Trying to control/restrict a woman is a sheer waste for a society...

I join other reviewers to say that the production, cinematography, cast and story are really the strength of this drama.

It is everything that I want to see in a woman-centric drama... strong, stubborn, hard-working, highly principled and independent women. It portrays the lives of 5 women, their interrelationships as well as relations with men. I must say that the guys are really horrible in this drama, especially the three dreadful, highly ungrateful uncles... thank god for the redeeming Mr. Wei who shows how a man can contribute to inspire a house-bound, duty-bound woman to liberate herself and go in pursuit of her own happiness. It shows the courage of a maid who rejects the marriage proposal of the man she loves because he cannot love her as she wants and deserves. It portrays the despair, harshness and strife for survival of women who have been let down by the men they loved, be it a lover or a father. Most importantly, it portrays that women do not need to compete for the affection of men. That women can be friends and can support and fight for each other's dream to come true.

One particular scene remains in my mind... when Mr Wei and Cui Xi are standing at the doorstep... it is so evocative that behind him, there is the whole world waiting for her and he is inspiring her to broaden her perspectives.... just love that scene.

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Absolutely brilliant cast and love the director's work

This is a true gem of Chinese drama. It does imply a commitment to watch a tv program of this length (49 episodes), especially when it revolves around Chinese Opera. BUT the payoff is really worth it. Let me start by the most obvious part which makes this serial so engaging... the stunning cinematography. Then, comes the simple story and how it unfolds. The ability of the actors to portray the emotions and to make us wish that we could find such a soulmate in our life...oh my God, how envious have I felt throughout the episodes, especially the last ones. Finally, the direction is mind-blowingly good. The director and his cast have been able to capture the very essence of what it is to be / have a soulmate and to portray it beautifully. THANK YOU.

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A drama aiming at pleasing the young, female demography

So when we see raving reviews about a drama, we tend to build high expectations that it will be great, above the norm, amazing... then we watch it and feel cheated out... this is the feeling I am having right now.

There is nothing wrong about it per se, but at the same time, there is nothing great about it.

This drama clearly aims at pleasing a specific target audience, namely the young, female demography, nothing more.

But let me start with the things I did enjoy in this drama: the cinematography...the shots, the places taken, the sheer poetic backgrounds reminded me the reason of why I am such a C-drama fan. I cannot get over two scenes where they are under the apricot tree and sharing a sweet moment or of that one of two trees interlaced with each other. The major killings parts, when the Shaosheng rides the horse in her wedding gown to pick up and protect the Ling Buyi...these were the highlights of the drama.

In terms of the story flow, I really liked the first part better than the second one; especially the Hua City arc and when Shaosheng decided to marry Luo.

What fell short were mostly the:
1. credibility of plot...What really shocked me was the amount of time and scenes where the Emperor is portrayed as being concerned and even agonising over or intervening to catalyse the feelings between Shaosheng and Ling Buyi... I mean seriously...and that specially in a context when your own children are dreadfully arrogant and behave badly, when your own Crown Prince is so indecisive and not at par for shouldering the responsibilities as a future emperor. Again, I felt that the punishments meted to them were grossly exaggerated considering the nasty tricks they played on Shaosheng or by their own actions while Shaosheng especially was treated overly well and also protected. Then there were the mean girls... what can I say, they were just verbally nasty or their tricks just felt stupid. How I wished to see real plotting and how a budding Shaosheng struggles to deal with them. Also, I felt that too much emphasis has been on Shaosheng while Ling Buyi is a character who deserved more screen time to develop itself. There are so many other flaws that failed to make this a great drama...BUT the main one is, why in the first place Ling Buyi fell in love with a character like Shaosheng when he is on a revenge mission...IT just does not make sense. How or based on what Shaosheng's action made him fall in love with her and how did he imagine that he would be able to combine his revenge and a married life. I mean I am shocked that Zou Yue, who wrote the Rise of Pheonixes did this...
2. capacity of the actors being able to sustain their character development (with the exception of Leo Wu). I enjoyed Zhao Lu Si's portrayal of the young, petty and vengeful Shaosheng. She felt like a natural in the first part of the drama and I had a few good laughs. However, her portrayal of the growing of age and especially, the last part as the heartbroken one felt mechanic, lacked depth and mostly came out as a petulant, sulking child woman. Leo Wu appeared stiff in his portrayal of Ling bu Yi at first, but he pulled the fighting scenes, horse riding scenes and even the tortured ones better than his FL counterpart. However, to say that his character was dark is really an overstatement... I mean he was not given the screen time to really portray the calculating, dark character or of a tortured one between his love and need for revenge. Also, let not even get started on the mother-daughter relationship...it was so caricatural and really lacked depth and understanding.
3. The gross lack of sensitivity and attention to details pertaining to palace etiquettes. I feel that after having watched so many dramas on palace life on Imperial China, there needs to be a certain integrity that need to be maintained. I mean, if a drama will make use of a palace setting, then a minimum of attention should be paid...the love birds are seen to be cuddling in public, the female concubine appearing in the General Assembly, giving Ling Buyi a cup of wine before the Emperor on a same platter... arrrr, I hate such misrepresentations.

