Story of Kunning Palace (2023)

I was so excited to watch this drama, worth my time

Loved it, Loved it & Loved it. From story to acting, everything is perfect.

The story is well written. It is about power-play & revenge. I like the leads being grayish character.

Jiang Xue Ning is short-tempered, stubborn, ignorant, smart, cunning, but despite all of that, she is afraid of Xie Wei.

Xie Wei is cold-hearted, cruel, smart, cunning, calculative but scared of cats.

I loved Jiang Xue Ning & Xie Wei interaction. He is always there helping & protecting her, sacrificing for her. It was funny to see Xie Wei saving the qin but not Jiang Xue Ning. Even when Jiang Xue Ning isn't in a good mood or upset to cheer her up, he takes her to his office to practice qin.

As always, Bai Lu did her best. I liked Zhang Ling He acting as well. Also, Zhou Jun Wei & Liu Xie Ning did a good job.

I like Yan Lin but also hate him for what he did to Jiang Xue Ning in the past in his anger. He is immature but gradually understands everything.

I liked Shen Zhi Yi, she is cute & immature. Always there to protect & help Jiang Xue Ning.

Zhang Zhe is a righteous person with strong principles.

Lu Xian is a greedy businessman who always thinks about profit. But he is always there to help Xie Wei & make fun of him. A good friend of his.

You Fang Yin is a trusting and loyal friend of Jiang Xue Ning. She is good at doing business. The ending scene broke my heart. The way Jiang Xue Ning protected her & did everything to keep her save.

It was cute & sweet to see how the princess protected Jiang Xue Ning & did everything to make Jiang Xue Ning her study partner, but poor Jiang Xue Ning didn't want to go to the palace. Their friendship, the thing Jiang Xue Ning did for her so that she doesn't have to go.

Jiang Xue Hui is kind-hearted, considerate. Even after knowing that she is a concubine daughter, she didn't hold it against or make trouble for Jiang Xue Ning as we see in other dramas.

The conversation between Xie Wei & Yan Mu was so heart touching, I feel Yan Mu may have guessed it at that moment.

Jiang Xue Ning mother is so annoying. She doesn't let Jiang Xue Ning explain or talk. Always blaming everything on her not knowing the truth.

I loved Lu Xian & Jiu Shu bickering.

The way Jiang Xue Ning tried so hard to fail the exam so that she didn't have to enter into the palace.

It was funny how Zhou Bao Ying took away walnut cake from Jiang Xue Ning & the same thing Xie Wei did to her.

Everyone's reaction to You Fang Yin & Lu Xian getting married.

It's The Starry Cast reunion. The famous TTEOM stairs.

I liked the kisses given that the director is famous, using lights, birds & flowers in kissing scenes.

I loved OST.

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This story is time travel and not reincarnation

The Story

In the first 15 minutes (Therefore, this is not a spoiler), the Heroine dies, then gets a second chance to live her life again. Her is transported back in time via an unknown reason, hopefully to correct her past mistakes in life. The Story of Kunning Palace is a Time Slip (Time Travel) Drama, or this suggests that the means for time travel is not established. Nonetheless, this is a story within a story and is inventively designed. Both stories run concurrently, as the first life of the Heroine is threaded into the second life as flashbacks.

The heroine is the daughter of nobility, but she was switched at birth. The Noblewoman is raised as a plebeian and the switched plebeian is raised as a noblewoman. When all is discovered decades later, due to sentimentality and other reasons, the legitimate Heroine is accepted into the family only as a second daughter and not with the status of the plebeian daughter. This makes for an interesting start to The Story of Kunning Palace.

Quote: “He who has a mind to beat his dog will easily find a stick”. Young Warrior from The Story of Kunning Palace.

I love complicated dramas. The Story of Kunning Palace checks all my Asian drama criteria boxes. There is even a lot of ancient law incorporated into this intelligently written script. However, until enough of the backstory is revealed, the drama may be hard for some to follow. The heroine makes lots of mistakes as she first lives her life, which ends in her death. She is snatched out of her first timeline and reinserted back into the beginning of her failed first chance. What will she do? Will she learn from her past mistakes and correct them or is history doomed to repeat itself? It seems like that many of her efforts to change her new timeline produces failures, as history continues to make corrections back to its past timeline to thwart her new insertions. When under Time Travel restrictions, if one cannot makes changes or corrections in the new timeline then one is in a time alternative universe where changes to the future are impossible.

