It's such a tired, over-used plot device where C-Dramas spend all this screen time giving us the maudlin, sad sob-story history behind some psychopathic unrequited love interest, as if to make us feel sorry for him (or her). I absolutely hate this trope because it is so disingenuous. In almost every case whatever trauma they have endured is nothing compared to that which millions of others have endured and yet THEY didn't turn into obsessed psychopaths. So it completely fails as an excuse for their behavior. And even in the (rare) c-drama cases where the character goes through redemption and turns into someone who isn't a villain and maybe even helpful, it's just not that interesting because we _know_ that this character is NOT going to end up with the lead and so it all feels like a giant waste of screen time. Love triangles in general are almost always nothing but a plot drag. All that said, Jeremy Xu is doing a masterful job of playing a creep. He's being so good at this role in this show that I think I need to go watch one of his dramas again where he played a sincerely good guy just to wash this icky feeling away. Time to rewatch Legend of the Phoenix.
Was this review helpful to you?
Man did his presence just drop a load of fun into the show! Really love his protective attitude. And the interactions between he and Hua Yong as dad sizes up his prospective son-in-law skeptically are just golden! On the subject of fathers, this episode also gives strong hints that maybe things aren't as we were first told with respect to Hua Yong's father.
Was this review helpful to you?
Most of the basic exposition is in place and as far as the romance storyline, we are set with the basic conflict as follows: Shen Xi He is (understandably) emotionally guarded to the extreme due to her traumatic experiences. In her past life she watched her family get caught up in evil palace politics to the point where even though she sacrificed herself to loveless forced marriage to the psycho 5th Prince, still watched them all get slaughtered and then only managed to get revenge on the Fan family (but not her husband) by committing suicide. And then she came back to life in the body of a girl, Shen Xi Hi, who had just been murdered! So she is understandably very reserved and cautious and has sworn off getting remotely close to fooled by love or married to someone who could do to her family what 5th Prince did. Fine. So this is the wall that the already love-struck Xiao Hua Yong has to overcome. So what has to happen is Xi He has to eventually heal enough from her trauma to be able to open up emotionally again. We still have 21 episodes to go so I think it may take a while. Oh, and we need a cure for Hua Yong's poison while we are at it. That also probably won't happen right away.
Was this review helpful to you?
We get Xi He trapped in a fire by assassins (who weren't actually after her!) and rescued by The Boy Idiot, Prince Lie. We get a steamy yet also frosty interacting between Hua Yong and Xi He. We get a tense face off between Hua Yong and the two Rong Princes. Then we get a whole SML & SFL side quest started as Bu Shu Lin and Cui Jin Bai both go on undercover missions on the same case. And their convergence naturally brings Xi He and Hua Yong into convergence as well. The only dumb glitch in the episode is the bizarre leap to conclusion that 5th Prince makes that ML & FL are having relationship issues. That extreme jump to a conclusion is almost as bad as the earlier one he made about his dead wife coming back to life as Xi He. Regardless of whether he's "correct", there is just no way he should be making these conclusions. It's absolute plot contrived silliness.
Was this review helpful to you?
Any experienced c-drama watcher would expect a downturn about now and the writers have delivered, with finally revealing to Xi He that Hua Yong is the "Tagara Incense". Given her past life experience of being forced into a loveless marriage to a man that ultimately wiped out her whole family, her subsequent suicide and then being reborn as a woman who was just murdered due to court schemes, she just does not want a part of any marriage where she is the weaker party. Plus she's probably a bit angry at being deceived. However, one has to hope that she will ultimately come to the realization that even though CP's capabilities are far more terrifying than she had realized, he is still her safest bet. Might take an episode or two. Or three. Hopefully not too many.
Was this review helpful to you?
Most importantly, we have Xiao Hua Yong winning the good side of Brother-in-Law Shen and then the approval of the marriage by the Emperor. We also get a clearly drawn line of rejection by Shen Xi He between her and the psychopath 5th Prince. Ignoring some of the harmlessly silly aspects (the crazy use of cats again and again!) the only negative is the show at the moment is spending too much screen time dwelling on the emotional background and state of the psychopath. A lot of shows go wrong when the devote too much screen time to such characters as if to build some sort of empathy for their sorry, pathetic existence. This is a mistake because frankly, not only do most viewers not care about the back story of such sickos, we usually find it just a time-wasting drag and annoying. We just need enough info to know that the guy is sick and deluded. More than that is not useful and not entertaining. Screen time is almost always better spent on the two leads. So I hope the show doesn't waste too much screen time on the psycho going forward. We don't need any more evidence he's delusional - we know already - nor do we need a bunch of sad-sack sob-story showing how something in his childhood led him to his sorry state. He killed the entire Gu family and tried to keep Gu Qing Zhi as a trophy possession. No way we are ever going to feel sorry for him.
Was this review helpful to you?
When Psycho 5th Prince's man reports that Shen Xi He fell in the river, the fact that the guy adds the astrological details is just silly and stupid. Then, the fact that Psycho 5th jumps to the conclusion that this means his wife has magically been reborn is just beyond silly and stupid. It truly makes nonsense whatsoever. Oh well. We get it, because it's part of the plot. But it was just ... silly. And no more silly than, of course, another main-character-falls-off-a-cliff event that we know they will survive. This show definitely has to be taken with tongue firmly in cheek! Little things like the piece of red cloth that only the color-blind CP noticed - not all the other search parties! And then, all these events just happen to take place near the special secret path that ONLY the former Gu Qing Zhi would know ... so silly! Oh well.
