Just Weirdo Me
brink of insanity, USA
This review may contain spoilers
*TAKES DEEP BREATH*
Final Verdict:
7.5 Stars out of 10.
-1 Star for insane pacing.
-1 Star for the 1000 over-the-top villains & their ridiculously over-the-top personalities.
-1/2 Star for the time skips(not one but TWO of them), which are a personal hate factor for me.
I wanted to love this show, my complaint would be the pacing. If they put a little moderation in everything this show would be beyond brilliant. Instead everything is a wee bit over the top.
Bad Guys:
Princess is a psycho.
Queen is a psycho.
Almost-married-to-Prince is a definite psycho.
New concubine/princess/whatever? Yup. Fo Shizzle a Psycho.
The characters are too "much" to be believable. On top of that the sheer number of almost-got-murderized-but-didn't traps is dizzying.
Got caught in a trap. Prison. Almost died but didn't. Got caught in a new trap next episode. Got beat THEN sent to prison and almost died a traitor but didn't. Next episode got caught in a trap in order to trap someone else in a trap and got beat and sent to prison and released again in the nick of time.
*TAKES DEEP BREATH*
Anywho... my personal opinion is that if there was some build up & story-telling in between these 100+ traps, some more in depth character building rather than Characters 1-10 = Psychos, Character 11 & 12 = Good Guys, & Characters 13 & 14 random wishy-washy peeps, then this show would be at my top 5 of all time in C-Drama land. For now, it's enjoyable to pass the time, but too fast paced & too over the top with its characters to quite become something super special. But I'm still going to watch and enjoy this show for sure.
ETA 02/19/19:
Soooo I've been cheating and watching the raw videos in advance. I'm pretty far in and pretty sad about how things are going since I'm not a fan of "time skips" because I don't feel they're ever done well. Hao Lan has two time skips. 8 years and the next one soon after another (at least) 8+ years. I'm not a fan and from what I'm watching it's a LOT of heart ache in the show constantly without much to "look forward to" as a viewer. I'm going to watch it in its entirety, but I can tell already this will not (unfortunately) be leaving a good taste in my mouth. I hate that because it has everything that SHOULD make it amazing... but the most important thing and that is believable pacing and viewers connection/investment to & in the characters.
7.5 Stars out of 10.
-1 Star for insane pacing.
-1 Star for the 1000 over-the-top villains & their ridiculously over-the-top personalities.
-1/2 Star for the time skips(not one but TWO of them), which are a personal hate factor for me.
I wanted to love this show, my complaint would be the pacing. If they put a little moderation in everything this show would be beyond brilliant. Instead everything is a wee bit over the top.
Bad Guys:
Princess is a psycho.
Queen is a psycho.
Almost-married-to-Prince is a definite psycho.
New concubine/princess/whatever? Yup. Fo Shizzle a Psycho.
The characters are too "much" to be believable. On top of that the sheer number of almost-got-murderized-but-didn't traps is dizzying.
Got caught in a trap. Prison. Almost died but didn't. Got caught in a new trap next episode. Got beat THEN sent to prison and almost died a traitor but didn't. Next episode got caught in a trap in order to trap someone else in a trap and got beat and sent to prison and released again in the nick of time.
*TAKES DEEP BREATH*
Anywho... my personal opinion is that if there was some build up & story-telling in between these 100+ traps, some more in depth character building rather than Characters 1-10 = Psychos, Character 11 & 12 = Good Guys, & Characters 13 & 14 random wishy-washy peeps, then this show would be at my top 5 of all time in C-Drama land. For now, it's enjoyable to pass the time, but too fast paced & too over the top with its characters to quite become something super special. But I'm still going to watch and enjoy this show for sure.
ETA 02/19/19:
Soooo I've been cheating and watching the raw videos in advance. I'm pretty far in and pretty sad about how things are going since I'm not a fan of "time skips" because I don't feel they're ever done well. Hao Lan has two time skips. 8 years and the next one soon after another (at least) 8+ years. I'm not a fan and from what I'm watching it's a LOT of heart ache in the show constantly without much to "look forward to" as a viewer. I'm going to watch it in its entirety, but I can tell already this will not (unfortunately) be leaving a good taste in my mouth. I hate that because it has everything that SHOULD make it amazing... but the most important thing and that is believable pacing and viewers connection/investment to & in the characters.
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