Entertaining, but don't watch on an empty stomach.
Overall, this was a fun and entertaining drama. It has a lot of different elements that made it enjoyable, from the main romance and light comedy to serious political drama and martial arts combat and of course, lots of food! And for the most part that crazy mix makes perfect sense. Most of the characters are interesting and show real growth in ways that keep you engaged. The plot has a very good core premise with some nice creative twists that keep things from being obvious. They also do a good job of avoiding some of the more annoying plot tropes common in so many romance dramas. The plot does drag down a bit in the low-to-mid 20s episodes as they fill time with some side plots. And some goofy character behavior that worked early on did become tiring around that point. But the plot recovered very well over the last half-dozen episodes and finished strong.The actors are all very well cast and really deliver well on their roles. Both leads are excellent and have great chemistry. The production values - costumes, sets, special effects, camera-work, etc, are all top quality with only minor, irrelevant glitches here and there.
Caution: Do not watch while hungry unless you have food to eat.
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A brilliantly executed parody!
First off: THIS IS A PARODY!!!! It's apparent from some viewer comments that some folks just never understood that about this show. Those folks were always way too serious and upset about either the ML or the FL behavior early on - which was over-the-top on purpose (because: parody). If you realize this is a parody, just relax and enjoy.Second: It really helps you enjoy the parody if you are a veteran of watching lots and lots of c-dramas (and k-dramas) because that way you will better recognize the zillions of drama tropes and cliches that this series plays with on purpose. Many will be obvious, such as the SML-is-unrequited-love trope and - OMG - The Cliff scene! Many others are subtle and this show doesn't always hold your hand to point them out. You are expected to see and recognize them and when you do they make many of the scenes -- even the serious drama ones - even more fun.
Okay, those two things out of the way: This show really delivers. It is extremely well crafted in all aspects. The cast is absolutely stellar, loaded with talented actors you should recognize and they are all really great in this. Each of the primary cast gets plenty of moments to shine in their character without the series feeling scattered too far from the leads. Both Li Yi Tong and Lu Yu Ning are wonderful, showing wide range in their characters and they have great chemistry. The script is excellent - which is important because it is very specifically criticizing and sending up all the 'bad script' hacks in the script-within-a-script.
Other production aspects are also fantastic. The sets and costumes are all first-rate and the lighting and cinematography are beautifully done. And the music. Oh my god, the music is done SO well! All the scenes are enhanced by very well thought out music.
I really enjoyed this series. If you miss on the first two points I made up above, you might knock it down a bit on the score. But for folks that understand this is a parody and who are experienced watching c-dramas, this show is pretty much perfect. So much fun.
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So much potential, wasted on a truly horrible script.
The cast is fantastic. Love both leads and the supporting cast is excellent as well. In particular, Guan Xue Ying is brilliant at making you hate her psychotic unrequited female rival character. The production quality is good. Some of the martial arts scenes are fantastic. Indeed there are plenty of enjoyable entertainment moments scattered throughout this series.But the script is god-awful. The writers rely heavily on a relentless stream of cliche' plot contrivances, one after another and the plot loses all credibility again and again. The villains never truly get punished despite getting caught. They just keep coming back again and again repeating the same stupid schemes. And no happy ending either.
The chemistry between the leads is fantastic --- when they actually get to be together! But the plot gimmicks employed by the writers just bury all that goodness. The chain of absurd, improbably events , one after another, that the writers contrive drag what should be short story arcs of 1 or 2 episodes out to 8-9 or more episodes!! It's easy to forget just what led to where the story ends up at various points. In particular, the long stretch of contrivances they use to keep the main leads apart is just crazy and drags across a huge span of episodes.. The script leans heavily into plot-induced stupidity again and again to create unnecessary drama events that just drag the resolution of larger plot lines to a slow, frustrating crawl.
