sasharama

The start🗯️🗯️
After watching some modern Chinese drama I wanted to go back to my first love "chinese costume" drama and this looked like a perfect fit.
it looked like a dark, heavy military, political war drama...oh boy way I way off

Well, I guess I have to find something else to scratch that itch of mine.

This drama is not a "bad - bad drama". Believe me, after more than 200 shows I saw with my own eyes what "bad" looks like, on the other hand I also saw wayyyy better.

To sum it up with a few words: this drama is a nice collage of many other dramas without their more heavy emotional sides.

Did I feel bored? sometimes
Did I feel excited? Not even once.
Did a share I tear? A laugh? Certainly not.
Nice to watch but devoided of emotions.

SHOULD YOU WATCH IT? If you don't really care about expectations and just wanna see a nice story , sure go ahead. Especially if you like the genre

If you are looking for excitement? Look somewhere else.
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I'll give you my opinion and only if you feel brave enough I invite you to read my rant🤣
The review section is the only place I can talk about these things.

...OK LETS START😁😁😁😁
I know I'll be pedantic but the more I watched the drama the more disengaged I became. I don't care about "fantastical" dramas. I'm fine with fighting scene that don't makes sense, but inconsistency with plot , logic and characters make me side eye a drama.

Drama🗯️🗯️
FL:(actress)
I saw her before in "back from the brink" and tbh I wasn't impressed. In this drama I think she did a bit better but her acting is "emotionless". I guess that's her style of acting.

FL: (character)
I like her strength, resilience and determination. Also her sweet side is enjoyable but I also find her to be dumb and unrealistic. ( RANT BEGINS 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻)

The setting reminds me of Mulan. A group of antagonistic comrades that become besties after sharing the danger, The bathing in disguise etc, even though I feel Mulan was more realistic. She was risking getting caught left and right, our FL is always safe. We don't see her struggle to conceive her identity. Menstruation? Chest binding? Toilet? Washing? They skip all of it.

When the FL gets replaced by her brother nobody is suspicious. Really? You don't see a difference in height? Voice? Size? The general appears with. No mask after a whole life hiding his face. No questions asked?
They could have chosen a more androgynous actora as her brother.
Putting appearance aside, how will their skill looked compared to one another? She won countless battles, he probably trained by himself.

Her character is supposed to be a simple soldier but she talks to her general like it's her sugar daddy. That's insane. You wouldn't talk to your general like that especially when they not close yet.

She keeps revealing her identity left and right never being too cautios. I don't get it. If the word of a female general gets out, sooner or later your brother will hear about it. Aren't you worried ?

I also find it weird that she never thinks about the fact that the general believe she basically killed his Father.

ML:
(Actor) I find him quite good. I just saw his works in "how dare you" and he does a pretty solid job in these costume dramas. No complaints.

(Characters) I feel compared to the FL character he makes more sense and is more linear.


Other characters:🗯️🗯️
The actors ( like them all, they all professionals).

Characters:
I feel no emotional connection to the characters. We are supposed to care about these people and even cry about their death but I didn't feel anything. The shifu, other soldiers, the princess , the school mates... I feel we didn't have enough interactions on screen to really care.

OBSERVATIONS WHILE WATCHING 🗯️🗯️
A weird combination of emotions. In one scene the FL is hurt and hugging a dead wolf and she immediately starts talking about love and valentine. What?😅 And tha6t not the only time they force "serious" speeches in the most insane moments.

The drama itself feels like a collage of previous shows. I could even pinpoint what specific scene was from where.

There is a lot of romance subplot we don't care about. The Chifu love story with the princess, their old classmate with the dancer, chu with the prime Mister daughter...


Fight scenes🗯️🗯️
pretty unrealistic but that's a perk of this specific genre.

Inconsistency 🗯️🗯️
I am at episode 22 and I don't even know what these people want.

Ok the ml wants his father's reputation to be restored but about the FL? She never talks about killing her brother or punishing her family. She just want to be a general. Ok, what does it mean? You want to go back to the capital? Work for the emperor?

The prime minister also has no clear direction. He wants every general to be gone but it seems he doesn't have anyone to replace them. I don't even know why he wants that. They never show us the emperor court. We don't know about any power plays except for the prime minister.
He s also colluded with a foreign country.🤷🏻

The prime minister pupil knows his master is a corrupted individual but he's willing to help him any way only second guessing his master when the prime minister "goes too far".

The Chifu dies in a very stupid way. He basically found out where the rebels came from and he didn't call anyone to help him. He fights dozens of warrior and dies.

We never see what is happening in the capital.

Ep 23. Too convenient girl that you start investigating after the general found out about your identity. Shouldn't you have started as soon as you left the temple?

Ep 23. I knew it!! Her brother heard about a female general!!!!

Cheese factor🗯️🗯️
Some scenes are so cheese.

After a battle the FL falls into a puddle of water deep 2 cm at best and they show us a scene where she is basically drowning 🤣🤣after ml saves her the camera shows us the most shallow water ever.

Ml asking the princess to keep fl identity a secret is hilarious. She s been going left and right talking about feminism. Everyone knows her face and these are wealthy people well connected to other officials and Nobles. Word will spread pretty fast.

The Xiao General revenge was so dumm. You send kids to die ever single day . Your son dying is a trap?


I just finished episode 22 and I m fine stopping here.
There is nothing holding me in place. Maybe I'll come back later...but I feel I am not missing out on anything exciting.