In an era where C dramas are falling off the production line faster than most of us can keep up , thirty-something hours of your time could be better spent on a show of better quality. The curious part of me would love to know what it was that they were imbibing in the writers' room when the script was cobbled together. (From an existing source material no less) Or smoking for that matter. There are plenty of problems with this production starting with the amateurish screenplay which was meant to provide the backbone to this. The Legend of Anle claims to be a revenge/justice story centred around a highly intelligent accomplished young woman who does a Count of Monte Cristo turn. But the showrunners don't seem to understand rudimentary storytelling much less the visual medium of television for that claim to be convincing. For instance we are persistently hit over the head with the message that our protagonist here is brilliant. Indeed she's happy to brag that she's got the whole thing sewn up because she's the best thing since pork dumplings. Her schemes are nothing to write home about and several are reliant on the stalwart Han Ye (Gong Jun), the crown prince to be on board. When she's busy doing the heavy lifting, the other leads are hiding in the background watching her work and providing running commentary. I like Gong Jun enough to persevere. His character was brimming with potential. But I too think he wasted his time on this fiasco of a production.

It's not hard to see where the problems lie even in those early episodes. While historical dramas pandering to a younger demographic are nothing new, there's a dreariness that hovers over this production that makes watching much of it a slog. Even Dilraba's flirty girl boss pirate act as she bursts into the scene comes with a dose of cringe. Things like that while mildly amusing at times breaks immersion and doesn't bode well for what comes down the pike. The show does nothing more that better revenge/justice stories have achieved on a larger scale with far more thought put into them. It has the bad habit of recounting events through dialogue where key events occur offscreen. What's worse is that some characters are just there to instruct the audience on how a scene should be understood or how another character feels. The job of these side characters too is to hit us over the head ad nauseam with how much the leads are in love with each other and it's a pity that they can't be together. This certainly shows a lack of confidence by the director in the performances and the script to convey the most fundamental story threads with spoon feeding.

All in all it's a strange start, stop, drag experience. One that I don't recommend. You can certainly do better elsewhere.