redmists

Started off fine. Completely ruined by craptastic writing, mediocre characters and acting

I was looking forward to this drama - not with super high expectations - but as the teasers looked pretty and it was positioned as an empower female lead sort of drama, I was curious. It started off fine, for the first 5-6 eps. I wasn't hooked at all but still curious as to what could happen. I could overlook the amateur CGI stuff and the lame makeup/wig that mawang wore. That curiosity died in ep 8 though I carried on to 11 to see if there were surprises.

But this turns out to be literally one of the worst, if not THE worst drama I've seen in awhile. In a world with constant competition with streaming, Netflix etc, audiences are spoilt for choice. Studios/broadcasters are now tasked with putting out high quality content. So I'm surprised to see such a mediocre drama/writing being greenlighted by SBS. But well, looking at the comments on the page, I guess there's always an audience for such shows. People who aren't into very deep analysis of their dramas and are only watching to stan the "pretty" and ship people who have non-existent chemistry together :)

ANYHOO onto my thoughts proper:

1. Nothing makes sense in this drama. What was this writer even thinking? There are several different themes/threads running at the same time. Yet nothing was properly explained.

2. There isn't much progression each week with the audience being told the same things repeatedly with nothing being resolved. How on earth are characters talking about the same things that the audience already knew from eps ago?

3. No character arcs/growth. I actually wonder why any of the main 4 actors took this drama. Plot is a mess, but the character arcs for each were bad as well. Like Kim Yoo Jung’s HCG only existed to simp after Haram and paint and act like a silly Joseon candy. What female empowerment? Yet she had 2 guys simping after her - ridiculous. Gong Myung’s character was straight up annoying. And Kwak Siyang (criminally underused actor)’s villian was just a one-note dude that didn’t appear much anyway. Haram is - well, more on him later.

4. Very little chemistry amongst the cast and between the leads. I wonder if this is also due to the writing. cos I thought AHS and KYJ had some semblance of chemistry in the initial eps, but it disappeared suddenly. BTS – everyone seems awkward with each other, esp AHS who looked like so uncomfortable n awkward around KYJ lol. Yet ppl were stanning for this non-existent "chemistry". With these sort of standards, I probably have chemistry with my furniture too.

5. Really basic dialogue between characters. Dialogue is a tool to let the audience learn more about the characters themselves, to reveal thoughts, motivations etc and to give a sense of the dynamics between characters. But you have characters instead repeating things the audience already knows about and saying the most inane things which didn’t move the plot forward

6. Acting. None of the main 4 could elevate their acting above the bad writing. All the characters were one note, though I felt that Haram – if given to a different actor – could have been more complex, more nuanced and layered and more emotional.

6a. And I've never thought AHS to be a good actor, why is he being given lead roles? Just cause he's tall and "handsome"? SK loves giving roles to tall/"handsome" men who can't act and he's one of a dozen. He has no chemistry with ppl he acts with, always seems aloof, no emotional connection with his cast-mates in scenes and behind the scenes, no emotional connection with the audience - I never feel anything for his characters in all his dramas I've seen. He's so bad here! He just had the same usual facial expressions and rarely emoted. Come on, are blind people expressionless and stiff just cos they can't see?? PLUS it really bothered me whenever he seemed to know who/what to look at. Isn’t Haram blind as a bat?! Yet he could ride horses, fight with people (whilst looking at them etc). What even. This became blindingly obvious in the later eps. Also, I feel like I’ve not seen KYJ in a good role since MLDWC. Her saguek roles all seem to be the same. I used to like her as an actress in her younger days but her poor script/role choices are coming across like she's not got the acting range ppl think she does.

7. Too many flashbacks. This is the epitome of absolutely lazy writing and shows that the writer doesn't know what to do with the plot anymore except to insert a flashback. The worst was that peach picking flashback. Which another reviewer here termed it peachback 😂 saw it 6.1 million types as a very futile attempt by the production team to sell us their utterly unromantic non-existent romance.

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8. Romance. The non-existent romance. Lol. So.. 2 kids met each other ONCE x years ago, kissed (uhh), picked peaches ONCE and suddenly they are pining for each other for yearsssss on end. This DOES NOT happen in reality. And when they meet we are told it is supposed to be epic but like we got this dry ass romance in their adult years lol. Unrealistic childhood love trope needs to diee in k-dramas. At least getting them to meet and get to know each other all over again in adulthood would have made more sense. Also they kissed once suddenly in ep 6 - based off a memory - and then he pushed her away - like whattt? We are constantly told by the production they have this beeee-aauuuu-tifulll romance but we barely see any interactions, let alone romantic interactions between the leads. When they do interact, there are no feelings and they look like they strangers. HCG was also willing to put her life on a line for this dude and he suddenly gives her rings n tells her he loves her. LOL. Based off what dude? AHS & KYJ also have no chemistry so combined with their paltry "romantic" scenes tog, we got this non-existent love story. And yet people are stanning for this. lol.

Just utterly boring and what a let-down from the aesthetically pleasing teasers. It's no wonder SBS never bothered promoting the cast or this show. They probably saw everything that went down and was like yeah, this sucks LOL. The only redeeming thing was the OST which were beautiful.

