shiawasenohikari

Thanks! I will look into it. It would require a bit of re-writing I think. I wish I could pin it, hehe...

PREACH!!! Even in the penultimate episode, we had to suffer through Zhao Chun's nonsense. 😒

Whatever made Mr. E-den dress up like Liberace?! 🤣

Thank you for the correction. My bad, I assumed that Zhao Che and Chun'er shared the same mother. Tbh, what happened to Chun'er was devastating but not every victim goes around making the lives of innocent people a living hell. If anything, many such persons become even more empathetic to the plight of others since they themselves have been to hell and back. No matter what happened to her, she was vicious to people who didn't deserve it and that is quite telling and reeks of condescension. Also, no woman with an iota of self-respect would be obsess over a man who basically used and humiliated her. In all honesty, I don't blame Yan Xun at all for ditching his wedding. I am unable to empathise with Chun'er or her actions.

Thank you so much! No, I haven't written a review. Tbh, I have never ever written one. In my opinion, the discourse about the drama here is too one-sided. I wanted to treat this drama as its own entity and pen down my thoughts on the off chance that my opinions about the drama may aid someone else with similar tastes in deciding whether to give this drama a fair chance or not.

Thank you for your kind words! 🥰 Glad to know there are a few others like me. To be frank, I wrote down my thoughts because I felt that some of the negativity here in this comment section is a bit unwarranted and seems to be driven by factors not strictly pertaining to the drama itself. I got a bit carried away and rambled a bit. Not sure my thoughts qualify as a review which ought to be well structured, spoiler free and organised.

Disclaimer: These are my thoughts and opinions. I appreciate the fact that there would be many who think otherwise. Their opinions and experience while watching this drama are just as valid as mine. A world where everyone has the exact same opinion would be nothing but an echo chamber and make things boring. Let's keep the discussion civil, people. 😊

I am very aware that I belong to the tiny minority who actually anticipated the release of new episodes daily. I certainly don't regret watching this drama, and would certainly be re-watching my favorite bits in the future. Having said that, this drama is not without its flaws. However, its flaws, in my opinion, are not as huge as they are made out to be. In hindsight, the makers marketed the drama in the worst possible way. Rather than marketing it as a reiteration of the earlier show Princess Agents with a slew of new actors playing already established characters loved by fans all around the world, they ought to have branded it as a loose adaptation of the novel. I feel this show is best watched as a stand alone story of a few kingdoms that are at a constant state of war with each other and a lone woman's struggle to eradicate inequality and slavery with the help of like minded friends/partners and the consequences thereafter of trying to make this vision a reality. In addition, Lord do I wish the director will end his long standing love affair with lingering zoom ins on characters' faces as the actors look straight into the camera. The first few times were a choice but as the series progressed these zoom ins drove me to distraction and took me out of the story a couple of times. Also, there needs to be a certain level of finesse and seamlessness when you choose to incorporate actors lip syncing to songs. Sadly, the director of this drama doesn't have any clue as to how it should be done. This director does quite a few things right, yet the things he does wrong are soooo wroooong that they end up messing up the things that he has done right. 😑 Having said that, I would like to draw attention to the couple of things that this drama has done right. The fight/battle scenes are really well done. Given how many characters ride on horses, fight with heavy weapons, or travel under the open skies with dust flying around, the effort to show that there would be some grime on everyone from their faces down to their hands with dirt under their nails needs to be applauded. Additionally, the cinematography feels expansive and very lived in. The panoramic shots (which look very real and for all I know are real locations) are breathtakingly beautiful and draw the viewers' focus to the sweeping scale of the story that the drama is narrating. I liked the cold opens of the episodes as well. I also really liked the OST which had a haunting, melancholic feel and helped enrich the scenes. I especially loved the portrayal of platonic men and women partnerships/friendships in the drama; a few of which developed into something more as the drama continued. Also, my heartbreak was real as my favourite supporting characters got killed one after another.

Coming to the characters, my opinion is that they were not allowed as much space to evolve as they needed for justifying a drama of this scale. Moving on, I'd like to discuss the casting of HTT as Chu Qiao. In my mind, there are a few actresses (especially one actress in particular) who I know would have done a fabulous job playing Chu Qiao but then they are highly underrated for a reason. 🙈 I'd argue that rather than being miscast, HTT was prematurely cast. Some scenes require a certain level of maturity that can only come from either having to grow up too fast due to real life circumstances (I naively hope that no child is forced to grow up way too quickly) or from being an adult, fully exposed to the big, wide world. Her being a teenager during filming obviously came in the way of her fully embodying the complexity of Chu Qiao. She does have immense potential. Despite her tiny stature she looks very believable when she executes fight scenes which I have seen other actresses struggle with. Give her a few more years and I am sure she would be a pretty solid actress. I also suspect that her moments of her blankly staring into the camera were directorial choices rather than a result of her limited acting skills.

Even though Chu Qiao's character design in the drama wasn't the best, yet, I did enjoy watching her. We have to keep in mind that Chu Qiao has had to fight long and hard every step of the way to protect her agency which is why even with Zhuge Yue having to rescue her time and again, I don't see her as a damsel in distress. She was always backed into a corner, having to deal with some really impossible odds.

