When a man simps for an unworthy woman

The best thing about the drama is the relationship between Cui Xingzhou and Liu Miantang during the amnesia arc. Everything else is draggy, boring, and forgettable.

One thing I like is that both Xianzhou and Miantang are independent characters who move with a purpose. Despite amnesia, Miantang is an extremely intelligent and capable woman. And, Xianzhou continues to pursue his goals regardless of his growing feelings for Miantang. Both are cunning and manipulative who plot against each other adding spice to their chemistry. However, the drama doesn't do a good job at exploring a serious side of their relationship. They are both morally ambiguous characters. Miantang biting Xiangzhou's lip to show him what hate tastes like is sexy, sensual, and a little bit disturbing. It could've been a great start to a darker and more passionate romance. But, the writers choose to fall back on comedy and boring romantic tropes where both characters do nothing but smile and hug each other.

Miantang disappointed me quite a bit. At the beginning, she is lovely, devoted, intelligent, and charismatic. After the amnesia arc, she magically switches personalities and becomes an emotionless hard-ass. There is no nuanced character development to show a gradual change from a loving housewife to a ruthless bandit. Instead, the writers completely revamp her character, as if she suffers from a dissociative identity disorder, and give her a new personality even though she is the same person.

Another thing that annoyed me is Miantang's treatment of Xiangzhou. Yes, he deceived her, but his transgressions are not egregious enough for her to stab him and plot his murder, especially when they are meant to get back together. Moreover, he is the only one who has to continuously apologize and be humbled in front of her family while she gets on her moral high horse about deceit and betrayal. I blame these issues on inconsistent writing. Miantang's character has no logical development. She is a housewife, a bandit; then, she proceeds to plot revenge, abandons revenge, abandons Ziyu, abandons her plans to never marry, and comes full circle from being a housewife to being a housewife again. Because of this, I have no idea what kind of a person she is and what drives her. Her actions are sporadic and are not properly explained. Xiangzhou is a ruthless and cunning warlord with a voice as smooth as velvet, who falls hopelessly in love. Instead of exploring that side of his personality while he tries to get back together with Miantang, the writers reduce him to a cliche simp begging for her to love him after she betrays him back and stabs him, which should have been a point of no return in their relationship. Although, she becomes nice and loving again, it is hard to ignore her insanely unfair treatment of him and a complete lack of accountability for any of her actions.

The drama does have some fun and touching moments, but the plot lacks depth and direction, and, the pacing slows down quite a bit in the second half. First, the story focuses on Xiangzhou and Miantang's romance. Then, it drastically changes to a political intrigue making the main couple's interactions very scarce. The villains are shallow and underdeveloped. Prince Sui is a caricature of a mustached bad guy trying to seize the throne. There is no deeper dive into his thought process and scheming. Sun Yuner disappears for many episodes at a time making her completely forgettable. The story overplays cliches and goes overboard with some side arcs, instead of focusing on the characters that matter to the plot progression. And, all the secondary characters are extremely bland and forgettable.

Overall, I enjoyed the first half and was mostly bored with the second half. The drama would've been better with a more serious plot and a lot less episodes. Xiangzhou and Miantang are both gray and complex characters who do not fit into a typical rom com setting with passionless vanilla romance.

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Great drama

This has got to be one of my favorite historical dramas.

The story started out resembling Gone with the Wind. FL is a beautiful and spoiled noble woman who has a slew of young men pining after her and who loves attention, and who happens to idolize her childhood friend. ML is a mysterious older man who doesn't put up with her shenanigans and tells her how it is. Everyone enjoys a carefree life until the war breaks out. This is where the drama starts to get really interesting. FL is forced to flee her home and survive against the enemy onslaught and we get to find out that there is more to ML than we originally thought. The drama does a great job switching gears to a more serious and intense tone showing what people, especially women, had to do to survive and the absolute gender disparity between the sexes. On top of that, FL is forced to undergo some very intense character development and transitioned from a spoiled young brat to a serious, dependable, empathetic young woman with a strong sense of responsibility.

The first part is not so much about romance, but survival and building a bond. ML and FL did not spend very much time together, but the few moments together were very meaningful where he had to save her life allowing her to see him differently in a more positive way. Moreover, he didn't allow her to be spoiled with him and made her think, making their dynamic completely different from her relationship with other men around her.

The message here is that a person cannot be stuck in perpetual childhood and will eventually have to grow up either by virtue of life's circumstances or if they want to be taken seriously, as Jang Hyun told Gil Chae.

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a big dumpster fire

To keep it short: this drama is a dumpster fire.

To keep it long, this drama has a very interesting premise - an anti-hero who was destined to become evil by a continuous cycle of abuse, betrayal, and abandonment falls in love with a heroine trying to prevent him from becoming evil. This had a lot of potential to be a great drama until the story became completely incoherent.