The heroine, who actually turned out to be a wicked person in the first timeline, gets a new chance to live a proper life. You see her make conscious efforts to correct past mistakes as these mistakes are revealed through her constant flashbacks to her original timeline. However, overall, her life course seems destined to be repeated. Will she succeed in correcting her past and saving all the lives she destroyed. You must watch The Story of Kunning Palace to find out.

Note: Some have flagged ‘The Story of Kunning Palace’ as drama about reincarnation.
It is not. Reincarnation is rebirth into a new body. The drama is a reinsertion into a first life and thus is Time Travel and not Reincarnation.

Quote: “What the world needs is heartless men. Those who abide by the rules can’t move forward fast enough. So screw the rules”. Anti-hero from The Story of Kunning Palace.

Quote: “I would not dare to ask your Majesty to move. But I also have a message for your Majesty. You must know that a man who is greedy for his own profit and who seeks the skin of a tiger, does not know that the tiger is a tiger”. Lowly Court Official loved by Her Majesty from The Story of Kunning Palace.


Actors Corner

Bai Lu—Strong female role with a woman who knows how to pull the surprise, by playing dumb.
Zhang Ling He—The anti-hero (Villain) you will love and hate to be confused by.

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I enjoyed every second

The casting was exceptionnal! I've seen a lot of Bai Lu's dramas and she was just as great as always, but it was only my 2nd time seeing Zhang Ling He and he really made an impression on me. Some scenes were so intense and powerful I had to watch them twice or 3 times just to focus on there expressions without needing to read the subtitles. Same for the princess, great choice.
I would say I liked a lot of the characters, even the vilains, they were well written and truely usefull to the story.

The writting of the drama was also really good : great storytelling, interesting dialogues: no basic or common "wise" sentences - after watching so many Cdramas, they kind of all sound similar at some point - but these ones were truely original and adequate.
I really liked the concept of finding, NOT the best person you can find, but someone that truely fits you and understands you. There are so many dramas where you don't actually understand why the main leads are in love with each other... okay they're hot, but what else? Why are they so willing to sacrifice everything for this one person? Well this drama did an amazing job showing that.
I'm the kind who likes to skip ahead when the political games get too boring or take too much place, but I don't think I've done this once in this drama. Despide the main romance not being at the center of the show, they still managed to keep it interesting.

I look forward to watching other dramas by this screenwriter and seeing those actors again.

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A surprise of 2023

I truly enjoyed this drama, and now that I finished it, I have withdrawal symptoms. Honestly, this show has everything that I enjoy:

(1) An intelligent female lead that doesnt take crap from people (no Mary Sues here) ;
(2) A male lead that is willing to do what needs to be done to reach his goals (Anti-heroes represent!);
(3) A strong chemistry between the leads (NO duck kisses to be seen);
(4) A couple that teams up and solves their issues quickly (those that scheme together stay together);
(5) A story that has not fillers (missing the mandatory annoying second couple, yay!); and
(6) A very happy ending (in many ways *wink wink*).

Point number 6 was very important to me and thankfully SOKP delivered, I had been burnt many times by C-dramas and there is nothing more frustrating than investing 40 plus episodes on a period piece and getting rewarded with tragic or lazy open ending. So kudos to the cast and crew, this drama was very entertaining, two thumbs up from me.

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A GREAT POWER DRAMA FOR 2023

Last year there were many power dramas that kept us happy, this year not so much. But fortunately, we have one in Story of Kunning Palace. It has the actors (some A-listers) playing intense parts with martial arts skills in a great plotline with gorgeous costumes and a superb soundtrack that adds to the different scenes in a wonderful cohesion. I don't usually give dramas a 10 rating, but the story and the acting just makes me riveted to this exciting drama. There is also its share of light-hearted moments and characters. Case in point; the actor who plays Dingfei gives this otherwise serious drama the comic-relief that is needed to keep it from becoming too gloomy. I highly recommend this power drama to binge on. Happy drama-watching.

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Who said only bad girls have all the fun

Do-over seems to be the plot du jour at the moment. While most shows in this genre would focus on righting wrongs and get revenge on antagonists, this one took a different approach.

In this case, the FL was a cruel and ruthless Queen in her past life. Her path to the top was awash with the blood of both friends and foes. In that sense, she is trying to stop herself going down the same path again and right her own wrongs! This is certainly a more novel take on this genre. I’m excited to see how will the writer spin this yarn.

This review will look at this drama from two different angles. On one hand, the series is very entertaining, full of engaging characters and it is gratifying to watch the progress of the FL in her “new” life. However, if we look at the series with more critical eyes then we can see issues with the pacing, narrative and acting.

