A Dream of Splendor (2022)

New Meaning to “Woman” Power

The love story between Pa’ner and Qianfan was so well done. I liked how they almost immediately got thrown into each other’s orbits due to circumstance and as a result started to heavily rely on each other which eventually evolved into love. They had their issues in the beginning, mainly with trust from Pa’ner due to the hurt she’d experienced in her previous relationship but they were able to move on from that and have a healthy relationship until the past, which had nothing to do with either of them, nearly destroyed their relationship. What I liked about Qianfan is that he was tough, smart and could kick butt, but he was at his core a good man.

This series was good and different in the way it presented the FL and her friends. They were all independent women, during a time when women should not have had independence and were determined to make their own way. They were smart, innovative and most importantly resilient. They went through it due to their status and some of the men in their lives who were horrible people but they persevered. I really liked how the plight of the FL aligned so much with the Empress. The latter made some horrible mistakes which did not reflect well on her character at all, but I understood why she made those choices considering there were several people at Court who were trying to destroy her simply because of her less than honorable past.

The storyline with the FL’s ex-fiancé was a bit much. He seemed to go from a half way descent guy to a mustache twirling villain who would kill anybody who got in his way, simply for plot purposes. Also I found it odd that Ru Zhao disappeared from the story after what he was doing was discovered by Song Yinzhang. He was an official who was well known in the Capital. I would’ve thought him drugging and raping women would’ve resulted in him being destroyed by the community and his destruction would’ve played out, at least a little on screen. But that didn’t happen. After Yinzhang caught him in the act of trying to rape her that was the last we saw him on screen, even though the show spent quite a bit of time on their relationship.

There were other plot holes which I won’t get into, but despite those storyline issues, this was a really good series. My biggest gripe though with the writing is that the writers spent all that time on Pa’ner and Qianfan talking about getting married and their plans after marriage only for us not to see the wedding. The series ended with the audience not knowing whether they got married or not. Huge ball dropped there. Still a good series and worth watching.

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A Must Watch!

The last review I wrote was a rant about how bad the series was. This is the total opposite. Everything about this series was wonderful. I particularly liked the fact that the story was woman-centered, showing three strong women during a time when it was exceptionally difficult to be a single woman.

The acting was extremely well-performed, with not only the ML/FL having real chemistry but also the other roles being particularly well-done. It is also one of the few series when I haven't pressed fast-forward in any episode. The pacing was excellent.

All in all, this might just be the series that overtakes "The Wolf" as my favourite series, perhaps because I'm a sucker for a good ending and, boy, was the resolution good.

If I have one small gripe, it's that no effort whatsoever is made to make the pipa playing look anything like real. I don't know anything about playing this instrument but she even seems to be holding it very differently from more historical series that I've seen but, oh well, you can't ask for everything.

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A Dream of Splendor is an adaptation from the opera "Zhao Pan Er Feng Yue Jiu Feng Chen". The story, although it has a nice romantic storyline, is more about three woman that are going through trials and tribulations and work together to overcome societal prejudice and injustice. This drama is delivered in a very artistic manner through the strong, smart, beautiful, witty, and charismatic Zhao Pan’er (Liu Yifei) and her lover, Gu Qianfan (Chen Xiao) who is equally intelligent, highly skilled in planning action or policy, and a great protector and benefactor. Their love story is one of mutual admiration, respect, and a beautiful and sweet steadfast love. A Dream of Splendor is an ode to three women that are willing to work together and support each other throughout adversity and good times to walk through life in splendor. Overall, this is a well written drama and the cast did a great job bringing their characters to life. Although the romantic scenes are soft and restrained, the leading couple certainly exudes a great loving chemistry. Enjoy it!

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helpless

BAD EDITING skip alot of scene but always flashback a same scene for 3 4 times , disturbing background music moreover they don't do dubbing making the dialogue not clear what they said, very annoying ,, a bunch of stupid person do stupid things, useless problem!

the tradition of the song dynasty might be quite good, because I don't very understand , but I quite enjoy it , and feel the atmosphere of a song dynasty in it ,and just it can be appreciated


Between couples, can say that there is no long misunderstanding that becomes an obstacle but the problem in this story is absolutely unnecessary.
the problem is not clear how it happened and there is no clear explanation, does not have a good plot

from the start they searching for a painting but in these 40 episodes, NEVER EVEN SHOWED HOW THE PAINTING WAS, THIS IS DRAMA NOT RADIO! NOT STORYTELLING
SHOW! SHOW THIS TO WATCHER! EVEN ONCE!

the editing was very bad, they skipped a lot of scenes, the more eps I watched I even felt like there was a scene that was skipped, because the problem happened so suddenly and feel very absurd