I'm so disappointed. I really like the premise of this story. And Li Qin and Qin Hao both are wonderful to watch in their scenes. But I can't recommend this show. It's just too exasperating and the end-game payoff is just not worth enduring it.
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Fantastic acting and production wasted by poor script.
The actors -- especially the two leads -- and the overall production were fantastic in this show. The costumes, effects, visuals -- all were stunning and beautiful. The only real flaw was, well, the script. The script leans heavily on several cliche drama tropes that just made this a real painful chore to grind through at times. The two scripting flaws that really bothered me were (a) a massive over-reliance on 'misconceptions' plot trope (where people jump to conclusions based on only partial information) and (b) plot-induced stupidity where on 3 distinct occasions they made Li SuSu suddenly act very, very stupid and out of character, forgetting her mission. They also tended to 'take her out of the story' for long stretches, either asleep, in a coma or just plain absent for whatever reason. I got very tired of these blatant writer-hacks and had to force myself to not give up watching at several points. And I'm not sure the pay-off at the end is worth it. While I liked a lot about this show - in particular the performances of both Bai Lu and Luo Yun Xi - I don't know if I'd recommend it to anyone who values a strong, well-written script over spectacle. Here's a test: If you preferred Good Will Hunting over Titanic, then this is not the series for you.Was this review helpful to you?
Flawed but enjoyable and worth watching.
Not going to be remembered as one of the classics, but still this was an overall an enjoyable series to watch. You do need to tough it out to get past some silliness in the first half-dozen episodes. But then it gets pretty good from there.First the negatives: The plot bogs down here or there - especially early in the series - with some outright silliness that is grit-your-teeth cringy. Especially the FL's behavior in the first few episodes. She's a mid-20s mature woman who acts like a silly teenager. And the ML's character is very flat and stereotypical almost throughout the whole series.
But overall the positives outweighed these negatives for me. The overall plot is good with some will paced 'reveals' of important backstory elements as you go. The series has a good pacing of action scenes without focusing too much on that and the choreography for the fights is pretty good. The scenery and cinematography are very good. Lots of great visual candy in this series with some nice sets. And while the FL's character is annoying early on, she shows a lot of growth throughout and ultimately, imho, it is her character that carries the series over the last half as she almost single-handedly has to generate all the chemistry between her and the ML, whose character is simply written to be too flat and mysterious to the point of being barely interesting. You care about their relationship, but primarily because of the FL and actor Xuan Lu's ability to share herself with the audience. I don't blame Gao Wei Guang - he's a very good actor and I think he does the best he can with the material. It's just the way his character is written is fairly stereotypical and limited.
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This review may contain spoilers
Not perfect, but very, very enjoyable and wonderfully acted drama.
First off: The performances by the two leads, Lu Yu Xiao and Chen Xing Xu were both fantastic. Both really went deep into being their respective characters and their chemistry as a romantic couple was off the charts. I'd like to especially call out Lu Yu Xiao's performance. I had already been extremely impressed by her fantastic performance of a girl on the spectrum in Blossoms In Adversity and then as a more conventional 'strong action heroine' in Love in the Clouds. But this performance was next level. Very different from either of those two roles. She put all kinds of interesting mannerisms into her character and was consistent so that those things weren't dropped along the way. Hu Xiu has a cute almost cartoonish way of walking that is so endearing and her way of expressing emotions through her hands. In lesser dramas these little things often get dropped a few episodes into the story but these (and other nuances) were part of her character's uniqueness and she kept them all the way through. Smiling, laughing, angry or crying - the character of Hu Xiu was unique and real. And very endearing. As the classic strong-silent-type Male Lead, Chen Xing Xu has a more conventional role and is, to be fair, overshadowed by Lu Yu Xiao's performance, but he still does a fantastic job. He does not over-act and also is very consistent in how he presents the character. His breaks from strength to vulnerable are believable and don't look forced. And as mentioned, he has great chemistry with LYX. The two really worked great together.Other cast members were all solid. Especially Li Ting Ting as bestie Zhao Rou, whose voice has a quality that just owns scenes when she speaks. Her character's story by itself could have been a main lead story. And while I hated the contrived, annoying and mostly useless existence of the Pei Zhen character, I have to give credit to Dai Xu for his performance, especially given the crappy writing involving his character.
