battleaxe

he had a prominent role as the father emperor in rise of pheonixes and was equally awesome there

ion like it when they linger on the deaths of innocent people like shuiqui and guo wei's families, but then just zoom past the punishments for their perpetrators. its very unsatisfying. like that foolish liu zhengyou, we only got to see him falling for like five seconds and that was it, and he chengxu? he was dead before he even understood that his reckoning had come. cheng zhaoyue? went out drinking and playing on his own terms. hu jinsi and his shitty son? still alive as of epi 32. none of them got to experience the terror and devastation they inflicted, even that cannibal zhang yan ze looked like he was already half dead by the time they dragged him out for public execution.

also its puzzling how the rest of the country's pillars just turn into statues whenever the king is about to do something diabolically evil. like they were slaughtering the guo women and kids right there in the market place, in broad daylight and they all just watched on.

shuiqiu zhaoquan's death just climbed into my top 5 most devastating cdrama character deaths. nothing, absolutely nothing can make up for it, and yet he didn't get any justice. not only that, not one person spoke up for him, despite how universally respected he was. he did not deserve that, and they did not deserve him. and i blame that fuckass prince 7 more than hu jinsi the actual murderer.

speaking of prince 7, the writing for his arc was too absurd to be believable, we've been watching him for 25 episodes and while he was slow and timid, he wasn't THAT stupid, his decline was too abrupt. although if the real dude could only hold the throne for 7 months irl, he could have been that stupid.

ep 25 - hu jinsi annoys me soooo much, but when you look at things from his pov, he's not wrong. even his arrogance is necessary.
wu hao chen, the prince 6/zhongxian king actor did a phenomenal job! give him all the awards. also he's actually a few years younger than bai yu, but you never see even a hint of that in any of their scenes bc of how dominated he was by his character
not looking fwd to prince 7's reign. he slow af.

the politics in this drama is so excellently written, i thought after they returned to wuyue once the first arc ended things would become boring but no, it did not. look at this mr shen in ep 18 for example, i remember how they were torturing him for nothing in the early eps and how everyone just watched on, now look who's a prefect now? and all the silent logic behind his re-instatement? i like watching the great king settle into his role and grow wise, but he's getting weaker though the throne is literally killing him. i also like how hottie sun prince #3 was advocating for ml back in ep 15, and just the general relationship between all the brothers. that quiet intelligence they all possess is very attractive. i also really like all the scenes between daddy hu and his sixty year old...son, their conversations really tie everything together. finally i like watching a govt that works, even fictionally. oh its so pleasing

the two dramas have totally different themes, the politics aren't the same either. they both have some really great performances though

ep 13: but yelu, as a seasoned ruler must have known he couldn't hold the capital for long without the people/strong internal support? after everything he put them through he was still expecting them to welcome him with open arms? well i suppose you can't be audacious without being delusional. it was so far away from his homebase too, like what was the plan there bro
i would have loved to learn more about his emotional connection to lord feng, bc that was what led to his downfall. that crafty old man played him like a pipa

PAUSE. you know what, now that you said it, i see it too

cp so good they had to move them from vertical to horizontal screen, iktr!
but bby, i checked out the first three eps and imma let y'all go on ahead and finish it first, then tell us how it was before i proceed

its yin tao, so at least we know its gonna be pretttyy

the first culprit is the poster, it honestly just looks like a bunch of dudes doing dude stuff, my eyes also slid past it quite a few times before i decided to check it out. also that time period and its aesthetics are not a lot of people's cup of tea, esp with how overly glazed most cdrama productions are nowadays.

i watched 18 eps and i like how gritty it is, and for once they gave us actual violent, dangerous and ruthless mls. i also liked the aesthetics of that time period, seeing those old motorola and nokia phones scratched my brain nicely. my favorite ep was yunyan's dream bc baby!! it takes a special kind of stupid to be that oblivious. girl you been there almost a decade and you still ain't understand what time it is?! chile 💀

but they really ruined it with that tepid fl, she's so flat - the actress is not very good (everyone else is acting circles around her), and the only redeemable thing about her character is her bad temper. arrogant, clueless and incapable fl gunning for revenge is my least favorite trope. we're almost to the middle of the drama and this girl hasn't done one single thing to find her sister's killer, apart from cosplaying a bad btch

such a nonsensically written fl, bc exactly which woman, a young unexperienced virgin in this case, but not that it matters, gets drugged and almost SA'd, wakes up the next morning and just shrugs it off like like hehh meh 🤪? - the writer really deserves a knock on the head.

i can't stand her so i'm giving up! i'll just take the L and mourn what could have been. shout out to the two mls though and the 2fl, they nailed their parts and they were amazing and sexy! it's a shame the writing just doesn't measure up to their performances. if any one finishes this pls feel free to drop spoilers in the comments

oh watching ep 8 makes me understand one of the scenes in the very start of the drama when zhao kuang yin and his dad risk their lives to bring that dude before the son emperor who then testifies that that marshall zhang was eating people and the son emperor was all i know you fkn lying and its making me lmao, bc what else was he supposed to say

there's a bit in one of the early eps when a man clearly well into his fifties goes 'i'm only twenty eight or so this year' and i burst out laughing bc it was so absurd, and yet it makes perfect sense in that it astutely conveys the chaos and stress of that time period

i just started this and 😭😭i have so many feelings already😩. the drama didn't even ask for my permission it just started dragging me along omgg there are so many things i wanna say but i'll just keep watching

everyone is right, huge swaths of the story were frustrating and draggy, but this had really nice production, and the actors were good

this was such a dud, pity the story wasn't half as compelling as the title
that ml is gonna get more offers though, producers love an actor who can look that physically imposing onscreen

i finished it just to make sure she never loves/likes him at any point, what a pathetic ml 😬
anyway i don't recommend, its overall too bland and dry

the way this drama repeatedly put me to sleep. beautiful actors though, and points for the worldbuilding

bc everything is so stylish and dramatic you keep waiting for something to happen, but nothing significant ever does and the characters are mostly caricatures. do not recommend, go watch something else