Reviews

Not enough couple screen time

Soooo I wish our leads had more screen time. There was literally only one on-screen kiss in the entire show! (The other one doesn’t count!) And there was very little skinship. The scenes they had were wonderful and filled with chemistry, but there just was not enough of them. I wish their agendas intersected more, and that we got to see them doing more things together. Sadly, we only had one episode of them actually investigating something together. Other than that they did their own thing. I also wish the ML got more scenes with his hair down 🔥 🔥 🔥 (or just more scenes of him in general). Other small criticisms - there was not a lot of variety with the costumes. I also wish the show focused a little less on the plot and more on developing the relationships. I would have liked to see more of the Duke’s friendship with the Emperor, more relationship development with the main couple that wasn’t centered on them asking each other for favors, etc. Maybe I’ve just been trying to find another show like Prisoner of Beauty with little luckkk.

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It was all right..

I think overall I liked Pillow Book a little better. The constant lying, keeping secrets, not communicating and dragging out the drama over practically the whole show got to me the most with this one. And unlike Pillow Book, we didn’t get a whopping 20 minute scene where they tell each other everything during cuddles. There was a LOT more angst in this one than in Pillow Book and it felt like we ultimately got less payoff / rewards for the sadness that we (and the characters) endured. There was also a LOT of annoying, possessive, scheming jealousy by a couple of the side characters who just could not take no for an answer.

That being said, the acting in this one by the ML was phenomenal! That man could emote through his eyes like nothing I have seen. I LOVE the lusty and angsty kisses we got, that beautiful hair draping over his shoulders, that jawline… how lovely he looks when he cries… sigh. Some of the best scenes in the Cdramas I’ve watched were in this one and I have been watching a few of them on repeat. Give that man a reward 🔥 His character had depth, and despite his passionate love toward the FL, he made some devastating mistakes with heavy consequences. That stretch of the show, his redemption arc, was my favorite.

Outside of the complaints I listed in the beginning, this was a good show.

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Too few scenes with main couple

This one was a difficult one to rate. There were aspects that I LOVED about the show, but a whole heck of a lot I didn’t care for. What carried the show for me was the incredible relationship / chemistry between the two leads and their overall well-written romance that remained consistent through the show. I wish, however, that they had a lot more screen time than they actually did. Their scenes together unfortunately were few and far between, so if you’re looking for a show with the focus being on the romance, this may not be a good one for you unless you skip to their scenes like I did for the last 30 episodes after the plot took a nosedive.

I was also saddened by how little screen time the ML got, especially in the first half. He was hands down the best character on the show, and yet he had precious little time to grace the audience with his presence. Despite being listed as the main lead, I swear that every other supporting character got at least double the screen time as him (and there were a lot of supporting characters). His character was the best, most upright and kind person… while also a being a sexy blend of pure, powerful masculinity. *fans self*.

The show got swept up in all of the political drama, with very little reprieve and happy moments, and sadly our main couple’s relationship faded into the background. Regardless, the scenes they did have together were incredible. Their scenes were very intimate without there being a lot of kissing. I’m talking cuddles, skinship, pillow talk, consideration for each other, laughter, gazes, saving each other, open communication, trust, emotional connection, etc. Granted, the ML is also a veerrry good kisser. *ahem* I watched the show pretty consistently until episode 35, but skipped through the last half to just watch the scenes with the ML and the main couple.

If it wasn’t for the main couple and the male lead, this show wouldn’t have any stars. Sadly, the FL’s development also took a nosedive the last half and as other people have said, she became too forgiving. A lot of the other characters became incredibly inconsistent later on, which was very frustrating. She forgot all of the horrible sins that others have committed against her and her husband and characters that should have gotten a healthy dose of karma never did. The plot became redundant, and honestly they could have ended it after 25-30 episodes.

Nevertheless, can I get some more of that ML, please? And thank you.

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One of my absolute favorites!!

If I were to grab a shovel and try to dig up some flaws with this show, sure I may dig up a few pebbles. Was the plot repetitive? Sure. Sima Jiao was the shit. Everyone either wanted to imprison him, harvest his special blood or kill him because he consistently overpowers and outsmarts all of you lesser bitches. That’s basically the plot. Was the ending a little rushed? Sure. Do I wish we had a few more episodes in the mortal world and in the modern world? Absolutely (also who wouldn’t???). Was there some issues with pacing sometimes? Yeah, okay.

