Oh! My Emperor: Season One (2018)

Uno dei tanti isekai, ma non uno dei migliori.

Uno dei tanti drama peso piuma, pensato (?) per far ridere con molte situazioni oltre il limite della logicità e dell’assurdo, ma non completamente privo di spunti di riflessione (le ingiustizie sociali). Dev’essere una produzione a basso costo, perché le ambientazioni e i costumi non sono né memorabili né variati, e il commento musicale è scarno e ripetitivo, ma non è questo il problema peggiore.

Gli attori, per la maggior parte, fanno un lavoro dignitoso, e naturalmente Zhao Lu Si è sempre una godibilissima garanzia. Il buon Xiao Zhan fa quel che può con la parte che gli è stata affidata e anche Gu Jia Cheng si è ben difeso. Anzi, per quanto non si possa gridare al miracolo, è stato una mezza rivelazione. Adatto alla parte, via.

No, gente, il problema grosso è che dopo quasi 40 episodi di piacevoli risate, a patto di essere un po’ di bocca buona, si precipita a fine serie in una spirale di tragedia che non ha niente a che vedere con tutto il precedente, e a nulla serve la risoluzione del guaio. Il problema ancor più grosso è che l’ultima puntata è completamente assurda e il finale, appiccicato con lo sputo, non spiega nulla, lasciando al povero spettatore uno sgradevolissimo sapore di tradimento. Avrebbero potuto risolvere la faccenda in mille modi diversi. Hanno scelto il più stupido e inutile, dando così il colpo di grazia a una serie già profondamente provata da diverse manchevolezze nella sceneggiatura e dal repentino cambio di registro nel finale.

Aggiungiamoci che le scene di combattimento sono, per la maggior parte, ridicole: i cattivi che abbattono le vittime con le spade sono qualcosa di raccapricciante. Per carità, non mi dispiace di averlo visto, e a tratti mi sono anche divertita parecchio, ma di sicuro non lo riguarderò. In ogni caso, è da vedere col cervello scollegato. Dello stesso filone, The romance of Tiger and Rose ne vale mille, però.

Leggi di Più

This was a wonderful drama! I started this drama since I was bored and had nothing to watch but at the end, this drama actually turned out to be one of my favorite dramas. There's a high chance that I'll rewatch this since there was barely any episodes for season 1 (I heard there's a season 2 that will air on May 23, 2018). There's some romance in this drama and the pace is quite fast. The main part is that there isn't an evil villain or anything like that yet so it's not a drama that you will feel annoyed about since this drama is a comedy drama. The comedy part isn't too much like it's not over the top so it's more realistic. Warning: if you do watch this drama be prepared to have a second lead syndrome - Mo Ran (or maybe I'm the only one who has it in this drama?) I prefer the second lead (Mo Ran) over the first one (Tang Yi) for some reason but anyways hope this helped. Finally, I love the osts in this drama and probably the reason why I got into X-Nine which is the group that the male leads are in.

Leggi di Più

The story line was pretty good. However, the love line is quite confusing in the beginning because the "chasing" because a little later. Can't wait for season 2, it is finishing off the story. However, i would say that the end of season 1 could be somewhat be accepted (I won't be that happy though).
The acting was really good but i didn't give 10 because the main actor didn't really catch me as much as the second main, i hope that he in season 2 can get me into the love line a little more since he is main. The main actress really portrayed the generation difference, and really showed her 'old age generation' side. Overall, all the other actor's and actresses were really good, made me fall in love with some.
There wasn't as much music as i had thought, most of the music came in when two actor/ actresses lock eyes or some 'kinky' things was about to happen.
I would love to rewatch it again cause the story line, and acting was really good.

Leggi di Più

Technically speaking, I don't think this drama is very good. HOWEVER, it doesn't take itself too seriously and manages to be fun and enjoyable despite the flaws.

STORY:
The storyline is pretty light for the most part. The stakes do get raised towards the end of the season, but it's not too overwhelming. There's a big bad villain with some kind of evil plot, but that stuff mostly just plays out on the side. I personally felt that the ending to this season could have been better (like more impactful or something), but it does its job in making you want to watch season 2.
The romance is also light and fluffy (....until the end, I guess). There's some sort of love polygon between Fei Fei, Tang Yi, Mo Ran, and the other girl zodiac whose name I can't recall. But no one in the polygon is truly evil or mean, which is always refreshing. There's another romantic storyline between the other-other girl zodiac whose name I don't remember and the guy zodiac with the goofy pom-pom beret, but I didn't really care too much about them to be honest.