To be honest, the acting of leads are sometimes really euhh,, when they romance scene i feel weird, compared to LEAD I prefer support couole, more natural, the plot atmosphere for FL is very natural but as an old artist, the standard of acting should not be like this ,i dont get any feeling from her acting with ML, the ML acting too,, the support cast more attractive


STUPID PERSON,DO STUPID THINGS
1. ouyangxu, being a scholar with his stupid brain? ,do alot of stupid thing, he report the queen but he dare to ask queen for help
2. ‎queen,, she help ouyang but harming who that want to help her?!
3. ‎king, he know the queen ambision,but he purposely not make a crownprince?! ,, ep 35 he ask leijing to investigate the truth about what zhao pan er said secretly and dont let 皇城司 know, but LEIJING ALSO THE PART OF 皇城司



## # a skip scene that why i said bad edititing
1. ep 14 , when yuzhongquan know about xiao and gu but not showing even once when and from where he know
2. ‎ ‎ep 15, ‎zhao pan er do many things bug nothing they show !
3. ‎ep 17, from where gaohui nanny know about ouyang and zhao?!
4. ‎ep 21,, nothing they show but shuddenly said ge zhaodi mistreated his mother at the port?
5. ‎ep 23, 41:25,,, qimu and GU just had a secret meet, but while talking to chenlian, gu noticed an oddity that wasn't shown in the story, saying that it has a relationship with the duke An, should it be? even though only need to add a few seconds about that scene, should skip it?


###absurd thing
1. ep 3,, the ship has sailed for more than 1 day but sunsanniang who jumps into the river with a tree trunk can floating near the ship?
2. ‎ep 4, open the iron-chained gate with just one pull, and not damage the door handle ring which is thinner than the chain, and the chain was broke?



### question
1. what happen with yinzhang's sister? pan er always said she death because of her,, but not explain why
2. This drama begins with an investigation of the painting, but until the end there is no conclusion regarding the mastermind
3. ‎yu zhong guan have a grudge with gu but why? no was told what the problem was?
4. ‎what happen with zifang? sun san niang's son? he is not an orphan, he has a father and stepmother, but only said that his money was cheated without saying what happened to his father and stepmother

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S'okay

Will someone please deliver C drama from the curse of useless misunderstandings between the leads?

This is a woman who wants complete independence yet her business is largely funded by a man

She wants to expand her business and instead of saving up she expects the male lead to fork over a very large sum of money and when a mistake happens, she automatically writes him off and then turns to another man to dig her out of the mess she made all by herself.

I swear I wasn’t sure if the creators of this drama were poking fun at women’s independence or celebrating it cause all this series does is show that women could only have anything bc men allowed or funded it.

I did enjoy eps one through 16 but the FL stood too long on her soapbox and compounded that by making avoidable mistakes for no reason whatsoever.

Now, let’s talk about the male lead.

That the wind blew the mortgage receipt was all due to the idiocy of the ML. So fucking what if your father caused harm to the FL’s family? That was not a good reason or time to play the avoidance game when all he had to do was tell her the relationship was done. Avoiding her was a convenient plot device that allowed the producers drag the series by an additional fifteen episodes. It was all about the money otherwise A Dream of Splendor should have only had 20 episodes.

If you want a show with true female empowerment then watch “New Life Begins”. The women in that series truly support each other and funded their businesses themselves.

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Did I watch the same show as everyone else?

I had a lot of hope for this one, it started out strong, I really like Gu Qian Fan and I thought him and the FL had great chemistry. But as time wore on it got harder and harder to watch. I just didn't find most of the characters or storylines that interesting past about episode 8, when it really started to drag for me. It also started getting annoying that the main characters seemed to just be amazing at everything. Stories aren't very interesting when you're already at the top and there's no real growth to be had.

I've seen numerous times the main couple being referred to as "adults" in a "mature" relationship. For me the reason I watch C-dramas is because they aren't like Western entertainment, which tries to tell people it is depicting love when it is really depicting a toxic and sometimes borderline abusive relationship, with mind games and emotionally manipulative behaviour. C-dramas can be hit or miss but I love their depiction of loyalty, honesty, and unconditional love. The West, by comparison, doesn't even know the meaning of love. Or chemistry. Or empathy. Personally, I watch C-dramas to help alleviate the pain of living in a culture that mimics its entertainment.

This show had a very Western flavour to how the leads were behaving towards each other. They were not acting like emotionally mature adults, who understand and respect differences of opinion. GQF would get angry at Pan'er for the smallest thing and make it out like she was the problem or there was something wrong with how she saw things. He seemed controlling and I was disturbed by how casually the topic of him torturing people was handled. At times they seemed to be belittling each others' perspectives and he blamed Pan'er for how he felt at times. There's a difference between banter and shaming someone, this was the latter and it left a sour taste in my mouth. There's also a difference between honest vulnerability, and using honesty as an excuse to be a jerk and then hiding behind it when it begins to erode the trust in the relationship.