STORY AND CHARACTERS
The drama had disjoined plot and characters, nothing made sense, none of the characters told the truth, plot holes everywhere, and the values were completely skewed. A good guy was portrayed as a villain. Villains were portrayed as good guys. Tantai Jin was treated very poorly throughout the entire story by mostly everyone just because of whom he was destined to become and not because of what he did. He got no apology and no vindication. None of his good deeds got recognized and his "true love" never realized what kind sacrifices he had to make to save the world. There is no hope in this drama and nothing to look forward to.

The story started out strong with Susu and Tantai Jin meeting and immediately building a bond. They had a lot of cute interactions where they went shopping, she saved him from angry birds, they watched fireworks and played in the snow. This should have been the only story arc for the duration of the show. She figures out why he was evil because he had a hard life, so she shows him compassion and kindness, they fall in love, and he doesn't become evil. THE END. Instead, the show dragged on for multiple storylines adding no value to the main plot. The entire dream arc should have been reduced to flashbacks.

The story and characters were so completely incoherent, that it felt like the writers had no idea what they were doing. Everyone insisted that Tantai Jin was evil, but he was not written as an inherently evil person. About half-way through the show it became apparent that he was arbitrarily delt the villain card without actually deserving it. He was born "special", to a life of suffering and without love threads which would have enabled him to find love. But, he eventually grew love threads and fell in love, which should have derailed his destiny of becoming the devil god. But it was never addressed anywhere in the story. Inherently evil characters eventually slip up and do evil things. TJ never harmed an animal, never killed an innocent, never started a war, never betrayed anyone. He did not have an evil bone in his body, no pun intended. So, why was he still destined to become the devil god if he already changed his predetermined fate by finding love? Nobody knows, including the writers, who likely did not even understand their own characters. A lot of money was spent on the production and not enough on the writing.

Susu had an inconsistent personality and no real character development. One moment she acted like a crazed fangirl around TJ, the next she went on a sanctimonious rant about how he could not be saved because he was "evil". She always assumed the worst about him just to be proven wrong later, but she still never learned to trust him. Susu's problem was that she was never able to separate the individual from the devil god. It was extremely frustrating to watch that brainless woman going behind TJ's back all the time, doing something stupid and then blaming him for reacting to it. Betrayal was the one thing that was triggering to him. Yet, Susu kept repeatedly doing questionable things that made him feel betrayed and abandoned. It was absolutely cringe-worthy to watch this dumpster-fire of a romance imploding on itself because it was so self-sabotaging. Susu never had any trust in TJ, although he never gave her any reason to mistrust him. She always jumped to the worst conclusions and hurt him more often than she made him happy. While TJ went out of his way to avoid becoming the devil god and tried to do only good, none of his efforts were ever appreciated. Everyone always judged him without trying to figure out what actually went on. The only time when Susu finally understood him was in the very last episode when she became a goddess and was able to look into his heart. But, in my opinion, it was already too late for her. She had numerous opportunities to have his back and and to give him a chance. Instead, she always listened to rumors, superstitions, and speculations that often did not make any sense and accused him of a crime because he was a convenient scapegoat. There was no point even killing him at the end because he never allowed the devil god to control him.

One of the most infuriating things about Susu was her holier-than-thou personality. She saw herself as a good person. She was written as a good person, but she did some very reprehensible things. When she became Ye Xiwu, she found out that Xiwu was an awful person. Xiwu made TJ kneel in the snow. Any decent person would have ended that immediately, but Susu did not. She actually allowed TJ to kneel for days in the cold spying on him and having mental rants about how he "deserved" it. She also whipped him. Any sane and good person would have thrown the whip on the floor and said "I'm not doing it", but she was either not very bright or just decided to go with it. And, she whipped him. I seriously could not believe she did it. Not to mention that later on she drugged his food and drove nails into his heart. What in the actual hell....

Everything was awful. What are we supposed to derive from this story? Bullies don't get punished. Bad things will always happen to good people for no reason. No matter how far we go to sacrifice for others, they will never appreciate or even know about it. Again, what is the point?

On a different note, the blood spitting in every episode became very noticeable and looked disgusting. There didn't need to be so much blood coming out of people's mouths, especially in scenes where it wasn't necessary.

SET/COSTUMES/MAKE-UP
The set was beautiful, 'nuff set.