Yearning in cinema is a lost art and I feel that LYR is one of the few actors in the Chinese idol drama realm who portray yearning and longing really well. Sometimes the most effective romance is where you just somehow know that two characters deeply care for one another without them ever being shown to be physically intimate. I, for one, don't really mind the absence of intimacy as long as the drama manages to make me root for a couple without having to hammer it in. I have come across dramas with truckloads of intimacy yet they failed to convince me of the pairing's chemistry. Go figure. 🤨 So, for me, the lack of intimacy isn't equivalent to the lack of chemistry. However, had Chu Qiao been portrayed by an adult, I do think the presentation of the quiet moments of togetherness between Zhuge Yue and Chu Qiao would have been way more effective. To be honest, in some of the earliest moments, LYR did seem to struggle in setting the atmosphere. While I don't know if the drama was shot according to the chronology of events happening in the drama, one could totally see him balking at the prospect of creating romantic tension with his co-star and feeling very awkward and out of depth in the initial episodes. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Talking of LYR, I absolutely loved his portrayal of Zhuge Yue. Zhuge Yue, despite his best intentions, is a man whose choices are bound to an unwanted yet overwhelmingly pervasive inheritance. (Like Zhuge Yue sadly observes in episode 37 that he has NO choice.) When he was taunting Su Gulin (Jin Han's cameo as the King of Ximeng was a fun surprise!), you could see the ruthlessness that runs through his blood, yet what separated him from the rest of his family is that this ruthlessness is tempered by deep empathy for those who are truly vulnerable. He wields this ruthlessness as a weapon to protect rather than to destroy. His humanity is reflected in how he sometimes seems to be driven by a fear of not knowing whether or not he'd be able to make it out alive on the other side in order to be able to protect his close ones. (One has to stay alive to protect his dear ones. Just saying. 🤷🏻‍♀️) No matter the circumstances that led his subordinates to join Qingshan Manor, I liked that they genuinely liked Zhuge Yue and their loyalty towards him isn't a result of fear but of genuine respect and care for their young master. His subordinates felt safe enough to voice even their dissent. Another detail that I liked is when Zhuge Yue enlists Zhao Che's help, the latter quickly realised that it was his friend who is supposedly dead, and hence, agreed to send reinforcements. Thus, not everything in this drama is spoonfed.

Zhuge Yue's dynamic with his grandfather, Zhuge Muqing, was yet another highlight for me. On the one hand we have the Zhuge patriarch who largely contributed to the experiences that shaped Zhuge Yue and who chose to be ruthless to the point of not even sparing even his grandson; and on the other hand, we have Zhuge Yue who is just as ruthless yet committed to protecting those under him. Their very last confrontation and fight scenes were absolutely mesmerizing. I wish we could have had more of their story. Zhuge Yue may have been initially victorious vis-à-vis his grandfather but his grandfather won the final round. It's interesting that for both, that last standoff boiled down to freedom from Qingshan Manor.

Yan Xun in the novel was a complicated character. I feel ZKL tried his best with what he was given. His performance as Yan Xun was pretty decent. I blame the direction and the screenplay. Some of the character designs were not well thought out or directed.

Li Ce was such a ray of sunshine!!! The actor was fabulous and is certainly one to watch out for.

Xia Meng plays Chun'er with gleefully crazed abandon so much so that her character makes me want to reach into the screen and strangle her. In all honesty, her character wasn't needed and her screen time could have been utilised for something else. Even in the penultimate episode, the drama was still wasting time on Chun'er and Li Yan. 🤦🏻‍♀️ I thought I could not abhor a fictional character more than Bitchang from TTEOTM but here we are.

In my opinion, there exists a parallel between Ming Lu and Chun'er, both of whom went through heavy losses in the beginning of the drama. One chose to work through her grief and understood how misplaced her blame was; yet another tenaciously held onto blaming someone who was innocent of the crime for which she was accused. Chun'er's sheer stubbornness ended up killing the father of her unborn child.

A big shoutout to the actress playing General Huan. Her portrayal was flawless and in my opinion, one of the best and most realistic depictions of a female general in a chinese drama. (In another popular drama, the FL was not convincing at all as a battle hardened general. I watched all 40 episodes but I couldn't suspend my disbelief till the very end. It's a shame because it was very clear that the actress had given it her all. Sometimes, it just doesn't work. 🤷🏻‍♀️)

Most of the supporting female cast in this drama were well cast and were fantastic in their roles. Such strong performances! I loved how most of the female characters in this drama were brave, fierce and unapologetic about their motives (both hidden and known). 😏 The supporting male cast were pretty good too.

It's a wonder that both Zhao Che and Chun'er are full blood siblings. One earned his place every step of the way while another just focussed on looking pretty and looking down on those below her and pining for a man whose family was decimated by her own father. I totally understand why Yan Xun never fell for her; she is rotten to the core bringing destruction to everything that she touches. Nevermind, Zhao Che proved in later episodes, specifically episode 36 onwards, that the apple didn't fall far from the tree. 🙄

It was a teensy bit hilarious when I realised that the actor, Zhu Jun Lin, playing Meng En here is the same person who played Chen Jia in Blossom. In both dramas, his character goes from being a ruthless foe to a trusted aide of LYR's character, LMAO.

