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This review may contain spoilers
A Phenomenal Case By Case Historical Mystery Drama With Amazing Cast!
Coroner's Diary is the dark horse of 2025 Historical Mystery cdrama! But WARNING: It has GORE, LOT'S OF BLOOD, AND CORPSES. Don't watch it if you are squeamish.
Honestly, it has everything you'd want in a historical drama, or at least for me. There was no dark holes in acting, the cases were very intriguing as the episodes went by. The story line and how it ties up at the end was quite satisfy and it really resonates with what the main leads believe in.
I have definitely seen both Ao Rui Peng and LI Land Di's dramas before. I must say Ao Rui Peng has been rising on my list of favorite "new" actors to look forward to.
Ao Rui Peng plays the Prince Rui aka Yan Chi. He is the young Marshal of the Shuoxi Army, and known to have one of the best martial arts in the army. Yan Chi is a protective, loyal, and extremely help green flag of a man. He cares about justice and the people around him! ARP gave the martial arts choreography immense justice, every move he made was extremely fun and satisfying to watch! His acting is also amazing! I loved his expression, the subtle and micro expressions - this is always a A+ actor in my book! Although in the beginning I feel like when looks at Li Landi aka Wan Er, he would give her like big puppy eyes look, but it also cause he has big round eyes. Eventually that would go away and I wasn't noticing it as much. lol Overall, his acting is great! I especially loved the part when he did the execution of a certain character, you could feel the anger emanating from him, the power when he swings his sword around. It was a chef's kiss moment!
Li Landi plays the female lead, Qin Wan/Shen Wan. She is a very intelligent, observant, caring, and compassionate female lead. Although she wanted to find justice forher father, she knew she had to rise up the ranks through skills alone. She is probably the female lead with the most job: detective, doctor, and coroner! With all these skills, she helped Yan Chi solve multiple cases, and she the vital character in solving the main case at the end of the drama. She does not let antagonists step on her, and will fight back if needed. However, she is quite forgiving, and seriously she should've thrown that one character for always being a b*tch. lol I've always been a fan of Li Landi, she is a very natural actress, so there's really nothing bad to say about it. I think I've seen many of her dramas that I cannot pinpoint which scene was very powerful in this drama as she's pretty embodies the power with her words alone.
Notoable mentions would be the Emperor played by Ren Zhong. I initially thought Ren Zhong was not a good actor because you can tell somethign was off about him the moment appeared. It felt like he was fake "acting" when it reality there is something much more sinister about his character. Eventually his true colors showed, and the plot twist of this drama surprised me. I don't think I ever heard of twin Emperors in any cdrama that I have watched and I have watched a TON. It makes the story quite unique aside from dissecting corpses.
Shen Yu Jie plays Princess Yongning - I was waiting for the moment when she betrays Wan Er but nope, she's a girls' girl, best friends for life! She always have Wan Er's back and will protect her to the best of her abilities, second to Yan Chi. I love her loyalty to Wan Er! Her acting was very natural as well! She's definitely one of my fav characters of the drama
The production team behind Coroner's Diary also need a round of applause because I was very surprised by the way they filmed and edit certain scenes. For example, the transition between three characters while a fourth character was being executed- It gave me GOOSE BUMPS! I just loved the way they edit that part. The point of views when it comes to certain scenes that need the power dynamic was very, very nice to watch as well. The corpse and organs looked quite realistic adding to the the goriness of this drama. It's definitely not for the faint of heart!
Would I recommend this drama? Definitely yes, if you can handle gore.
If you enjoy watching historical, mystery, intelligent characters, martial arts, closely knit circle of friends and family then this is definitely a drama for you!
Honestly, it has everything you'd want in a historical drama, or at least for me. There was no dark holes in acting, the cases were very intriguing as the episodes went by. The story line and how it ties up at the end was quite satisfy and it really resonates with what the main leads believe in.
I have definitely seen both Ao Rui Peng and LI Land Di's dramas before. I must say Ao Rui Peng has been rising on my list of favorite "new" actors to look forward to.
Ao Rui Peng plays the Prince Rui aka Yan Chi. He is the young Marshal of the Shuoxi Army, and known to have one of the best martial arts in the army. Yan Chi is a protective, loyal, and extremely help green flag of a man. He cares about justice and the people around him! ARP gave the martial arts choreography immense justice, every move he made was extremely fun and satisfying to watch! His acting is also amazing! I loved his expression, the subtle and micro expressions - this is always a A+ actor in my book! Although in the beginning I feel like when looks at Li Landi aka Wan Er, he would give her like big puppy eyes look, but it also cause he has big round eyes. Eventually that would go away and I wasn't noticing it as much. lol Overall, his acting is great! I especially loved the part when he did the execution of a certain character, you could feel the anger emanating from him, the power when he swings his sword around. It was a chef's kiss moment!
Li Landi plays the female lead, Qin Wan/Shen Wan. She is a very intelligent, observant, caring, and compassionate female lead. Although she wanted to find justice forher father, she knew she had to rise up the ranks through skills alone. She is probably the female lead with the most job: detective, doctor, and coroner! With all these skills, she helped Yan Chi solve multiple cases, and she the vital character in solving the main case at the end of the drama. She does not let antagonists step on her, and will fight back if needed. However, she is quite forgiving, and seriously she should've thrown that one character for always being a b*tch. lol I've always been a fan of Li Landi, she is a very natural actress, so there's really nothing bad to say about it. I think I've seen many of her dramas that I cannot pinpoint which scene was very powerful in this drama as she's pretty embodies the power with her words alone.
Notoable mentions would be the Emperor played by Ren Zhong. I initially thought Ren Zhong was not a good actor because you can tell somethign was off about him the moment appeared. It felt like he was fake "acting" when it reality there is something much more sinister about his character. Eventually his true colors showed, and the plot twist of this drama surprised me. I don't think I ever heard of twin Emperors in any cdrama that I have watched and I have watched a TON. It makes the story quite unique aside from dissecting corpses.
Shen Yu Jie plays Princess Yongning - I was waiting for the moment when she betrays Wan Er but nope, she's a girls' girl, best friends for life! She always have Wan Er's back and will protect her to the best of her abilities, second to Yan Chi. I love her loyalty to Wan Er! Her acting was very natural as well! She's definitely one of my fav characters of the drama
The production team behind Coroner's Diary also need a round of applause because I was very surprised by the way they filmed and edit certain scenes. For example, the transition between three characters while a fourth character was being executed- It gave me GOOSE BUMPS! I just loved the way they edit that part. The point of views when it comes to certain scenes that need the power dynamic was very, very nice to watch as well. The corpse and organs looked quite realistic adding to the the goriness of this drama. It's definitely not for the faint of heart!
Would I recommend this drama? Definitely yes, if you can handle gore.
If you enjoy watching historical, mystery, intelligent characters, martial arts, closely knit circle of friends and family then this is definitely a drama for you!
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