The Double is a fantastic drama to watch in the first half of 2024. It's entertaining enough to keep you hooked to it. It did justice to the thriller and revenge genre.

Overview of Plot:-

The Double tells the tale of the lady who was betrayed by her love and buried alive with a ruined reputation, Xue Fangfei. The man she gave her all betrayed her in the hard times for some despicable excuses. She crawled out her grave and assumed the identity of second daughter of Jiang Family to take her revenge and seek justice for herself and the real Jiang Li.

Key Characters:-

Xue Fangfei/Jiang Li (Wu Jin Yan):- The daughter of Magistrate Xue, Xue Fangfei renowned as the most talented lady in the capital. She is also known with two other names, Xue Li and A'Li. She fell in love and married a poor scholar Shen Yu Rong. She loved him wholeheartedly and supported him with all she has. Yet, her love was betrayed, her reputation was ruined, she was tortured and her hope was scattered. Despite her innocence she was buried alive, abandoned in that cold place alone by her beloved husband without giving her the reason for not trusting her, without giving her the reason of all her sufferings, without giving her the reason of the betrayal of her unconditional love.

Xiao Heng/Duke Su (Wang Xing Yue):- Duke Su, the right hand man of Emperor of Great Yan, an incredible chess master who plots and never let his enemy upper hand. An adaptive strategist and never failed to hit the bull's eye.

Shen Yu Rong (Liang Yong Qi):- The ex-husband of Xue Fangfei and the lover of Princess Wan Ning. A poor scholar who pave his path of becoming an official in court with his hardwork to prevail justice. However, he couldn't be untouched by the temptation of power. He is a person who never take responsibility for his own actions and loves to play victim card.

Princess Wan Ning (Li Meng):- A psycho lady whose obsession is Shen Yu Rong, the husband of another lady. She loves to toy with people, torture them for fun and take advantage of her position.

My Impression:-

The captivating plot of 'The Double' made me to not blink while I was watching. It's one of the favourite genre of mine. However, I was skeptical at first because I was not familiar with the cast, except one or two, but decided to give it a try because I have faith in Youku. The first few episodes made me to binge watch 25 episodes in just 3 days. The drama starts with dark theme, and switching between the dark and light. The suspenseful and emotional rollercoaster plot mainly revolves around the female lead. The Double is focused on the revenge and it wouldn't be wrong to say that this is one of the few dramas which is more focused on females be it female lead or other female characters. The drama conveys the struggle and pain of women and their cruelty, their desire of love and wrath of hatred, their wish to live a peaceful life and obsession.

The drama is paced well, neither slow nor fast. The plot is fantastic however it is not free from holes. Sometimes there are loopholes that are visible even with eyes closed and made me question the logic. I won't get into details about it, you'll know when you watch it.

Xue Fangfei, our female lead, is smart and capable of holding the sky if any trouble befalls her or her loved ones with her unparalleled intelligence. Not the typical female lead who always needs a man to get her out of trouble. She can be a pawn or the chess master to get her way. She can be a part of other's game and can even play her own game making the chess masters into her own pawn. In this journey of revenge and justice A'Li found her soulmate. The title of the drama suits her the best. Duke Su offers his support only when A'Li is unable to play her game because of her not holding some high position in the court.

The drama falls in the category of slow-burn romance but the chemistry hits the top. Duke Su and A'Li are a match made in heaven. Though it's a slow-burn but it doesn't feel like one, except there is less skinship. I can even watch 20 more episodes with that chemistry. Both are intelligent and responsible. With their smartness they continuosly tried to outsmart eachother, supported eachother and they didn't realise among this all, they started to fell for each other. Duke Su didn't know exactly when A'Li started to become the special one in his heart from the pawn in his chess. Similarly, A'Li didn't get the clue since when Duke Su started to heal the wound of her heart. I loved how their love progressed. Finding a man like Duke Su after being betrayed by Shen Yurong is such a blessing for A'Li. Likewise, finding a true match in opposite gender whose intelligence is at par with him is fate for Xiao Heng.

Let's talk about the villains. Their backstory is quite pitiful but still they all are despicable that I have no sympathy for them. The karma served them right. Among them the most despicable one is Shen Yurong. He is sleek and coward person, never takes responsibility for his deeds and shifts blame on others. He is pretty good at self-pity and playing the victim card. He gets the love of two women but he chose to betray both of them for one another, thereby losing them both at the end of the day. Princess Wanning did everything for her obsession with Shen Yurong but still in the end she lost him and the worst was being betrayed by him. She got the taste of her own medicine. She wanted to make Shen Yurong like her and he succeeded in becoming like her, obsessed with power and person whom he claims to love. They also are a good match for each other. Now coming to the stepmom of Jiang Li, Ji Shuran. I think she had it easy, her retribution wasn't that well done. The people died because of her must still be feeling injustice.

The acting delivered by the cast is truly spectacular specially from Wu Jin Yan and Liang Yong Qi then comes our Wang Xing Yue and Li Meng not much behind them. Wu Jin Yan made me cry with her many times. She delivered top notch emotions when confronting Shen Yu Rong every time and chemistry with Xiao Heng. Liang Yong Qi portrayed the conflicted emotions of Shen Yurong perfectly. The regret of hurting A'Li but never admitting his choice, the obsession with her yet claiming to be innocent, all are greatly portrayed by him. Wang Xing Yue played Xiao Heng with that dark and dangerous vibes which goes perfectly with this character. The stepmother (Chen Chiao An) also did amazing.

The most useless character was Jiang Yuan Bai, the man can't even handle his own family matters justly yet he is prime minister and handling country affairs. Indeed, he was a good prime minister but he failed as a husband and father. His retribution served him right, living his rest of life in regret and grief.

I loved the friendship of Emperor Zhao Ye and Duke Su Xiao Heng. It's s rare to see an emperor to have a best friend. Apart from A'Li and Xiao Heng, Wen Ji and Lu Ji remained my favourites from starting to end.

Though the story is well paced and well developed but still there is the Ye family arc which I feel like dragged for too long and the drama tried to shift towards the lightness and characters became overly righteous which I don't like much. I loved the dark heavy theme. There are also some unnecessary deaths (I won't spoil who died but I bawled my eyes out for them) and plots which doesn't make sense but I watched it for the entertainment's sake without getting into logic. Duke Su get quite less screen time which is also a complain from me. We mostly saw him plotting behind the scenes and being told that it's done by Duke Su and all. It would been better if his screen time was increased and we get to see him more.

Conclusion:-

This drama unexpectedly did beautiful job by making audience not to take their eyes off the screen. The acting to chemistry was all great. OSTs are good and costumes are beautiful for females. In males only our male lead got a good wardrobe. If we ignore the plotholes and go with the flow it's definitely fabulous. There is happy ending with a special episode so I'm not disappointed with the ending but yes not really satisfied.
A must watch from me.
Highly recommend.