Good….but could have been better!

So this show had the usual tough guy marries a capable girl, they slowly fall in love, and are embroiled in political intrigues around the throne and the royal family. There is nothing new here, but I liked the show for the chemistry between the leads. Ding Yuxi was great as usual, and the FL was a breath of fresh air, good acting skills, and a pretty face. I might have given this show 10 star had I rated it at episode 34. The later episodes felt unrealistic..as in why does a guy who is obviously madly in love with his wife suddenly divorce her? And she agrees too? If it was for the benefit of the villain, I fail to understand how this fooled him, he was shown to be meticulously plotting to get the throne for years, yet he instantly agreed to take help from his arch rival and a super righteous guy? I found it hard to digest frankly. It would have been great had the leads solved the last mystery of the villain together as they did so many times int he series. The music of the series was good. I’m deducting two stars only for the stupid way the story was concluded.

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below average and disappointing

I rarely give 4 stars to a series that I manage to finish till the last episode. Frankly, I started this series for Zhang Zhe Haan, since I wanted to see him in a modern drama. An added bonus was Riley Wang, and all said and done, he looks amazing with his cute dimples, and I’ve always liked his character in all shows I’ve watched with him as a cast. As for Zhang Rou Nan, she was a bit of a disappointment in this show because of her poor acting skills, mediocre chemistry with the ML, and a constant pouty look. The reason I’m giving 4 stars to this show, despite of liking the male leads, is the shoddy story line, too much melodrama, and unnecessary scenes of the hostel family, a majority of which I forwarded. As for Chen Hao Lan, I loved her character in Love me love my voice, but she was unimpressive here somehow, her only quality being able to chase after men in an unrelenting way, but no solid character traits of her own. This could have been a much better show with less melodrama and 24 episodes.

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Lots of mistrust and politics, but interesting nevertheless!

Okay so….I can safely say now that Zhang Ling He is a master of complicated romances! If one has watched The Kuning Palace or My Journey to you, one would understand from where I am coming. I was waiting for the show to complete airing, but once it did, I read some negative reviews and avoided watching it, even though I like Zhang Ling He. Then I watched Love’s Rebellion, loved Zhang Ling He and Sally Jing there, and decided to take a gamble and watch this one. I’d say I was surprised that I found the show interesting from start to finish. A lot of politics for power, strife between the throne and noble houses for power grabbing, political marriages, and mercenaries who wanted to bring about a change! The concept doesn’t sound new, but what was new here was the submissive role the ML needed to play. He was clearly a very intelligent, and highly capable official, stuck at the lower rungs because of being a commoner, and was made the prince consort for the princess who was not only weary of him, but also had feelings for another man, our second ML, with memories from a past life where she thought she was killed by the ML and regretted not ending up with the second ML. While this all might sound confusing to someone who is reading the review before watching the series, the plot of the story can be summed up as having a tragic ending in life and getting a second chance by travelling back in time when things were still alright. What’s new here is that it was not one but three people who got to time travel to change their fate, and when similar situations kept cropping up, the self doubt, doubt on others, and the helplessness of not being able to change things made the series interesting. In the second chance, however, we see everyone getting what they wanted, people ending up with right partners without political considerations. Our leads married thrice in the entire series, the FL got pregnant in episode 37, and even though the story jumped three years forward, we never got to see the outcome of the pregnancy. As for the acting, I liked everyone’s role, I could criticise Zhao Jin Mai for her not-so-emotive acting if I become over-critical, but other than that, I liked everyone. Zhang Ling He was amazing as usual, and looked his best in episode 38 when he takes back his family seal from his evil uncle. I can keep going, but if I had to summarise this drama, I’d say it is an interesting story well performed, could have been better with better acting by Zhao Jin Mai, but still very watchable.

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Short, sweet, romantic!

A good in-between serious shows series, I liked the FL a lot in When I fly towards you, so I decided to watch this series. It was a short series of 14 episodes, and I binge watched it in one day. There isn’t much to the story, introvert boy has a crush on his high school desk mate, meets her again after 10 years, the girl being oblivious to his feelings all this time. They decide to be some a fake couple due to the FL being under pressure from her parents to marry, while it suits the ML perfectly, and he cares for the FL a lot, but they eventually separate because of misunderstandings and entry of love rivals on both sides. Soon after, they decide to get married after meeting on a blind date with each other. The FL has developed feelings for the ML by now but neither of them admit to having fallen for the other. Finally when the FL finds out about the ML’s long standing love for her, they are happy and sweetly in love. We also have our second leads who are best friends of the ML and the FL, their relationship was fun too, but I found myself fast forwarding some of their parts. If you are looking for a proper story with romance as a background, this series isn’t for you, but if you feel you want to watch a light hearted romance which isn’t too mushy, go for it.

