Like others wrote below, it's a bit of a cheap Princess Royal (thankfully without the unbearable Su Rong Qing hogging all the screentime).
Compared to the same director's (much shorter) https://kisskh.at/754131-zhao-ge-fu , production aspects like lighting seem unnecessarily poor. Another unfavorable comparison is that this show's 10 minute episodes often don't feel like there's more story than in the 2–3 minute episodes of Song of the Dynasty.
For me the start was bad, the middle was surprisingly much better (except for the pretty random FL development), the overarching plot was kind of unresolved in very many ways (villains/rebellion/..), and the ending is just something totally random bolted on.
I love Richard Li, but this drama to me felt kind of empty. There were some good scenes in it, chemistry-wise.…
Something about the lighting was really off, like it's overexposed to the point of there not being any shadows. This director's shorter & cheaper works don't seem to have that problem.
There's some weird comments here, for example ones mentioning a "crown prince" character. There's no crown prince in this show from what I saw (if you dig really deep: a potential crown prince is killed offscreen and only mentioned in passing).
The story itself is unnecessarily hard to follow, partially it's jumpy on account of the 2–3 minute episode length and partially it does weird things with the runtime.
Richard Li / Li Fei does a very good job. Like other comments wrote before, the FL's attending maid is really great.
The FL is really good here. ML is far more wooden than in https://kisskh.at/753285-yue-shang-dong-gong (and that's unfortunate). The OST... well there's not really any OST. The production is somewhat good, but fight scenes are meh (and the intro makes it look like there'd be a lot of them).
Besides the one inventive twist I thought it was really bad. Like: acting bad, sets were "the basics", chemistry questionable, direction ehh, even the cliffhangers annoyed me.
Why would he give his master this book to destroy it?Didn't he can't do it himself?What an idiot. 🤦♀️
It's only believable if some audience or person of authority does it. But yes, IQ>100 move is to hand over a partial/already burning book or something.
The plot isn't exactly strong, and after about 70% into the show there are a lot of bad Mango subtitles that mostly miss the meaning. Also sad how the music's largely MIA on the Mango YT channel.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9t884o has completely outlandish translations of the names, but the video quality is good. Sadly 3 minutes are missing. [1:53:54 length] https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9s4voi has those missing 3 minutes and has the character names, but otherwise the translation is 75% wrong/inverted. [1:56:45 length] At 6:30 switch to the second video. Then come back 3 minutes later. (If you want you could use two browser windows or Chrome split view to see both at the same time, but that's not going to nicely fullscreen so it's fairly meh.)
Their previous vertical https://kisskh.at/798342-zong-tang#comment-26319414 has a bit of a more interesting plot (and a bad ass violent FL), but a problem that the FL looks almost noona-like and the ML looks too young by comparison. Probably to avoid a repeat of this, the ML looks much older here and virtually never takes off his glasses (his styling is a bit meh), but Desired Kisses tries for a world record in tongue involvement in those Desired Kisses, and it does a really good job in that regard...
ML's "makeup" in I bought her a real bionic robot. / Oops, I Bought Her a Real-Life Robot Husband / 给她买到真仿生机器人了 is fantastic btw; that show isn't on MDL.
It's unfortunate that the subs (of various versions) have inverted meanings like 50% of the time and you have to patch the story together from recognizing fragments of Chinese.
But as a vertical this one's mostly great.
Of course have to watch it off YouTube for the music to be intact.
ML acting is pretty good but needs a better director to keep the twins thing under control (after a notable point he kind of flipflops between the two roles too much). FL is weak here, she can do better as seen in other shows (again, with better direction or production?). Does not convince as an assassin whatsoever. The three not that old supporting actors also have potential.
Story is full of generic plot points you've seen before, BUT 90% of the time things really happen and it only gets actually boring at the end when they're desperate to have some last ditch dramatic obstacles. The overall story is an enjoyable watch. The OST is just 'copypaste in that 阿YueYue song until the end'.
I'm on ep 5 and the dynamic between the leads Li Lan hua and Fang Duo bing remind me so much of the dynamic of…
Just two episodes in I also feel like I'm literally watching Blood of Youth, with Xiao Se having no martial arts (anymore) and making his newfound sidekick do the fighting for him. Doesn't help to see some of the same filming locations. And CY looks like LHY (or vice versa) 80% of the time, not just sometimes.