The music, sets, wardrobe, cinemetography are all mostly top-notch production. The 'Scripted Murder Game' settings especially were often beautifully done. The one real low point in production quality was late in the series with the warehouse fire scene. That was just very poorly executed and so many aspects of that episode just did not make sense. Poorly written, poorly directed and cheaply implemented.
Aside with that one drop in production quality, my only real complaints are with regard to a couple of specifics with the script / plot. 90% of the time the script is fine and even fantastic. I especially like the dialog given to both Hu Xiu and Zhao Rou. As the top female characters they got consistently intelligent dialog that showcased the intelligence and emotional insight of the two characters. Way better than the dialog given to many other female leads in so many dramas. And for the most part they avoided plot-induced stupidity with either of these two characters so I really appreciated that. Where the script really stumbles is in the contrived character of Pei Zhen as the ML's step-brother. This character is almost completely meaningless to the plot and serves mainly as nothing more than a time-wasting annoyance. He's not even a half-brother to the ML so their sibling relationship is extremely tenuous and what little there is was marked mostly by abuse against the ML. Otherwise it is clear from the plot that ML mostly grew up completely separate of Pei. Yet the plot tries to imply that there should be a bond between them underneath all the misunderstandings. There isn't. Pei is simply an abused son who himself commits his own crimes and is, frankly not a sympathetic character other than for the abuse he does take from his father. The plot tries to make him seem sympathetic, but does not go anywhere near the real steps that need to be taken by him to become sympathetic: He needed to turn himself in, go to prison for his crimes and get counseling for his deep psychological problems - which persist all the way to his last scene. His 'unrequited love' for the FL is just mostly pathetic and childish. I mean, seriously? He's obsessing and fondling that old bandaid at the end? That is just so sad and pathetic. Not one step towards real character growth. Saying "I'm sorry" at the end is not meaningful. Especially when at the same time he still is looking longingly with his stupid sad puppy-dog expression like a 14-year old boy looking at the unattainable popular girl. He's emotionally still a child even at the very end. His character needs years of therapy.
The script for Pei Zhen's dialog tended to be the worst, most comic-book silly of all the characters. Especially in the scenes when he and the ML, Xiao Zhi Yu, would be pumping testosterone at each other. I'll give credit to Dai Xu for delivering well with what he had to work with. But really, this show could have been done better without the Pei Zhen character existing at all.
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How come I had never hear of this gem?
I stumbled upon this series by way of a random short segment showing up in my YouTube feed. Once I figured out the title of the series I found the full series of episodes on YouTube and started watching it. And it did not disappoint. This series is a classic hero-returns-from-presumed-dead-to-take-revenge story so the basic nature of the plot is not unique. However, the delivery of that plot is fantastic. Christy Guo is just so perfectly cast as the mesmerizing, mysterious vengeance-seeking Mo Wang / Quingchuan. Tall and with an ethereal beauty, she enters scenes with an almost supernatural aura. Her intensity of resolve is wielded like armor on top of unimaginable pain, both personal and social. As the story goes on to reveal more and more of what she was forced to endure by the selfish decisions of others, Guo's acting makes her rage becomes your rage. The rest of the cast is excellent. In particular, veteran actor Tian Miao, as the Empress Dowager delivers yet another fantastic performance. She steals scene after scene. I am not a huge fan of Zhour Zhan as the choice for the Male Lead, Xia Qiguang. To me, he simply looks too delicate and baby-faced to take seriously for a role like this one. It's a matter of taste, but I just think he's more of a 'SML' type of actor for me. That said, he did grow on me as the series progressed and he really, really delivered in a scene late in the series when Qiguang was breaking down and crying to Qingchuan. Beyond the excellent script and acting, another strong point of this series is length / editing / pacing. It is not a long series with only 18 episodes (fewer in some re-organized formats such as on YouTube). And there is no wasted screen time on 'plot filler' contrivances. Almost no minutes are wasted in this drama and it avoids most annoying gimmick that many dramas use just to fill out extra episodes. The concise story-telling that results from this is refreshing and captivating.Was this review helpful to you?
