K-Drama 
Amazing Screenplay, Stupendous Performance
Switched with Xu Lanxiang, the dead daughter of a slave couple Xu that both her mother and her had helped with in an earlier encounter, Shen Jialan barely escapes with her life intact as her whole family is executed by the Emperor for a deed deemed as treason. Years passed, and just as she starts to envision her life as a free citizen together with her adoptive parents, Lanxiang is summoned to serve the Lin Residence to which her adoptive father had sold his servitude to. With heavy heart, she stepped into the household to which she had been bethrothed to as a child before her family’s execution, and maneouvres around the intricately winding path as a slave while clutching on the last message from her birth mother, Hao Hao Huo Zhe - Live well.
I never thought I’d be so invested in a family drama as I did with this one. Starting off the title with an initial expectation of the usual sole-survivor-of-wrongfully-accused-family-seeking-revenge theme, I was instead met with a plot of a sole survivor looking only for means to live well way out of any conflicts. FL is not the typical survivor living only for revenge that we see so common as a drama plot. She is just a daughter of prominent family who had fallen hard into the fate of a slave, and as many of those with such status, she too is only focused on surviving whichever ordeal she is thrown into. While other maids are eager to show off loyalty and curry favour with their masters to climb the ranks, FL relies more on her highly perceptive senses to veer off problems and grabs opportunities, whichever that would serve her purpose to live well and survive. She thrived as a maid, then as a free citizen, then as a forced bride, and then as a loving wife and mother.
FL is the poster child for a woman who could counter any hurdle with her intelligence, or ride with it in style without losing hope when she couldnt. Tan Songyun did a phenomenal job as Xu Lanxiang/Shen Jialan. She is very expressive with her eyes, and definitely didn’t need articulation to convey any feelings or sentiment of her character. This is the first time that I saw her, and she took my breath away with her perfect depiction of the resourceful and always hopeful Xu Lanxiang. She doesnt gets beaten down when situations arent in her favour, and she never gets discouraged when others got an upper hand. What she always does is to look for a way out. I totally love it that she isn’t like the usual victim of forced marriage where the couple either fall in love in a short time by multiple lame-ass sexual tensions, or live in resentment for the whole of marriage duration (like how Zhao Xintang had gone through). Xu Lanxiang is flexible without simply bending the knee. Basically she gets through without losing her dignity and that’s what makes her character memorable and special. Although I could not quite understand why FL never revealed her real identity to ML despite already surrendering her heart and soul to him, the later scenes of ML deducing who she really was made it all make sense. Because this is not just a typical story with a dumbed down ML to elevate the FL kind, but the growth of both through tough times.
This is not it the first drama of Liu Xueyi’s that I have seen, but I gotta say this is the best one I have seen yet of him. His character Lin Jinqi the ML initially looks like a brute, ruthless man who would take whatever he wants and discard whatever he dislikes on a whim. Mad that he is used as a pawn to forge a relationship with the grand councillor Zhao’s family, he protested by throwing off the brush that he was raised with to pick up the sword instead. He hated the Zhao woman he is forced to wed, hence upon returning from the frontier he quickly devised a plot to catch the wife with adultery and dissolve the marriage. Then to avoid being used as a pawn again to forge the next relationship with another prominent family, he made a name of himself with the future emperor, gain merits for helping him ascend the throne and ask for marriage decree to the one he loved instead. He is a loose cannon that the clan elders disliked but had to cling to due to his military merits he earned. He is a man no one should cross, until he crosses Xu Lanxiang, the maid that had served his courtyard whom he had fallen for and ended up spending years to win her heart over. One thing I noticed with Liu Xueyi, in every drama I saw him in, he had no problem developing chemistry with his co-star, it has always been stellar when it comes to romance with Liu, even without spicy bed scenes or overzealous frenchkisses.
I cried more than once here, there are too many touching scenes that invoked my tear glands, although most doesnt involve death or absolute separation. The relationships within and without the Lin family, almost all end up with touching moments be it sad, happy or beautiful, most notable one got to be Zhao Xintang’s and Lin Jinqi’s conclusion.
Despite being largely drama with substantial passage of time from FL’s teenage years to her death, there are still notable fight scenes that mostly involve ML and his colleagues fighting off pirates, villains, rebels etc and damn those had been good too! No flying off between treetops or neili driven fights, these are pure physical combat that still provide enough adrenaline to keep you at the edge of your seats. Lin Xueyi truly thrives in action setting and he made the struggle to cling for life after grave injuries truly believable. My most favourite scene has got to be the Prince Han rebellion arc, that moment of him and his reluctant bride trying to survive as the rebel forces hunted for them is pure gold.
And as great as the screenplay, the themesong playlist is packed with great tunes too! Although slow ballads, they add well to the touching atmosphere when needed.
Honestly the only thing that’s stopping me from giving a pure 10/10 rating is the fact that I most probably won’t rewatch this. I am an action lover at heart, hence am only giving the rewatch rating high enough to not drag down the overall rating from 9.5. This series deserves that much. I only give a 10 rating in the rewatch category to series that I would want to rewatch and I generally only rewatch action packed masterpieces. Despite an action lover, I had to admit this story is memorable enough that it made me want to read the novel to see the difference and which would have better plot.
