The perfect slice-of-life, with a dose of romance, comedy and a bit of angst

This drama itched a scratch I wasn't even aware existed. Despite its very slow burn nature, from the very first episode I was absolutely sucked into the story.

STORY

The storyline itself is pretty common, a girl who lived a life in the city goes through a major incident, moves to the countryside and falls in love. I've watched a few stories like that but this has been the absolute best so far. Both the leads are immensely loveable, you watch them fall in love slowly and realistically, while their relationship does have minor hiccups, you can tell that their foundation is strong enough to go through everything together.

Despite the sheer number of characters in the story, I really think I loved all of them. They all had their own stories, all of them were completely human. As a chronic fast forwarder, I thought a slow paced drama would mean I'd have my finger on the arrow key but it was the complete opposite! I wanted it to go at their own pace because of the gorgeous atmosphere created by the writers, you can't help but bask in the scenes and immerse yourself in the characters' emotions.

The only slight cons I had were; I didn't much enjoy the story of Manjun and Hu, those were the only scenes I felt very lukewarm about. Also I can't help but wish we had a few more scenes with our lovely main couple, but that's just wishful thinking, they did the best with what they had. Some of the writing also came off a bit preach-y, with the lines being like lectures to the audience; it worked in some places, didn't in some others.

ACTING

This was the first drama I've watched of both Liu Yifei and Li Xian, and I was just impressed by both of them! Liu Yifei's voice suits this show incredibly well, her soft tone really matched the ambiance provided by the visuals. Li Xian also did a great job as Zhiyao, he especially portrayed his love for LYF's character in a way that you can't help but swoon. All the many supporting actors and actresses did their characters such justice, from the old grandmothers to the four little kids.

MUSIC

The music was just amazing. I can't put into words how much I loved the OSTs for Meet Yourself. Even though I wanted to skip through the ending credit scene, once the song starts you really can't pull yourself away. There was another song - rather folky- that I absolutely adored, great use of music through out the drama. Also the audio added onto the visuals so well, some of the best comedy came from the audio editing team so shout out to them.

REWATCH VALUE

I'm not a re-watcher at all. I hate knowing how something is about to unfold and having to put myself through all that build up all over again. However, I have always had a couple of dramas on my regular rewatch that I must have watched 5 times minimum, and I have a feeling this drama might enter that rotation. I don't think I can put into words how much I absolutely adored this drama, as I finished it I couldn't help but feel like re-watching it immediately.

tl;dr,
Great drama. Slow paced slice-of-life. Romance with the main leads with incredible chemistry. Great writing. Breathtaking scenery. Amazing characters and plot. Strongly recommended to anyone who just wants to sit back, relax and watch a warm show to end your week!

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Great story that stumbles before the finish line

A Dream of Splendor is a story of the sisterhood of 3 women who strive to live independently and proudly, despite their position in society. All 3 women have their own stories of struggle in the path to getting where they are now, some of them (*cough* Yinzhang *cough*) are deeply flawed in the beginning but through various hurdles end the story with great character development.

STORY
There is a great combination of romance, comedy and angst in this story. I must emphasize the comedy because not many people mention it, the comedy in this was really to my taste and were some of my favourite parts.

The first 30 episodes are great, in fact I think it was actually steadily improving as it went on . Then we hit the part that sent the story rating straight down to 6.0. The drama was going so well, it wasn't too trope-y, the main couple was actually communicating, they had incredible chemistry. It's important to remember that both ML and FML are both very intelligent people, but when we hit the last 10 episodes, we reached trope-land. Miscommunication like no others and complete idiocy from the ML.

Here's the main spoiler part; FML's father was demoted and their family was given pariah status. After they get together, the ML finds out his father is responsible for the demotion. The same ML who was preaching about communication a few episodes ago starts avoiding her! At the same time, our very independent FML suddenly depends on the ML for money to carry out a very risky business deal. Our extremely intelligent ML decides to leave the money (the old cash note) near an open window. Under an empty vase. On a stormy night. And doesn't tell anyone he left the money. Smart, right? The obvious happens and the paper flies away and gets hidden by other documents, FML in trouble because without this money she (+ the other women) lose everything they own.

