinks she deserve a better man/life that he can give her. It's pretty ridiculous and unrealistic... who the hell does that.

Actually there are a lot of good guys in the show, like all those unnamed extras in the background roaming the street. Just like irl most of these middle class people are generally good. But the named character are either those in the bureaucracy, or wealthy and powerful, or the hooligans/thugs/criminals, of course most of those type of people are "bad," just like irl powerful people in the politics/business world are mostly corrupt. It's realistic, if most rich/powerful people are good, they would never be rich/powerful in the first place, truly good natured people are stuck in the bottom of the social ladder because human society reward selfish acts.

There is a lot of people like Zhang Biao. If they are in different situation they would be a normal law abiding citizen, but when put in his situation what he did is the most logical one that 9 out of 10 people would do the same. In the end it's all about protecting yourself and your family, most people don't have the guts to go against the flow.