All in all, I cannot give more than a very generous 8 for the entire drama.

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Ning Yi...one of the most complex character in a C-drama

This drama has it all, amazing production, intelligent dialogues, heart-thumping moments, attention-keeping palace plots, good-looking people and costumes, explosive chemistry between the different protagonists and antagonists ...

The director together with the actors have been able to create pure magic in their characterization and in weaving the complicated interactions by them.

The actress NiNi in her portrayal of both Wei Jhi and Feng Jhi Wei brings a lot of freshness to the dark character of Ning Yi as well of the Emperor. Her character is really an intelligent and smart. Her easy camaraderie, her dignity, her sorrows and her longing for her love really seeps through Ni Ni's portrayal. This is the making of a fine actress when she very naturally seem to behave, walk, talk like a young lady, like a man as well as be the very feminine, sad Jhi Wei later. A big Kudos to her.

But what makes this drama so special is the character of Ning Yi. In fact, the whole drama pivots on Ning Yi. He is one of the most complex character that I have so far seen in Chinese drama. He is so cunning, ruthlessly plotting his way to revenge and towards his path to reunite Tiansheng and towards becoming the Emperor. Yet, he is so tormented with self-doubts, by his innate wish to be a good and righteous person, by his vulnerabilities towards his mother, the Emperor (his father) and the woman he loves, by his plotting debates and banter with his true friend Xin Ziyang. Chen Kun did a fabulous job in portraying and giving dimensionality to this character. Though he is quite short (in terms of height), his portrayal of the character make him seem larger than the screen. I am on my third binge-rewatch of this drama. I just cannot get enough to look at all his facial and body expressions.

Love, Love, Love this drama.

Of course, the last part is not well executed and this unfortunately, seems to be rather common to C-Dramas. For this reason, I will not even comment on it nor allow it to influence my overall appreciation of the drama.

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Nostalgia of first love ...

Ok, so let's start with the basics...the storyline of this drama is very classic Mills and Boons, thus very stereotypical and we can all guess the outcome, despite the unnecessary later part twists and turns.
The production sets are not extremely expensive, mostly filmed in a hospital room, a small working class apartment amongst others...
The OST does not really engage nor elevate the scenes...
So what makes this drama so special:
1. The dialogues and the quietness of the scenes... as viewers, we are given insights of the thoughts of the actors. We can follow through their choices, their motivations, their fears, their way of rationalising their decisions. We become them...
2. The actors are phenomenal in their rendition of the characters. Emotions just ooze out of their eyes and body expressions. Lin Xiao Ran is really that exhausted by life woman and overwrought mom struggling for her child to get better as the meaning of her life depends on him. Wallace Chung is a really nice person who cannot get over this 'betrayed love' but who accepts the truth and does not force nor press on this woman to resume their love as if nothing has changed nor happened. The second leads add freshness to the drama...love the profound yet simple dialogues of the SFL when she discusses with the ML.
3. The cinematography is stunning as it really uses dark, narrow and almost stifling spaces to show the living conditions of the FL while the open yet stark white light of the ML's apartment as a means of translating the barren existence of the later. Yet, as the drama progresses, the lights and dark moods change.
4. The direction of the drama is so cohesive in managing all these small details. The director and production/editing team do not spend time on artifices nor on melodrama, nor over-the-top scenes to elevate it but rather, they delve into these details, on the lengths of the take of scenes to keep the focus on the drama.

All in all, this drama does its job very well, that is to make us question emotions, relationships, choices we make, etc.

Alas, can first loves really be trusted? Can first loves be recovered again and can it evolve in the future or should we keep these beautiful feelings of first loves in the nostalgic and perfect realm?

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High budget production for a disappointing story and performance

The first thing that strikes when watching this drama is the sheer detailing of the beautiful costumes, the mouth-watering foods, the grandeur of the location and set and the cinematography.