There is no doubt that this is a S class production. Sets are lush (love to see their Hengdian bill), costumes are beautiful if a tad generic. There is a big cast so important scenes are well populated with extras.

Bai Lu has the titular role and she owns it. She plays both the evil and good roles with aplomb. My only reservation is that while she is supposed to be a maiden about 18 years old in Life 2.0, she can look and feel a lot older. I suppose that is because in Life 1.0, she did and saw things that would age any mortals. It does make her character a little out of focus in earlier episodes as she dances between an innocent teenager and the ghost of an evil Queen. The question of whether she would flip to the dark side cannot be ignored.

This highlights one of the major issues for me. The show is filled with flashbacks of Life 1.0. This is particularly true during earlier episodes where it is almost like watching a mashup of two dramas. The drama tries to distinguish them by dulling the colour palette of the L1.0 scenes. Nevertheless, this can be quite jarring as the trigger for a lengthy flashback might be a simple chance meeting and suddenly, we are watching an epic battle. Even if we don’t get a flashback, she might pause and have an internal monologue about what she did wrong and what she should do now.

These sudden scene changes can give you a whiplash and it slows the forward momentum. It is also confusing when we try to decipher the significance of each event based on snippets of dialogues and jumbled recollections. What is worse is that Life 1.0 is actually more intriguing and exciting compared to the early part of Life 2.0. She is trying so hard to be good, she is boring. I almost want to watch L1.0 more than L2.0 until about the 1/3 mark. I understand why they did it but by making Life 1.0 so dramatic and impactful, it takes the wind out of Life 2.0's sails.

What I have to say next is not going to be popular. The ML is tall and handsome but his acting left me cold. Most of the time he is stoic and occasionally he gets angry. That’s about it. His dialogue delivery feels flat. Another issue is his approach to romance is quite caveman like. It makes him looks brutish when he isn't. The sad fact is that the two other 2ML's radiate serious second lead syndrome.

On the other hand, acting from the ensemble cast is good. There are the odd weaker links, but the more senior members have certainly earn their keep.

To be honest, the series is much more enjoyable in the second half. By then, the FL's plan to change her destiny is finally in place and she surrounds herself with a group of fast friends. The last few episodes are the best. Packed with epic battles, court intrigues and swoon worthy moments. What more can you ask? The ending is satisfying with all the loose ends tired up nicely.

I commend the writer for being innovative and I did enjoy this drama. However, I was distracted by issues which I can't ignore. It lost a point because of that.

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Watch, watch, watch...especially if you want a short break from exaggerated xianxia magic!

I am still 'newish' to cdramas so please do forgive me if my review is not as detailed as others, or if I have missed anything about chinese culture and history, I am still learning so I can't add what I don't know yet!

If you are looking for 'far from innocent', even doubtful main characters, enjoy period cdramas ( and possibly looking for a break from over the top wuxia and xianxia storylines) then add this to your cdrama binge watch list!

The cinematography, tone and entire vibe of the drama are very mature, and realistic ( no xianxia style magic in sight) which I personally enjoyed for a change, but there are moments when you 'remember' that you are watching fiction - the fake blood used is not the best, very obvious ( more like unedible cherry sauce), whenever the characters display their frustration or anger, I noticed the camera zoomed in on their clenched fists..nearly EVERY time and.......WHY?! It did start to annoy me the more I observed a pattern of that as the plot and characters developed! Even the actor who played one of the 'revealed' villains, Lord Pingnan , had more than a few scenes with exaggerated facial expressions more suited to a pantomime, but he did get better towards the end!

As for the main characters, both the male and female lead are not innocent, but 2 opposing magnets that match each other in manipulation, ruthlessly know one another's flaws and darkest secrets, and there are times where you might find it challenging to 'root for' or really support them as some of their choices and decisions are greyish at best, but equally display a level of shrewdness that even a leading anti-hero may not show!

It would have been really cool to see the 2nd male lead ( a rising military general- like character) and his father have more visibility and screen time in the middle episodes - without spoiling what happens to them, but there are approx. 5 episodes ( can't remember exactly) where they don't appear.....at all! I know why, but I would have liked to see the 2nd male lead get shipped with another female character and what both he and his father do.....with their unfortunate yet temporary fall from grace ( I'll leave it at that!)

