Il dipartimento speciale della dinastia Song (2019)

TPDoSD is a wuxia drama, with a spin to it. It honestly has a really nice and refreshing modern vibe which I absolutely love.
It's one those dramas that just makes you feel all happy and giddy inside.
The main story is your classic wuxia drama story, with a bad guy wanting to take control of the martial world, and having the main character prevent this disaster, but it works. To be honest, when you're watching this, the side stories are actually what you should focus on instead of the main.
The acting is nicely done, so is the cast. Easy to watch and like the characters.
Visuals and CGI are nothing stunning, but once again, pretty good--
I like the music.
It's not a show that will make you go "holy damn that's amazing", but it's undeniably enjoyably.
Conclusion: Yea, worth the watch. Should be a priority series to start if you have nothing on your list currently--

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The Plough Department of Song Dynasty is a comedic detective historical wuxia Chinese drama that takes place during the Northern Song Dynasty. The drama is about the adventures of the members of the powerful and secretive Plough Department that was in charge of solving abnormal cases (sometimes involving the supernatural), and answered to the Emperor only. This story follows the main character Tai Sui as he fights against a villain who wants to take over the world, and uncovers the truth about his unknown past with his friends in the Plough Department. This drama was quite funny at times but to be honest, I liked the side stories in this drama more than the main one. This drama featured some strong female characters that weren't afraid to kick some ass. The cast played their characters very well, and the soundtrack was quite good and fit the drama well. Overall, I would recommend this drama if you were searching for something light to watch.

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Put this in the background while you cook

I forced myself to sit through the first three episodes for the plot. I'm assuming that the overacting was either a stylistic choice in comedy or the actors being inexperienced during the production of this show (subsequent works of some of the main leads are very enjoyable). After the first three episodes, you get a feel of how the rest of the drama will be and it becomes somewhat decent.

Either way, some of the scenes are so nonsensical that I guess it becomes a form of comedy. The first main plot line was enjoyable but I had no capacity to watch through the second plot line entirely. I had to skip through the episodes as it was much to draggy to be enjoyable.

Anyhow, if you are looking for something to put in the background, without it staying on your mind, I recommend this mind-numbing drama. It's still fun, just don't expect too much.

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A rare find

This is one of those rare finds. Well to start I agree it's kind of low budget. But the VFX ain't that bad actually and the cinematography although nothing special isn't half bad. The female lead was extremely annoying in the first few episodes but after that she changed into a cute little fl. I loved the characters, everyone including the plough department, the imperial family, general cao, Dou Cheng, Xingyiand even the biyou sect. Despite being a low budget idol drama this has a very well throught of story, paired with compelling acting. It was really fun to watch. I'd definitely recommend this drama!

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Worth to watch

The production of this drama has a combination of both Young Blood and Under the Power. Under mysterious happenings a group of students encounter unknown cases and solve problems together. They will be tested and conflicts occurs one after another. The production of the drama was incredibly crafted most especially the visual effects created. not to mentions the lead's visual quality is just amazing. Their would be some unique characteristics of the characters but those are just the art of the story.
As for the progress of the story, I like that they did not dwell in just one villain and that they made a two part conflict which makes a new environment for the viewers. In the drama, there will be moments where villains pops up, however hints are also shown which will excite the viewers to guess who they are.
However, the drama focuses mainly mostly about the leads conflicts and mystery solving cases, with less romance. So if you are looking for some martial arts stimulation, I highly recommend to watch this drama.

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Weak script...

Sooner or later it was bound to happen: here's the first C-drama that left me with a "meh" impression...^_^;
Okay, this was my first "wuxia" and I have to confess it didn't leave me wanting for more of that genre.
But let's start with the good points: I decided to watch it because I had been very favorably impressed by Dai Lu Wa in "When We Were Young", and I can't say that she let me down in this drama, despite her character not being particularly well written (I loved her in the final episode though, LOL! That's how villains should be treated, in my book! ^___-). As far as I'm concerned, though, Jean Kao really stole the scene here (wow, seriously! Gorgeus!). As for the actors, I particularly liked Li Bin, Wei Yi Bo and Zhang Yu Jian. I really loved the costumes and the scenography, as well as the photography; the music too was quite nice.
And now to the drawbacks.
The drama itself could be roughly divided into three chunks: the first one was the most interesting and best done; it got a little confusing in the middle part, which was anyway still enjoyable; the problem is that the last third was barely watchable, with a weak plot, ridiculous villains and generally an inconsistent script which tried to put too much stuff together and failed miserably.
I also found part of the cast way below par (particularly Zhu Jia Zhen, he had me climbing the walls every time he was on screen - as I always say in these cases, "compared to him, even Dick Dastardly from 'Wacky Races' was a realistic, sober and credible villain"!).
Last but not least, I must confess probably not being a big fan of the genre; I suppose it's somehow a cultural limit of mine: just as I'll never understand America's passion for their spandex-clad superheroes - nor Japan's penchant for their "tokusatsu"! >__< - I'll probably never fully get those combats with people flying; as an Italian, if I really have to see actors pretending to fight, I'd choose a "Bud Spencer & Terence Hill" kind of flick any day of the week ^__^; (oh, BTW...Zhang Yu Jian's character actually reminded me a bit of one of those funny types always portrayed by Terence Hill!).
Regardless of personal preferences, though, I still think this show could've been much more enjoyable with a more solid and coherent script; as is, I can't give this anything more than a "7", sorry.