Naturally she's mad at him. Despite there being a series of dumb decisions that lead up to this, once she finds the money he left behind, all is forgiven... Something like "It's not that he didn't want to see you, he was scared of seeing you" is said and then they got back together, no discussion about what happened.

And some parts of the plot are badly rushed. Some arcs have no satisfying ending, some have no ending at all, it's just.. there. Especially re: the relationship of the ML and his father (+ uncle). Didn't like how quickly the empress was convinced to come to the good side either. Writing this review made me realise that I kind of filtered out some stuff while watching it.

Also I found Yin Zhang annoying af for most of the series and I couldn't stand her scenes. She did improve majorly at the end though.
Sanniang had the best storyline and I sincerely rooted for her. Best character easily.


ACTING/CAST
Great acting. I didn't enjoy Liu Yifei's acting in the beginning but she grew into the role quite quickly. Had amazing chemistry with Chen Xiao, their romance was just top tier. All of the cast did great. Shout out to the actor that played Chi Pan, thank you for the great comedic relief during the main angst session.

MUSIC
The OST was pretty great, ended up adding a couple of them to my playlist.

REWATCH VALUE
Depends on whether you can stomach the dumb conflicts for a second time lol. Think the storyline suits a rewatching though. Just not for me.

OVERALL
Just give it a shot! My review sounds overly negative but there's a reason why the ratings are high, the acting, the first 2/3 of the plot and the cinematography are also pretty good. But also be aware of how frustrating the last 10 episodes will be.

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Fun storyline that occasionally strugged with pacing

STORY
Rather than the storylines, I think I enjoyed the characters and interactions the most. Thinking back, it's mainly the negatives that pop up in my head but the story was overall pretty good though, I liked the vibe in the beginning in Lingquan Town especially.

When it comes to the storytelling, the main gripe I had was the fact that the pacing was always a bit off; it felt like a lot of time was spent building up an arc, just for it to resolve quite quickly which made the payoff quite unsatisfactory. The show had quite a lot of things going on simultaneously, and while 40 episodes would have been good to flesh things out properly, there were times when it felt too much was happening and times when it felt like hardly anything was happening at all.

I also disliked that we had a 3-year time leap where Ziyu became the emperor because it felt like it was too important to have been completely left out like that. The Wu child emperor and the Empress Dowager characters were quite established, but it felt so abrupt that they completely disappeared from the story over a black screen with text.

CHARACTERS

Liu Miantang:
I disagree with most of the reviews saying that she was being overly harsh on Ciu Xingzhou. Thinking about how much he lied about, I found her reaction to be quite realistic and I'm glad that the writers didn't make her immediately give up on her anger the second that Xingzhou apologised to her. I agree that her character was quite inconsistent at times, especially after she got her memories back. I also wished that she was able to play a more active role in Prince Sui's downfall/death because one of her main goals was to avenge her brothers in Xuizhou.
Wang Churan was the perfect actress for the role and I really enjoyed her acting throughout the entire show. She did well in both the action sequences and the emotional scenes (like when she confirmed how much Xingzhou was lying about)

Cui Xingzhou:
Didn't really like him in the beginning but I think the writers did a good job of redeeming his character after all the lies.
Zhang Wanyi did well in the comedic scenes but I found him slightly wooden in the more dramatic scenes. I believe a lot of them might be an issue with the directing but he generally did an okay job for the role.

Zi Yu / Xue Ji:
Ziyu was okay I guess. I felt like he was too hung up on Miantang towards the end and I wasn't a fan of the acting at a few points but an overall okay character. Xue Ji on the other hand was easily my favourite character in the show. I adored her from start to finish, she was well-written and developed so beautifully throughout the show. The actress did a brilliant job portraying her, especially in the scene where she finally stood up to General Shi.

Zhao Quan / He Zhen:
I didn't like their pairing at all and I found Zhao Quan quite annoying in most of his scenes. Even as Xingzhou's friend, I liked his other friend from the capital much more. It's quite a shame because I enjoyed He Zhen's character quite a lot in the beginning and I feel like it would have been more effective having her not marry anyone and just become a successful porcelain business woman instead

Other characters:
I wouldn't particularly say everyone was well-written but I think it was more of a pacing issue than anything else. I liked the ending they gave for Binglan despite how annoying she was. Miantang's grandfather was incredibly annoying at certain points but I found him painfully realistic as well. One of the biggest wasted characters was easily Yun'er, she was a strong character in the beginning but after she became a consort, she turned quite petty and weak. I still liked some of the characters like Mo Ru, Miantang's uncle and Lin Si Yue though.