Taitan Jin's outfits were often ridiculous. The writers obviously wanted him to stand out. But, they made him stand out too much. Feathery outfits, flowing capes, and an over-powdered face full of make-up was a bit much. Susu sleeping in her head jewelry also looked stupid.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Usually, happy endings make me feel all warm and fuzzy. Sad endings make me feel bittersweet. This drama made me feel empty. More often than not I wanted to reach into the screen and drag Taitan Jin out of that mess. He was better than all of them and he deserved so much more. The writers broke every rule of writing. They wrote an "evil" character without actually making him evil. They wrote star-crossed lovers with only one person making any effort. Susu's original goal was to prevent TJ from turning into the devil god, but every action she took pushed TJ closer to the edge. She never even told him that she loved him in any meaningful way. This story was like the Pandora's box - it unleashed every single calamity on the world, except hope.

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A mature, well-written romance

The highlight of the drama was the main couple. The romance was written in a thoughtful way showing mature interactions and organic development between two adults falling in love. Their conversations were genuine and meaningful. He did not treat her like a delicate flower and they had mature conversations about issues outside their relationship. They were equals. The only thing I didn't like was the misunderstanding trope in the second half, which led to Gu Qianfan avoiding her, making him look cowardly and weak. This was completely contrary to his character because he was portrayed as a no-nonsense straight arrow who did not avoid facing problems. Other than that, this was a beautifully written romance.

One minus was that there wasn't much of a plot. The storyline with the painting felt like an afterthought. Most of the plot focused on the political struggles between various government factions. Ouyang Xu ending up the endgame villain felt nonsensical. He was a weak villain, far from a mastermind, who was mostly absent from the story. At the end, he was the only one who was punished and the real masterminds went unscathed. Making Ouyang the scapegoat felt like a cop out from writing an actual plot and delivering a proper closure to the story.

Some of the secondary characters were fun. I liked that Yinzhang finally grew up because I was tired of her immaturity and entitlement. Chi Yan was over-the-top and only served as comic relief. And, again, none of the villains, except Ouyang, got punished. Shen Ruzuo just disappeared from the story after he tried to set up Yinzhang. He did something reprehensible, but nothing happened to him, which was a huge letdown.

Overall, I enjoyed the drama just for the romance between ML and FL. Everything else was forgettable.

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Underwhelming

I just finished the drama and I have no idea what I just watched.

The premise was very interesting: two female spies infiltrated an enemy sect as potential brides to wreck havoc. "We must act as enemies!" they said. "So we can gain trust!" they said. And then it all fell apart. They did nothing except cozying up to the two males and then falling in love with them. There was no suspense, espionage, intrigue, betrayal, ANYTHING to fit into the promised plot. Weishan and Shangguan just spent time drinking tea and talking about what they should do, without actually doing anything.

And then there were long winded pointless side stories. Why should we care about Ziyu's mother? She was some chick his dad married who spent all her life pining after her lost love and ignoring her only son. Shangjue and Yuanzhi made a big deal about her being pregnant when marrying the dad, insinuating that the dad wasn't Ziyu's biological father, which would disqualify Ziyu from becoming the Sword Wielder. We were forced to watch a series of flashbacks of Ziyu's mom and Lady Wuji as if there was an actual point there. Was Lady Lan really Ziyu's mom? Or was it actually someone else...like Lady Wuji? That would've been such a cool plot twist. Ziyu was the secret son of the Gong family and Wufeng's super secret agent "Anonymous". SHOCK! But nope! Lady Lan was Ziyu's mother and Lady Wuji was just a nanny. Nothing to see here.

The drama was only 24 episodes, so I thought it would be action packed. Nope! The writers actually managed to make it mindbogglingly boring. The last 3 episodes dragged on and could've been made into one single episode. There were scenes of characters just standing around with snow falling in the background. I seriously couldn't wait for the story to end. I just did not care about any of the character or the plot. Too much screen time was given to secondary, less important characters and their irrelevant storylines, like Elder Yue and Yunque. Why was this important and why did we need to care? There were extended scenes of characters monologuing and telling us all about their plans, instead of showing us. The dialogues about poisons and fighting techniques were extremely convoluted and technical. I felt like I was reading a pseudo scientific thesis filled with confusing terminology that I did not understand.

For the entirety of the show, it was emphasized that Wufeng was the ultimate villain. So why was Ziyu's brother, who was killed off at the beginning, brought back as the bad guy AFTER Wufeng was already defeated? There was just too much plot entanglement and surprise twists that led to nowhere. Less is more.

The writers could have done a better job at Ziyu's character development. He started off as an immature and care-free guy who was forced into the position of the sword wielder. After becoming the sword wielder, he continued acting like an immature and clueless hot-head. The three trials made him grow up and improve his skills. But we didn't see the actual character growth. He just suddenly became mature in one episode.

I did like that Shangjue and Yuanzhi were not the actual villains, but more like competition for Ziyu. Shangjue was right for questioning and challenging Ziyu because Ziyu was an immature kid who did not deserve the position of the sword wielder. I am glad that Ziyu actually earned it at the end.

