Hime

True. That is why I said this was my view. I can see from the comments and reviews that a lot of people really liked it. I really like historical dramas too and have watched some that focused a lot in the family and politics that I liked. I think what made me feel more conflicted was the pace really, especially those 20 episodes or so after their childhood. I also had some high expectations and imagined the drama would be very different from what it actually was because of the previous summary. For sure, and I want to make this clear, this is a great drama. But I cannot ignore the fact I did not get as much enjoyment from it as I did from other dramas I have watched in the past. One thing I will remember is Ming Lan. She was one of the most interesting female leads I have seen. She was nowhere near the typical naive female lead but was still kind and used her intelligence not only for her own advantage but for others too and that made her easy to like.

It was the last episode I think. Both MDL and Viki have updated it and show 73 episodes. Also, the way the episode ends seems like the ending to me.

It is a good drama but very slow paced, which is expected since it is 73 episodes long. If you don’t want to feel like you’re losing something by not watching it, then my advice as someone who watched it is that you watch only a few episodes a day. Don’t try to binge-watch it or you might feel like you are forcing yourself to watch it and end up dropping it before it gets to the better episodes. And keep in mind that the first 20 episodes or so after their childhood (which is the first 4 episodes) are probably the hardest to watch. You need to watch them to get to know all the characters and understand what is going on but they are extremely slow paced and it is easy to feel bored while watching them. After that it gets better.

I feel conflicted. If I add up the episodes that I liked and the episodes that made me feel extremely bored because nothing was happening, and then compare them, it is about 50-50. I liked the first few episodes where they showed their childhood, then the next 20 episodes or so I had to almost force myself to keep watching as they were extremely slow paced. Then around the middle I had about 5-10 episodes I enjoyed.

I think I liked the second half better but I was still yawning way too often. The story is good, the characters and actors chosen to play them too, but there was almost nothing exciting happening that would make me want to watch the next episode. The drama as a whole was very slow-paced and some episodes made me feel like nothing was really happening.

It is a shame since I had some expectations when I started it and had it in my plan to watch list for years before I even knew when it was going to air. I really liked Ming Lan’s character and the male lead’s character too (most of the time) but that alone did not make it interesting enough for me.

There is no doubt that the story is good, although I personally felt bored way too often, but I have to say that the rating might be biased at the moment. I am not sure if it is because of the actors, because they are married in real life and are the main leads in this drama or because people rated it without even finishing it (yeah some people even go to the point of giving 9s and 10s to dramas when they have aired 1 episode and they haven’t even watched it yet, lol), but I think that we should not rate a drama just based on the actors or story, but also the enjoyment we have while watching it.

I liked the actors, liked the characters (especially Ming Lan) and felt the story was good but it was extremely slow paced, so my overall enjoyment was not that high as to give this a 9, much less a 10.

Of course these are my personal feelings. I believe a person who watches only 1 or 2 episodes a day will be able to enjoy it more. This is definitely not the kind of drama you feel like binge-watching. It is way too long and slow paced to keep you motivated and excited for the next episode.

At first I was really into it. I especially liked the relationship between the main leads. The female lead was so kind and caring that you could completely understand why and how he falls in love with her. And I can also understand why the female lead would act that way when the male lead had those puppy eyes that seemed to yell: I need your full attention and love.

The whole face "surgery" thing looked kinda cool in a weird way but it seemed like that was not important later on in the story. I also started to lose interest in the drama as a whole around episode 10 or so. From then on I kept skipping scenes and also felt the interactions between the main leads were not only less frequent but also less interesting. At some point I just gave up and skipped to the last episode to know the ending.

It is a shame that so many cdramas have this problem. They have way too many episodes with way too many characters, flashbacks, fights, and boring plotlines just to drag the story. If you want to make a drama 54 episodes long, make sure you have enough content and know how to give it a natural pace so things do not look rushed nor draggy.

I watched the short version. I understand that means a lot of things were missing from the story but I was still able to understand most things and get the big picture. I am actually glad this short version was made since I have watched way too many palace dramas and I don’t think I would have been able to sit through 76 episodes of this.

I am not saying the original version is not good. I could not judge that without watching it. But personally, the short version was just what I needed or I would have either not given this a try or would have dropped it midway.

What do you meant when you said "That's such a pity for the subs !"?
Is it because you were not able to find it subbed or is it because they were bad?

Where did you watch it? I have watched this drama way before you wrote this comment and all the episodes were subbed.

Ok. Give me a few minutes. I will send you a message with some recommendations based on what you told me.

I am watching in a facebook group too. I will send you the link in a pm. You just need to answer the questions and the owner usually accepts the requests pretty fast. If you are interested, she is also currently subbing the dramas Unexpected (this one has not been updated for a month because of some issues) and Time Teaches Me To Love. She has also finished subbing several other chinese dramas. She has a weekly posting schedule and she usually uploads around 2 episodes per week for each drama, sometimes more, even though she does all this by her self.

I have watched all of the dramas you mentioned and they are some of my favourites.I also like strong and smart female leads. Innocent and kind female leads are good but I have seen so many that it got tiring. Do you only watch Chinese dramas or do you also watch other asian dramas?