But the strengths of this show far, far outweigh any issues that snobby critics may come with. This main couple quickly rose in ranks to my top 1-3 favorite romances of all Asian shows I have ever watched (and I watch a lot). Their chemistry, the complementary nature of their personalities and the sheer amount of screen time they had together - all created this ultimate powerhouse of a couple. We were blessed with SO MANY sensual kisses, intimate touches, poetic dialogue, soulful gazes, powerful teamwork and open communication. No serious love triangles, no annoying incidences of noble idiocrisy or dragged out miscommunication. Conflict was resolved quickly, the amnesia subplots moved forward at a good pace with lovely soulful angst thanks to the writing and acting. It’s a total feast for us lovers of romance.

The ML also became one of my most favorite MLs of all time as well. Arthur Chen’s portrayal of Sima Jiao was flawless. His ability to just emote SO MUCH emotion through his eyes and through his intimate touches had me feeling all of the feels right alongside him. His ability to seamlessly shift from a dark, cold, ruthless, vindictive and wrathful god into a traumatized, tender, sensual, smiley, cute, vulnerable and enamored man in love with the FL showcased Arthur’s incredible range of abilities. Sima Jiao was beautifully complex. He was able to shed a single tear with the FL in one moment and completely annihilate anyone who threatened them in the next moment coldly and without batting an eye. The best part about all of this is that although Sima Jiao got fantastic character development he never lost the parts of himself that we loved the most. He never lost his dark edge, his powerful aura or his stoic exterior (except when he’s with our FL, of course). He remains delightfully consistent throughout the show in spite of the growth.

And our FL is the perfect balance to his personality. The yang to his yin. Carefree, nonjudgmental, empathetic, unassuming, easy-going, go with the flow type of gal. Although she sometimes disagreed with the ML’s methods or asked him not to do certain things, she never tried to change him. She never had a judgmental attitude toward his edgy darkness, but rather grew to understand that it was rooted in 500 years of physical torture and torment, trauma, and sadistic generational oppression against his kind. Her light brought out his innate goodness, and his dark edge also allowed her to connect with those parts of herself as well. And although sometimes I think her refusal to kill others was taken too far at times (seriously, they oppressed and tortured our ML since birth, did some other horrendous shit and will literally kill you now if you don’t kill them first), she did get some good development as well as the story progressed without losing her essence.

What I also loved about this drama was the development of the three major arcs throughout the show. The ML was the unstoppable, always-saving badass while she was developing her skills in the first arc, the second arc brought them to more of an equal footing in power, and in the final arc the roles were reversed and she protected him and held the power. In a parallel way, the first arc was about the main leads developing the foundation of their love for each other together, the second arc was all about the ML lovingly pursuing the FL, and then we got to see her chase after him for a bit in the final arc. We got it all, guys. This show was wonderful. I think it will be a while before I get hooked on another story in the way that this one captivated me.

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drop-worthy drama full to the brim with contrivances

let me start by the conclusion. I would have dropped this one by the second or third episode max, and the reason why I didn't might sound strange to some people, but I just continued watching because I had done the mistake of batch-downloading the whole drama, so I didn't want the bandwidth and memory space to go to waste, so I kind of just pushed myself to finish the whole thing.

the story here despite being original on paper was executed simply put; badly.

first off, it is a story that has to resort time and time again to some over the top unbelievable plot points that constantly require the viewer to commit to some strong levels of suspension of disbelief, but above all the biggest point that ruined the story for me was unfortunately that it relied on a romance plot that felt contrived.

the writers pushed onto the viewer a love story that was at best not allowed to mature properly on screen; but rather it felt like a dish that was taken out of the oven still uncooked or even cold and shoved in our face selling it as one of the best epic love stories, of two star-crossed lovers battling different social statuses and a horrible cast system.

I mean I personally watched their first encounter thinking to myself that I was looking forward to how their coming interactions would progress until it develops into romance, but then suddenly we are made to accept the fact that that first meeting was nothing short of a life-altering moment for the ages especially for the ML, despite the fact that it felt lackluster at best . Just a few moments after that first encounter, the ML is gazing at the stars reminiscing about the FL and how he had somehow fell head over heels for the disguised slave, just cause of the fact that she opened his eyes to the role of art and entertainment in the lives of commoners and poor folks, an epiphany which later helped inspire his life's mission or whatever.

