Deep in the Realm of Conscience (2018)

Pros:
- Lots of budget for the setting and some nice costumes.
However, probably because of the amount of effort put into setting up the set, the drama had a lot of unnecessary long shots to flaunt the setting. Sometimes, it makes you wonder why there are so little or no palace maids/ eunuchs around. The princess could barge into the court while the emperor was discussing matters with someone (where is the eunuch to inform the emperor about the princess's arrival?).

- Casting
Random fact: Steven Ma's tvb drama comeback

Cons:
- Plot was boring. The dialogue was strange - it felt like the drama was separated into two distinct sections. One group was speaking in light tone and everything rhymes. The other group was just in a serious tone. This is probably not as obvious if you are watching the dubbed version.

Overall, if u watch the drama as a standalone, it is okay and probably an enjoyable watch for some. As a sequel, it falls short from the first one.

Read More

Apart from all the nice sets and clothing (but a little to exaggerated), Deep In The Realm Of Conscience is a bad watch, and I do not recommended anyone to watch it..... The sets are undeniable nice, but they focus too much on that, in the middle of the series the story just drags and it makes the drama very sluggish and boring, I dropped at Episode 21 since I went on holiday and I wasn't bothered to watch it....The performances were fine, but most of the ladies in this drama are wrongly cast, and the dialogue is atrocious with the rhyming....., not much comment on anything else.

Read More

This drama was quite a letdown. While I have never watched the first series, I had heard great things about it and had honestly looked forward to this drama, especially since one of my favourite TVB actors, Nancy, was starring in it. When it came to watching the drama however, the garish costumes, confusing dialogue and boring story really made me struggle to finish it. The only reason I even finished this drama was to support Nancy. For those looking for a nice historical drama, it would be best to look elsewhere. This drama is mediocre and I would only recommend this if you have a lot of time on your hands.

Production/Story:
Considering that the budget for this show is quite high, the costumes for the various actors were bad in the sense that the colours were overly bright and didn't really suit them. It feels that they're trying to show a rainbow spectrum of colours - which I personally feel is unkind on the viewer's eyes. More mellow colours or better colour-matching could have made this show much more enjoyable to watch. For the story, it is dry and only interesting at certain parts. One thing that made this show less enjoyable for me was how everyone was speaking in poetic words and rhymes. While this won't make the show less watchable because it is totally possible to understand what they say based on their actions etc, the sheer amount of poetic words just felt unnecessary.

Acting:
Acting was okay. They actually had a pretty stellar cast who I have seen acting brilliantly in other dramas. However, maybe because of the story or their respective characters, I didn't feel any special appeal from their acting. However, I must say that I quite like Alice's acting in this drama.

Music:
Being a fan of ballads and more "quiet" music, I liked the ending theme song -《飞蛾扑火》. The background music in the drama is decent and suitable for the respective scenes.

Rewatch Value:
I struggled to even finish the show, so nope.

Read More