1
This review may contain spoilers
Waste of time
Another drama that I was eagerly waiting for that left me with disappointment....
It started with an interesting premise. The first half was okay and the only enjoyable part of the drama for me. I liked the dynamic between the leads and how they started to work and scheme together against crown prince and the Meng family. That was honestly pretty fun to watch. We also got some development between the leads and some moments going into the direction of romance. Then we got the cliché stupid cliff scene and amnesia. Honestly, this after the cliff scene, it was just so boring and annoying. Almost nothing was happening... we has FL ''Spying'' on SML (in which lead to mostly nowhere and a waste of time. Finding out he works with the empress, but other than that nada), her being saved by ML and her saying how many times!!! ''we shouldn't see each other again'' or whatever similar things, again and again. That was damn eyes rolling. FL somehow felt pretty stupid in the second half too. What did she even think she can do, a weak women with 0 support. ML also became somehow a fool in love, lost some appeal I don't care. Angst and some problems are inevitable, but how it was done was just so eyes rolling and annoying. We could have had some few eps of angst and after that the leads working together sooner, but that took forever to happen and for them to get together. At this point, my interest was just gone.
Just like in dramas like ''The Glory'', the romance didn't felt much believable at all, after what we've seen and the flow of the story, their romance was questionable to me. I don't believe you can be madly in love after what we've seen and risk his life for her. Chemistry was average. Maybe it was a director's choice, but on another note, not good kissing scenes (well there was only like 2), but not surprising... Liu Xue Yi, we know this man can kiss. no hate, but Meng Zi Yi cannot do kissing scenes. If you have seen some of her past work (even Blossom which maybe was the least worst), you know she can't deliver on kissing scenes. Even in her next project ''Blossom of Power'', if you saw that leak behind the scene of the kiss on the like bridge, you see ML moving his mouth, if the kiss somehow look decent, it's gonna be because of him.
The drama totally went down after the death of crown prince and the cliff scene... That reminded me so much of ''Kill me love me'' in which I also thought the drama died half way after the crown prince death. It is quite similar when we think about it, we have in the middle of the story getting ride of the crown prince (first like villain), then the lead separate and we have FL going with SML for many eps.
The prince and empress were such doll and uninteresting villains, totally forgettable characters. We can be happy that they didn't went for the cliché of him being in love with FL, but that was damn weird making him being groomed and obsessed with her.
36 eps was too much, many fillers and not interesting eps, felt really dragging.
I didn't really mind ML's sister and the younger prince, they didn't annoy me like they did for some. ML's and FL's guards were cute for the little we got.
Some things that I liked :
1) I liked how it went for the divorce with main wife and concubines, pretty amicably. It was all for the best and the little talks between the ladies.
2) Costumes were fine
3) Most of everyone did good in term of acting. ML carried this, he never disappoints in term of acting. Also the Meng girl, the actress did good.
Other rants :
1) First kiss was filmed damn awkward, a shame it had potential. We went from them kissing standing to her on top on him on the bed ?? No in between, that was weird and made no sense for them to sleep together.
2) In the last ep, ML with the poisoning was just annoying nonsense
3) When we first saw FL's brother, he looked so much like a young child and they looked to have a big age difference, but few eps later, he looked like a grown man after how much times ? few months? made absolutely no sense. Flashbacks of them younger, they looked similar in age.
4) It should have been over for the empress on the wedding episode. After that, an episode or 2 for a conclusion, poison issue and ML's revenge. Unnecessary drag. I rolled my eyes. Also, there was no satisfaction in her end.