I mean I get that they were portraying it as love at first sight, but it wasn't just that I could barely buy their initial attraction , just after a couple of interactions with her supposedly changed him to the point that despite the fact that he was portrayed as a spoilt brat who didn't care for education, he was willing to give up all of his final pocket money after being disowned by his father in order to stop slave hunters from searching for the FL whom he'd only ever met a couple of times and who had run away to escape persecution, no they went even a step further and made him infatuated by her for years and dreaming of only her, but the most frustrating part was that when they finally met years later he was acting as if he knew her and her character thoroughly and was even wishing she would be true to herself, I was almost screaming at the screen "how the he'll do you claim to know her character when you've only ever met a bunch of times briefly?!".

You could tell the writers were unsure the viewers were sold on how deep and genuine their feels to each other were, they had to constantly make us listen to him narrating that lazily written boring story of how they met and how the lost noble fell for the female slave disguised as a man who taught him the deep lesson of how people are just too sad and miserable they enjoy any half assed show they can watch, and that' moment helped him to realize his true calling was in being an entertainer. I reached a point were I was rolling and my eyes and fast-forwarding whenever that tale was mentioned.

I do not wish to blame the actors for how I never felt for their romance story on screen (though to be honest I never managed to feel any chemistry between them, maybe barely during the last couple of episodes) and I do believe that if the trajectory of their relationship had taken a less sudden steep increase like it did, and we were allowed more screen time of their encounters prior to her running away and them separating, maybe it would have served the romance more. but maybe then we would have blamed her for so readily accepting a marriage proposal from her first crush's lookalike, so that's a whole other point. Maybe that was why their encounter felt so rushed, they had to make her think that he wasn't THAT into her, so she wouldn't be stuck at the memory of him.

to be honest it would have helped a lot if the first couple of episodes didn't feel so rushed, like the writers were feeling anxious and wanting to haste the story to the climax-worthy moment that would change our main characters fate and Kickstart her journey as a noble woman. don't know if maybe it was out of fear of losing the viewers before the main plot point was revealed or what, but man that first episode sure felt like riding a Rollercoaster that later felt like it almost suffered a crash.

The main plot is not bad per-se, it is fun to watch a rags-to-riches story that involved impersonating a person of a different social status, and the struggle to prove one's true worth and potential against all odds, but the methods and plot tools the writers took in order to move the story forward included a string of convoluted over the top convenient and unbelievable coincidences, chance encounters, perfect timings, and obviously unexplained cases of doppelgangers, it all felt so forced and contrived it was pure eye-rolling material requiring major suspension of disbelief. I mean there is a whole main character that was rendered but a mere story tool; only brought out and utilized when the writers have managed to push themselves in a corner with their plot and are struggling for a way out, and then he is kept to the side for another pinch. there were side characters that felt more fleshed out and endearing I was genuinely thankful for their existence in the story, not saying their parts were always equally engaging but at the very least they felt like a living person rather than a prop or device.

another thing that bothered me sometimes, is how the directing of certain scenes that aim at stirring the viewer's emotions whether in happiness or grief, tended to overdo it to the point it felt either cringe-inducing or flat. It is a waste to feel glad by a character's hard earned success only to have a whole village cheering and clapping, or to feel moved by the death of maybe one of the only characters that I genuinely liked, only to be met with a long scene of his apparition saying his farewells you almost feel emotionally- detached from the whole scene.

the production was overall good, great costume and prop design.

the music, nothing stuck with me, but I have one last grievance, they would use in some of the fluffy, comedic or romantic scenes this one cheesy beauty and the beast OST sounding track don't know if it is plagiarism or by design but it really annoyed me a lot.

overall the pacing of the story was off, the use of convenient coincidences was too much, the romance in the first half felt off at least in my own humble opinion, and all those points combined and other minor issues just destroyed the whole experience for me I find it hard to recommend to anyone.

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truly one of the hidden gems ....

this drama is so great with an interesting premise , the whole loop day idea is great and the fact that they made it 16 episodes fits the story so well, longer than 16 and i would have dragged .

mo yuanzhi (the steve jobs wannabe ) his style during the whole series reminded me of steve jobs , his revenge was justified but at the end he lost his purpose i don't it was about curing wanqing and more , it is like he became obsessed and greedy to takeover moma , he even resorted to very violent methods by killing all of those people which was not justified at all .