Don't recommend re-watching or even watching this. Not even to my enemies.

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Disappointing

I started this drama thinking it was literally gonna show brocade's odyssey during the tang dynasty but there was way too much focus on the romance instead. The cast and the leads did what they could with what they got, but as a fan of TSY I gotta say this is the dullest role from her. The acting is great, it's just I never warmed up to her character here. I don't get her character's motivations much, what she wanted from all the men and whatever she was trying to do - I just wasn't invested. I'm not sure if it was the writing or editing. The chemistry between the leads was also lukewarm at best, not really romantic tbh. So whenever it came to their scenes I was bored to death. Also there are several parts where I was just rather disengaged.

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Surprisingly enjoyable

I was never on the double train when it first came out and so many people were raving about it. I tried watching it thrice and never quite got beyond the second ep for whatever reason. I just found Duke Su rather camp and the constant wind blowing from god knows where in every scene got to me. But one day my mum wanted to watch it, I accompanied her and the rest was history lol - we binged like close to 30 eps over 3 days. I'd have to say this turned out to be a very enjoyable ride, but it's not without its flaws

Pros:
- The acting from the cast is pretty good and it was what kept me going. Special nod to Li Meng (Princess Wan Ning) - absolutely unhinged lol, Joe Chen - I've never seen her this evil and scheming and Wang XY, what gorgeous costumes he had throughout the show and if I didn't look up his age I'd have thought he was 30. He has such gravitas and presence on screen for serious roles like that but can play up the theatrical side of Duke Su as well. Also his makeup etc here is the best I've seen him in
- Story is gripping and the pace is good enough, open loops get tied up at some point and I kept watching beause I just wanted to find out what happened next.
- Chemistry between the leads is good enough. There's rapport and they play off each other well. I wouldn't call it terribly romantic or sparky, but I just liked that they had each other's back throughout in some way.

Cons:
- There are some arcs that take really really long to close off. Jiang Li's entire family story is played over the first 10 or so episodes. Tbh this was what initially put me off the series, but if you are able to sit through all of that, it turns out quite ok. There's another arc with the Ye family and yet another with Xue Fang Fei's real family so it can get a bit tedious and annoying
- I didn' find Jiang Li/Xue Fang Fei to be the empowered woman that she was portrayed to be. Plenty of times, she managed to get something done or get away with something because of Duke Su's help. She'd have died a long time ago if not for him.
- Duke Su's role in the story, he was the real pawn lol. He was jsut there to further Jiang Li's story/intentions, alot of giving from him.
- I thought their relshp from allies to romance was abit too sudden for me. One moment shes all vengeful and all, then the next moment she's super soft and worrying about him out loud. I couldn't buy Wu Jinyan's portrayal in those scenes. This is a small point though.

On a whole, one of the best historical costume drama plots I've seen in awhile. C-dramas are rarely well-written and always fall apart somewhere, so I was surprised this didn't and was actually pretty intense and pacey. I had to take mental breaks in between to rest my mind haha

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Breezy watch but huge plot gap at the end, inconsistent acting

It took me three tries to pick this back up as i couldnt for the life of me get past episode 2 with its heavy dialogues and so many female characters in the zhong residence introduced then.

Anyway it's nice breezy watch, weirdly. I think it was because the plotlines and conflicts were focused and easy to follow. It was all about the FL dying and coming back again to do some things differently so the course of fate will be changed. The writing sticks to this very closely and i appreciate that as alot of cdramas cant dexide what they want and have poorly written middle arcs with tons of useless side plots.

However u are gonna get a huge shock of your life when you get to the last 3 episodes or so. Cos it literally means whatever u have been watching the past 25 episodes meant nothing lol. That was a massive letdown in my opinion and the writing completely fell apart around then too, with random cameos from different actors that made no sense to the plot and a very abrupt ending. Just a huge massive letdown. I was like whuttt did i just see.

Anyway there are 3 male leads and im only here for wxy, but he rarely appears for some reason. Although this is a yuzheng production and hes the main one in the poster. The other two have fully fleshed out stories and appear very often. However neither of them catch my attention and arent very outstanding in acting (esp the husband actor) so i ended up ff-ing alot of their scenes.

I also had no idea how zhou ye and wxy characters even fell for each other. It was so random and whatever. And he was chasing her all the time and she never showed interest. Head scratcher.

The acting is just inconsistent and not great. Wxy is not bad but his character wasnt fleshed out and he didnt have alot to work with. I feel he does well in charscters that are ambiguous and have an intense and ambiguous/not very pleasant side like zhong xiwu. Zhou ye wasnt outstanding though, she mostly had no expressions and i couldnt feel any emotions except in ep 1 and 30. Lol. The guard actor was fine and li yunrui was again outstanding. He always manages to stand out in side characters despite them not being great characters. The mu yao and the husband actors were the worst. Muyao only had one facial expression throughout.

