Sympathy to all wuxia lovers who watched this drama.

I was so excited when this drama was announced and finally aired after some delays, featuring Zhao Liying and Wang Yibo as the lead female and male respectively. With these two actors on the set, what can go wrong? However, after watching full episode, it seems that these two great actors might have chosen a wrong drama altogether..

Keeping it succinct, here are a few, among many other things, that puzzled me:

Why Fei keeps searching for a blade when in the end of the day there is nothing special about it and she could have killed the villain practically with any blade?

Did Chuchu's little brother just simply disappear after a few episodes? Why is he there in the first place, and yet Chuchu did not seem to miss him at all?

Xie Yu has a bone-chilling poison in his body that restrict him using his martial art skills, which is said to be very powerful. Until the end of the story, even after he is recovered, the powerful skill never appear anyway.

The build up story shows that Fei's father was called to lead the army to guard the border. He came back when the story almost ends, and yet still did not contribute anything significant to the story..

Fei's mother is one of the strongest character in terms of martial arts, but her contribution in the overarching story is too insignificant..

I think I will just stop here. I am not so sure where those high-ratings come from. This is a novel adaptation. Nonetheless, putting the original story aside, the plot is so weak that it gets very boring after the build up stage, particularly the middle part which has a lot of slow-paced scenes and dull moments. There are attempts to make the romance so romantic and poetic, but I do not think it suits with Fei's character at all. Poor chemistry, plain acting, too many wasteful characters.

How about the ending? The best way to describe the ending is 'just like that' - no climax. I could see there is an attempt to make the last fight becomes the culmination of all the overarching story, but it looked forced and rushed up. The last half-episode after this fight is not even worth spending your time at.

My sympathy is for all wuxia lovers out there, who may have spent so many episodes to seek for a great wuxia drama through this movie.

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A story of a Good boy..

I had a chance to visit a real entrepreneurship promotors for start-ups in Seoul, circa November 2019. If you already watched the drama, or in the middle of it, there it is similar to the 'Sand Box'. They shared interesting and inspiring stories about youth entrepreneurships that they had been helping and facilitating, their ups and downs, their successes as well as failures. This drama seems to have successfully captured these dynamics, so to say.

The story in 'Start-Up' was started so nicely. Without going into detail, the exchange of letters between young Seo Dal-mi and young Han Ji-pyeong using a name of a boy called 'Nam Do-san' has given a big promise for a great storyline. SDM and HJP's character developments during this stage were so real and heartwarming, especially with a special family-like friendship between HJP and SDM's grandmother..

The main story started 15 years later, when their paths crossed in start-up business competitions with the appearance of the real Nam Do-san 'out of nowhere'. From only a picture of a boy whose name was used as a 'dummy' in the letter, to a suddenly appeared male-lead with increasingly significant screen times as the story went. And as many of us could guess, SDM and NDS, with HJP were tangled in a love-triangle, in between the hypes and dynamics of the start-up business. This is the point where the drama started to fall..

The plot was not well written to allow audience to accept and justify the sudden appearance of NDS to become the male lead while the audience has already bound with HJP's good characters, and how NDS managed to win SDM's heart. The 15 years of SDM's emotional built-up from the exchange of letters with HJP, even though using NDS' name, has become insignificant and eventually disappear from the story..

Not sure if I want to watch again. Credits are for the cinematography and creative camera plays. Kim Seon-ho is the right actor to portray HJP - he managed to pull out all the good characters of HJP as the 'Good boy'. The 10 / 10 on acting is for him.

Oh, I love Lee Bo-young's cameo appearance, btw. :)

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It’s a fantasy drama, nonetheless..

It is a fantasy drama, not about martial arts. Knowing this from the first episode, I could have just dropped it, but I stayed on for the ‘new comer’ Zhang Yi Shang. She is charming and suits well for her role as the FL, Duanmu Cui. I got hooked up with the FL’s character, which is strong, determined, and shows confident on what she does. A good role model for many these days. The 10 rating is for her.

The problem for me comes from the ML, Zhan Yan. To me, his characters is too possessive, but weak. He sacrifices his main duty of protecting people for the sake of following his love interest? The FL should have been given more chance to resolve issues herself without having the ML always around. The storyline could have been developed much better without him having to be too protective and cheesy.

In all, the story is strong in the beginning but getting drifted away towards the end, plus a cliffhanger to lead to the season 2. There are not many wasteful characters, which is a good thing, even though I am not sure why we need a porcelain cup and jug who can walk and speak..

Not sure if I want to continue for Season 2.