ACTING/CAST:
Zhao Lusi is really cute and charming - I really like her here! Xiao Zhan (Mo Ran) and Wu Jia Cheng (the emperor's little brother) were also stand-out. Like a lot of the other viewers, I liked Mo Ran a lot more than Tang Yi even though the poor boy never even had a chance :( I feel like Xiao Zhan pulled off his character better than Jason Koo did his, but I think the writers share at least some of the blame for that.

MUSIC:
Not too bad. I think the producers REALLY liked that one insert song, the cute indie-sounding one that Zhao Lusi and Jason Koo sing. It reminded me a lot of Double Trouble Couple from Do Bong Soon lol

OVERALL:
This is a good show to watch if you are looking for something fluffy and light, something that won't work your brain cells too hard. I didn't think I was going to enjoy this show, but I ended up marathoning the whole thing! Flawed, but charming and enjoyable.

Leggi di Più

If you have been hesitating to watch this drama for a while now, this is your cue to start now. This drama is gold!

Yes, it is a low budget film.
Yes, the time-travel concept is overused in dramas.
Yes, the actors are not very popular.

These three things are also the reasons why I love this film. If you are tired of historical C-dramas that break your heart with plot twists and deaths, this drama will refresh your mind. While the plot may seemed simple and overused, I think it was well thought of and the concept of horoscope as characters is new (to me, anyway, lol)

I do not skip parts even with the villains. There are no unnecessary monologues, dialogues and flashbacks. Every episode is only about 20 minutes long (if you skip the opening and closing credit - I do because I hate spoilers). Not one episode made me feel like the story is dragging.

The icing on the cake is that every character is gold. The humor gets better every episode. The best news? There's a second season!!! My expectations were not that high to begin with because of the premise of the drama which is why I was surprised when I actually loved it. Enjoy!

Leggi di Più

empty shell

Watched this because my impression of Zhao Lu Si is a little better, so I just said to myself let's check her earlier drama that most people like.

Regret what I got after watching this. This drama just like an empty shell. Just drama fill with beauty people, but the story just so uninterested & fill empty. I can really feel they really have low budget when making this drama.

They never explained to us what is Ophiuchus, why they treat people from Ophiuchus clan different. Maybe they will gonna explain it in the second season, but for me it's too late already. Why the moment Luo Fei Fei (FF) met that old man they don't explained it, why FF herself never even bothered to ask what is Ophiuchus, why they treat them different. Why they must wait until season 2 to reveal it. Ugh so slow & uninterested.

And right this moment I feel continue watching this drama just wasting my time. Maybe some other time, when I already don't know what to watch will I continue to watch the 2nd season. The only thing that I glad about this drama, is the duration is not that long. So yeah I can end my suffering sooner. A little bit more I think I'll gonna add this drama to my drop list.

Leggi di Più

The Story Line

So for me the story was actually kind of interesting because I like all this time travel ancient films.At first I became spectacle about Beitang Yi and Beitang Moran wondering why they were strongling but then I started to fall for Beitang Moran because his first impressions were very nice unlike Beitang Yi like please who sees a girl that falls into the water and seeks for comfort then flip her off like what the heck my blood just became to boil i felt like Shale Ta it was just so annoying ugh but what is even worse is the ending ok so he found out she is an Ophichus and he said "I wish I never met you" and i was like if I was her i would just let you die then he sent her away then she got poisoned and then he stabbed her like this guy isnt only annoying but has trust issues and a stone of heart any ways though all these things annoyed Luo Fei Fei sponky attitude kept me going soooo thats it

Leggi di Più

I came here for Xiao Zhan

I'm not going to sugar coat this. I'm one of those fans who just came off of the high of finishing watching 'The Untamed' and decided to search out another Xiao Zhan series, so this review is obviously going to be of little value to a lot of people. I apologize, because I know that the rest of the cast is doing their best, but they are not Xiao Zhan or Zhao Lusi, and I CAN be that shallow.

Upfront, I'm going to admit that I finally decided to watch this series because of Zhao Lusi and Xiao Zhan (and I need these two in a series together as the main CP, preferably another historical or similar). Previously, I'd seen some video clips of this series and was slightly interested because of Zhao Lusi--I became of fan of hers before I became a fan of Xiao Zhan, by the way. But a lot of those video clips seemed kind of strangely cringe-worthy, and the story line felt a bit unappealing.