An Lan saved us from a sad ending

ding qi was spectacular bai jing ting really did a great job , loved all CIB team members they treat each other like family

wished for more than just 2 cases , didn't like the explanation for how he got his special ability , many questions were left unanswered (how by taking the drug was he able to basically manipulate time on some level , really didn't get it ) and why didn't they explain how some people retain some fragments of their memory from the loop day ?

overall great really deserves your time .

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Average law drama

While this law drama has its moments, it's not without its faults. The cases are interesting and the workplace dynamics are engaging, especially the partnership between Seok Hun and Hyo Min. Their connection builds slowly and genuinely, which is one of the show's better points.

For me, the real stars of the show were the second couple Jin U and MIn Jeong. Their story provided a refreshing mix of humor and heart, often stealing the spotlight.

Overall, the show is just okay. It doesn't quite live up to its full potential. The pacing can sometimes feel a little off, causing the narrative to lose momentum and making it easy to lose focus. If you're looking for a consistently excellent legal series, this one might not be it. In that respect, a drama like Good Partner might be a better fit.

The series wrapped up with a finale that left a clear opening for another season, so there's hope for more to come from these characters, though the overall quality remains a mixed bag.

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Repetitive music and contrived drama

Every single drama I've seen that's been directed by this man has garbage contrived drama at the end. Is it that hard to write something that's not so contrived? Maybe it's just a cultural difference, but I just couldn't be bothered to care about the drama. The subject itself is very culturally Korean so I took that into account, but this was just annoying.

This director also needs to listen to a lot more music. The repetitive songs got on my nerves here like in all his other kdramas. Just change it up man. Or just don't use music at all. I'd rather have silence over the same song in every scene.

On the flip side, I did like the romance until the nonsense drama started. I thought they were cute together and had chemistry. Sadly, there just wasn't enough of that to improve this drama for me. Disappointing.

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Zhi Zhi Fu Zhi Zhi(2025) is a nice romance miniseries with Ke Chun (as Ximen Li Chen) and Zhai Yi Ying (as Jiang Wan Zhi) in the leading couple’s role. From beginning to almost the happy ending, Jiang Wan Zhi is threatened to leave Ximen Li Chen and, for someone that vows to trust her beloved, she caves in more than once, even when she has never stopped loving him. Ximen Li Chen has been called a stocker by some viewers but he’s just a man that is certain that Jiang Wan Zhi truly loves him so he’s not going to let her leave him again. His passionate, protective, and loving advances stemmed from the fear that she would leave him again since he knows she can’t fight the evil forces that want to separate them again. The cast did a good job bringing their characters to life but some of the acting from the supporting characters was not up to par with their roles. The leading couple was great with their performances and has a great romantic chemistry. The only thing that is bothersome about this drama is that the antagonists’ use of the same tactic over and over again, which made the drama a little bit repetitious.

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Love, War, and Two Generals

ally, I’m scared to start a show that is that I have been anticipating for so long and there has been so much hype about it afraid to disappoint, but this show did not disappoint me. It was such a good drama. It was exactly what I felt like expected it to be the chemistry between that the couple was amazing. I always love a general character, but having 2 generals was amazing the first half of the show before he found out her identity. I love the female leads character personality. She was so strong headed about what she wanted and I loved her fighting scene. I its my first time watching Cheng Lei, and he is an incredible incredible actor his that I love an actor who acts with his eyes the moment he fell in love with her. You could just see it in his eyes and his acting goes amazing. He was he made me fall in love with us about the drama. I love the scenes of the war and the fighting it was so coordinated between the the Leeds and I love that they had each other‘s backs and for the main part I love that there was no misunderstandings and they were able to like tell each other stuff the scene she confesses that I love the moon was one of the best moments however the whole show was great. The base was a great the suspense was there the episodes where they were fights and stuff they was they were so hike, well-made, and packed. I love a lot of all of the characters almost however, the last three episodes were a huge Miss whoever wrote them should be sued because the show it took it like such a dramatic shift the good guy that he had Mr. Chu had the potential to be a good character, but they they screwed that up. I made him evil and unnecessary and also killing Han Ye was the most unnecessary death in history. He wasn’t even the main character. His death wasn’t important. He shouldn’t killed him very wrong and the whole wedding situation being canceled was also unnecessary. They could’ve just ended the show at episode like 33 with a wedding and it would’ve been perfect. Those three episodes were so useless. It lost so much points because of this, but other than that I would definitely recommend it for people who like to watch like an action war kind of show the couple were so worth it amazing chemistry very nice to make a confession scenes and fighting scenes

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