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Terrible wigs, beautiful people | The duality of mini-dramas
If you can ignore the wigs and focus on the pretty faces, you’ve got a decent chance of enjoying this series.
Episode 1 kicks off with a wild, toxic, over-the-top dramatic sequence, wherein the ML demonstrates the tyrannical power he wields over the FL, his royal consort. She reincarnates, practically screaming with rage, and vows that she will pay back all the pain he’s caused her tenfold.
However, if you’re looking for a proper time regression revenge plot drama, look elsewhere. All the bite of the original premise fizzles out quickly.
To summarize their dynamic early on, imagine this:
You’re trying to get revenge on this guy you hate, so you bring him into your household as your servant. You treat him worse than the dirt under your foot—beating him up, ordering him around, literally walking all over him. But somehow he doesn’t seem cowed. With growing horror, it begins to dawn on you: he’s into it. Now, what to do with the kinky snake you’ve accidentally let into your house?
I’m a sucker for a stabby, mean, wrathful heroine. Tower of Whispers starts off strong in that respect, but the revenge plot loses its way quickly and the heroine loses all her fighting spirit as soon as she falls in love. No payoff, little to no consequences for his actions. Before we even hit the halfway point, the drama has shifted its focus to the ML, making him the main character for the remainder of the story.
It’s doubly disappointing because they actually wrote the leads with the opportunity for complexity. Their dynamic could have grown into something complicated, messy, and laden with toxic history, but the writers simply didn’t take advantage and expand what was already there, past the first few episodes.
Oh well. It was nice while it lasted.
He Lan Dou — for all the shortcomings of her character, I blame the writing team, not the actress. HLD delivered a strong performance of the script she was given. Particularly her anger and grief were believable. I loved to see her seething with cold rage in the early episodes.
Jerome Deng — I’ve seen him before in another mini-drama. His acting has improved, though he still doesn’t reach far beyond the range of the stoic action hero archetype. He’s very pretty, though, so there’s that. Not even the terrible wig could hide that.
Supporting Characters — Sang Li, the ML’s right hand, was my favorite character by far. Here, at least, we have an unapologetically mean, scheming woman who uses men to her own benefit and looks crazy hot doing it. Every scene with her was a joy to watch. I’ll be following the actress’s work from now on.
-- Overall --
A romance with some kinky appeal that could have been so much more than just entertaining, but fell flat in the plot dimension.
Episode 1 kicks off with a wild, toxic, over-the-top dramatic sequence, wherein the ML demonstrates the tyrannical power he wields over the FL, his royal consort. She reincarnates, practically screaming with rage, and vows that she will pay back all the pain he’s caused her tenfold.
However, if you’re looking for a proper time regression revenge plot drama, look elsewhere. All the bite of the original premise fizzles out quickly.
To summarize their dynamic early on, imagine this:
You’re trying to get revenge on this guy you hate, so you bring him into your household as your servant. You treat him worse than the dirt under your foot—beating him up, ordering him around, literally walking all over him. But somehow he doesn’t seem cowed. With growing horror, it begins to dawn on you: he’s into it. Now, what to do with the kinky snake you’ve accidentally let into your house?
I’m a sucker for a stabby, mean, wrathful heroine. Tower of Whispers starts off strong in that respect, but the revenge plot loses its way quickly and the heroine loses all her fighting spirit as soon as she falls in love. No payoff, little to no consequences for his actions. Before we even hit the halfway point, the drama has shifted its focus to the ML, making him the main character for the remainder of the story.
It’s doubly disappointing because they actually wrote the leads with the opportunity for complexity. Their dynamic could have grown into something complicated, messy, and laden with toxic history, but the writers simply didn’t take advantage and expand what was already there, past the first few episodes.
Oh well. It was nice while it lasted.
He Lan Dou — for all the shortcomings of her character, I blame the writing team, not the actress. HLD delivered a strong performance of the script she was given. Particularly her anger and grief were believable. I loved to see her seething with cold rage in the early episodes.
Jerome Deng — I’ve seen him before in another mini-drama. His acting has improved, though he still doesn’t reach far beyond the range of the stoic action hero archetype. He’s very pretty, though, so there’s that. Not even the terrible wig could hide that.
Supporting Characters — Sang Li, the ML’s right hand, was my favorite character by far. Here, at least, we have an unapologetically mean, scheming woman who uses men to her own benefit and looks crazy hot doing it. Every scene with her was a joy to watch. I’ll be following the actress’s work from now on.
-- Overall --
A romance with some kinky appeal that could have been so much more than just entertaining, but fell flat in the plot dimension.
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