Then I watched 'The Untamed' and fell for Xiao Zhan... and that made my decision.

Back to this series, I only have a few minor things to say:

1) After finishing this first season of 'Oh! My Emperor', I now realized again why I'd decided not to pick it up in the first place. A lot of the acting was stiff, editing was bad towards the end of this season, and some of the sound effects were a bit slapdash.

2) So really, it's all because of Xiao Zhan that I even bothered--yes, I can be that biased.

3) Again, the acting was rather stiff and the only person I liked in the entire series so far is Zhao Lusi's Luo Feifei--she was fun, spunky, and all sorts of cute and cool.

4) I don't think I understood at all why Luo Feifei fell for the emperor instead of the royal uncle. Beitang Yi was a jackass throughout the entire series. Beitang Moran was the typical good man who treated our female lead really well and any sane woman would fall for. Even the little brother, Beitang Tang would have been a better pick. I really feel like this trend of the female lead falling for the jackass main male lead needs revisiting--just stop doing this, please.

5) So even though everyone's acting except for Zhao Lusi seemed rather stiff, I still wished that Feifei would have fallen for the royal uncle instead. Yes, even Xiao Zhan's acting was pretty stiff, but you can see that he's got potential.

6) I will give props to positive female relationships--Feifei and Yanran were great together as friends and broke all the tropes in typical idol romances. I loved that even though the two of them were set up to be love rivals, they still remained friends. Yanran's talk about how Feifei is her friend and would never betray her trust was wonderful.

7) The story actually started off pretty interesting and I was intrigued most of the way, so I can't say that I disliked the series completely. I was hooked and was interested in the big mystery behind the Ophiuchus people. The editing and some of the execution of scenes was just kind of choppy and stiff.

8) I will definitely finish watching the rest of this in season 2... even though we all know that Xiao Zhan doesn't end up getting the girl, which is a bit of a bummer for me, but oh well. Maybe in another life he'll get to partner with Zhao Lusi again.

Leggi di Più

There were lots of boring parts. This whole show had something to do with the zodiac signs, which kind of made no sense to me. The king is honestly not even a king to me. I don't know how to explain it. A typical king makes decisions on the country, and is very strict, and just stays in his room or the courtroom. Where ever the king goes, there are a least 10 servants following him. In this show, I feel like he isn't a king. No one is following him, and Feifei's behavior towards him is not what a king should be treated like. She calls him names, yet the king doesn't care, nor do any of the servants. I mainly watched this show for Xiao Zhan. Not gonna lie in episode one, the servants were right. They said that the king isn't as good-looking as Lord Chen (Xiao Zhan) very true. I don't really recommend this show as there were a lot of boring parts and things I didn't even understand.

Leggi di Più

First of all I can definitely say that "season 2" needs to be on hand upon finishing season 1. I don't even know why they broke them up. Maybe a test to see if season 1 did okay they could have a season 2 and not sacrifice their story by shortening it? Speculation aside: you'll want season 2 on hand. It left on such a cliffhanger I feel it's my duty to mention itfor any drama fan looking to start Oh! My Emperor up.

Now for the review.

To be quite honest I bumped my rating up from 6 to 7 for story. Why? Because there is something super key here that most dramas do not have. Amazing women characters. Not just one! Three! Fei Fei our time traveling lead. The betrothed Lady to the Emperor/lead male, Yu Ran . The tomboy General, Sheng Nan. Who all break out of their stereotypes and actually become friends! Especially Yu Ran and Fei Fei. Because in a normal drama they'd be rivals looking to off each other. Well at least Yu Ran's character would be ready to off Fei Fei. Not here! Even when a common trope is brought in to ruin Fei Fei and Yu Ran's friendship it couldn't touch it. Because once Yu Ran calmed down she realized that Fei Fei is such a good friend she'd never betray her. That said I wanted to give this drama an 8 for story due to the amazing women and their friendships. Not to mention many stereotypes Oh! My Emperor breaks! Sadly it took a while for this drama to find it's footing.

