This review may contain spoilers
Started with a bang, ended with a splat
My disappointment in writing this review is very strong. Why? Because this had potential to wrap up China’s stellar historical drama year with another bang. But it failed. Oh how it failed.
Pros:
• One of the best fleshed out casts of any drama. Hands down. This was the strongest aspect of the show. Even when I completely lost interest in our leads, the subplots and characters kept me going to finish (though I HEAVILY skimmed through the last 8 episodes).
• An incredibly solid first half, especially those fist 13 episodes!
• Our secondary couples were just excellent. There are four couples in this show, including the main leads. The other three outshone our leads by far. In fact, the romance between [SPOILER] the Princess Royal and the main villain was so incredible. It had me fully captivated.
Cons:
• OUR LEADS. These two were knocking it out of the park at the beginning. But goodness gracious by episode 25 I was so done with them. Let me break it down specifically:
— Ding Yuxi was stellar in the early episodes as he grieved his family. Afterwards? To be honest I feel like his character had split personalities. One personality was a ruthless general and cunning young marquis fighting for his family, and the other was a love sick puppy who cried at the drop of the hat.
— The wonderful character of Chu Yu fell prey to Victoria Song’s unfortunate ability to begin strong and fizzle out mid drama. Plain and simple.
• Poor pacing. If you’re going to do a Cdrama over 30 episodes, the pacing HAS to be good. We know it’s possible. We’ve seen some amazing dramas that go even into the 50 episode zone (looking at you “Love like the Galaxy”) without losing your interest. So what went wrong here? Well… they essentially put the climax of the whole show at episode 28/40. I mean this literally. Epic battle scenes, humiliation, political intrigue, a victory that defies odds—and by episode 30 it was over.
So what happens next? Literally episode after episode of the emperor trying to keep the leads apart and our leads handling this stupidly. Add some politics and a little bit of slice of life randomly… The only thing that kept me skimming was the scenes between the three side couples. Then what’s crazy is the final battles weren’t even as epic as the ones in 28-30.
• Tragic ending for their best selling point in the last quarter. I knew the Princess and king of Northern Qi wouldn’t have a happy ending. But dude. They were the best part of the last ten episodes and it ends [SPOILER] with them confirming their love before she poisons him with a kiss, tells him she aborted their baby, asks to try again in the next life, pushes him off a literal cliff, and then jumps of the cliff herself.
• Chemistry? None. All three of our side couples had way more chemistry than Ding Yuxi and Victoria Song. In fact, in some ways, our FL had better chemistry with the SML.
Anyway, I’ve ranted enough. This was super disappointing.
Pros:
• One of the best fleshed out casts of any drama. Hands down. This was the strongest aspect of the show. Even when I completely lost interest in our leads, the subplots and characters kept me going to finish (though I HEAVILY skimmed through the last 8 episodes).
• An incredibly solid first half, especially those fist 13 episodes!
• Our secondary couples were just excellent. There are four couples in this show, including the main leads. The other three outshone our leads by far. In fact, the romance between [SPOILER] the Princess Royal and the main villain was so incredible. It had me fully captivated.
Cons:
• OUR LEADS. These two were knocking it out of the park at the beginning. But goodness gracious by episode 25 I was so done with them. Let me break it down specifically:
— Ding Yuxi was stellar in the early episodes as he grieved his family. Afterwards? To be honest I feel like his character had split personalities. One personality was a ruthless general and cunning young marquis fighting for his family, and the other was a love sick puppy who cried at the drop of the hat.
— The wonderful character of Chu Yu fell prey to Victoria Song’s unfortunate ability to begin strong and fizzle out mid drama. Plain and simple.
• Poor pacing. If you’re going to do a Cdrama over 30 episodes, the pacing HAS to be good. We know it’s possible. We’ve seen some amazing dramas that go even into the 50 episode zone (looking at you “Love like the Galaxy”) without losing your interest. So what went wrong here? Well… they essentially put the climax of the whole show at episode 28/40. I mean this literally. Epic battle scenes, humiliation, political intrigue, a victory that defies odds—and by episode 30 it was over.
So what happens next? Literally episode after episode of the emperor trying to keep the leads apart and our leads handling this stupidly. Add some politics and a little bit of slice of life randomly… The only thing that kept me skimming was the scenes between the three side couples. Then what’s crazy is the final battles weren’t even as epic as the ones in 28-30.
• Tragic ending for their best selling point in the last quarter. I knew the Princess and king of Northern Qi wouldn’t have a happy ending. But dude. They were the best part of the last ten episodes and it ends [SPOILER] with them confirming their love before she poisons him with a kiss, tells him she aborted their baby, asks to try again in the next life, pushes him off a literal cliff, and then jumps of the cliff herself.
• Chemistry? None. All three of our side couples had way more chemistry than Ding Yuxi and Victoria Song. In fact, in some ways, our FL had better chemistry with the SML.
Anyway, I’ve ranted enough. This was super disappointing.
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