WAY better than I expected.
I watched this largely because I had seen Zhang Jing Yi in Legend of Zang Hai. But the synopsis made it seem like a pretty lightweight rom-com sort of drama so I wasn't expecting much. Boy was my expectation off. This was one of the better dramas I have watched recently and although not perfect, nailed all the most critical things I look for in a series.First the negatives: The makeup was .... not good at times. Kinda amateurish. Especially bad was the 'wound' on the face of the ML in the early episodes. And wounds in general were pretty poorly rendered. High school drama-club stuff. Also some of the 'special effects' - were a little weak - notably with the scenes on the ships out on the water. And while most of the costumes were great, at times they were a little flat and didn't feel authentic period.
Then the positives: Everything else. First off, the script is just excellent. This is a mature adult drama with human characters talking to each other like real humans. Especially the two leads. I can't say enough about how pleasant it was to have two leads who consistently talked to each other like adults. Who didn't hide things unnecessarily and create contrived, unnecessary drama between each other. Not that they didn't have secrets. But the ones they had were real and understandable and they didn't get in the way of their slowly growing romance between each other.. This was a couple that respected each other and always came through for each other. In addition, this script almost never resorted to awkward plot contrivances. They avoided stupid annoying love triangles and no memory losses or long, drawn out forced separations or betrayals caused by misinformation or really any of the usual soap-opera gimmicks. They did include a 'Secondary ML', but after establishing pretty firmly and quickly that he was not and never would be a romantic competitor for the ML, he was allowed to grow into a great supporting character.
One last thing to say about the script: Be prepared for some tears. Most of the tone of this show is positive. But when sad, emotional things happen, my god this show does not spare you. If you don't tear up on some of the emotionally tough scenes in this show then you are perhaps really a robot. The cast performances in these scenes is powerful. Perhaps the most moving scene was the scene when Hua Zhi lies on the bed next to her grandmother, played by the venerable Liu Jia. I won't spoil it, but man that scene had my eyes watering badly.
Gotta talk about the cast. Zhang Jing Yi just knocks it out of the park as a strong, brilliant and compassionate Hua Zhi - without having to be a physical martial arts princess (such as she was in Legend of Zang Hai). Instead of a physical fighter, she is mentally strong willed and determined and most of all, observant and brilliant. She solves problems creatively and consistently with awareness and compassion for everyone concerned. And her co-lead in all this, Hu Yi Tian as Gu Yan Xi , does a fantastic job of being an equal partner in this romance. He is, of course, a very different character being very much a physical killing machine at times. And he is constrained by his position to sometimes do things he would not choose to on his own. But it's very clear early on that he has true compassion and shares Hua Zhi's moral compass. His nature fits like perfect yin/yang complement to hers. The two 'get' each other immediately and have great chemistry that makes their near telepathic connection feel real.
The rest of the cast is loaded with veteran actors who you should recognize from other dramas. Too many to list off. This is a big cast. And I don't think anyone delivers a poor performance. Almost every supporting character has depth and complexity. Only a few of the external characters are 2-dimensional
Oh, also want to give a big nod to the fight choreographer. This is not a drama that is overly heavy with fight scenes. It is not the focus at all. But WHEN this drama has fight scenes, the choreography is absolutely top-notch. I especially like how they use a lot of empty-hands techniques. It isn't always flashy weapons being swung around.
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