The last two episodes are frankly a mess. I cannot begin to count how many times I have rolled my eyes while watching episode 39. The script for these two episodes could have been so much better! As for the ending, the director attempted inject some poeticism into it and make it ambiguous which frankly in my opinion is yet another silly choice in a series of silly choices. *sigh* Different viewers will interpret the ending differently, their perspective on this drama's ending would probably be hinged upon their real life circumstances, experiences and/or preferences. As for me, the drama ends with Chu Qiao and Zhuge Yue both being well and alive and living an ordinary life with their children. (This is anyways in line with the novel's ending.) My belief is especially based on how the little Zhuge munchkins reassured Yan Xun and Helian watching the shadow puppet show that both Chu Qiao and Zhuge Yue were alive. (I am a firm believer in HEAs when it comes to fiction. 🤷🏻‍♀️) There is enough poeticism in my own life and in the real world, I don't need more of it in a fictional drama. Also, I would probably steer clear of this director's projects in the future. 😑

As far as the older Zhuge Yue telling that young woman to go to General Chu is concerned, I took it to mean that like always Chu Qiao prioritised the well being of the populace over them being together. Zhuge Yue has always been very aware of this fact and his tone indicated an understanding/resignation, something in the vein of, "The missus is the people's general first and foremost". 😐 Zhuge Yue by now must be pretty habituated to her going off to do what she believes must be done, LOL.

Someone in the comments likened the treatment of the story to depiction of warring factions in medieval Europe which is something that they didn't necessary want to see in a Chinese drama. While I totally understand their sentiment, yet because I enjoy watching European medieval era themed shows, I didn't mind the similarity in storytelling techniques and had a good time watching Rebirth.

In my opinion, while rating this show one should take into account its level of quality in its entirety rather than focusing solely on the actors, and their acting skills or lack thereof. Wish we could have had 50 episodes. Perhaps then the series would have felt less truncated and the flashbacks interspersed through out the series would have had more emotional heft. I read somewhere that this drama cost around 250 million Yuan to produce. Frankly, they could have saved a lot of time, including screen time, money and effort if the director hadn't stuck to lingering zoom ins every other frigging minute. However, despite all its flaws, it's an easy 8.2 in my book.


TL,DR: What I really like about Rebirth is that it feels as chaotic and charged as it should feel. Stakes are high, and the consequences of the decisions taken by different characters are even higher. The fight sequences are beautiful. Also, the themes explored are really nice. However, I will admit that this drama is pretty much a missed opportunity. I guess one would like it only if s/he likes watching historical warfare as well as watching everyone trying to one up each other. Good people end up praying heavy prices every now and then, that is if they manage to survive first, LMAO. In addition, we have got quite a few unhinged people obsessing over certain people or things. Lastly, most viewers seem to HATE this drama with a passion while I really enjoyed watching it. It has its flaws, some quite glaring, but in my opinion, its rating is a solid 8.2.

Below are my thoughts and opinions about Rebirth. Spoilers galore. My final rating of this drama is 8.2. It would have been 8.5 or 8.7 had the drama stuck its landing.

To future viewers, the first two episodes falter quite a bit, it is during the third episode when the drama gradually starts to find its footing; and by the 5th episode, the drama finally hits its stride and sets the tone for the rest of the episodes. In my opinion, if the drama is unable to hold your interest by the 5th episode, then perhaps you would not be able to vibe with the next 35 episodes.

He was even cuter in Hilarious Family. He has a lot of potential. 😁

TMAI?! 😅

A "seasoned" lady is one way to put it, LMAO. I cracked up so hard!!! 🤣

Is that so? I guess I need to sit down and read all the books. I only remember there being a gay couple.

I cared for Nina, LMAO. Hence, I felt sorry for him by extension.

I haven't even though the cast is really good. Paucity of time.

OMG! Thank you for telling me... I had no idea. I truly am living under a rock. 😅 I still can't get enough of Kaz Brekker (and Inej Ghafa). Brick by brick! I especially like Brekker because he reflects my approach to life to a certain extent. His stubborn resilience is what makes me revisit the duology every now and then. Sucks what happened at the end of book 2.

Another Six of Crows fan!!! I love that duology to bits! I did start the original trilogy but the first part in the series was incredibly boring and the pace dragged. I did not even finish reading it which is saying something because I hardly ever not finish reading what I have started.

Ditto! When I have ample of free time, there'd no interesting dramas to watch. Now, that I am on a time crunch, interesting dramas are dropping left, right and centre. 😅

Hey, hey, hey! 😘 How are ya?

I absolutely love low-key marriage proposals, especially those that are simple, small, intimate and without frills. Chan's manner of proposing to Haran for marriage is truly unique and makes total sense for his character. This proposal has made into my list of my most favourite proposals in fiction. It's a close second or third in my list. 🥰💖

Episode 12...

I guess I am not the only one who was reminded of Poe! I loved the very Gothic start of the drama. 🥰