I don't know if this was intended but even the name of the palace in the story, Kunning = is very close to the word 'cunning' in English, so maybe that can be a hint to international/ English speaking audiences about the 'cunningness' that is threaded throughout the drama by several characters, and of course, by the main characters!

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Terrific Actors. Riveting Story.

After watching this, I realized that Bai Lu is actually a good actress. I have watched her in two dramas before this and didn't really think much of her acting skills. Its not that she didn't stand out, she is terrific and charming, but the scripts just weren't right for her. Kunning palace was such a terrific script, with a lot of plot holes and missed potential, regardless it was riveting until the very end.

And after watching Zhang Ling He play the role of Xie Wei / Xie Ju'an, I have come to realize that he was made to portray historical characters. He is so unrecognizable from his modern day roles, where he reminds me of a teenager. In his historical roles, he bring us a different aura, just like he did with his role in Love Between Fairy and Devil. I'm going to check out few of his other dramas as well to see more of him. In some scenes in Kunning Palace, he kinda overdid it and we have to ask the directors what were they thinking. For example, the first scene where they introduced him, they gave us a close up of his neck. It just looked so damn funny. But apart from some of these weird instances, he did a phenomenal job with this character.

You'll Keep Guessing Who The FL ends up with until the last few episodes (Spoilers below)
Let's begin with the adorable Yan Lin, he brought light to Ning's life. While she never showed any romantic affection for him, she cherished him a lot.
With Zhang Zhe, the story was so complex that it wasn't fully explored. Even though it seemed slow paced, it felt like there were a lot of missed opportunities to make their story flow. After claiming to like him so much, Ning seem to have given up way too quickly on what could have been between them and so did he. Despite her being a stranger to him, he was attracted to her and we can see in his expression that it was not just because of her looks.
Xie Wei / Xie Ju'an, the reason I was glad that it didn't work out with Zhang Zhe. While Ning would have had a sort of peaceful life with Zhang Zhe, he would never truly have understood Ning as a person. He was a bit too rigid for her, sometimes that makes a good choice but the chemistry between Xie Wei & Ning was just too strong to notice anything else.

What really pissed me off was the story between Jiang Xuehui & Shen Jie. Shen Jie seemed like such a powerless character that it was hard not to feel sad for Jiang Xuehui and kind of curse Shen Jie for not having spine.

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cliche c-drama "do over" story

Despite its cliche premise, this drama is very promising at the beginning when heroine Jiang Xuening first resurrects into her younger self. Armed with knowledge of the future, she can gleefully manipulate the situation to her will and the first ten ish episodes are enjoyable if you don't squint too hard.

However knowledge from the future is not the same as intelligence, despite the writers' attempt to equate the two. As the plot becomes more muddled somewhere past the halfway mark it becomes clear that neither Jiang Xuening or Xie Wei are very rational or smart. The "politics" makes little sense and moves forward through the help of deus ex machina.

Furthermore the romance is filled with all sorts of strange baggage which is meant to be romantic but gets increasingly odd and kind of unpleasant. To make the ML more "dominant" and edgy, his personality has a definite violent and stalkerish tendency which is meant to be explained away by his dark past. I guess this is what market research shows girls are into in Asia.

One can give credit to the staff for doing a good job of putting the production together, but it can only be considered a polished c- drama and unfortunately not a top tier one.

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A Slow Fall From Grace

Rated= 8 ~ 36.5/50 ~ 7.3
Scene // Mermaid getting lost in the Enchanted Forest. Has no clue how to use Merlin's Staff LOL

I thought this show was going to be my first Unicorn rating. But of course, in those last 10 episodes, everything started to fall like the Xue family. For the most part, the entirety of the show is a back and forth between the FL's love interests and the slow death of the Xue family. I mean, they get a few swings in but really not as much as I thought they would, not as much as they should have considering how much of a presence they had.

Plot - The first 10 episodes had a great setting. The Fl grew up in poverty and dreamed of being the empress. She uses all wiles and tricks to get what she wants only for it all to backfire and end with her death. In a world without magic, this is explained by showcasing the title. It's a young author's story who is frustrated with the demands from her publisher and continues her novel as a rewrite. This is how the FL wakes up as her 18 year old self and is given a chance to 'rewrite' her story.
She carries a lot of guilt and sadness for her past behaviour and this haunts her for the most part of the show, trying to give back the positions she stole and right who she wronged. This narrative carries on for the most but slowly starts to change over to our ML as we discover who he really is and what is true motives are.
The hidden plot is basically the Empress Dowager and her brother have been conspiring to get the Xue family onto the throne and bring in a new era. I can't help but feel a little disappointed that with this iron clad presence, they did not have the weight that I thought they would have. I mean they tried but for the most part, Duke Xue was pretty useless and the kids were stupid.
They were stopped at every attempt they made. I guess that makes for easy watching but it got kind of funny after a while, as the whole show had nothing to do with the FL redeeming herself at all, and was just a slow dismantling of the Xue family's supposed power which we didn't really get to see a lot of.

