AlternativePerspective
This review may contain spoilers
My life flew by as I watched this Drama
The storyline of this period costume drama revolves around the budding romance between Xiaoman (played by Liang Jie) and XiaoQian (played by Joseph Zeng) who overcome multiple hurdles, personalities, misunderstandings and socio-economic inequalities to finally get together and have a happy ending.
Disappointingly, the first 30 episodes of this drama focuses so much on the ill-conceived misunderstandings between the main Male and Female Protagonist characters, so much that the side character's stories just bored and faded into the background for me.
Acting wise, Joseph Zeng Shunxi nails the role of a really bad-tempered, spoilt and immature Prince who only becomes more selfless and shrewd towards the tail end of the drama when the inner palace's corruption conspiracy was being uncovered and exposed. I wish the scriptwriters spent more time developing the maturity of his character instead of only allowing his "maturity spurt" to take place in the last 3 episodes. I've watched Joseph act in Heavenly Sword Dragon Sabre (2019) and Hi Venus (2022) and I think that he is a really talented, versatile and expressive actor. So it's a real pity that the script limits his acting ability to a few emotionally-heavy scenes in this drama.
Liang Jie plays a Female Protagonist that too naive whiny and petty for my liking. By the end of the story, I am unconvinced that her character actually progresses in her maturity, despite her attaining her scholastic dreams of becoming a teacher at a distinguished academic institution while marrying the Commandery Prince in shining armour. This isn't Liang Jie's fault (I liked her in Hi Venus, where she plays a much more mature character) but just really poor script-writing that fails to bring the Female Protagonist character to maturity as they much as they did with the Male Protagonist. Also, I find it unrealistic that her character can get away with being blatantly rude to the Imperial aristocrats of those times. Eg yelling back at the Queen Consort, Slapping the Commandery Prince, Arguing with a Court official etc with a (scripted) lack of personal remorse and reflection.
I was left very unsatisfied with the main character's development and skipped through many scenes where I felt were just stuffed in there to lengthen the drama duration. Wish I had saved my time watching better dramas!
Disappointingly, the first 30 episodes of this drama focuses so much on the ill-conceived misunderstandings between the main Male and Female Protagonist characters, so much that the side character's stories just bored and faded into the background for me.
Acting wise, Joseph Zeng Shunxi nails the role of a really bad-tempered, spoilt and immature Prince who only becomes more selfless and shrewd towards the tail end of the drama when the inner palace's corruption conspiracy was being uncovered and exposed. I wish the scriptwriters spent more time developing the maturity of his character instead of only allowing his "maturity spurt" to take place in the last 3 episodes. I've watched Joseph act in Heavenly Sword Dragon Sabre (2019) and Hi Venus (2022) and I think that he is a really talented, versatile and expressive actor. So it's a real pity that the script limits his acting ability to a few emotionally-heavy scenes in this drama.
Liang Jie plays a Female Protagonist that too naive whiny and petty for my liking. By the end of the story, I am unconvinced that her character actually progresses in her maturity, despite her attaining her scholastic dreams of becoming a teacher at a distinguished academic institution while marrying the Commandery Prince in shining armour. This isn't Liang Jie's fault (I liked her in Hi Venus, where she plays a much more mature character) but just really poor script-writing that fails to bring the Female Protagonist character to maturity as they much as they did with the Male Protagonist. Also, I find it unrealistic that her character can get away with being blatantly rude to the Imperial aristocrats of those times. Eg yelling back at the Queen Consort, Slapping the Commandery Prince, Arguing with a Court official etc with a (scripted) lack of personal remorse and reflection.
I was left very unsatisfied with the main character's development and skipped through many scenes where I felt were just stuffed in there to lengthen the drama duration. Wish I had saved my time watching better dramas!
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