Oh, am I the only person annoyed with the way the officers hold their swords from the side? I could not imagine how inconvenience that would be, to walk around the city holding a sword like that in real life! ;)

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Romance that kills a drama.

I like the first 2 minutes into the series, when it shows how the lead female character Su Ci's observant character is displayed through animated scripts on every object she observes, based on which she deducts her conclusion as part of the investigation. It looks awesome and sophisticated. It would have been amazing if this feature continues in the entire movie, especially when she does her job observing and analyzing a crime scene.

The story still looks promising at the earlier parts of the drama, where a female detective cross-dresses as a male detective, investigates crime scenes and catches criminals. Unfortunately the good storyline rather drifts away after a while. The turning point, as usual, is when Su Ci met Prince Qi, the the lead male character, and start to fall for each other. Romance is okay, but for a supposedly a crime-fighting movie, the romance between Su Ci, who is a smart female detective, and Prince Qi, a war hero, is too dominating and physical. The holding hands, kissing, staring and glazing, etc., is kind of too much, and to some extent, disturbing. The romance is so lame that it kills their characters as a detective who fight crimes, and a war hero prince who had shed a lot of blood during the war time. On the other hand, the relationship between Bei Ming and Ru Shuang, though, is notably more natural, seamless, and somewhat believable. In fact, Ru Shuang is my favorite character.

I was a bit excited with hope, when Prince Qi, who has an eyesight problem, showed a great and fierce martial arts skill and managed to beat up a bunch of soldiers who wanted to captivate him. I thought his eyesight problem and this martial art skills were going to be explored and to take a big part of the storyline. Unfortunately that was not the case.

Nonetheless, taking the romance out, the overarching storyline is good - with several twists here and there, added by a bit of complexity at the end. For this reason I watched till the end.

If you are into cinematography and seek for a drama with creative camera angles and lighting effects, etc., this may not be the one for you. If you are into wuxia movies, this is also not for you. But if you just want to sit, relax and enjoy an overwhelming romance, this could be for you :)

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Something different, but just that.

Two things made me watch this series. First, the synopsis, which is of a different genre than most of k-drama series, and second, the female lead, Lee Da-hee, who is rarely seen playing such genre.

The story develops so well from the start, and continues to be engaging, but only until episode 8 or 9, when the main leads start to get manipulated too easily and make some out-of-character decisions, and other prominent characters either die too easily, or ridiculously survived from heavy beating up.

In all, I pressed fast-forward button a few times, and did not seem to miss anything much. It’s an action series, so I do not expect any extraordinary acting by the casts, nor any chemistry among the actors. The last 2 episodes seem to rush towards the end, for a disappointing ending. That is my opinion anyway.

With an ending like that, and the way ‘The Beginning’ is told, I am not sure if I will watch any sequel, or even Season 2.

The 10 rating is for the OST :)

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Love in between principles and loyalty.

The story is about principles and loyalty. 'Love in between' may tell that it is not about romance. Even though there are three protagonist couples, there are barely important decisions of actions taken by them based on love. All is about putting principles and loyalty first. That is my take from watching the whole series.

The story could be made more simple, but yet still interesting. Too many 'new-facts' introduced in the middle of the story. The existence of hidden emperor is very important to the whole storyline, but not elaborated into the drama adequately and early enough, leaving the impression that it is shoved in to the audience in the middle of the drama for the sake of making the story a bit complicated. Also, I am not so sure with the ending and I think it could have been done better.

As a wuxia fan, I was a bit disappointed that the Yun Luo's martial art skill with her special weapon 'love in between' is not explored to make the entire series more interesting. Zuo Qing Ci also too weak physically to fit in such storyline - but maybe those are what in the original story. My favorite character is Shen Man Qing, portrayed well by Deng Yu Li.

Overall, it is a good movie to watch. Oh, and I love the theme song. :)

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I took a wrong turn..

From the first episode, I thought I was gonna watch a combination of a heroic actions of the ‘demonic’ general and his wife fighting whatever they will have to fight including internal intrigues in the royal family. Having that in mind, I was hooked up until episode 10, when I realized that the story has not yet gone very far. With all the characters, acting and the likely storyline going forward, I decided to drop it.

For those seeking for a plain romance drama, this might be good one to watch. For an old timer wuxia fans like me, it’s a big no no.

Credit is for the theme song - it reminds me of those from the Legend of Yunxi and the Princess Agent. I also like Tang Min’s portrayal of her character - witty but elegant at the same time. The 10 scores are for the song writer and Tang Min.

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