1
magnificent
oh.....my.....god. A magnificent show. Villainy unfolded layer upon hidden layer and hidden heart-wrenching love. 30 eps at 45mins ea, and I was riveted to the screen for every single one. Shock and awe mixed with both pity and love may not be to your taste but this is the kind of show where even a few episodes will be worth it for the memory.
Give it a try. I recommend it.
An FL who resorts to biting or murder when all else fails, Zhuang Han Yan, played by the actress Chen Du Ling, is a realistic character who has never been loved by anyone except a piratical female bodyguard and childhood friend. Abused from the beginning of her helpless infancy she does not trust, and given the family she meets when she comes back for revenge, she is right not to do so. She still yearns and quietly hopes for some form of love in some corner of her heart, but she is definitely psychotically possessed by a need for revenge.
She is a lonely goose poetically who flies back north to find a home. There is a great moment about exactly halfway through where she hangs an anonymous poem about herself on a festival tree where girls invite poems in response. Fu Yunxi finds it by sheer powerful instinct and writes a perfect reply, which then gets lost and one despairs of these two, even though fireworks rain down overhead.
An ML both stoic and vulnerable, Fu Yun Xi, played by Xin Yun Lai, is a shadowy personage, an criminal investigator for the imperial govt, who plans so far ahead into the future that he knows when he sees ZHY that she is the wife he needs. A man who is playing a dangerous game that is not easily guessed by the viewer, he is so calculating that he manages, thank goodness, to predict when his love is about to go off the rails in some murderous rampage. Unlike the usual romantic hero he doesnt so much as magically rescue her from danger as protect her from herself. How does he understand her so well? She is baffled by him, as are we. Xin Yun Lai is gorgeous, so it is a pleasure to wonder and watch him as he plays out his long-term strategies.
It is a character-driven story, written by a novelist who has had other works successfully adapted to the small screen. The scriptwriter and director however must still receive great credit for emphasizing the classically 'tragic' elements successfully. Pity, fear and awe (w/a bow to the Poetics), all are evoked.
Give it a try. I recommend it.
An FL who resorts to biting or murder when all else fails, Zhuang Han Yan, played by the actress Chen Du Ling, is a realistic character who has never been loved by anyone except a piratical female bodyguard and childhood friend. Abused from the beginning of her helpless infancy she does not trust, and given the family she meets when she comes back for revenge, she is right not to do so. She still yearns and quietly hopes for some form of love in some corner of her heart, but she is definitely psychotically possessed by a need for revenge.
She is a lonely goose poetically who flies back north to find a home. There is a great moment about exactly halfway through where she hangs an anonymous poem about herself on a festival tree where girls invite poems in response. Fu Yunxi finds it by sheer powerful instinct and writes a perfect reply, which then gets lost and one despairs of these two, even though fireworks rain down overhead.
An ML both stoic and vulnerable, Fu Yun Xi, played by Xin Yun Lai, is a shadowy personage, an criminal investigator for the imperial govt, who plans so far ahead into the future that he knows when he sees ZHY that she is the wife he needs. A man who is playing a dangerous game that is not easily guessed by the viewer, he is so calculating that he manages, thank goodness, to predict when his love is about to go off the rails in some murderous rampage. Unlike the usual romantic hero he doesnt so much as magically rescue her from danger as protect her from herself. How does he understand her so well? She is baffled by him, as are we. Xin Yun Lai is gorgeous, so it is a pleasure to wonder and watch him as he plays out his long-term strategies.
It is a character-driven story, written by a novelist who has had other works successfully adapted to the small screen. The scriptwriter and director however must still receive great credit for emphasizing the classically 'tragic' elements successfully. Pity, fear and awe (w/a bow to the Poetics), all are evoked.
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