3
3
The beating heart couldn’t save the mutilated body.
The concepts are good and the soil so fertile that a really engaging drama could easily have been written. In the first eight and last three episodes there is enough plot to fill four series, but unfortunately we have the seven-year old child style of storytelling: he did this, then she did that, then they got angry, then everyone fought, then they got married etc etc. The events flash by so fast that we just skim the surface.
What’s the cost of rushing through things? Opportunity for characterisation is very limited. We don’t see the internal struggle to reach a place of action. All we have is a character telling us how they feel and what they are going to do next. There is no time to “show” what is happening inside, instead we have to be “told”. This engages the wrong part of us, head instead of heart. Nobody likes to be “told” what to feel, hence my initial indifference to the characters and a really strong temptation to give up.
What was done very well however, came when the narrative settled into a more court based story. The enemies to lovers trope was the beating heart of the drama and very well executed. Time was taken to step through the stages of the changing relationship and both Liu Yu Ning and Song Zu Er did a convincing job. It was obvious that romance was the outstanding skill of the writer. If you primarily watch dramas for character driven romance then this is a good one and it perhaps accounts for the, imo, overblown rating on MDL. But as far as I’m concerned, one swallow does not make a summer, and the rest of it was flawed and painfully naive.
The world building was particularly underwhelming. There were too many countries with an excess of characters and not enough difference to distinguish between them. The social norms and cultural flavours seemed to be the same everywhere. Court etiquette and societal structure was not well thought through, leading to a strange mix of casual and formal. Visiting dignitaries arrived and departed without troops and advisors in tow and people rode off into the sunset with no baggage or protection. Add to that, unsophisticated court intrigue, laughable international relations and sadly lacking military strategy and you basically have an unconvincing drama. They finally managed to ramp up the tension sufficiently in the last few episodes but by that time it was far too late, far too much and tbh the budget really didn’t meet the need.
The editing in the first third of the drama, and final episodes seemed to have caught the same infection as the plot. It was clipped and choppy and it felt like being caught in cross currents. In the middle section the production values improved and there was some attractive costuming and sets.
Having just come from the “Joy of Life” series, this drama suffered from the comparison. Too often it reflected the weaknesses of the writer and failed to create a tight and compelling world.
What’s the cost of rushing through things? Opportunity for characterisation is very limited. We don’t see the internal struggle to reach a place of action. All we have is a character telling us how they feel and what they are going to do next. There is no time to “show” what is happening inside, instead we have to be “told”. This engages the wrong part of us, head instead of heart. Nobody likes to be “told” what to feel, hence my initial indifference to the characters and a really strong temptation to give up.
What was done very well however, came when the narrative settled into a more court based story. The enemies to lovers trope was the beating heart of the drama and very well executed. Time was taken to step through the stages of the changing relationship and both Liu Yu Ning and Song Zu Er did a convincing job. It was obvious that romance was the outstanding skill of the writer. If you primarily watch dramas for character driven romance then this is a good one and it perhaps accounts for the, imo, overblown rating on MDL. But as far as I’m concerned, one swallow does not make a summer, and the rest of it was flawed and painfully naive.
The world building was particularly underwhelming. There were too many countries with an excess of characters and not enough difference to distinguish between them. The social norms and cultural flavours seemed to be the same everywhere. Court etiquette and societal structure was not well thought through, leading to a strange mix of casual and formal. Visiting dignitaries arrived and departed without troops and advisors in tow and people rode off into the sunset with no baggage or protection. Add to that, unsophisticated court intrigue, laughable international relations and sadly lacking military strategy and you basically have an unconvincing drama. They finally managed to ramp up the tension sufficiently in the last few episodes but by that time it was far too late, far too much and tbh the budget really didn’t meet the need.
The editing in the first third of the drama, and final episodes seemed to have caught the same infection as the plot. It was clipped and choppy and it felt like being caught in cross currents. In the middle section the production values improved and there was some attractive costuming and sets.
Having just come from the “Joy of Life” series, this drama suffered from the comparison. Too often it reflected the weaknesses of the writer and failed to create a tight and compelling world.
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