However, the drama falls really short in terms of the story and the unconvincing acting of the entire cast with the exception of Crown Dowager Zhang, matron Sheng and Yin Ziping.

As a viewer, I cannot really grasp who or what is really the star in this drama. Is it the food, the lives of these women, palace life during that period, the love story between Yao Zijin and Zhu Zhanji, the sacrificial burial of concubines? Seriously, I am lost.

If I compare historical dramas that have relied heavily on one element of Chinese culture, for example Winter Begonia that used Chinese Opera to depict the formation and evolution of an amazing friendship, Marvelous Women that used Chinese raw silk embroidery to showcase women's empowerment and friendship; I see that these cultural items really delved and carried us along the story. They were the backbone of the story and very intelligently melded with.

Here, food as a very important element of Chinese culture is used but it is not cohesive with the story. We get to see only fancy preparations due to culinary contests, fancy ingredients or names of dishes, the abuse or misuse of medicinal food, remembrance of childhood food prior to death, fabricated village food and sufferings of farmers and lastly, food during famine. However, the underlying message is unclear...what is the story trying to show us? They just seem incidental to the scenes. Also the use and abuse of food is omnipresent throughout the drama... on one hand, the message is not to waste food and immediately after, another scene would contradict the message...be it by the Emperor Yongle himself who arrogantly stares down at the fancy food or the grandson who childishly demands that Yao Zijin prepares fresh food for him while throwing a tantrum...

Secondly, the facial or body expressions of the casts, especially that of FL and SFL really appalled me. They seem to have only 3-4 expressions in their repertoire and it became painful to continue watching. There was no dimensionality in the characters of the entire cast. I understand that this drama is not a character-driven one but still, one would expect some form of character development...

Finally, it reverts back to the haphazard story of the drama... the palace plots were hardly dramatic, their resolving felt like a breeze. The episodes I forced myself to watch had not real arc, they were just linear in story telling and thus, failed to grab and keep my attention.


Never have I felt so frustrated by a historical drama which promises one thing but really falls short on delivering it.

P.S: Xu Kai really should stop taking on roles in high-budget productions and really focus on improving his acting skills. He could have the potential but his drama choices can really break his career which so far seems to be sustaining itself because of his pretty face.

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A very befitting title...

Chen Kun...my all-time favorite Chinese artist

The main reason I watched this serial is because of Chen Kun and he truly delivered. As always, he is the pivot of the drama and it is such a pleasure to watch him embody these characters and making us really fall again and again in love with him and his characters.

I am usually a strong supporter of female characters in any drama but I must say that this is the first time that I was actively routing for Qiao Zhicai...

The only time the FL was able to evoke any sympathy from me was when she was trying to save Qiao Zhicai towards the second quarter of the drama. After that, she fell flat again in her acting and even the end could not convince me at all. Her character itself actually was very bland.

Otherwise, the drama itself is not so remarkable except for its dark humor during the first half of the drama which I enjoyed really a lot.

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A heart-warming drama considering the period depicted

This is a rather typical, lighthearted romance, set in the turbulent period of the warlords in China.

Watched this after Winter Begonia so as to come out...

The strong point of the drama is the cast, especially the ML. He portrays the character very well, in terms of giving the appearance of a playboy and corrupt marshal when in reality, he is a caring but very calculating person.

Chen Xing Xu impresses me when he played the role of Li Cheng Yin in Goodbye my Princess and again, in this role of Tan Xuanlin. I just hope that he will be given more serious, intense roles as I feel that he has the capacity to go beyond these roles and to really give new/other dimensions to traditional male roles in dramas.

PS: Love the absolutely heart-melting looks he gives to his actresses when he is portraying love towards them. Wish that someone could look at me like that...

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An ODE to the city... a place of human genius

This serial is first and foremost an ode to the City of Beijing or to any other major city around the world.... Cities are beautiful, they attract us from afar, make us want to get there and be part of the dream, of the creative genius that make them what they are. Then, the glitz starts to wear off and we become confronted with the reality of being a human in all its aspects... we can find ourselves amongst those who cannot cope, those who quit, those who put up a fight both through hard work or through deceit and those who create their oyster in the city...

This serial strikes the balance perfectly. It is quiet in its story-telling and powerful in its lyrics and emotions it generates from the viewer. It does not require the usual bling nor the costly productions seen usually in Chinese dramas to strike a chord and to leave a lasting nostalgic feeling. The title perfectly captures these sentiments.

The cast of course did an amazing job in supporting the whole project. The director does seem young (not many works directed to far) but is able to maintain the integrity of the remembrances of our encounters with cities.