Everyone has different preferences, to some this is a desirable dynamic, for me I've had enough of this kind of dynamic for a lifetime.

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Sweet mature Romance

Gorgeous Leads,
Convincing love story,
Off the charts chemistry,
Beautiful female friendships,

Well, It has been a while since a drama captivated me. This story reminds me of good old days of genuine romance and heartaches. I have a major girl crush on the female Lead, Crystal Liu. She is living that character, effortlessly beautiful, elegant and strong. Such a treat to my eyes. The male lead is great as well, the way he steals glances at her is adorable but at the same time his expressions at few other scenes are a bit blank. Anyway there are some lovely, magical moments between the couple that looks like a gorgeous moving painting.

The progression of the story is good, it's exciting, no cliche tropes. Writers have done a wonderful job here, the characters show real human emotions, quite relatable unlike the recent dramas that mock viewers intelligence.

Loving it so far.

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A masterpiece created by women - There is great pride is sisterhood.

THIS DRAMA IS A MUST-WATCH.
It's the first drama I've watched where I've seen female solidarity. It is as easy as it is unrealistic and selfish to make women bite each other's heads off because of a man as usually done in dramas. Where sisterhood is treated as a myth and women only exist to be evil to each other. This drama respected women, it didn't demean us. The drama showed that women have suffered for centuries at the hands of the patriarchy, and we are still suffering till now. It shows female solidarity at its finest.
When I started this drama, this statement is what came to mind, “In a world where we have no status, all we want to do is live in peace, can they not still offer us that?”
Halfway into the drama, the answer to my question was "no, they can't"
and at the end of the drama, my answer is, "there is hope for us. "
Story
The story of three strong independent women who suffered at the hands of men who were supposed to be their protectors. No matter the obstacle they faced, no matter the conflicts, they always remembered their sisterhood and their bond. Along the way, they meet good men and women who formed friendships and romantic relationships with them. They meet people who respect them and cherish them. And for everyone who stepped on their pride, they fought back tenfold without hesitation. they fought for justice, their reputations, and for their futures.

Characters,
Character development was impeccable. this is the first drama where i didn't see a single bit of conflict between women. people need to understand that women can exist in this world without hating each other because of men, and this was portrayed by the characters of Song Linzhang, Gao Hui, the empress, and the famous singer. They had so much potential to be the worst, but they weren't. they thought for themselves, and they developed beautifully.

Zhao Pan'er was a beautiful, strong, and talented woman who advanced bravely in every situation. though beaten down many times, with the help of her sisters and her lover, she always stood up again.

Sunsaniang is the epitome of motherly love. who cared so much about everyone around her. she was the string that tied their sisterhood together and despite her husband and son's betrayal, she never gave up on herself.

song lin zhang, the most complex of the three, who had the greatest potential to derail, showed us that making mistakes doesn't mean you cannot be redeemed. as the youngest of the three, she was naive and innocent. but after suffering at the hands of men, she realised that only her sisters can give her the love and respect she desperately craved. and she earned both not just from her sisters, but from the public, because of her impeccable talent.

Gu Qian Fan stood his ground, he loved unconditionally, he existed for her, and he loved her so much. He was a good man. he had his shortcomings and insecurities, and he was lost and in the dark. but a shining light came and brightened his path as he said to his father. Zhao Pan'er, his confidante and a woman he will always respect. he is a man who deserves respect.

all other characters including Zhao di, Chen Lian, Chi pan and his subordinates, Scholar du, the emperor, the empress, and Gao hui did amazing jobs. Ouyang xu was perfectly evil. actor did a great job.

the cinematography of this drama was impeccable. the art, the dancing, the music, and that performance in ep 32 was to die for.

a beautiful drama, with a beautiful ending and an important story. I've ranted so much because I love it too much. Truly a masterpiece and must watch for everyone.

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Starts off really great

Since i accidentally stumbled upon this one, i had no expectations or hopes of it. It was my first show of all the main characters. The first few eps really raised the bar so high being captivating and promising, that the later eps failed to keep up with it. The first 10 eps were amazing setting up the plot, ml and fl starting off on the wrong foot, getting the sisters together and everything, the next 10 eps focus on relation building and business, the next 10 eps focus highly on the business, setbacks but midway of these eps the drama starts going downhill, ep 27 onwards it was just pure depressing. The ml and fl get separated due to the cliche trope of i cant face her because my father caused her family's death, the ladies business falls apart, the sisters break apart, the cheater x fiance turns into a mad dog and causes menace by changing color like a freaking chameleon. Only towards the end do the happy vibes come back, and after ep 32 things start getting better plotwise. After ep 20 it did feel kinda draggy and slow till some 32 eps and the last 5 eps was again paced well. Why is pacing always an issue with cdramas!?