The sets and costumes looked very low budget and cheap. The FL clothes always looked like they were recycled tablecloth. The men were also poorly styled with low quality looking garments and bad hair/makeup. Wxy didnt look good at all in this updo. But yu zheng productions always look and feel cheap for whatever reason

As this was a light watch with no tiresome revenge arcs and screeching characters, i see myself rewatching this in future often. Oddly. As i never rewatch cdramas. 30 ep is also manageable.

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Story was alright, Seeing Seo Ji Hye in a new light, awful second leads

What worked:
I started out really liking the premise and the buildup of the story. Like the slowburn romance between Hae Kyung and Do Hee and the concept of food as a healing "device" for people who were heartbroken/suffering in some way. I liked both Seo Ji Hye & Song Seung Heon. The former I was glad was getting out of her usual "cold, elegant" second lead sort of status, the latter was charming. Together I liked their chemistry. Lee Ji Hoon was also good here though I was thoroughly creeped out by Jaehyeok. Never been a fan of Na Eun's acting and disliked her and her character here.

What didn't work:
I didn't really enjoy the scenes of Do Hee at her office/interacting with her colleagues. I found I didn't care for any of them, found them noisy and just fast-forwarded all their scenes. And I absolutely disliked the way her boss kept pushing her to Jae Hyeok - despite Do Hee's protests and mentions of how uncomfortable she was - and how he'd just turn up randomly at her workplace. He was so stalkerish and so creepy to the point that I had to drop the drama when he broke into her house. That shit is not funny and was incredibly triggering. And instead of telling Haekyung that Jaehyeok broke into her house, she tells him that everything is okay. EYEROLL.

The pacing/editing also sometimes didn't quite work for me. I found it boring/slow at some parts and found the romance quite slow to start up.

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Meandering show that goes nowhere

I started off really like this show, the first 2 eps hit hard and made me cry alot, when something happens to a specific character.
The FL then takes a long trip to Yunnan and stays thre for awhile, the entire drama is just basically about her life in yunnan and the various characters' lives in Yunnan.

Yup. That's about it.

I went into this knowing this was a slice of life drama, but even in typical SOL dramas, something happens. Something usuallyhappens to th emain character to make them rethink life. Here? When that character passes on, I expect the FL to actually grief properly and that changes the whole outlook of her life etc. However, whatever happened in those first 2 chapters were never quite addressed again, and the rest of the drama goes on a completely different tangent. There was no huge conflict arcs - nada. Just nothing to look forward to. Ended up dropping this after taking 6 months to finish 13 episodes. I ff-ed to some of the later episodes - and it was the same-ish kinda tone - with small things happening to different characters, but I come off feeling like I didn't miss anything.

Some pros:
- Nice-ish scenery
- Good acting from most of the cast. I really like Damai's character and her story arc
- Every character has a "problem" in their life they needa solve
- Nice food scenes
- Promoted the yunnan food/culture sufficiently

Cons:
- This drama was wayyyy too long for something that had almost nothing happening. 25 episodes would have been enough
- Boring sets. Yunnan has amazing scenery but you barely see it here, the characters are just confined to the same old sets
- Boring music/OST - the same song plays over and over again for emotive scenes
- Too many characters. It's like an ensemble cast honestly. There are some characters i wasn't interested in, so the focus on their storylines bored me
- The romance was too slow burn and I felt that they should have stayed friends. Absolutely no chemistry between Li Xian and Liu Yifei that when they did get together, I couldn't buy it and didn't find it romantic
- LYF's acting is just meh. She goes around yunnan in perfectly-coiffed hair and thick makeup and red lipstick - seriously, woman. you are in yunnan on a supposed break, you can chill abit on the dressing up. She looked so out of place alongside other characters who were more naturally made-up. When I see things like that in the drama, where the lead is clearly dressed better than the other characters, it just shows me that the actor/production/both want to make the particular lead stand out. I get it, but do it via the storyline or the acting, and not the aesthetics please, it just looks so out of place. And yes back to her acting - she half-whispers most of her lines I have no idea why when everyone else is speaking at a normal tone, and has no emotions at all. I couldn't get into her character at all and Hongdou came off haughty/dismissive many times to different people. There were several scenes where she was thinking about her friend and it was obviously a sad scene, but there were no emotions on her face, nothing. It just takes me out.
- Li Xian is fine but I felt his acting here was abit forced. I've seen him in many other dramas and really enjoy his versatility

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Yanxi palace-lite with tired tropes

I say yanxi palace lite because the revenge arcs and plotting never get to the nasty level that yanxi does, and essentially it's the same tired story. Several women fighting amongst themselves over one man, with one particularly antagonistic one doing all sorts of evil things to get the attention of a man who never loved her.

And then misunderstanding after misunderstanding with the usual nasty bullying MIL. I played this drama in the background while i did stuff, never felt i missed anything. There is no true conflict just small conflict arcs filled with misunderstandings. With "sword" in the title i dont know why i half expected fight scenes lol but never happened. Lol

The acting of the leads are great though and hold down the story, was the reason i continued watching.

The costumes are unique with the stiff high collar and very pretty with gorgeous colours. The hair pieces the ladies wore were not too elaborate and very delicate and elegant.

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