Edit: I tried reading the novel but couldnt go past Ch73. I am so glad the screenwriter dropped the source’s plot and characters and devised this beautiful masterpiece instead. I wish i could give this a solid 10 for such brilliant writeup.
Spoiler beyond this line……………..
I loved it how they made the ML acknowledge FL’s original identity in his last breath. It was so damn beautiful despite the scene to be a sad one.
I never thought I’d be so invested in a family drama as I did with this one. Starting off the title with an initial expectation of the usual sole-survivor-of-wrongfully-accused-family-seeking-revenge theme, I was instead met with a plot of a sole survivor looking only for means to live well way out of any conflicts. FL is not the typical survivor living only for revenge that we see so common as a drama plot. She is just a daughter of prominent family who had fallen hard into the fate of a slave, and as many of those with such status, she too is only focused on surviving whichever ordeal she is thrown into. While other maids are eager to show off loyalty and curry favour with their masters to climb the ranks, FL relies more on her highly perceptive senses to veer off problems and grabs opportunities, whichever that would serve her purpose to live well and survive. She thrived as a maid, then as a free citizen, then as a forced bride, and then as a loving wife and mother.
FL is the poster child for a woman who could counter any hurdle with her intelligence, or ride with it in style without losing hope when she couldnt. Tan Songyun did a phenomenal job as Xu Lanxiang/Shen Jialan. She is very expressive with her eyes, and definitely didn’t need articulation to convey any feelings or sentiment of her character. This is the first time that I saw her, and she took my breath away with her perfect depiction of the resourceful and always hopeful Xu Lanxiang. She doesnt gets beaten down when situations arent in her favour, and she never gets discouraged when others got an upper hand. What she always does is to look for a way out. I totally love it that she isn’t like the usual victim of forced marriage where the couple either fall in love in a short time by multiple lame-ass sexual tensions, or live in resentment for the whole of marriage duration (like how Zhao Xintang had gone through). Xu Lanxiang is flexible without simply bending the knee. Basically she gets through without losing her dignity and that’s what makes her character memorable and special. Although I could not quite understand why FL never revealed her real identity to ML despite already surrendering her heart and soul to him, the later scenes of ML deducing who she really was made it all make sense. Because this is not just a typical story with a dumbed down ML to elevate the FL kind, but the growth of both through tough times.
This is not it the first drama of Liu Xueyi’s that I have seen, but I gotta say this is the best one I have seen yet of him. His character Lin Jinqi the ML initially looks like a brute, ruthless man who would take whatever he wants and discard whatever he dislikes on a whim. Mad that he is used as a pawn to forge a relationship with the grand councillor Zhao’s family, he protested by throwing off the brush that he was raised with to pick up the sword instead. He hated the Zhao woman he is forced to wed, hence upon returning from the frontier he quickly devised a plot to catch the wife with adultery and dissolve the marriage. Then to avoid being used as a pawn again to forge the next relationship with another prominent family, he made a name of himself with the future emperor, gain merits for helping him ascend the throne and ask for marriage decree to the one he loved instead. He is a loose cannon that the clan elders disliked but had to cling to due to his military merits he earned. He is a man no one should cross, until he crosses Xu Lanxiang, the maid that had served his courtyard whom he had fallen for and ended up spending years to win her heart over. One thing I noticed with Liu Xueyi, in every drama I saw him in, he had no problem developing chemistry with his co-star, it has always been stellar when it comes to romance with Liu, even without spicy bed scenes or overzealous frenchkisses.
I cried more than once here, there are too many touching scenes that invoked my tear glands, although most doesnt involve death or absolute separation. The relationships within and without the Lin family, almost all end up with touching moments be it sad, happy or beautiful, most notable one got to be Zhao Xintang’s and Lin Jinqi’s conclusion.
Despite being largely drama with substantial passage of time from FL’s teenage years to her death, there are still notable fight scenes that mostly involve ML and his colleagues fighting off pirates, villains, rebels etc and damn those had been good too! No flying off between treetops or neili driven fights, these are pure physical combat that still provide enough adrenaline to keep you at the edge of your seats. Lin Xueyi truly thrives in action setting and he made the struggle to cling for life after grave injuries truly believable. My most favourite scene has got to be the Prince Han rebellion arc, that moment of him and his reluctant bride trying to survive as the rebel forces hunted for them is pure gold.
And as great as the screenplay, the themesong playlist is packed with great tunes too! Although slow ballads, they add well to the touching atmosphere when needed.
Honestly the only thing that’s stopping me from giving a pure 10/10 rating is the fact that I most probably won’t rewatch this. I am an action lover at heart, hence am only giving the rewatch rating high enough to not drag down the overall rating from 9.5. This series deserves that much. I only give a 10 rating in the rewatch category to series that I would want to rewatch and I generally only rewatch action packed masterpieces. Despite an action lover, I had to admit this story is memorable enough that it made me want to read the novel to see the difference and which would have better plot.
Edit: I tried reading the novel but couldnt go past Ch73. I am so glad the screenwriter dropped the source’s plot and characters and devised this beautiful masterpiece instead. I wish i could give this a solid 10 for such brilliant writeup.
Spoiler beyond this line……………..
I loved it how they made the ML acknowledge FL’s original identity in his last breath. It was so damn beautiful despite the scene to be a sad one.
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