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It feels like reading a beautiful novel...
The legend of TANNIANG, THE LIFE AND MEMOIRS OF SHEN JIA LAN.
The Life and Memoirs of Shen Jialan
The way the finale ended may again divide viewers, but for me it was a fitting and grand ending for a woman who lived through a life filled with tragedy, servitude, sacrifice and love.
I’ve watched this entire drama through the eyes of Shen Jialan. It is her life story after all. The writers wanted to tell her story almost as if we were reading her memoir.
The passage of time is one of the most beautiful parts of the writing. Instead of simply telling us that years have passed, we see it through the people around her. Children grow, servants marry, families expand, and even a young lotus root vendor returns years later with a child of her own. The world keeps moving…and so does Shen Jialan.
There are no grand visuals of heroes arriving on magnificent horses, no wire acrobatics, dazzling fight sequences, not even romantic kisses to keep us satisfied. This is a thinking person’s drama, where answers are not always given…they are learned.
The writers rarely explain everything. Water, the eagle, crickets, poetry, ants eating away at the roots…things that initially seem insignificant eventually mean something. I actually found myself rewatching episodes because sometimes there was another story underneath the story.
In many ways, it feels like watching a Jane Austen novel come to life, where our heroine simply keeps living despite everything life throws at her. It is about perseverance, survival…and maybe even outliving everyone.
Tan Song Yun carries that lifetime beautifully. So much of Lanxiang is expressed through her eyes, her posture and the smallest movements rather than grand speeches. Liu Xue Yi matches her with Jin Qi’s quiet restraint. Their romance may have very few kisses, but sometimes one look between them says more than a kiss ever could.
Sometimes the smallest, most subtle movements make the biggest sound.
But this story still belongs to Shen Jialan. The story of Tanniang, told in the middle of the series, became much more meaningful to me by the end. She was the woman who sacrificed herself and eventually became the eagle, forever watching over everyone else. For me, Shen Jialan was Tanniang.
And whether one likes it or not, Jin Qi was only one part of her very long life. An important part, certainly. But like her adoptive parents, he gave her the love she needed to overcome some of her sadness and eventually find happiness again. Together they found strength in each other, but Lanxiang’s journey was always larger than their romance.
After watching over a hundred Chinese dramas and God knows how many Korean, Japanese, English and Spanish shows, I can say this is one of the best written drama series I have watched.
It will not be for everyone. Some will find it painfully slow. Some may dislike the finale. Others may wish there had been more romance.
But I don’t think this was ever simply a romance.** It was the life of Shen Jialan.**
In the end, we enter and leave this world alone. But life was never really about the destination anyway…it was always about the journey.
And the final words of the drama say it all. Not completely spelled out for us, because just like the entire series, they leave us with something to think about:
“Love given returns as love, blessings bestowed return as blessings.”
Jia Yi, Han Dynasty
The Life and Memoirs of Shen Jialan
The way the finale ended may again divide viewers, but for me it was a fitting and grand ending for a woman who lived through a life filled with tragedy, servitude, sacrifice and love.
I’ve watched this entire drama through the eyes of Shen Jialan. It is her life story after all. The writers wanted to tell her story almost as if we were reading her memoir.
The passage of time is one of the most beautiful parts of the writing. Instead of simply telling us that years have passed, we see it through the people around her. Children grow, servants marry, families expand, and even a young lotus root vendor returns years later with a child of her own. The world keeps moving…and so does Shen Jialan.
There are no grand visuals of heroes arriving on magnificent horses, no wire acrobatics, dazzling fight sequences, not even romantic kisses to keep us satisfied. This is a thinking person’s drama, where answers are not always given…they are learned.
The writers rarely explain everything. Water, the eagle, crickets, poetry, ants eating away at the roots…things that initially seem insignificant eventually mean something. I actually found myself rewatching episodes because sometimes there was another story underneath the story.
In many ways, it feels like watching a Jane Austen novel come to life, where our heroine simply keeps living despite everything life throws at her. It is about perseverance, survival…and maybe even outliving everyone.
Tan Song Yun carries that lifetime beautifully. So much of Lanxiang is expressed through her eyes, her posture and the smallest movements rather than grand speeches. Liu Xue Yi matches her with Jin Qi’s quiet restraint. Their romance may have very few kisses, but sometimes one look between them says more than a kiss ever could.
Sometimes the smallest, most subtle movements make the biggest sound.
But this story still belongs to Shen Jialan. The story of Tanniang, told in the middle of the series, became much more meaningful to me by the end. She was the woman who sacrificed herself and eventually became the eagle, forever watching over everyone else. For me, Shen Jialan was Tanniang.
And whether one likes it or not, Jin Qi was only one part of her very long life. An important part, certainly. But like her adoptive parents, he gave her the love she needed to overcome some of her sadness and eventually find happiness again. Together they found strength in each other, but Lanxiang’s journey was always larger than their romance.
After watching over a hundred Chinese dramas and God knows how many Korean, Japanese, English and Spanish shows, I can say this is one of the best written drama series I have watched.
It will not be for everyone. Some will find it painfully slow. Some may dislike the finale. Others may wish there had been more romance.
But I don’t think this was ever simply a romance.** It was the life of Shen Jialan.**
In the end, we enter and leave this world alone. But life was never really about the destination anyway…it was always about the journey.
And the final words of the drama say it all. Not completely spelled out for us, because just like the entire series, they leave us with something to think about:
“Love given returns as love, blessings bestowed return as blessings.”
Jia Yi, Han Dynasty
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