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Too many good young actors and very few good parts.

It is a pity TaSui acts like a child, he could be more valiant, more hero and brave without the scenes where his dialogue are like children playing.
I started to watch because of Zhang Yu Jian but he disappeared and when he reappeared was small part and he plays redundant part. Such a great actor. If the script was more serious, the parts more brave, heroic would be a great drama.
The plot could have been a great story but they made cheesy.
Very sad.
General Cao should be more relevant in the plot and respected as the person he was.
Xing Xi and Dou Cheng had the best parts, virtuous, heroic, brave, good looking. It is a pity the rest of the young parts weren't the same.

Such a waste of talent.

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Good in parts but a few plot-twists you'll see coming a mile off

I'm a bit of a sucker for historical detective shows, and when you add in martial arts, this show was pretty much made for me - it's an enjoyable enough series, if a bit predictable at times. To be honest, I mainly watched this because of Dai Lu Wa, after being very impressed with her performance in Cross Fire, and this didn't really give her as much opportunity to demonstrate what a proficient actor she is.

Things I liked:
- the fight scenes were pretty well done
- female characters with actual roles (even if romance does loom a bit larger for them than I'd like)
- some good character development for a number of roles

Things I wasn't so keen on:
- way too much time spent on the romance sub-plots
- casting an actor like Zhang Yu Jian in what's supposed to be a main role but then letting his character have minimal screen time/zero character development
- Xu Ke's character is childish all the time and it gets a bit wearing

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Story: nothing out of ordinary but entertaining
The Plough Department of Song Dynasty was actually a surprise I started it without much expectations.
I don't think people should expect the super plottwists or deep story lines, but after all it's still very entertaining and doing pretty good job with the genre mix: historical, detective, comedy, mystery etc. For this lower budget segment with this kind of genre, I think the script writing is one of the better ones for sure to me. I especially like the comedy scenes here.

Acting/Cast: pretty good
I think the actors were all casted well especially the main ones, which are fitting their roles very well. I especially like Taisui, YaoGuang, SuiFeng and Yaoguang's dad. The acting is very decent and I'm satisfied.

Overall: I think one of the dramas, where you just looking for entertaining without too much deepness/thoughts, but still some quality then I'd definitely recommend this drama. The end actually seems to left an opening for a future second season, which I'm already looking forward for.

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A perfect drama

It's a perfect drama with the perfect music. I always skip the intro because its boring and useless but this dramas intro song was so good that I felt like rewatching it. The male lead was cute and amazingly talented. The female lead was super strong and brave. The second man was highly intelligent and responsible except for his playboy and flirty nature. The second girl was sweet, supportive and responsible. The officials and the enunch under the king always acted on impulse. The plough department was highly reputed. The interaction between the male lead and the female lead was playful, cute and funny.

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If a high school drama club wrote the script and played the roles, they would have probably been graded pretty high. Unfortunately, there just wasn't a "good enough" reason to keep watching.

They tried to incorporate a bit of everything into this when it comes to martial arts, the supernatural, detective work, etc. but didn't execute well. I initially overlooked the less than average acting, fight scenes, and the odd modern music attachment because it had a lighthearted, comedic undertone but there were just too many fails in the plot and character builds. One example is you have a character who is supposed to have some type of super strength but yet they couldn't get themselves out of being tied up with normal ropes? There just isn't any consistency.

The one positive is that at least the costume-work and makeup wasn't as tacky as I've seen in some of the other historical series. Whenever I attempt to watch series in the historical era and they change the image of the leads into a boy-band looking outlier, it usually lays the groundwork of someone trying too hard to appeal to other cultures or the younger generation. Fortunately, they weren't too heavy-handed in that aspect here.

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