Additionally, 小子 (~"brat") is an expression that's used non-stop in the Blood of Youth / Dashing Youth / Blood River universe, and it's out in full force here too.
Doesn't mean I'm a fan of either show though, or being American, or a card-carrying member of any fandom, or... You know ^_^
Just curious what about the plot didn't you like? Just want to see your perspective
Feel free to let me know if my complaint catalogue https://kisskh.at/profile/luckz/review/306679 is missing anything (have to admit I don't remember the FL's artistic aspirations anymore)
Compared to the same director's (much shorter) https://kisskh.at/754131-zhao-ge-fu , production aspects like lighting seem unnecessarily poor. Another unfavorable comparison is that this show's 10 minute episodes often don't feel like there's more story than in the 2–3 minute episodes of Song of the Dynasty.
For me the start was bad, the middle was surprisingly much better (except for the pretty random FL development), the overarching plot was kind of unresolved in very many ways (villains/rebellion/..), and the ending is just something totally random bolted on.
There's no crown prince in this show from what I saw (if you dig really deep: a potential crown prince is killed offscreen and only mentioned in passing).
The story itself is unnecessarily hard to follow, partially it's jumpy on account of the 2–3 minute episode length and partially it does weird things with the runtime.
Richard Li / Li Fei does a very good job. Like other comments wrote before, the FL's attending maid is really great.
ML is far more wooden than in https://kisskh.at/753285-yue-shang-dong-gong (and that's unfortunate).
The OST... well there's not really any OST.
The production is somewhat good, but fight scenes are meh (and the intro makes it look like there'd be a lot of them).
P.S.: I watched it with https://kisskh.at/759221-phoenix-lands-in-the-world due to plot similarities
Like: acting bad, sets were "the basics", chemistry questionable, direction ehh, even the cliffhangers annoyed me.
P.S.: I watched it with https://kisskh.at/748905-jiao-yue-liu-huo due to plot similarities
But yes, IQ>100 move is to hand over a partial/already burning book or something.
Also sad how the music's largely MIA on the Mango YT channel.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9serv4
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9serv6
sometimes, rarely, KtAG0lSCuTc subtitles helped understand some stuff. or had subs that were missing on this one.
the ML robot styling was super good; show&plot was a bit meh overall
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xa7x04y
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xa7x04w
Raw:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xa7x04y
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xa7x04w
While Doting on you again is raw:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9xh8lc
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9xh8l6
[1:53:54 length]
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9s4voi has those missing 3 minutes and has the character names, but otherwise the translation is 75% wrong/inverted.
[1:56:45 length]
At 6:30 switch to the second video. Then come back 3 minutes later.
(If you want you could use two browser windows or Chrome split view to see both at the same time, but that's not going to nicely fullscreen so it's fairly meh.)
Their previous vertical https://kisskh.at/798342-zong-tang#comment-26319414 has a bit of a more interesting plot (and a bad ass violent FL), but a problem that the FL looks almost noona-like and the ML looks too young by comparison.
Probably to avoid a repeat of this, the ML looks much older here and virtually never takes off his glasses (his styling is a bit meh), but Desired Kisses tries for a world record in tongue involvement in those Desired Kisses, and it does a really good job in that regard...
ML's "makeup" in I bought her a real bionic robot. / Oops, I Bought Her a Real-Life Robot Husband / 给她买到真仿生机器人了 is fantastic btw; that show isn't on MDL.
But as a vertical this one's mostly great.
Of course have to watch it off YouTube for the music to be intact.
FL is weak here, she can do better as seen in other shows (again, with better direction or production?). Does not convince as an assassin whatsoever.
The three not that old supporting actors also have potential.
Story is full of generic plot points you've seen before, BUT 90% of the time things really happen and it only gets actually boring at the end when they're desperate to have some last ditch dramatic obstacles. The overall story is an enjoyable watch.
The OST is just 'copypaste in that 阿YueYue song until the end'.
And CY looks like LHY (or vice versa) 80% of the time, not just sometimes.
Additionally, 小子 (~"brat") is an expression that's used non-stop in the Blood of Youth / Dashing Youth / Blood River universe, and it's out in full force here too.
Doesn't mean I'm a fan of either show though, or being American, or a card-carrying member of any fandom, or...
You know ^_^