The finale was plain stupid. Shangjue watched Shangguan leave after she told him he was pregnant with his baby. Ziyu let Weishan go visit her family without any security escort. It appeared that Weishan was ambushed at the family home, so her fate was unknown. The last scene was Ziyu painstakingly waiting for Weishan to come back looking all sad. We heard the gate opening and him looking at it with an unreadable expression. Did Weishan come back? Or was it someone else? Did Weishan and her twin do a switcheroo? What was happening? If there was a sequel, this ending would make sense. But, we don't know if a sequel will follow, so the ending was completely nonsensical. It's ok to make sad endings. But an ending should have a logical conclusion. This was not an ending at all, but an end season cliffhanger.

Overall, the drama had very good visuals and fight scenes. The acting wasn't bad either. But the story progression, pacing, and the finale were disappointing.

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Promising start, boring romance, lame ending

The entire drama felt like the writing team was either completely replaced in the second half or the writers decided to troll the audience. I was a fan up to about episode 12. The political intrigue was very engaging and the story was worth watching just for that. After the crown prince returned to the palace, the plot fell completely flat and the ending undid everything the main character accomplished.

The writers built up Lee Gon to be a calm, intelligent, responsible man who cared about the country. He spent the entire show fighting for what was rightfully his - the throne, just to voluntarily give it up for a woman he barely knew. This was so out of character for him because he was written as someone who was incredibly level-headed, especially in comparison to his brother, who kept throwing temper tantrums and crying all the time. Instead of creating a plot that made sense and writing a convincing love story, the writers threw their own characters under the bus to force feed us a happy ending.

I would have been alright by this decision if the romance was convincing. It wasn't. The actors looked stiff together and had very little chemistry. Barely any time was spent on building a meaningful romantic connection. A few days in the woods together wasn't enough for Lee Gon to abandon his responsibilities for a woman he didn't know all that well.

Overall, this was an incredibly underwhelming show that lost all charm in the second half. The romance was bland and the ending was terrible.

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The main actress ruined the show

Shin Sae Kyeong (SSK) ruined the show. With a good actress, even the most ridiculous plotlines would've made the show exponentially better. SSK just can't act. She has one facial expression and her mouth is always open. If the sound was on mute, we wouldn't known whether Mongwoo was happy, sad, horny, or constipated. She had no personality and her face always looked the same because of SSK's stiff acting. Half-way through, it was impossible to ignore her overbite and teeth always showing. I don't blame the actress because it was the director's or producer's, or whoever was in charge, responsibility to manage her and to tell her to keep her mouth closed. I am absolutely flabbergasted that they thought her mouth being open in every scene was ok. Even Jo Jung Suk, being the superb actor that he is, couldn't save the show. When one person spills his heart out and the other one just stares blankly, it completely kills the chemistry and any romantic mood.

Let me emphasize that the gender bender/cross dressing trope is ridiculous and outdated. It is also very suspect. Dramas where a man is trapped in a woman's body and has a romantic/sexual relationship with another man get ruined by bad endings because the producers try to make them less gay. But, apparently, it's not gay at all to have a man liking a woman pretending to be a man. Totally not gay, because he is actually a she, right? Not really, considering that the guy who is having a crush thinks he is interacting with another guy and keeps questioning his own sexuality. If the show was set today, poor king Jinhan would be erratically taking internet quizzes to convince himself he was not gay.

The king should've found out that Mongwoo was a woman after she came back from the dead to eliminate any bias and identity crisis. This is not to mention that SSK was completely unconvincing as a man, as most women are. There were plenty of opportunities for Jinhan to find out early that she was a woman, like when he grabbed her hand and commented on how delicate it was. His ridiculous conclusion was that she was from a rich family, instead of questioning her gender. Any sane person at that point would've already had a pause, but the writers insisted he remained in the dark to drag the tension out for as long as possible.

The revenge plot was also nonsensical. They spent half the show talking about revenge and not doing anything. It was unclear why they even wanted revenge and what the king did for them to seek revenge. Mongwoo was portrayed as an intelligent person, but her motivations were very narrow-minded. I have no idea why she disliked Myung Ha. All he did was love her and wanted to marry her. Even forging the confession letter was done to protect her from being tortured. It seemed that she judged people's character based solely on their ability to play baduk, which made her very shallow and elitist.

Overall, bad acting, stupid tropes, and a boring and badly written plot make this drama a hard pass.

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Ugh

The long ballad was indeed very long and very stale. If you are looking for an epic love story with a lot of romantic chemistry, an interesting plot, and meaningful character development, you won't find it here.

The story started out strong. FL and ML met each other under interesting circumstances – playing football. Shortly thereafter, FL lost her family to a revolt and was forced to flee her home. Unfortunately, the story kind of got lost within itself after that.