The story is different from other cdramas, focuses greatly on women empowerment and social discrimination. 3 ladies, each of whom have suffered setbacks in life due to love, start their lives afresh and find love in the course. I really loved the character dynamics between Zhao Paner and Sun Sanniang. I did not like Song Yinzhang at all, she didn't deserve the selfless and generous treatment from the other two sisters, she was extremely proud, arrogant and jealous and greedy as well. Not everything can be pardoned because she was young, well she wasn't even that young considering she eloped TWICE, so she deserved whatever she got. She sort of did redeem herself in the last few eps. I rather liked Zhaodi. Gu Qianfan was very sweet, gentle and loving but he came off as rather weak willed and too kind and gullible to me. It was too easy to convince him and he even bother to verify things. The maturity in their relationship disappeared suddenly after ep 25. Zhao Paner was a consistent character, gu qianfan was not. Onto others, Chen lian was very cute, chi pan was a clown but i liked him very much, i didnt like Du Changfeng at first, later he grew on me. Ouyang Xu was trash throughout and he got what he deserved. And that son of Sanniang, was absolute piece of shit. For a change i expected to have a kind empress here because her bg is different from usual empresses, so I wanted her to get some kinda punishment after everything she did.
Ml and fl had really amazing chemistry. The acting of all the 4 mains was commendable, others did very well too.

Production was great, didn't really pay attention to the non existent music though.

I guess i would recommend watching it once. The first 15 eps can be addictive but then the effect wears off. The ending is satisfactory. Would've rated it 8.2 if possible.

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Romance done right

I loved the romance in this drama as it didn’t overdo the misunderstandings or have overly dramatic jealousy or other love interests. It was realistic, sweet and hit all the right notes with me.

The conversations between them flowed so naturally, be it when they were lovey dovey, supporting each other or even taking potshots at each other. Watching them fall in love was the best part.

Costumes were top notch and I just loved the gorgeous flowy dresses that the FL wore. Sets were outstanding and I loved the aerial views and how the camera just pans down in one long take and follows the characters around - wonderful cinematography!

Storyline was good overall with some minor plot holes, some characters didn’t sit well with me but I easily overlooked this as everything else was done well. It has been a while since I’ve watched a Chinese costume drama which has good romance and this one delivered beautifully!

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Love love love the chemistry between the leads

Love love love the chemistry between the leads. Compared to other cdramas, their love is more mature. No need for fancy effects on scenes and unecessary slowmos to show chemistry because their banters and interactions are enough. Sweet gestures like looking into each others eyes, small touches, and body movements will make you question if they are still acting. They did so well in portraying a couple in love. The buildup to their romance is realistic compared to other cdramas where the leads already professed their undying love for each other after a few encounters. Also loved the supporting leads and how they've grown so much throughout the series.

The setting of the drama, the costumes, the makeups, the cinematography, and the actors are so prettyyyy. This might be the prettiest drama I watched.

The reason why I gave this show 8.5 is because the plot got dragged on at the last part so I found myself skipping some scenes a few times. There are also so many misunderstandings that took a long time to get resolved. It was a bummer.

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Full of Splendor Indeed

Let's start with how beautiful Liu Yi Fei is in this drama. And the whole production basks in beauty and elegance that you'd want to visit this particular period of the Song Dynasty if you ever get a hold of a time machine. I've read that the original story was written by a person who used to live in the thriving capital before becoming a refugee. He then recalls in this memoir the splendor of the life in the capital and the drama show us that. The pipa and the tea are cultural details I enjoyed learning about from this drama.

I didn't think Chen Xiao would measure up to Pan Er's beauty but it didn't take long for me to wait in anticipation for Gu Xian Fan to appear. I love the characters surrounding the leads, especially Chi Ya Nei and Chen Lian. Sun San Niang was strong and steady. Ou Yang Xu was the antagonist we didn't know we'd hate and pity. Son Yin Zhang, albeit the abrupt change in attitude towards the end, was pretty solid as well. Gu Xiao Fan's father could have been explored more, I thought he was a promising character.

The only thing I wasn't too happy about was the fact that Gu Xiao Fan was mostly side-lined in the last climactic moments. The drama started out with him so I thought they were setting up a predominantly romantic story but his role dissipated and the story tried to be grander than it started out to be. Anyway, I'll still rewatch this because it was simply delectable.

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