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Emotional and beautiful

This was a story with so many emotional ups and downs, I kept crying and smiling at the same time. It was so heartening to see the leads as teenagers falling in love and looking super sweet together. While it was equally heartbreaking to see them separate due to circumstances, their encounter as grown ups was so cute at the laundromat when the ML sees her sleeping and keeps staring at her mesmerised and smiling! I loved all four actors, the ones that played the young leads and the ones that played grown up leads, but I’m slightly partial to the grown up ML Satoh Takeru since I like him a lot. This Japanese drama had very little of the surprised expressions that I find quite irritating about most Japanese dramas and the story didn’t look abrupt. On the contrary, it was a well thought out story with a blessed happy ending, my only regret is that we didn’t get to see the happy life of the leads together in the end, other than the one last scene in the aircraft.

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Good when watched till the end.

I shall review this series in groups of ten episodes.

Episode 1 - 10: I was irritated by the personality of the FL, it’s okay if she was modest and dull, but the way she carried herself was too superficial. I have always liked FLs that are strong, independent and capable. While the FL comes from a small province to Shanghai for work, and was naive and simple minded, although there is nothing wrong with being that, I felt irked by her silly hopping gait and puppet like body language. However, I toiled on to the next set of ten episodes.

Episode 11 - 20: I was happy to see that she got together with the ML, but her self doubt because of the huge intellectual and financial disparity was saddening. I felt touched seeing her face so much gossip and criticism, not only at her workplace, but by her boyfriend’s close people as well. On top of it, I felt angry at the ML for not assuring her and partnering with her in shouldering the pressure on her own, knowing full well she would be suffering because of how far apart they both were, in every way.

Episodes 21-33: Here we see the relationship developing into deep affection, albeit deceit and attempts to harm the relationship, while our FL continues to doubt herself on being a worthy partner for her man. The later episodes show her growing in education and becoming independent, and the ML seeing her grow into a woman he admires, his family seeing her for the woman she is, and wholeheartedly accepting and supporting her. I would have actually given this series only 5 stars had it not been for the later episodes.

Overall, since this series was shot around 2014, it is not as fast paced as the shows today, still it had a charm that kept me going from episode to episode, feeling happy for the couple and how their relationship grew.

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Very watchable!

I love both Zhang Ling He and Sally Jing, so I wanted to watch this show as soon as it started airing, I even shifted from premium to VIP for the last 6 episodes. The story has the usual fight between good and evil, with good being victorious in the end, if I had to sum it up in just these many words. What I liked about the show were the interactions between the leads, which were naughty, sweet, romantic and funny. I also loved the friendship between the four main characters, the funny banter and the way they stood up for each other when things went wrong. The costumes, music and cinematography were good, and the special effects were good too. In all, it was a good series to watch, but for the unnecessary three years of separation that the leads were subject to, just to justify the curse. Apart from that, I loved the series a lot.

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10/10

I would have given this series 20 starts if I could. My all time favourite Chinese drama is Lighter and Princess, and I was excited to see Zhang Jingyi star opposite Hu Yitian. I have liked a couple of dramas with Hu Yitian as the lead, so this drama seemed promising right from the actors they had cast. The story was interesting from the very first episode, and I found it very hard to keep waiting for new episodes to air, the wait was very frustrating. That said, now that I have finished watching all 40 episodes, I feel this series will stay number 1 for me in the period drama genre for a very long time. The cinematography, the acting, the direction with attention to details, the great onscreen chemistry of the leads, the character sketches….there are so many things that made this series a worthy number one! The story revolves around Hua Zhi and her effort to keep her family alive and together after the male members of her family are exiled by a sceptical king. The way she handles matters was not only awe inspiring, but also heroic. She always kept the interest of her family first and through genuine sincerity and her down to earth demeanour won people and situations over. All through her hardships and difficult times, the one person that remains by her side, was our male lead Gu Yanxi, initially because he was impressed by her grit and resolve, but ultimately because of their love for each other. There is so much positivity in this series, and so many lessons to learn, I can keep going on about the love and trust the main leads share, and the way they handle the situations they are thrown into, never once doubting each other and always being there for one another. The pairing of Shaoyao and Shen Huan was a very sweet one and they did full justice to their screen time, leaving me wanting to see more of them. Each and every actor performed beautifully, I can keep going on and on about how every character was beautifully sketched and performed. My all time favourite modern drama will always be Lighter and Princess, but it would be hard for another show to beat Blossoms in adversity in period drama genre for me. Zhang Jingyi is a phenomenal actress who is equally great in comic, emotional, romantic and angry scenes, and her hard work shows in her dramas. Hu Yitian is another amazing actor who is an expert in stoic, angry as well as romantic expressions. A big thank you to the entire team of BIA for bringing this superb show to us!! Well done!!