Changge was like the perfect Joan of Arc warrior princess. As a young woman from a privileged background, she was great at everything, including sports, sword fighting, and military strategy. The fact that she was perfect was her one major flaw. There was no room for growth. I enjoy strong female characters, but Changge's flawlessness and acting superior with mostly everyone made her overbearing. She couldn’t be beaten, making her extremely one dimensional. It was not convincing that all of her superb skills were the result of her uncle training her as a child.

While the drama started out strong, the story later took a strange turn and lost all focus. At the beginning, Changge swore revenge against those who instigated the revolt and killed her parents, but she ended up moving around different places and doing things completely unrelated to her original goal. The fact that nobody could figure out that she was a woman was pretty comical. All it took was for her to wear men’s clothes for everyone to suddenly become blind to the fact that she had a bump on her chest and round hips. What's worse, later in the show the revenge plot was completely abandoned and now we had a brand new end boss completely unrelated to Changge.

Yueyan ended up to be my favorite character because she went through the most intense character development and overcame all the difficulties on her own. Her and Hao Du was also my favorite couple because there was so much contrast between them - he was cold and calculating and she was timid and soft. The show did a good job at showing his growing feelings for Yueyan and his inner struggle trying to deal with them.

Half-way through the show, a slew of minor characters started appearing out of nowhere and served no purpose other than existing for Changge and her interests. Then, everything got really stupid. People kept insisting that women couldn't lead, women couldn't participate in politics, women were fragile, but there was this 14 y/o princess Tujia running around signing treaties and fraternizing with grown men without anyone saying anything. She'er was the leader of the wolf division and a good fighter, but he spent a big chunk of the show crying for mommy and being absolutely useless. Many decisions were stupid and made no sense. The crown prince's friend was a traitor and participated in Changge's abduction, but for some reason that was never addressed. Sun got arrested for killing him and no explanation was given. The fact that a member of the royal family got kidnapped wasn't even mentioned. And this type of nonsense continued until the very end. Nobody communicated anything. The show also didn't do a very good job at juggling between different character arcs. Characters would disappear for several episodes at a time making us kind of forget about them.

Explanations for certain plot lines were mediocre. It was never clearly explained why the revolt happened, why Changge's mom wrote the letter, to whom, and what was in it, or why the uncle killed her dad. The only take-away was that the emperor uncle didn't kill the mom.

The romance was underwhelming. It wasn't only because Changge and Sun had no romantic chemistry, but also because watching them together was like watching two dudes interact. They were just hanging out. The one kiss they shared was blurred out and we were forced to watch birds. I don't care that the writers intended it, it looked stupid.

The acting was very mediocre. Although she is very beautiful, Dilraba does not strike me as a very good actress, and, Leo Wu needs to work on his acting skills. I haven't seen him in anything other than Love like the Galaxy and the Long Ballad, and I wasn't impressed with his portrayal of stoic brooding characters. Zhao Lusi and Liu Yuning stole the show for me.

Bottom line, the drama was too long, the plot was too convoluted, and the romance was too stale.

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Icky and forgettable

This drama sucks you in with a promise of an engaging story and interesting characters. But, after a few episodes, the whole thing devolves into a cesspool of boring cliches, plot holes, and bland story arcs.

The story started off with Renjuan and Qiuchi having an incredible first encounter just to be separated and reunited again at school. They had some of the best chemistry I've seen in Chinese drama with cute interactions and beautifully written romance. The fun lasted for about 15 episodes until the story switched up to a series of very bland and skippable short arcs with very quick resolutions. It would've been fine if these stories somehow fit into the plot. But after one ended, none of the minor characters and plot ever resurfaced again.

One of the major issues was the main couple getting together too early and leaving no room for future romantic development. This became apparent when the writers force fed us every possible jealous lover trope to manufacture tension and destroy their own story. Brave Renjuan regressed into a spineless turd who couldn't be bothered to fight for her love. Instead of thinking of a clever way to avoid marriage between Qiuchi and Princess Yeying, she ended her relationship with Qiuchi in a screaming match. Ironically, a very timid Qinghe exchanged hair pins with Hang Ruxue, then both strolled off leaving the princess to pout on her own. Not only did the writers completely destroy Renjuan's character making her look weak, they also showed that she couldn't handle adversity or fight for what was important to her.

The villains were reduced to scorned lover caricatures devoid of any complexity. Wen Renshu started out as a jealous schemer only to regress to a complete idiot who acted against her self-interest because of her deranged obsession with Fu Yuanzhi. Instead of rubbing her two brain cells together, she went out of her way to help Yuanzhi get rid of Qiuchi without realizing that she was helping the object of her affection dispose of his love rival. Yuanzhi went from being clever and calculating to a complete psycho trying to burn his classmates alive. The quality of storytelling felt laughably arbitrary like nobody on the writing team communicated or even understood their own plot.