There are no subs. I tried watching ep1 and it was raw. Have you actually watched this drama with subs there or you just thought it was subbed?

Thank you. I have made a request to join the group. Hopefully they will approve it soon.

I am currently watching a lot of dramas and have watched almost 1000 dramas in total, although only about 800 since I joined MDL 2 years ago. So you have to be more specific in what kind of drama you feel like watching for me to be able to give you recommendations.

About Ming Lan, I have also though about dropping it more than once, from the super slow pace to the male lead already having a "wife" and 2 kids before he met Ming Lan as adults, ...
I honestly am only going to finish it because I like both main actors and skipping a lot of scenes has helped me to keep going. But yeah, it definitely did not live to my expectations.

Oh ok. I guess it depends on the drama. There are some dramas on Viki that are subbed pretty fast and others that have the raw episodes added but the subs take a while. I usually only go to Viki when its hard to find the drama somewhere else or when they have subbed episodes faster.

I am also watching Ming Lan, I stopped at episode 44 since I am waiting for the rest of the episodes so I can binge-watch it. What is the name of the group that is subbing it? You can send me a pm if you don’t want to reveal it here.

Viki is not airing it yet and I am not sure if they will at all. The status has been like that for months. Someone has subbed some of the episodes but there are no recent updates. I guess we just have to wait.

Where are you watching it? This is still airing so it is impossible for it to be fully subbed like other dramas. Viki has over half of the episodes subbed (29/50 when I wrote this comment).

And once again it all goes down in the second half. There were many issues with this drama, which I believe will cause the rating to go down in the next few months.

I think one of the main problems with it was that they presented the drama as if it was centred in mistery and revenge. But it turned out that there is not much mistery with things being revealed too soon and the revenge is secondary to say the least with the male lead always "forgetting" about it because he is too busy chasing after the female lead. The misunderstandings are also solved way too early and it turns out this is just another rom-com with a melodrama vibe in the last few episodes that tried to focus more on the corruption and revenge since there was no more development to show in the romance department.

Don’t get me wrong. I mainly watch dramas that have romance (about 99 per cent) and preferably plenty of it. And the romance between the main leads was pretty good, not the best but still good. The problem is that I did not get what I bought. When I started watching this I wanted to see mistery, big revelations, maybe some plot-twists, the male lead being smart while trying to get his revenge. The romance would be just an extra thing to make the drama richer, but not necessary. What I got was a drama that had more romance than some dramas that are actually focused on romance. With the romance also happening fast and the misunderstandings being solved early, there was not much to keep me invested in the second half. I already knew who the bad guys were, I already knew who would change sides at the end, I already knew what would happen next, so what was the point of watching it?! I still forced myself to end it but it took me several days when I am the binge-watch kind of person.

Conclusion: It was not a bad drama. But it could have been an amazing one, which did not happen because it did not deliver what was promised and it was not memorable.

I liked the way it ended and that is pretty much it. Leaving the controversies aside I hate seeing people getting into a relationship when they are already in one (even if they break up later and are honest with the person, meanwhile it’s still considered cheating on their partner) and hate as much if not more people dating people when they like someone else (it is unfair to the person they are dating and everyone always gets hurt).

Unfortunately this drama had both so even if the romance between the main leads was sweet (more like bittersweet), I could not fully enjoy it as other people were involved in their already complicated relationship.

I see situations like this very often in jdramas, also cheating and adultery, all things I hate. This frustrates me since I got into watching dramas after many years of watching anime and reading mangas, so it is ironic that the dramas I like the least end up being jdramas. I have watched some pretty good movies tho, better than the ones other asian countries make.

Wow, I am quite surprised at how much I enjoyed it considering it is a simple plot and I even prioritized other dramas until I finally watched this one because I thought it would not be that good. It is very rare for me to enjoy dramas with such a simple plot focused on the lives of characters that could really be actual people. The drama was very realistic but very relaxing to watch at the same time. I watched it as if I had all the time in the world to watch it and never felt like skipping scenes (ok, that would be lying, maybe 1 or 2).

Last time I enjoyed such a "normal" drama was with Fight For My Way. I had the same feeling I had then: that I did not need any supernatural, time-travelling, plot-twists, mistery and intense things for me to be able to enjoy a drama so much. I smiled, got angry and even cried (yeah, I did, I am pretty sure I was not the only one).

Part of me wished this was longer since I was liking it so much. I would not mind seeing the business grow even more and their struggles to keep going, but then I guess it would turn into a daily drama. XD

The other part of me is glad that they kept it short with only 12 episodes instead of 16 or even 20. That way they were able to keep the story enjoyable and not draggy at all.

I understand some people might not think much of this drama since it is so "normal" and not amazing or over the top, but 7.2 (at the time I am writing this) is definitely not right. Some of the not so good kdramas that came out last year have better ratings than this one and they had so many negative comments.

Ok, the re-watch value might not be that high (I rarely re-watch dramas anyway) but for a first time watch when you want to take a break from intense dramas this is just what you need. I hope the rating goes up later since this is a pretty recent drama, and if it goes down or stays like this then I will definitely think it is one of those underrated dramas. (This is why I do not give much importance to ratings before I watch a drama and would rather read detailed comments and even spoilers and decide for myself if it is my kind of drama or not).