As the the relationship between the FL and her 3 suitors, one was the childhood friend trope, one was what you expect from a romance story and the other was just a messed up person grappling for something sincere, so of course we get the third one.
It didn't really feel anything for the first suitor but loved that he became a handsome young general in the end and I like to think that he ended up with the Princess. I think they would have made a cute pair.
The 2nd one, as much as a prince charming that he was, he didn't suit the FL's personality. He was never seen to be anything other than the proto type of justice and noble character. Having said that, I did like him and didn't think the FL deserved him. Would have been nice to let him move on and show him doing so rather than just being that friend that's pining after another man's wife.

And the 3rd one, our ML, was doing well up until the cave scene. Desperation in your mental illness is one thing but I felt like from then on, this intense, all or nothing character just wasn't done very well. It didn't feel romantic to me. It just felt like a desperate man with severe PTSD begging the FL to stay in his life, no matter how romantic they tried to make it. At times, it even felt abusive but then I don't like being controlled either so I have a hard time imaging a woman like the FL would fall in love with the ML. It would have made more sense to have given stronger hints and scenes of her feelings developing earlier with the ML, or developing sexual tension to help round out the dark and sexy vibe they were going for, but instead they focused on building up the love with suitor no.2 just so she could randomly break up with him because she suddenly thought his mother's death was her fault, again.

Overall, I just don't feel like the relationship between the ML and the FL was well developed enough. Yes, too broken people with traumatic backgrounds falling in love but this just felt like being relentlessly pursued and then suddenly being in love. It was a bit of a failure and as much as I can give credit for getting away with as much of a sex scene as they could, it gave a similar vibe as to when Mr. Gray was popular. Dark and intense love is not abusive, emotional manipulative and controlling. I don't find that sexy at all. The icing on the cake is grabbing her by the throat twice, to force a kiss. Yeah. No. We were crossing into r*pe fantasies at time and that shouldn't be anyone's thing. Yes, I am kink shaming.
It should not be up to the FL to 'save' the ML and be his medicine. When two broken characters come together, you really have to show the understanding and feelings growing between them and I don't feel satisfied with what I saw.
The ML bullying his son at the end just seemed mean spirited with a does of gaslighting.

Acting- Not bad for the most part. Really didn't like how the ML would try to make his voice deeper when he arguing with the FL as if that made him sexier. It sounded a bit silly to me because I could hear how forced it was.

Music- I really loved the soundtrack to this. 'Won't see you in 3 thousand lives' is already on my playlist.

Rewatch - Overall, it was a good watch and I was invested for most of the ride. I guess I could watch it again if the mood takes me.

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Chemistry off the chart

I'm not entirely a fan of this trope, i.e where the audience is taken into a story written in modern times. This part however only had minimal screentime in the beginning and at the end of the actual story so I enjoyed this series ❤️

*******SPOILER ALERT********

Story: I'm only giving this a 9 rating as the concept of Ning'er reliving her life to change her destiny was sometimes a bit 'unrealistic', what I mean by this is the fact that she's completely different to what she was in the previous life. Her being a scheming individual that only wanted to be the empress, which is a person with different values. This is my only gripe with the actual story.

Actors did a great job in portraying their respective characters. Special mention to the ML, Zhang Ling He who did an excellent job portraying Xie Wei, he really looked crazed at times, unhinged, obsessed and in love with the FL, Ning'er. Bai Lu did a good job as FL. They had great chemistry. I also enjoyed the acting of the following actors, Wang Xing Yue, Zhou Jun Wei, Liu Xie Ning, Jiang Xiao Lin (bodyguard of Xie Wei), also the other bodyguard of Xie Wei who's name I can't find under the supporting actors.

Other actors that also caught my attention is Zhou Da Wei, Melody Tang, Qin Tian Yu, Yu Zhong Li, Cui Shao Yang(really played the part of a playboy and fake Xue Dingfei well) and Yu Zong Li as 'sister' of Ning'er.

Production and Visual FX : 8.5

Ost: 8.5

Rewatch value : 8 will rewatch if there's nothing better to watch

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