5) Ending : complete ass ending. Some will call this a happy ending, but that was such a BS ENDING and you can't tell me otherwise. We have ML poison and we don't know when he will wake up, she plant a tree and waiting for ML, the tree has blossom, how much time as past ???? It looks like a dream with how it was filmed and the background. A reunion of a few seconds, a hug, no dialogue, nothing.... How is this a good ending ? A saw someone before in the comments saying how the ending was satisfying. Excuse me, how is any of this satisfying. These are such horrible kind of ending that gives us absolutely nothing, I would rather a sad ending at this point. Also, no conclusion for side characters and what the hell happened with the 2 kingdoms. Some cdramas writers are so lazy and have no imagination or they don't want to give us the endings we want. I have seen some low budget 10 min per ep mini drama that had a better story and ending
We could totally see that this drama had 11 screenwriters and that the main one of the first half wasn't involve in the second half
Do I recommend this drama ? Simply no
It started with an interesting premise. The first half was okay and the only enjoyable part of the drama for me. I liked the dynamic between the leads and how they started to work and scheme together against crown prince and the Meng family. That was honestly pretty fun to watch. We also got some development between the leads and some moments going into the direction of romance. Then we got the cliché stupid cliff scene and amnesia. Honestly, this after the cliff scene, it was just so boring and annoying. Almost nothing was happening... we has FL ''Spying'' on SML (in which lead to mostly nowhere and a waste of time. Finding out he works with the empress, but other than that nada), her being saved by ML and her saying how many times!!! ''we shouldn't see each other again'' or whatever similar things, again and again. That was damn eyes rolling. FL somehow felt pretty stupid in the second half too. What did she even think she can do, a weak women with 0 support. ML also became somehow a fool in love, lost some appeal I don't care. Angst and some problems are inevitable, but how it was done was just so eyes rolling and annoying. We could have had some few eps of angst and after that the leads working together sooner, but that took forever to happen and for them to get together. At this point, my interest was just gone.
Just like in dramas like ''The Glory'', the romance didn't felt much believable at all, after what we've seen and the flow of the story, their romance was questionable to me. I don't believe you can be madly in love after what we've seen and risk his life for her. Chemistry was average. Maybe it was a director's choice, but on another note, not good kissing scenes (well there was only like 2), but not surprising... Liu Xue Yi, we know this man can kiss. no hate, but Meng Zi Yi cannot do kissing scenes. If you have seen some of her past work (even Blossom which maybe was the least worst), you know she can't deliver on kissing scenes. Even in her next project ''Blossom of Power'', if you saw that leak behind the scene of the kiss on the like bridge, you see ML moving his mouth, if the kiss somehow look decent, it's gonna be because of him.
The drama totally went down after the death of crown prince and the cliff scene... That reminded me so much of ''Kill me love me'' in which I also thought the drama died half way after the crown prince death. It is quite similar when we think about it, we have in the middle of the story getting ride of the crown prince (first like villain), then the lead separate and we have FL going with SML for many eps.
The prince and empress were such doll and uninteresting villains, totally forgettable characters. We can be happy that they didn't went for the cliché of him being in love with FL, but that was damn weird making him being groomed and obsessed with her.
36 eps was too much, many fillers and not interesting eps, felt really dragging.
I didn't really mind ML's sister and the younger prince, they didn't annoy me like they did for some. ML's and FL's guards were cute for the little we got.
Some things that I liked :
1) I liked how it went for the divorce with main wife and concubines, pretty amicably. It was all for the best and the little talks between the ladies.
2) Costumes were fine
3) Most of everyone did good in term of acting. ML carried this, he never disappoints in term of acting. Also the Meng girl, the actress did good.
Other rants :
1) First kiss was filmed damn awkward, a shame it had potential. We went from them kissing standing to her on top on him on the bed ?? No in between, that was weird and made no sense for them to sleep together.
2) In the last ep, ML with the poisoning was just annoying nonsense
3) When we first saw FL's brother, he looked so much like a young child and they looked to have a big age difference, but few eps later, he looked like a grown man after how much times ? few months? made absolutely no sense. Flashbacks of them younger, they looked similar in age.
4) It should have been over for the empress on the wedding episode. After that, an episode or 2 for a conclusion, poison issue and ML's revenge. Unnecessary drag. I rolled my eyes. Also, there was no satisfaction in her end.
5) Ending : complete ass ending. Some will call this a happy ending, but that was such a BS ENDING and you can't tell me otherwise. We have ML poison and we don't know when he will wake up, she plant a tree and waiting for ML, the tree has blossom, how much time as past ???? It looks like a dream with how it was filmed and the background. A reunion of a few seconds, a hug, no dialogue, nothing.... How is this a good ending ? A saw someone before in the comments saying how the ending was satisfying. Excuse me, how is any of this satisfying. These are such horrible kind of ending that gives us absolutely nothing, I would rather a sad ending at this point. Also, no conclusion for side characters and what the hell happened with the 2 kingdoms. Some cdramas writers are so lazy and have no imagination or they don't want to give us the endings we want. I have seen some low budget 10 min per ep mini drama that had a better story and ending
We could totally see that this drama had 11 screenwriters and that the main one of the first half wasn't involve in the second half
Do I recommend this drama ? Simply no
Was this review helpful to you?
