A Complete Waste of Time

If I could sue a drama for wasting my time, this definitely will be at the top of my list.

You'd think that with this drama which has some big names in the casts, especially as notably as Patrick Tam, you'd witness a masterpiece. However, this drama is nothing but a total waste of time and energy. I watched this drama with my mother and she was actually invested in this drama. We thought we were half-way through the story and would start to see the truths get unfolded, but instead, we were met with the ending out of nowhere.

The drama spent so many time in building suspense, establishing enmity, and constructing schemes that never got explained even until the end. So many things that viewers thought would be an important details to remember for future events ended up never being discussed or discovered at all. It was so unclear what were all those problems for if they serve no purpose at all to the story.

The way the evil characters done their schemes, it was as if the writer purposefully left holes which you'd assume will be the way those wrongdoings get leaked and how justice will be served someday. But turns out, nothing happened until the end on these evil characters, and among so many bad things they had done, not even one was revealed into the light.

It was weird how they had so many characters, explored into the lives of so many people, but only gave an ending for the main couple. The rest of the characters didn't matter all of sudden despite the fact that they spent so much time showing these characters for the entire 46 episodes. What was the purpose of all these people then? If even until the end they weren't significant and not worthy enough to have their own ending?

Especially when considering that the FL had no major role in the harem, it was so useless the way they touched into the lives of so many harem women if she would still be majorly unconnected to these harem women even until the end. Why didn't they just focus on the story of a girl who married an Eunuch General and showed a little bit of the palace drama? Instead, it was done the other way around. They focused so much on these palace harem drama and showed a little bit of the story of a girl who married an Eunuch General.

Not to mention that Yang Yong guy as ML is utterly useless. I'd believe if someone tell me the Eunuch General is the ML because of how minor that Yang Yong is for the overall story. He served no purpose at all in the story. He was supposed to be the hero that has enmity with the Eunuch General, but neither he succeeded in revealing the crime of the Eunuch General nor he actually did anything significant on his own to try to work in that case. But, the worse of all, is the fact that he is the ML! The literal ML of the story. The love interest of the FL. But neither he helped the FL during his lover's difficult times nor he contributed anything to his lover's freedom in the end. His acting is also not really good. It was very bland. Maybe because his characters lack any purpose or depth, but even when he was supposed to be expressive in pressing situations, he looked the same all the time. Like, aren't you angry? Aren't you disappointed? Aren't you sad? Aren't you stressed? Then why I don't see it?

The ending for the Eunuch General is unclear although he was a major character in the life of the FL as her former husband, especially after he ordered his soldiers to kill her lover, that Yang Yong guy, but killed his eunuch who disguised as Yang Yong instead. There is no way he or so many soldiers wouldn't know that it was his eunuch who died instead of Yang Yong. I mean, he is a general and these people are from the army, even if they didn't know at first, they would notice later. Yet, we had no clue what happened after that incident. Neither with the Eunuch General nor with the killed eunuch.

The most important is the way they spent so many time and stories building the devilish Imperial Consort, but what is she for again? I saw nothing about her significance in the ending. Why would they shoot a dialogue that the Imperial Consort knew Eunuch General faked the death of the FL if it wasn't going to get revealed publicly later? It was only one among so many other plots that became loose ends and serve no purpose at all to the story before surprisingly ending meaninglessly.

I don't know what happened but considering how abrupt and awful the ending was, I'd assume they were forced to shut down the production for some urgent reasons. Not sure if it's a budget problem or any scandal occured, but the ending was so sudden and abnormal, it didn't feel natural or logical at all for any writer to ever wrote such ending. It seems that this drama initially had a big production budget, judging from the very exquisite costumes and sets, perhaps they ran out of money midway and had to finish it unplanned. I kept trying to find some excuses for the ending because it was really bad. I'm not sure what happen because I can't find any news about this production issue.

But one thing for sure is this drama is a disaster and very disappointing that should be avoided totally.

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The Best Time Travel Drama So Far

If you're a fan of tragedy and enjoy getting your heart broken (like me), this drama is a must watch for you!

I heard this drama is extremely low budget, but I'd say you won't be able to really tell or be bothered. I don't think I could care at all about those things when watching this. Unless you come expecting a colossal-scale epic with elaborate sets and props, fancy costumes, or mass extras in the background, this drama's small production won't really cause disappointment. I'd say that the production team really tried to make it to the fullest with the limited resources they got that the low budget production doesn't really affect the quality of the story at all.

The story itself is very unique and new. Even I'd say that the best part of this drama is the story. The story is a full 10/10 for me. I don't think I have ever experienced this kind of time travel before. Unlike most time travel drama, the timeline of time travel in this drama is in reverse order. The story keeps going back into the past instead of progressing forward, which is the most frustrating and depressing aspect of the drama.

This drama will take you into a path full of sorrows. Anticipate only angst. So if you expect to see an intensely sweet, cutesy romance in between the misery events, you shouldn't. Because this drama is a complete tragedy. You'd only encounter pain, pain, and more pain as the story goes on.

The most tragic aspect of this drama, however, was the fact that the first time the ML met the FL was the last time FL would ever meet the ML again, and later the first time FL would meet ML was going to be the last time ML could ever see FL again. But, that still wasn't the most hurtful part. I think what makes this heartbreaking is not that they can't be together, but the fact that at the time FL was most in love with the ML, the ML didn't know her, and then by the time the ML was totally in love with the FL, the she didn't know him.

