This review may contain spoilers
Honestly frustrating
My first review so it may not be great, but I had to do it for this series seeing as I am an outlier. Just a little context, I only started watching this because it was a tragedy and a historical piece. Initially I only got about 1.5 episodes in before I dropped it. I wondered if that was fair so after having a small discussion with someone I gave it a another shot.Story: I do in general like this premise of the show, but I found it difficult to stay invested in anything . Now this is just my personal opinion, but good Lord is Xiaofeng annoying. There are genuine times when her actions directly cause harm to other people, despite her not being malicious I cannot ignore the ignorance in many of her choices. This is not the first period drama I've seen with a young, naive protagonist, so why does she only get the "they are young" pass when the others didn't? There were also many inconsistencies that I just couldn't forget. Almost every episode I found something that was either just nonsensical or conflicted with an already established fact/plot point. It also suffers from characters constantly keeping important information from other characters for no logical reason, especially near the end. The ending, in general was fine to me. This was never a story that was going to have a happy ending, and honestly I didn't want it to as it wouldn't make any sense. I do think ALL of Li Chengyin's motives fall flat in the end seeing based on where most people stand by the end of the series. I understood him in a sense, but most people just end up hating him.
Acting/cast: There was honestly only one character who I felt was a bad actor and it was the one guy who died with Heshi. I think he was one of Xiaofeng's brothers or cousin. Everyone else did really well in my opinion. I don't believe I've seen any of the actors or actresses in anything else so I can't compare to previous roles. I do know some of the main characters were young when they did these roles and I think that is commendable.
Music: The OST was almost perfect, especially the second opening and the ending song. The only thing I would have changed is to not use the exact same version of the ending song as an insert song as it always confused me and I thought the episode was over.
Rewatch Value: There isn't much rewatch value here unless either you like pain or you want to see the subtlety in Li Chengyin's actions early on.
Overall: As I stated in my title, this was one of if not the most frustrating series I have ever watched. I will admit that I nitpicked the heck out of it, but it was because there was a good overall plot here, unfortunately it felt really fumbled for me. Marred by bad character writing and inconsistencies that where just too much for me to ignore. I will say if you like costumes dramas then this a 9/10 in that department. Everyone was always dressed to the nines and all were gorgeous.
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