cliches abound

i've been looking forward to this drama since it was first announced. xz in a xianxia drama again? sign me tf up!

or so i thought.

the drama had its moments, which makes it a lot more difficult to review. if it were boring from start to end, it would be easy to write off. however, there are pockets of good acting and writing, but these are few and far between that my interest in the drama was like a coma patient that wasn't allowed to die.

the female lead is awful. i wonder how on earth the directors and producers thought that she would be able to carry this role. i place the blame on them, not her. the character comes off as shallow, that is largely the fault of the writers who gave her the internal voice of a toddler (during her teenage years) and then a simpleton (when she grows older). however, the actress bears responsibility for her acting choices. for example, in the scene where she's supposedly angry at her friend being mistreated, the way she portrays anger is to clench her fists and glance around with a slight frown. there's no depth to any of the emotions she's portraying.

another problem is the way the character faces lots of problems, but bounces back or is consoled so quickly, often within the same episode. the end result is that none of her hardships ever seem to have an effect on her, so it's hard for the viewers to care either because she'll be fine again soon enough.

but the female lead is not the worst part of the drama. i don't know what happened to xiao zhan in between oath of love and this drama, but my god i cannot believe i am watching the same actor. why is he so stiff? his expressions are so weird all of the time. he has a lovely tall and slim body, but the costuming department has buried him in shapeless gauze unlike other costume dramas.

when the two leads are on screen together, it's vomit-inducing. shi ying is supposed to be younger than 18 in the first few episodes, but he looks and feels like a 30 year old man meanwhile ren min looks 15 and behaves like she's 8.

i managed to tolerate the drama up to episode 26, but this is the end of the line for me. barely anything happens. sure, there's a bit of palace intrigue about the queen and bai xuelu, but it takes up perhaps 5% of the runtime? perhaps it's because i cannot buy the romance between the ml and fl, so the constant push and pull of him trying to get rid of her, her saving him or helping him, him deciding to keep her around because he owes her etc - how many times does it have to play out? and honestly, shi ying's attraction to her zhu yan really disgusted me given that her mental age is frozen at 8.

to be fair to the drama, some things worked really well. bai xuelu and bai xueying's dynamic was really interesting. i enjoyed their interactions with each other, shi yu and qing gang. mermaid guy was handsome and a good actor too, in fact the way he was styled made him look more like the lead than any other character. i thought chong ming would be an irritating character, but it was nice to see how he could be playful without coming across as developmentally challenged (unlike the fl).

dropping this.

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really fun 26 episodes

okay, first of all i have to admit that i cheated a little.

i really liked this drama at about the 3rd episode in, so i looked for a few reviews and skimmed through them. one thing they had in common was the view that the drama sort of went off the rails after the conclusion of the revenge part. so when i came to the satisfying reveal in ep 26, i kind of paused the drama there and haven't returned to it since. therefore, this review applies only to the first 26 episodes.

with that disclaimer out of the way, let me say that i thoroughly enjoyed this one. of all of the cdramas i have watched this year, this is by far the best (btw, this isn't as much praise for this drama as it is a criticism of the poor quality of dramas this year).

having read the other reviews, i can say that one of the reasons i liked this more than a lot of other people is that i haven't watched any of gong jun's other dramas and i didn't have any impression of what his character should be like. his portrayal of prince han ye is interesting. he's obviously a goody two-shoes sort of character, but there is an underlying manipulativeness and stubborness to him, as well as his belief that the status quo is good when it comes to his family's rule (but not when it comes to certain other nobles). that small hypocrisy gives his character some depth and makes for an interesting conflict between him and anle.

and anle herself is everything i want in a female lead. up to episode 26, i haven't really seen her do anything stupid as the other reviews have commented. she does fall for han ye, but through it all she still uses him to accomplish her 'revenge', which isn't a revenge as much as it is clearing her family's name. she's able to play the part of the quirk, uncaring about etiquette pirate lord, and the thing that's good about her eccentric character is that the important characters can't call her out without revealing their own manipulations. i loved dilreba in the long ballad and anle is a character in the same vein; a female main character who is just allowed to be a character the way a male main character would be.

together, they have great chemistry. in fact, the three-way chemistry between han ye, anle and mingyi worked so well. the way the plot built up to the reveal of anle's identity, especially how the cases revealed han ye and anle's traits, was enjoyable and episodes 24 - 26 had every ounce of my attention. brilliant stuff, especially after the drama had slowed after episode 10.

i also don't quite understand the complaints about the drama being cheap. the fight scenes are awful, which is the case more often than not, but the sets are lovely. they have a lived-in feel which a lot of other dramas lack. i also like the costumes, which are intricate and flatter all of the characters' body types.

now comes the criticism.

the di cheng'en thing was drawn out far longer than is necessary. i also don't need so many scenes of anning moping around to get that she's guilty about something. nor was there a need for the northern princess character at all, since the connection between leng bei and the chancellor already establishes that he is a spy.

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promising start!

i'm not much of a fan of modern dramas, so it's a pleasant surprise how much i'm enjoying this. the sets are great, especially sheng yang and jian bing's homes, because they have that messy, lived in quality to them, with a realistic balance of decor and clutter, that make the sets come alive and add so much depth to the characters. all of the actors are doing a good job too, from sheng yang's parents to jian bing's husband and the various antagonists in their lives like sheng yang's superior and jian bing's client. not one person is a caricature, except perhaps the intern that has a crush on sheng yang.

another thing that took me by surprise is how feminist this story is (for the time being, at least). jian bing is aloof and not the easiest person to get along with, and i'm glad they've given her something other than that self-sacrificing, bubbly and loving personality that female leads are often saddled with. bai baihe is an excellent actress and her portrayal of jian bing is extremely attractive not in a physical sense but in the sense that we want to keep watching her.

xiao zhan's sheng yang hasn't really had as much development as jian bing yet, but i bet we'll get to see more of his internal struggles etc in the coming episodes.

so if anyone is hesitating to watch this, i definitely recommend giving it a chance.

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