battleaxe

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

he's definitely some kind of opp, and that lil sister...the lights are on, but no one's home smh

the ml and fl deserve better writing, they're acting their hearts out & the script is just there going ehh 🤪
i dislike a lot of the fl's outfits, whoever was in charge of that frumpy choir mistress number in ep 8/9 especially deserves a knock on the head.
but i'm digging the drama's anachronistic vibe, it scratches my brain nicely

i too hope she gets her pound of flesh from him, but at this point there really isn't anything keeping her there apart from revenge. its like they were going for a sadomasochistic vibe but didn't really want any specifics, or maybe they'll show us more soon

so i've binged 8 eps and i don't really feel sorry for her, his threats aren't weighty enough for her to be doing all that. and they only tell us about his mistreatment they don't show it, the one time they try to, she bets on his feelings and he steps in to play her hero...there really isn't much to feel outraged for on her behalf. also, the sis you're being blackmailed with likes your blackmailer more than you, and you think he likes her too so girl why is you still there?? he clearly won't hurt her
and the ml, bullying a woman like that for something that happened when she was a child, what a weak man.

in conclusion they're both very messy and unsatisfying, but i still wanna see them kiss 😤

my chemistry queen! let me check it out for her sake
ok i did and i fully thought this was a republican drama until i saw the mobile phone in ep 2🤣, nothing about it looks modern!

the fl was pretty and the ml was as tall as a dream and i liked his outfits. everything else outside of their relationship was typical vertical drama nonsense but they were v cute