In cities, we are confronted with ourselves and we find ourselves. Cities reflect, as a mirror, who we are or want to be fundamentally.

I remember walking the Seine river during my time in Paris or the streets of Kuala Lumpur... I found myself there.

Now, I seem to have lost myself again.

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A powerful combination of cinematography, direction and story

This serial is absolutely worth watching, if only to appreciate its general aesthetics and the sheer amount of money the production house has poured into its various sets.
Then, there is the direction work...wow...I imagine that it must be very difficult to direct/control all the persons involved in such large settings with so many people and to have such interesting shots and follow the movement of leads...
Then there is the work of editing...brilliant that they did not compromise with the visuals to fit into small tv screen compared to movie screens...
And finally, there are the various stories that intermingle with the main plot that humanise the characters rather than simply show a dichotomous relationship between protagonists versus antagonists. I know that many people think that it should be more focussed on the main plot, that these side stories distracted and stretched the serial, etc... but we need to understand that shorter serials mean less funds for high quality productions and also, they do not allow us to empathise with the characters. As viewers, we cannot simply be merely consuming such works of art and then, moving on...such types of serials deserve that we appreciate the high art that it portrays.

The only thing I am a bit dissatisfied with is that the serial makes us have high expectations of the Jing'Si and of Li Bi but it fell flat, of the great deflagration and it fell flat, of the Ant but same, it fell flat and finally of the instigator and his motivation...it fell flat. I also think that Li Bi is the most useless character in the serial...seriously.

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Do you want to believe in the Descarte's fairy tale?

MASTER PIECE dramas have it all: storyline, acting, cinematography, OST and most importantly, direction that really bind these elements together to create a cohesive and astounding drama/suspense thriller.

This is one such serial that has it all and that will keep you on your toes as you will definitely want to see how it unfolds and to understand how the various pieces and clues join together.

However, I read most of the reviews on MDL before starting to watch this drama. Hence, my expectations were very high and the first few episodes more than fulfilled these and in fact, surpassed them. I was totally immersed in the suspense and could hardly allow myself to miss a single minute.

However, the ending killed it for me. It felt like the director tried to compromise with viewers' feelings and was afraid of an alternative, more dramatic but logical ending. Also, looking at the promo poster of the serial, Pupu is really lost in the background, which is in stark contrast with her character and the pivotal role she plays. For these reasons, I am giving this serial 9 instead of 9.5.

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As heart-breaking as it can get...I still cry

After a long time now, I am able to write a rational review on this epic drama. No wait... it still gets me... it is the most-heart breaking drama I have watched so far and that still makes me tear up.
Let us start by the beautiful cinematography and production. The landscapes are really amazing and shots really create and enhance the mood of the scenes...
The story is gripping in all its sense, the politics parts relating to the Gao Family, the connivence of the Prince and the Emperor, the journey of the FL...
The OST is just amazingly good... I still listen to it. They really elevate the scenes.
Finally, there is stellar performance of the entire cast, especially of Peng Xiao Ran. She was really good at portraying this young teenage girl who is free-spirited, naughty, naive and sincere in her relationships with her parents, teacher, friend and love of her life. Then, when she goes to Beijing, she slowly transforms into this sad, homesick, crown princess who refuses to be calculating or to play politics. As she starts to mature, she slowly realises that she needs to take a day at a time and seeks distraction in the only bar, a refuge from her dailylife burden. She feels that something is amiss and that that sense of loving or of being loved constantly eludes her. Then, when she discovers the truth, she realises that after all the love, betrayals, politics, she must really rise up to being the princess to her beloved Si Zhou.

IT IS THE MOST HEART-BREAKING DRAMA.

This serial will forever remain very special to me because even now, I feel like crying when I watch any scene. Despite a lot of editing of the serial and quite bad subtitles, the rendition of the cast, especially that of the FL just wrung my heart and my eyes. The FL's performance was exceptional in exploring a naive girl's heart and hope, her discovery of betrayal and the immense pain it brought to her, her sense of doubt and hope for the crown prince's love and rather numb emotions after her friends were killed, when she understood and gave up on her love and finally, when she dedicated herself and her life to her beloved Sizhou. The ML rational mind and steady efforts towards power is also amazing. The SML's regret and melancholy when he realised that he had forever lost her love due to his betrayal, his attempt to redeem himself, his hope that maybe she will start to love him again. The other negative characters' parts in drawing emotions and in elevating the whole story all contributed to making this series painfully addictive. The director's role in staying true to the mood of each part of the serial is just mind-blowing. Honestly, I will forever love this Tv serial.

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