And then there were plot holes everywhere. Evil step mother promised to be a force to be reckoned when she threatened to destroy Renjuan's future and marry her off to some loser. That storyline was quickly abandoned and the stuttering loser just fell off the plot. Renjuan's martial arts training evaporated in favor of the damsel-in-distress trope where she forgot how to fight and now needed to be constantly rescued.

Even the best thing about the drama - the love story between Renjuan and Qiuchi - eventually became boring and repetitive. The plot felt like the writers ran out of ideas at episode 15 and decided to wing it moving forward. I was so excited when I started watching it, and now I want all the hours I wasted back.

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Exceeded expectations

The drama was extremely addictive with tons of positives.

The first 15 or so episodes were amazing. FL falls victim to her husband's heartless plot to kill her because his powerful lover ordered him to. She feels betrayed, confused, and heartbroken. Shortly thereafter, she assumes the identity of a dead girl she befriended and moves into the girl's family home to plan her revenge. The story has mystery and intrigue. I enjoyed watching Li Jiang/Xue Fangfei maneuver through the Jiang family drama, befriend new family members, and outsmart the evil step mother. FL's character was classy and mysterious making me always wonder what she would do next. What I like about this drama is that episode 1 jumps right into the plot. There was no set-up. We didn't need to sit through 10+ episodes for things to start happening.

Unfortunately, which is typical of most Chinese dramas, the story tends to deviate from the main plot into mini-arcs. Here, the story was the most interesting when Li Jiang was in the capital. After she left the family residence to meet the Ye family, the quality of storytelling went down. The Ye family, draught, and imperial diviner arcs were completely uninteresting. As soon as FL started dressing like a man, playing drinking games, and skulking in the mines with ML, the story hit every cliche trope and lost its air of mystery. Also, FL befriending the Ye family and gaining their backing did not add anything to the plot. They disappeared from the story as soon as she went back to the capital and did not re-appear to help her in any way.

One of the highlights of the story was FL and ML's explosive chemistry. They flirted, bantered, shared passionate glances, and were just a step away from ripping each other's clothes off. Unfortunately, due to incomprehensible Chinese censorship, this amazing romantic chemistry climaxed with a very underwhelming chaste candlelight kiss.

The story was worth watching just for the villains. Li Ming did an amazing job as the elder princess Wanning. She portrayed the character exactly how she would've been - conniving, hateful, jealous, resentful, and very very insane. Her smiles were deadly and her threats were real. Walking around and twirling her dresses made her look like the main character in her own story. I normally don't care for villain backstories because there shouldn't be any sympathy for evil. But, boy oh boy, did she gain my sympathy even though she was worth hating. It also made me wonder whether she was a different person before her father sent her to the enemy kingdom to be abused. I also felt like the punishment for every villain was fitting. Wanning killed herself with her beloved hand after realizing that he never truly loved her. Yurong committed suicide after realizing he will never get back what he lost and that his death was inevitable for committing treason. He dug his own grave committing one crime after another without truly taking responsibility for the all the evil he's done.

The ending felt rushed. Some cool characters were killed off in the very last episode just to get last minute emotion from the audience. It did not feel like a natural story progression, just something the writers decided to do the last minute. One moment, Xiao Heng was holding on to the pendant his beloved gave him as the token of her love while awaiting his death from the charging army, the next moment he rides his horse towards Fangfei standing by the tree they planted together. It didn't look very well thought through and felt rushed just to finish the show with a happy ending.

Overall, I really enjoyed the drama. The relationships felt real and mature, the intrigue was interesting, and the acting was brilliant.

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Good acting and production overshadowed by a messy plot

This show had tremendous potential. The premise was very interesting and seemed to be a coming of age/revenge story of a young man's personal growth. Unfortunately, that wasn't the actual plot. I don't know what the plot was.

The romance was ok. It only took Jiusi and Yuru 28 episodes to kiss and consummate their marriage. Other than that, they had affectionate and cute interactions with almost no sexual chemistry. But, when they kissed, they made out on screen and it was hot. This makes me totally confused about the logic behind Chinese censorship.

The revenge plot was a big deal at the beginning. But, then it completely fizzled out into nothing. The evil magistrate, who killed Jiusi's family, got stabbed to death by a girl. So, what was the point of that storyline at all? I guess halfway thorough the show, the writers decided to switch the direction from revenge to political intrigue.