REWATCH VALUE:
I'm not sure how well it would hold up in a rewatch. I think some of the scenes, particularly the court politics scenes might age well but the slow burn beginning where Miantang has amnesia might not be as enjoyable on a rewatch. Too early for me to say but I might return to give it a watch in a couple of years.


CONCLUSION:
If you're in the mood for a rather slow-moving show, this would be a good pick. I find it to be a decent idol drama, and despite all the issues, I had a really fun time watching it. As someone who's been struggling to get through dramas recently, I managed to finish this off within a week. If you want to watch a light-hearted idol costume drama, I recommend this to you!

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One of the K-Dramas that truly stood the test of time

Re-watched Jewel in the Palace so I thought it would be good to review it properly. I'll try to review it both in the context of the time it was released (2003) and how it appears now.

*Story*
This is a 54-episode show that starts before Jang Geum is born, focusing on Myeong Yi, her mother for the first episode. Then we follow Jang Geum through her life as she becomes a court lady at the palace, goes through trials and tribulations, gets exiled to Jeju and learns medical arts, returns to the palace as a nurse to get revenge and eventually becomes the king's main physician.

The story was good back then and surprisingly stands strong even today. The characters are well-written and the storylines are compelling. The court lady arc was my favourite as a child and I still thoroughly enjoy it today. I appreciate the fact that they allowed some of the villainous characters to be well-developed as well. Particularly Geum Young, how her relationship with Jang Geum changed over time, how she attempted to stay true to herself while struggling with her obligations to her family, I found her one of the best characters on the show. While most of the other villains like Choi PanSul and Minister Oh came off slightly one dimensional, I found Lady Choi to be quite well written as well, despite being cartoon-ishly evil at some points, particularly when she allowed Min Jeong Ho to go free once she found out Geum Young was in love with him.

One of my main issues is the fact that they don't let us linger on a satisfactorily resolved arc for too long. After many episodes of angst, when we get a happy moment it hardly lasts for 5 minutes before they throw us into the new arc. While I understand they had a lot of story to get through, I feel like they should have given some of the positive moments time to breathe. Everytime I watch the show, I can't help but think it would be nice if it ended once she fulfilled her mother's dream of becoming the First Court Lady of the Kitchen because I found that the most satisfactory ending. However, I understand the latter arcs were needed for her to reach the "Dae Jang Geum" status. The drama didn't fall into the typical trope of the main character making the same mistakes for the sake of the storyline, but I found that it happened with the side characters quite often (especially her fellow Royal Hospital nurses). There was a timeskip that was necessary but I didn't like the vagueness of its length and the fact that the ML was kept away for that time period, but the overall ending was still satisfactory and I liked that we saw Jang Geum living a similar life to her parents!

*Acting/Cast*
Loved it so much, even the child actors did really well. I was surprised to find out the child Geum Young was played by Lee Seyoung but she did really well even in this role. Lee Young Ae was incredible as always, I feel like I didn't realise how good she was at acting before because of how beautiful she is but she was so good with all the emotional scenes. The ML actor, Ji Jin Hee wasn't as good and there were parts that he felt a bit wooden but he did good at acting smitten so I can't be too mad. Overall, just an acting masterclass I was impressed.

*Music*
Gave 10/10. Am I biased? Yes, very much so. The nostalgia I get every time I listen to Onara is no joke...

*Rewatch Value*
Again, 10/10. I mean this genuinely, I rewatch this show nearly every year. No matter how much I watch, I still haven't got tired of it. The 54-episode length means that some of the details might slip your memory and you might forget some of the minor arcs, so its fun to rewatch and rediscover those sections.

*Overall*
Really really great show. If you haven't watched it before, I recommend you do. If you're considering rewatching it, I'd say go ahead, you won't regret it. I'll likely watch this next year as well! Every time I visit my childhood shows, I find myself wishing I left it in the past but this isn't one of them. Despite all the minor issues, Dae Jang Geum truly is one of my favourite dramas of all time and I hope more people watch it and appreciate it.

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