Especially where Fei Fei was concerned. The first episodes were so focused on showing every character, their name, and Constellation title that it missed the mark completely on introducing characters. It was telling us without really imparting true information to the world. Fei Fei was used for the butt of every joke for a while. As the drama tried to find it's footing. Because without well established characters jokes and humor can't truly be established. So no other character could be made fun of or fool. Fei Fei took the brunt of it. So for 9 episodes she was—for the majority of it—the fool. They made her unlikable as a stupid/clumsy lead. Never establishing when she realized she had time traveled or her reaction to it. I mean suddenly viewers are like "Oh, so she has realized it's not a movie she has time traveled". At this time most of the other cast were developed. Then all of a sudden at episode 10 WHAM! THE BEST HUMOROUS NATURAL COMEDIC THINGS BEGAN TO HAPPEN. No really it was brilliant. Because despite it all Oh! My Emperor had broken molds and finally started to develop it's characters. IT WAS GLORIOUS. GLORIOUS. Soon this drama was rich with beautiful comedic timing and character chemistry.

Despite all that Oh! My Emperor missed it's mark on developing the world. If you're not familiar with Chinese lore and the constellations you're gonna be very confused. Do a quick google/wiki search to help feel in some blanks. Even then it's not enough. There's back history that is never mentioned or even hinted at until the final episodes. The goal of any story whether magical or modern, time travel, historical or present day/future day is to establish it's world. Pretend every viewer who is gonna watch it will not understand the time, world, lore, and it's people until it is explained. So on. Due to this and many places where I had to actually speed things up. (I normally don't speed up or skip!) Such as boring fights that lost there edge or gimmick due to the length of them. Many scenes that shouldn't have been cut, but others that should have been cut and weren't. Still Oh! My Emperor did have a decent flow and a fun world.

Overall I truly loved the cast and the actors are all brilliant. Right down to the cheesy crazed mobs! No really all of the leads and constellation holders were great. Once they were allowed to interact with each other and build rapport it was amazing. Especially episode 10!!!!! Oh, and 19! Of course other scenes throughout the series, but those to are my all time faves!

The music got super annoying. There was some fun light songs to fit this fun light drama. However, there were some super generic background music that I swear were pulled from other bad C-dramas I've tried to watch in the past. Which is fine not every drama can afford a decent music budget. It's just it was looped so poorly and so long sometimes I wanted to bang my head against my computer desk!!

Rewatch? You betcha! I'll probably be even more liberal with my fast forward and just focus on the good stuff, but this drama is definitely worth more than one viewing.

Overall this is a super light and fluffy drama! Charming! Time Travel Romantic Comedies are a favorite of mine. Especially since China basically owns this genre! The best part is that enough tropes aren't leaned into. Like what have could annoyingly turned into a love square was only a triangle. The female lead being allowed to have male friends and that's all they are. While looking out for each other. Not to mention women friends! Female characters that in a lesser drama would be enemies were buddies. I actually would even dare say a budding WOMANCE that must be explored in the next season. Most might not like the slow build up for the romance, but I like a well developed romance that builds up to the emotions. Not to mention a very engaging side romance, and I hope another side romance on the way! It must be said that the final episode troped it up so bad that I'm very annoyed. I feel like Fei Fei should not forgive and maybe get some righteous revenge. Because her actions should have spoken the loudest. I truly believe this series is definitely worth a look into. Especially if you're a fan of the genre! Or if you just need a break from *drama* and need some lighthearted laughs. Happy emotions on the way!

Leggi di Più

Its amazing.

This was my first ever drama I watched and once I watched this drama I couldn't stop watching it. The ending was kind of sad but overall this was so good. I would recommend this drama the acting was really good. If you're looking for a drama from enemy to lovers this is probably the best drama to watch. There is a love triangle in this drama. Thank goodness there is a second season to this. I don't know why I am reviewing this just now when I watched this so long ago. But this drama is a good drama the actors acted so good I love it. Even though I hate love triangles this one was acceptable for me.

Leggi di Più

I started this drama without any high expectation and I was not disappointed. In fact, I really enjoyed this drama. The story is good just don’t expect it to be unique with clever plots. Yes, there will be plot holes since this drama is somewhat a mix of parody, slapstick and historical/xianxia romance. I like the FL acting, I’ve seen her in the drama I Hear You. Almost all of the male cast are from X-Nine boy band (I’m not from China so never heard of them before nor Sean Xiao being part of this group ) surprised that these guys can act decently. I recommend this drama if you want something light, romantic, funny and easy to watch.

Leggi di Più