kralicek

I have just finished the series and some BTS and I must say I am impressed - one year and 7 months of filming in different seasons. Quite impressive. When watching, I was thinking how they managed to get the feeling of seasons, rain, snow landscape so naturally, and to my surprise cause it was natural. I can feel how many hard work went into it - to take all the equipment up the mountains - just to get better landscape view, for actors all the running had to be exhausting and in snow, heavy rain. The actors crew has so many of my favorite veterans, so acting was excellent; OST was also very fitting and I appreciate that we had a unique settings for the story, which gave fresh feeling. Yes, and the best way to watch it is to binge it.

I liked both couples, so I didn't mind they both got about the same screening time. Just the story itself was one cliché after another. Sometimes I do love cliché, but here there is almost every possible trope you can think of (clingy ex-boyfriend, rich-lady-in-love-with-ML, ex-girlfriend, parents etc) but all of it was used in a bit half-baked way. Both couples had nice chemistry, but story itself didn't bring anything new or didn't make me feel invested in leads, although acting was nice. Overall nice story if you want something in between.

First of all, I must comment on production. Very good OST, which added to tension or drama of the scenes...and for me one of the best costumes in ch-drama I have ever seen (Yanxi and The rebels princess are on my top list). I especially liked the emperors robes which gave more majestic feeling. Fabric gives exquisite feeling and I loved the simplicity of cuts and lines without any additional frills, ribbons etc. Actors were all good but my most favorite character was ambiguous emperor which looks quite psychotic in the beginning but then we get to know him better. Not saying that everything he did, was ok. He was the most colourful character and that made him interesting. Tilan/Zizan actress also made impact with her both poles: cheerful cocky empress and more quiet, introverted but very dignified concubine. She was believable and natural in both characters. The love story of shufu and his pupil has been here thousand times, great but self-sacrificing heroes also, therefore the main plot could feel a bit boring or frustrating but I think cause of the great pacing of the story, production, this story is above average. I have seen Yang Mi in many roles, but here I liked her acting most. Will also put a lot effort into this roles, so I am applauding. But I must say, that I was missing the chemistry in between two leads (as always in all William Chan's dramas)...it wasn't so lacking cause his role was very rigid and calm. And some the heartbreaking scenes were written very well, with good dialogues sans pathetic gestures, kudos for that.

Since first few minutes I knew how the story will unfold...but aesthetic feeling of dark satiated colors, music ambience, and great martial art scene made up to it. I must agree with many of you, that there seemed to be more chemistry between her and Moo Jin. It is a bit shame that we will never know what Moo Jin felt for her, cause his feeling were strangely mixed. Did he see her as a woman? Or just someone he raised? Possible monster? Topic of "monster" was the main theme of Vincenzo, but here it was a bit boring aspect, there was no tension or climax, while in Vincenzo we were searching who was the biggest monster of all = ML himself was the wonderfully unexpected answer.

I love bickering couples and this one was phenomenal. Unfortunately, lots of their of funny comebacks were lost due to bad subs. The rest of the story was so so.

Both, FL and ML were refreshing characters which are rarely seen. Shy introvert girl with steel backbone and passion bigger than life, and cocky but little bit bum ML who is the least sophisticated male on the earth and little bit rough on the edges :-) I liked them both and especially how they communicated with each other. It was pure joy. FL is also the one of few who really looked like she works at field of art. We have so many fashion designer female leads who looks so meh... And the OST was very complementary to story, very good one.

Typical dramaland story with cold CEO and warm FL. But there was a bit twist, ML actually is not a jerk, wow! He is cold business man, has low EQ, all the typical stereotype troupe but when he acted as douchebag, he realized that and didn't like himself for it. I really liked acting of ML which made him one of my most favourite cold CEO's. Another nice thing going on is chemistry of main couple and we got to see sooo~ many kisses, kkkk. But what I can't stomach is that I haven't seen Chinese drama where FL worked as a designer and actually looked like designer. Here, it was sooo~ apparent with her good-village-girl look.