The whole drama could've been completed in 25 episodes. After the rebels were defeated and the new emperor took the throne, the story should've reached its logical conclusion, but the writers dragged it for another 10+ episodes to meet the maximum allowable threshold of 40 episodes. On top of that, the drama had long draggy conversational scenes about nothing. I didn't care about everything a character was feeling at a particular moment. I zoned out through most of the conversations or fast-forwarded through half of them.

I ended up skipping the last 10 episodes and just watched episode 40.

The music was good, the acting was great. But all the positive things were completely overshadowed by a totally incoherent plot.

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Good drama

At first, I dropped this drama after a few episodes because I detest female characters who are purposely written as clumsy, whinny, and clueless. It's not endearing but really annoying. But after hearing good things about it, I decided to give it another chance and watched it till the end.

This drama has amazing character development. It starts off as kind of comedic but later becomes quite dark and emotional. The main characters go through a transformation. She becomes more mature. He gains feelings and empathy. They are star-crossed lovers and this drama really went out of its way to show the type of love that endures. They fought for each other, made sacrifices, had faith in each other and at the end stayed true to who they were. They also made each other better. She matured from a clumsy airhead to a thoughtful person. He developed feelings and was able to form relationships and appreciate others.

The ending felt rushed. One moment she was waiting for him to come back to life, the next moment he was standing behind her "I am baaaack!", they kissed, the end.

The story tended to drag sometimes but it didn't affect the plot too much.

The acting was fantastic, especially by Dylan Wang. The way he conveyed emotion after Orchid died was heart breaking.

Overall, the show has some really good acting, good music, really emotional scenes, and a very touching love story. Recommend!

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No Ta chi

The story was very unique. It had some LGBT elements that had to be handled with a certain level of care and awareness. Unfortunately, at least in my opinion, the writers decided to go down the safe, less gay, route without realizing that the ending completely destroyed the plot.

** SPOILERS **

The drama was about Bong Hwan (BH), a 21st century man, traveling back in time and waking up in a body of a princess soon to be a queen. It was filled with very funny and clever moments that kept me very entertained. But, after episodes 14-15, the plot kind of became stale. The scenes were not as funny anymore but annoying. I eyerolled at the scene where the queen threw a temper tantrum over Lady Choi eating all the yogurt. However, this wasn't the biggest problem with the show. The biggest problem was the ending.

The story was about BH's relationship and subsequent love story with the king. Nowhere in the drama did the writers elude that BH and So Yong (SY) ever fought for control of the body, or that sometimes it was BH and sometimes it was SY who was in control. It was always BH. This was even confirmed in the queen's last conversation with Byung In telling him that "she" did not know where So Yong was or whether she was even alive.

The king, Cheoljong, fell in love with BH in SY's body. BH's unorthodox behavior, unpredictability, straight forwardness, lack of manners was what was attractive. If the king wanted a meek and polite young lady, he would've stayed in love with Hwa Jin.

Everything the king did - writing the queen's dictionary filled with new words that BH introduced to him, writing a journal about new fighting and exercise techniques that BH taught him, reforming the country, was because of his relationship with BH, not SY. SY by herself was a very minor character and appeared in only a few flashbacks. Even SY's ideas about women's rights were BH's ideas and not hers.

And, what do we get at the end? BH goes back home without even saying "good-bye" to anyone. The king ended up with SY, who was not the person he fell in love with. But, that's ok, so long as SY looked exactly like the person he loved, we were supposed to accept it. What a terrible, horrible, no good message.

I am not sure why the writers did not go down the incarnation route where SY and BH were the same person living in different eras, and, at the end have SY and BH's souls and personalities merge as one in SY's body. There was already a premise for that with the queen's identity crisis "her" being a man in a woman's body and having a romantic/sexual relationship with the king.

It was also strange how the king did not pick up on the fact that after BH left, his wife became a completely different person who could no longer cook and had an entirely different personality. Or, that SY ended up lying to the king about who she was and did exactly what Hwa Jin did. But we are supposed to ignore it.

Shin Hye Sun is an actress from god. She did an amazing job portraying BH and SY as completely different people, they even spoke differently. SY was soft spoken. BH was coarse and aggressive. It was rather strange to assume that the king, who was head over hills in love with BH, did not see that his wife was different, considering that the differences in SY's personalities after the suicide incident were consistently addressed in the show. We did get a scene where the king somewhat realized that he lost something, but that scene looked like an afterthought rather than a serious and tragic realization that something important was lost.

Even Byung In, whom I hated, became a sympathetic character at the end because he actually confronted BH about SY and was the only one whose love was authentic. The writers made it look like it didn't matter to the king who he was married to so long as that person looked a certain way.

I honestly thought that BH would return to the king in one way or another, but the ending left me completely flabbergasted. Nobody ended up with the person they actually loved and the king's relationship with the queen was based on a lie. The attempt to paint SY to be more like BH because she started cursing was a lousy cop out. What made BH different was his boldness, a sense of justice, and ability to form close relationships with servants and nobility alike. SY just capitalized on it and ripped rewards from everything BH accomplished, without achieving anything on her own. What a stupid way to destroy an awesome story.

