XiaoQing
Watchable
Positive aspects of this drama:
- All the leads are interesting and well written, the scenes of the secondary leads don't feel like they're taking time away from the main couple
- The two main leads are really good looking
- Overall, this drama has pretty good pacing for 40 episodes (they're definitely too many though, but that's cdramas for you).
- The story starts from a VERY interesting premise: she's lost her memory and he pretends to be her husband. Seeing this kind of dynamic unravel is so good. There is also a cool plot twist along the way, and REALLY funny moments especially around eps 25-29.
- Finally, the main reason I never dropped this drama: Xueji's story. She was my favorite character and I wanted to watch her storyline until the end. Even when I stopped caring about the other leads towards the end, I was still sticking to this drama for Xueji and wanted to see how her story with her love interest progressed.
Negative aspects:
- The skin smoothing. Omg. I've never seen so much skin smoothing in a drama in recent years. The combo skin smoothing + heavy makeup makes Zhang Wanyi look like a corpse, and he doesn't need any of that?? He'd look so much hotter with less of the damn filter and a little bit of melanin showing.
- Abrupt cuts in the plot that left me a bit confused. There's a time-skip at one point where you're left wondering "how the f did this happen??" about a certain plot point.
- There are many technical aspects that are due to budget that don't really make this drama look high-quality: recycled Hengdian sets, no money to show actual battles and armies, very standard and bland cinematography for the most part. Costumes are also just okay looking.
- I didn't love the ML's acting in sad and tragic scenes. He's much better in comedic scenes though.
- [MILD SPOILER] In the second half of the drama, the main plot point around which the FL and ML's story revolved is no more, and a hundred very boring and predictable typical drama plots start (jealous love rivals, court schemes...), so the drama becomes just a very bland and standard one.
- All the leads are interesting and well written, the scenes of the secondary leads don't feel like they're taking time away from the main couple
- The two main leads are really good looking
- Overall, this drama has pretty good pacing for 40 episodes (they're definitely too many though, but that's cdramas for you).
- The story starts from a VERY interesting premise: she's lost her memory and he pretends to be her husband. Seeing this kind of dynamic unravel is so good. There is also a cool plot twist along the way, and REALLY funny moments especially around eps 25-29.
- Finally, the main reason I never dropped this drama: Xueji's story. She was my favorite character and I wanted to watch her storyline until the end. Even when I stopped caring about the other leads towards the end, I was still sticking to this drama for Xueji and wanted to see how her story with her love interest progressed.
Negative aspects:
- The skin smoothing. Omg. I've never seen so much skin smoothing in a drama in recent years. The combo skin smoothing + heavy makeup makes Zhang Wanyi look like a corpse, and he doesn't need any of that?? He'd look so much hotter with less of the damn filter and a little bit of melanin showing.
- Abrupt cuts in the plot that left me a bit confused. There's a time-skip at one point where you're left wondering "how the f did this happen??" about a certain plot point.
- There are many technical aspects that are due to budget that don't really make this drama look high-quality: recycled Hengdian sets, no money to show actual battles and armies, very standard and bland cinematography for the most part. Costumes are also just okay looking.
- I didn't love the ML's acting in sad and tragic scenes. He's much better in comedic scenes though.
- [MILD SPOILER] In the second half of the drama, the main plot point around which the FL and ML's story revolved is no more, and a hundred very boring and predictable typical drama plots start (jealous love rivals, court schemes...), so the drama becomes just a very bland and standard one.
Was this review helpful to you?