Funny couple which made 1st half of drama so funny although we have typical cliché story. The bickering couple was quite delightful, I can feel actors had a fun, but around the middle it became typical troupe of 2nd ML madness. So many potholes and illogical things...But all 3 actors were fine and the 2nd ML has potential.

I have already seen it and of course I liked it a lot :-)

Actors were great, especially Ahn Hyo Seop and Kwak Shi Yang, but unfortunately the story felt flat and reasons behind the actions of many characters were not convincing enough for us to believe in romance, revenge...for example Mi So priestess - can't at all get her reasoning fo the decisions. Also when you try more serious story. I really liked the painting parts, they were very interesting and it would be nice to know more about techniques, styles etc but then it would need probably different type of drama - not fantasy but more like historic genre.

I liked this type of thriller, crime but unfortunately the story plot was not enough interesting - they mixed two plots - story of our ML chasing his memory and NIS politics - for me these two things didn't mix well and actually weakened each other. So saver of the day was, of course, Namgoong Min, his acting was superb. Very different vibe from his other roles, type of bulldog character - it would be nice to know more about background story of ML but it wasn't necessary - even the small details were perfected, for example the way he walked and moved, like machine with purpose.

I quite like the role of Doo Shik. In recent years we have a trend of strong and interesting FL, but MLs tend to be more stereotypical with some exceptions. For me this role is one of them: he is not typical two goody shoes...he was wits, being sly on slope and can be harsh when he holds up a mirror. And Kim Seen Ho was really great portraying all the facets of the character. And I must admire another star, which is Kim Young Ok. I had to check her age and she has my admiration to physically manage such long shooting hours at her age. She is amazing :-)

Very typical historical drama with revenge plot, nothing new ... I can't believe that they are still making dramas where almost every male lead falls in love with FL and so obsessively. I thought these stereotypical cliché are thing of past. Unfortunately non creative writing was mostly evident with ML character - he has typical hero characteristics but with no flavor, very little background...he was just there. It wasn't about the actor but more with script. The most interesting surprise was FL - the actress was great and she can portrayed well dignity of the princess and her strong character.

It was unpleasant surprise was her to find them dating, but they will talk it through

I must say very well written FL which was nailed by the actress, she was superb. Slow-paced mature drama, very rare for China. I liked how it tackled some of the problems in present-day society (woman-workplace, woman-marriage, integrity). And it did tell very nice message - when FL best friend had marriage crises, it was clearly shown that only if both sides are willing to fight for marriage, they had a chance to solve problems together. And this is the moment where many marriages fails, I think, because it is always easier to give up things than to fight for them.

Actually I was thinking the same. Where did she go? Did I miss something? My conclusion was she went to receive a therapy, but Mongolia theory sounds also plausible.

Both ML were doing a good job but the story itself looked like written 10 years ago... and many characters felt like fillers + it was having so many flaws that it was for me harder to enjoy the story, like having an university with only 6 professors, or that basically any detective can become an university professor, or Dong Man was unreasonable hard on Sun Ho in the first eps for breaking rules and lecturing him constantly while he himself broke so many rules (this made it hard for me to like him in the beginning) or friends-duo in love with a same girl was just sooo~ artificial, and I could go on...

For 40 eps long drama, I would say quite early...not sure but I think around 16 ep, maybe a bit earlier.

The best thing about this drama are our two main actors. They were great and there was nice pull and push game going on. I liked the FL's spunk...but the rest was quite ordinary, with some side annoying characters which we saw soooo~ many times.

I must agree with many of you. Outdated concept, story and full of clichés which were done without too much work. But I must comment on following: this was the 4th role where I watched ML and I am surprised that in every drama he had different wibe which is admirable. We have many actors remaining the same in every role, or at least we get similar feeling. So kudos for that...I am looking forward his future characters.