I watched this show because learning more about history is always really high on my agenda, and I like to see things from other points of view. This is certainly a patriotism driven show. However, it’s not enough to make you feel like you’re being brainwashed. They don’t try to make one side glorious while the other is evil, they show that there are wrongs done on both sides. It’s very engaging right from the start. Formulaic, perhaps, from what I’ve come to learn watching Asian dramas, but it doesn’t detract from it at all imo.
Bai Lu’s Xi LiangChen is very endearing, so very much more so than she was in Legends. Being a woman who has gone through boot camp myself, I could certainly relate to this character, even if we don’t have to pretend to be boys. She expresses the difficulty, determination, and feeling of accomplishment very well.
Xu Kai was perfect for Gu YanZhen. I can imagine his career skyrocketed after this. He was able to go from playboy jerk to valiant young man without ever once annoying me. Which is rare. Is he ever not adorable? Ok that may be annoying just a little bit.
The chemistry between the main leads is uh-may-zing. Like, so crazy intense that you just watch kind of hypnotized by it like a snake with the charmer’s weaving. I think my eyes may have gotten dry from not blinking when those two would start up. And it makes you laugh so hard at times during this show while they’re working their relationship out. Brilliant writing there.
It was really Toby Lee that had me cheering for him though. It may be my tendency to root for the underdog or my preference for the still-water-that-runs-deep personality, but he was the quietly complex and noble Shen Junshan in in a way that had me looking forward to seeing him every time.
The supporting cast was spectacular. IT was SO SO NICE to see Hong Yao play a good person. I’m so used to seeing him in villain roles that I was already cringing to see what he was going to do this time, and I have to admit it made me enjoy his Shen TingBai just a little bit more when I came to realize that hey, he’s pretty freaking amazing. To the point where I wanted to poke Wu Jiayi’s otherwise fun ManTing in the head for the way she treated him. Why do we as girls perpetually go after the ones we shouldn’t and develop blinders to the ones we should be seeing? At any rate he was kind of my hero as well in this. Which is probably going to really mess with my head the next time I see him as a bad guy. Le sigh.
I will say that I absolutely was beguiled by the under-story of Guo ShuTing and Huo XiaoYu. It added complexity to the show that couldn’t have been achieved if it had revolved entirely around the younger set. Both actors did amazingly in their roles as well.
There were some silly parts- that crazy and slightly weird fireworks party that YanZhen threw for LiangChen that had me cringing a bit. But…. That everyone there just rolled their eyes instead of instantly manning an anti-gay revolt was refreshing. Yay.
Overall it wasn’t profoundly deep or anything but it was fun, engaging, at times riveting, and definitely something I would watch again in the future. The OST was pretty good too, and suited the drama well. Watch it.