The rewatch value is like in the Game of Thrones. Everything is awesome until it all falls apart at the end.

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Parade of stupidity and wasted potential

For a drama that is ranked so highly, I expected greatness. What I got was boredom and disappointment. Unfortunately, this is another sad victim of genre confusion where the writers couldn't figure out whether they were creating a drama or a comedy.

The story had a promising start. Jang Uk spent his entire life in mediocrity because of the circumstances surrounding his birth. He was forced to live quietly without an opportunity to practice magic. This could've been a coming of age fantasy drama with a side of romance telling a story of a man regaining power and finding his identity. What we got was cliche slap-stick comedy devoid of any dramatic themes that were promised at the beginning. Instead of working towards self-improvement, Jang Uk was a whiny, unmotivated, blabbering idiot who gave up every time he faced a challenge. Barely any screen time was given to his training so he could achieve the tremendous power he was destined to have. The writers just decided to give him a free level-up by placing him in situations where he didn't even do anything while Mu Deok stood around and clapped "You are so luuuucckkkyy!"

The romance was mostly boring because Jung So Min only had two facial expressions. When Mu Deok did not patronize the crown prince with exaggerated groveling, she had a resting b*tch face most of the time. Whenever they had romantic scenes, only Lee Jae Wook made any effort to show emotion while Mu Deok just looked bored. The characterization wasn't particularly convincing either. Jung So Min as Naksu/ Mu Deok looked more like a pouty teenager forced to do chores rather than a super-powered assassin. The original actress before the soul switch delivered a much better performance.

The overall pacing was very slow because the plot focused too much on side characters and pointless love rectangles. Everyone and their mother had to fall in love with Mu Deok. Instead of showing a blossoming romance between the main couple, the writers forced Mu Deok to spend more time than necessary with rejected lovers. I am not sure why they thought it was entertaining to watch long and incredibly boring scenes of Seo Yul staring longingly at My Deok.

A slew of filler arcs added nothing to the plot. I couldn't care less about side characters' romance, lost family members, and other pointless crap that didn't move the story forward but made each episode incredibly long. The drama would've been a lot more entertaining if it had less episodes and better editing. At the end, my watching experience was reduced to pressing on the fast-forward button to get to the end of this mess.

Overall, this drama was just a giant time sink with very little entertainment value. The plot was messy with too much filler and the characters were not interesting enough to emotionally invest in.

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The grass is always greener on the other side

The drama gives a realistic view on marriage and what happens when two people stop communicating and being considerate. Cha Joo Hyuk is selfish, self-centered, and completely unaware (or refuses to acknowledge) that his weaponized incompetence triggers his wife's temper. He dreams of a better life without her until he is given an opportunity to travel back in time to change his outcome.

The first 12 episodes have consistently good pacing and fluid storytelling. Cha Joo Hyuk wakes up married to his beautiful and rich first love until he meets Seo Woo Jin again. I enjoyed the use of flashbacks showing just enough of Joo Hyuk and Woo Jin's relationship and how in love they were before marriage, which plays a big part in his character development. The story switches between comedy and melodrama as the main couple gets to know each other again. The writers portray Joo Hyuk feelings of guilt and regret rather well as he realizes the gravity of his mistake and what he lost.

Woo Jin is clever, spunky, and has a hilarious sense of humor. I really love her characterization. Thankfully, the writers avoid the cliche portrayal of a messy and childish heroine, and create a well-rounded adult who can be serious and funny. Her and Joo Hyuk have very good chemistry and slowly begin to re-connect. Even secondary characters are fun. The drama gives them just enough focus not to overwhelm the viewer or take the attention away from the main couple.

The last 4 episodes undo everything I loved about the drama. After confessing his mistake to Woo Jin, Joo Hyuk is desperate, full of regret and longing. This is when the story should've started to wrap up. But, the writers force us to sit through 4 more episodes of Woo Jin relentlessly pursuing Joo Hyuk to reconcile. Joo Hyuk's behavior is completely contrary to what he wants as he goes out of his way to avoid her and regresses back to the self-centered jerk he was at the beginning. Instead of giving his redemption arc a logical conclusion, the writers turn him into a spineless coward refusing to make any effort to be a better man and husband. The main couple's explosive chemistry completely fizzles out with Joo Hyuk's vacant stares and Woo Jin's continuous begging. At that point, it is hard to root for them or even care if they stay together. Moreover, the drama gives too many filler scenes to the secondary characters. I say watch episodes 1-12 and skim through the last 4 just to get to the happy ending.

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