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Worth watching!

To be candid, I avoided watching this show forever….I had a negative bias towards the FL since I had dropped watching two shows with her as the lead before, so I kept adding and removing this show from my watchlist. When I finally read some good reviews about the show in MDL, I decided to give it a go. I already liked the ML in Go Ahead and Skate in to Love, and I must admit, I really liked the FL a lot here. It’s amazing how the story, screenplay and styling can make an actor seem so good in one show compared to others. The story wasn’t an uncommon one, with body swapping between the leads, but the chemistry and the romance were amazing. I loved seeing the leads together in the show, and I really felt the emotions and heartbreak when they had to separate even though neither could live without the other. The life of celebrities seems golden and enviable from outside, but the fact that they have no personal life and all their choices are publically discussed and commented upon by fans and critics, very bluntly at times, is something that makes me super thankful that I am an average person, and also happy that I dint indulge in discussing celebrities online. Coming back to the series, it was a wholesome, sweet and very entertaining story, and I loved it a lot!

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Good story, great acting!

As soon as I started the series, I was reminded of A dream of splendour, I found the two FLs resemble each other in looks and temperament. Both FLs had good business acumen, and were paired with warrior MLs. Although the similarity ended here, I found this drama to be equally entertaining, and it kept my interest going till the very end. Our leads get married for real in episode 36, and after their wedding, what I was truly hoping for was a romantic relationship between the emperor and the empress, though it wasn’t shown clearly in the end, but there were hints of a better relationship between the sovereign and his queen. That said, I would have liked to see more of them! The third couple were sweet too, and I liked their interactions. This drama had a strong female lead, a strong woman as an empress who unconditionally supports the emperor without asking anything in return, and a third FL who is a great businesswoman. The love triangle was interesting too, but I never saw myself supporting the love rival of the ML. The lead characters were equally matched in both martial strength and intelligence, and they deserved to end up together. The power struggle, the deceits, the plotting for throne were not something new, but one expects these in a period drama. It was my first time watching all three MLs and FLs, and neither of them disappointed. In all, it was an entertaining series that I might end up repeating soon enough.

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I would give 20 stars if I could!

I can write about how I loved this series in 10,000 words and still have more to say, but one thing I’d say at the very beginning, hats off to the author of the book, it is a fantasy and one cannot help but revel in the imagination of the original author. The drama adaptation could not have been better, and the drama version owes so much to Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo, for foraying into a taboo genre but coming out with flying colours! I myself have avoided watching this series, despite of liking Xioa Zhan as well as Wang Yibo, because I had this mental block of not wanting to watch a BL drama. Now that I have watched it, it is a shame to restrict this drama in one niche genre. It is so much more than that, the difference between good and evil, or the lack thereof, the love between people not necessarily related by blood, the deep friendships one forms in a lifetime, the greed that makes one do evil without thinking about retribution, the sincerity of a relationship, the sanctity of mutual affection, there is all this in this series and so much more. Each and every actor performed so well and added to the series being such a big hit, here is a drama where I cannot hate the evildoers, and cannot completely admire those who seem righteous. The whole story ultimately condenses down to having a clear conscience, and that a clear conscience is all that matters in the end. The background score and the flute and guqin tracks of the series were exceptional, and I would be suggesting this series to anyone who is willing to watch, for a very long time, or till I can find something worthy of being added to this suggestion in Chinese dramas.

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