It was so agonizing. Love and relationship are usually built from the shared history of a couple's journey together, but here, at every encounter, they weren't at the same page of history. Sometimes the ML doesn't share the memory of the journey that the FL had with him, other times the FL doesn't share the memory of the journey that the ML had with her. She loves him, but even when he loves her back, it wasn't to the degree of how much she loves him, and vice versa. It was almost like you have a one-sided love but everytime your love started to get reciprocated, your partner got amnesia and you had to start all over again and again.

The story is written very beautifully. The writers and the team really took the drama seriously and put so much effort using all they had because you can tell that, regardless of their low budget, they weren't producing the drama carelessly. They treated the drama as if they were doing a big budget project. They paid attention to smallest details that subtly imply a lot of significance in the story, every scene and dialogue has meanings that you'd not have been able to recognize the first time, and they thoughtfully bury a lot of messages that only make sense later as the story progresses.

The acting is really good despite the fact that these are not big actors in the Chinese industry. I hope their names get bigger and more projects in the future because they are really good.

The ML acting is alright. The ML was able to showcase how his character became wiser as the story progressed. But I'd say that the ML need to work with his expression because most of the time he has the same flat look on his face. It was quite hard to sympathize with him during the first few episodes although the acting as well as the feelings towards him gradually improved with more episodes unfolding. But I’d attribute that mostly to the writer because the story is really beautifully sad and you don't have any option but to empathize with the characters even when the acting is only half-way convincing. The ML wasn't awful but I won't say he was great either. He can make this tragedy so much more devastating than what it already is if only he wears something else than the stiff naïve look on his face. But his acting towards the end gets better. The best level of his acting in the drama was by the time he got heart failure in the carriage. I think he was awesome there and it was a very sad scene. From there as he became sickly and fell into the fourth time lapse until the ending, he started to look more pitiable and easier to relate in his agony.

I think the FL’s brother, the young general, Lu Shi, has more facial expressions. He quite successfully delivers various emotions (such as sadness, anger, even the “tragic” look) with his facial soft tissues. And Lu Shi is absolutely gorgeous, especially with the long hair and the side bangs sweeping his face. He was such a treat to the eyes. His smile is also very pretty. Here, he reminds me of Kim Bum from the Boys Before Flower. But Lu Shi got softer facial features and even more handsome. He is a very tragic character in the story. However, because the drama is short (perhaps due to the tight budget), so there wasn't much time to go into Lu Shi in more depth, I felt like his character would be very interesting if they’d explore him, then perhaps, his death (which already very painful) could cause even worse pain if he was exposed more deeply and longer to the audience.

Our main star is the FL. I'm completely in love with the FL. She invoked so much emotions on me with her acting. She truly knows the way to make viewer relate to whatever she is feeling. Either happy, angry, sad, or desperate, she makes it all look reasonable and makes me as a viewer supported whatever she feels. I think she truly is the cast that hard-carry the entire drama. It usually was really hard for me to watch actresses in Chinese drama without frowning or rolling my eyes because their acting can be either stiff (wearing too much of the innocent expression) or just over the top sometimes. But the FL's acting here is flawless. She showed different sides of her characters throughout the reverse growth very well. As an older FL, she perfectly exhibited maturity and composure. The way she acted during these period of her life reminded me of the actress playing Empress Fu Shou in Secret of the Three Kingdom. As the time goes back into the past, the FL here showed how her character also gradually act younger and younger. Her acting during her 18-year-old self displayed youthfulness and was very convincing as if I have never seen her older self before. Like she is completely a different person with the contrasting personality that she showed in different times. The way her eyes, eyebrows, mouth, cheekbones, forehead, all moved in meaningful manner. The drama could have gone really bad if it wasn't for the FL's acting that carry and conveyed the entire feelings of the drama. She makes the sadness of the story more palpable to me as the viewer.

There aren't that much of wuxia in this drama. But when there were martial art scenes, it was always executed beautifully. The FL fighting scenes is totally gorgeous and captivating. She is looks fearless and violent in every fighting scene, yet always so elegant.

It was so unfortunate that the drama is very short. Because it's totally beautiful and could be even much bigger. As someone who loves to watch Chinese tragedy and epic with 70+ more episodes, it would be awesome if this drama can be longer.

You can tell that the story in this drama is actually very complicated, but due to the time constraint, they couldn't touch at every single issues and had to pack only the most crucial events into the show. They don't really have that much time to elaborate the severity of these characters lamentation, although they still successfully showed the miserable melancholy of these people in the story, but I felt like the despair was actually worse and more gloomy than what was showed.

It was my first time watching a drama that is engaging throughout all its duration where I did not feel even a second of boredom. This drama is very well-paced, unusual, and interesting. It offers a totally different vibes and feelings than any Chinese costume drama.

I'd gladly recommend people to watch this drama. The writers are very smart people with great creativity. The director is talented in the way that he/she managed to make every scenes beautiful and cinematic with no weird camera angles despite the limited budget. The editor also deserve a compliment for the clean editing with no awkward cuts. Everyone seems to be very professional in this drama.

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