Was this review helpful to you?
because this episode got rid of most all remaining 'misunderstandings' and just let characters be normal characters. The only cringe part is the contrived 'business leadership crisis' near the end that is obviously to setup the main conflict for the final episode. It's silly and the two instigators are like bad cartoon characters but it's such a minor part of the episode that it doesn't outweigh all the good stuff in the rest of the episode. I know some commenters just do not like Shuyi's character and complain about her behavior towards Shi Yan in these late episodes. Because she's supposed to be this elite journalist but acts silly and cutesy and spoiled with Shi Yan. But they forget that she figured out long ago, in the very early episodes, that he liked when she acted outrageous, cute and silly. So their play-fighting and her ditzy cute act are all part of their flirting with each other. You don't have to like it. But it's consistent with what the characters established early on.
Was this review helpful to you?
So in terms of character behavior, this episode was far, far better as all the main characters acted like normal human beings for a change. We even got some refreshingly open & honest talk between the leads. Still, this writer just couldn't resist inserting some more 'misunderstanding' stuff in, though this time it is in (a) the relatively harmless forms of Shi Yan not yet revealing who is sister is to Shuyi and (b) the more harmful form of vicious office gossip about Shuyi's mysterious 'boyfriend'. The latter is kinda stupid though, because there are so many scenes of Shuyi getting into Shi Yan's car with him out in front of Financial Introduce's office building that it makes no sense that her colleague's wouldn't have seen and know that Shi Yan is her boyfriend. But the writer wanted to make one last Yuling-is-a-schemer subplot and only knows how to make plots involving misunderstandings & misinformation so whatever.
Was this review helpful to you?
Out of all the characters in this bizarrely written drama, she's the only one with an ounce of social/emotional intelligence. She's not always correct because she's both young and sometimes not aware of all the information. But most of the time she's the only one with any common sense on relationship matters - both her own and also for others. The rest of the characters are written to be bizarre and mostly completely lacking mature social & emotional development.
Was this review helpful to you?
Shi Yan blocked pretty much every way for Shuyi to talk to him ... and then acts all hurt and upset that she doesn't talk to him? Shuyi finally gets the courage to go try to confront Shi Yan face-to-face ... but out of the blue the writers introduce a random new character - a young girl - and Shuyi sees him walking out with her so of course, we get YET ANOTHER MISUNDERSTANDING. Then, when she finally gets a chance to see him as part of her job ... he gets mad at her for trying to do her job and kicks her out? I'm sorry, but the character of Shi Yan that this writer has created is a FEAKING LOON. How are we, the viewers, supposed to empathize and support this character? Yeah, yeah, the writer will magically transform him into a likable guy again in a couple of episodes. But in the meantime this is all just stupid.
Was this review helpful to you?
and that makes this episode move along much better without getting too infuriated at the utter bizarre annoyance that his character brings. Seriously, in this episode not only does he encourage Shuyi to get drunk - while she is clearly suffering depression - he then also leads her to climb a tree while she's drunk! This stunt is so incredibly dangerous that if I was Shi Yan, after getting Shuyi safely down, I would have wanted to soundly pummel Yi Yang's face in. But that's just me.
Was this review helpful to you?
The aftermath is depressing, of course, as Shuyi is completely depressed and Shi Yan is angry and depressed. And then the writer - very predictably - starts injecting creepy Yi Yang into Shuyi's life in the most artificial and contrived way possible. My advice is to just start skipping scenes whenever Yi Yang is on screen. We know she will never end up with him no matter how much screen time the show gives him. Skipping all his scenes will move the story faster and avoid getting as annoyed while watching.
Was this review helpful to you?
And finally getting the truth revealed about uncles and nieces. But then the subsequent thinking and behavior by Shuyi is just maddeningly stupid and contrived. Her character makes no sense and it feels like the writer must have been drunk or stoned out of her mind when she wrote this. It seems like this script writer feels like you have to have lies or confusion or some sort of 'misunderstanding' in play constantly in order to have romantic tension? Because she keeps leaning into that trope to the point where it's just ridiculous. She further digs in deep with this trope by having Shi Yan get snippets of misleading information from Shiyue. So he probably won't even give Shuyi a chance to finally come clean and confess. This will bury them into a deep hole of 'misunderstanding' now, with 10 episodes to go, from which they have to climb out of. I don't mind that the writer has created a conflict to overcome over the last 10 episodes. That's sort of predictable for drama shows. But, again, just to repeatedly rely on this same stupid drama trope again and again is just so one-trick-pony and annoying.
Was this review helpful to you?
This strange drama world where over half the characters are hiding either who they are (such as ShiYue hiding that she is Shi Yan's niece) or hiding their relationship with some other character (most of all the other characters) is just so tired and exhausting and it shows up as pure stupid in the moment when Shu Yi walks into the conference and all three of Shi Yan, Yu You and Yi Yang surround her and want her to sit with them. It's supposed to be funny, I guess? Someone somewhere on the planet thinks it's hilarious? Mostly it just feels exhausting and boring as the same plot conflicts get rehashed again and again.
Was this review helpful to you?
