yiinguang

actually really good?

(personal review - all thoughts, opinions, and biases are mine only)

started this drama on a whim after hearing many mixed reviews. it was three episodes in that i realized i...am a complete sucker for this couple's dynamic. i just looove a ML who's completely devoted to his FL to the point of wanting to kill for her. so i was hooked immediately and i was willing to watch the whole way through just to see their development. i'm largely satisfied in that department - contrary to others' opinions, i don't think their first kiss at ep10 is too fast tbh. for a 24ep drama that's really fair because i happen to enjoy watching what happens after they're "together" more than the journey there.

for the story, i find it quite enjoyable. ehh it's a typical revenge-rebirth plot so i didn't have much expectations to begin with, but yeah i think it's pretty good. what it suffers from is just the typical cdrama disease of being halfway done and the plot & pacing goes completely bonkers. it's quite fast paced in the first half then gets kinda draggy in the second half, but i also expected that. maybe sometimes the plot was deceptively predictable too. there were some plot holes and missing scenes but i don't think they were inexcusable. at least to me, if i can still follow along and figure out what's going on that's fine. (the issue surrounding wei village and a-xiang and also the xie clan's elixir were kinda glossed over when i thought they would discuss them in more detail, and that did bother me. but again, all in all it's fine.) but gosh i just love the drama. i like that you can't figure out who really has the upperhand because there could always be someone pulling the strings, i like that you can't trust anyone, i like that characters could be working together at one point and then backstabbing one another. ...which might be the base standard for a political-military drama of this sort, but whatever! it's worthy of praise.

i enjoy chu zhao's scheming, and unlike what others say, i do believe that she is that smart because even in her first life she did show her smarts in governing when helping xiao xun, it was just that she was blinded by love and couldn't foresee his betrayal. speaking of, xiao xun pissed me off in every opportunity available despite his charming face, deng yi pissed me off sometimes (ever since the betrayal at the dock at least) but i like that he is somewhat maybe schizophrenic based on the fact that he constantly talks to a younger version of himself. gosh i wish xie yanfang didn't end up evil because i did want to like him but i just can't not root for chu zhao and xie yanlai. it's sort of weird that he kinda maybe has some feelings for chu zhao too and is posed as a threat for her relationship with xie yanlai but oh well, all that matters for me is that there's no love triangle BS.

the characters were surprisingly complex in my opinion. again, i just didn't expect much getting into this, but i think both main characters and the side characters were well-developed in the sense that their backgrounds, thoughts, actions, and relationships with other characters were fleshed out. there was a point where chu zhao was crying almost every scene for 6? 7? 8? episodes straight? and it kinda bothered me because damn this girl does NOT get a break but then again things *were* hard for her then. xie yanlai is also a good character. his thoughts and feelings toward the xie clan, his birth mother, and the chu family were interesting to learn and follow. even the interests of xie yanfang and deng yi were fascinating. the only character i don't sympathize with is xiao xun because despite everything he is almost fully completely evil.

hmm i personally wasn't too sad watching this, i was only almost driven to tears in the scene where chu zhao talks to a-jiu about wanting her dad to just be her dad. that did move me. but other than that it was fine. i literally couldn't stop watching because the story kept me on my toes til it was 4am. i loveeee this couple i really do, and every scene where they weren't together was painful because they truly shine the most with each other. i don't like that xie yanlai barely appeared on screen after becoming the new general and then he gets a victory killing the northern desert king's son like where? how? can we see???
(chu zhao & xie yanlai shared 3 kisses over the entire thing and 10 hugs or something that at some point i went "you guys aren't gonna kiss? seriously not gonna kiss?" but i also love their hugs. they're just so loving and i love how they support each other.)

i like the main/opening theme, it's somber-sounding at the beginning but gains power over time which really embodies the story i think. other than that i can't think of a very praise-worthy soundtrack. maybe the one at the final scene. that one's also good. the rest are okay, just not that memorable.

...given all of that, i probably won't be rewatching, not for any reason other than that i would be too stressed watching xiao xun win and my girl a-zhao get fucked over all over again.

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mo li makes me yearn for marriage

(personal review - all thoughts, opinions, and biases are mine.)

the story is really great. for a revenge plot, it's solidly unpredictable and kept me at the edge of my seat while watching. ye li is so smart from episode 1 and i always love an intelligent FL. both her and mo xiuyao's stories captivated me, and how they actually yearned for each other and kept the other in their hearts for 8 years...

i do think there are some missing components in the story that could've made it even better especially concerning the characters. i think mo jingli's motivations are not really all that? he's insistent on his "love" for ye li and he also wants the throne but he also holds a grudge like dude get real just get it together. i couldn't really figure him out tbh, and the way moli played out gave me no room to sympathize with him despite his sorrowful death (which was really anticlimactic, actually). ye li's ptsd was handled well in my opinion, but her whole dissociative identity disorder was not really touched on at all and that bothered me. because she's clearly great at martial arts but she doesn't think so and she thinks that it's master zhu that saved her everytime she's in danger when it's herself...i guess this does tie into her whole hallucination-delusion problems that she believes master zhu is alive to save her but she clearly also has dissociative amnesia. oh well.

i really do love the entire lishan arc though. the conflict that led up to it was maybe unnecessary because like honestly mo xiuyao DIDN'T need to divorce her, like what the hell guys you dont NEED to divorce, but ik it's a necessary bridge to get ye li back on lishan and oh boyy. cheng lei and bai lu really nailed playing their characters at that time, i cried SO much because i felt so much for both mo xiuyao who was so regretful and sad for his wife, and ye li who lived in the delusion that lishan always remained as lively before the tragedy... (and i had this thought in my mind that the empress dowager must've planted the illness in the academy then sealed it off on purpose so that everyone would die without help and without people knowing but i guess not? how come ye li alone wasn't sick anyway? idk it's weird i'll accept it as just main character things.)

i really loved the side characters here when i usually don't care about them that much. ye li's family are all horrible people except ye ying who was just more pitiful than anything because she held onto her desire to be with mo jingli until the very end. the part where ye li confronts ye ying about her "love" for mo jingli did leave an impression on me because ye ying is pretty much in love with the idea of mo jingli rather than the man himself, but she fell in love with his works, his music, his writing... that struck a chord in me. she's actually a good character (speaking of, where was she in the ending?)
and then there's others a-jin, feng zhiyao, li feibai, han mingxi, even ms wen... just to name a few, i enjoyed them all very much. contrary to others opinions i actually did like the sub romance between feng zhiyao and lingyun i think they were sweet and tragic and i always loved a secret identity romance.

i'm not a hard critic, yeah the last few episodes were a drag but so are most cdramas honestly. and i really do love this story and this couple more than it lets me down, so i don't have a reason to give it less than a 9 in the end. it has good rewatch value for the fact that i'm sure you'll learn and catch on to more stuff on the second watch.

mo xiuyao and ye li make me yearn for marriage and i'm not even joking. they are so so sweet with each other, even when mo xiuyao is angry with her and scolds her, the care he has for her is just oozing out of the man. i loved watching them fall in love as they scheme together and go through life and death together it's just amazing. peak romance honestly.

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