The Sleepless Princess is a fun twist on “Sleeping Beauty”, with just enough fantastical and mysterious elements to engage one to look forward to the next development. The visual fx are decent for a low-budget production. And the ending OST is the best I've heard in a while.

The romance, however, is the one area that I am not sure about. Overall, the scenes were well-played, although some of the scenes were a bit cliched. The only thing is (fans - please don’t hate me for saying this) as nice looking as ZYC is, I must say that I found his acting a bit stiff. He never seemed to be able to look the main actress directly in the eyes. It was like he was acting around or in spite of her, even when she was supposed to be his main focus. That made the most romantic scenes feel like they were missing something. After seeing a number of other Chinese dramas, I confirmed that this is not necessarily the norm – although stiff acting is not unusual.

On the other hand, HYX really carried this show – at least in the first three quarters. She portrayed the titular princess and various transformations with charisma and charm. It really made you fall in love with her.

Sadly, sometime after episode 20, the show started to drag. As many had indicated on the discussion board, the late introduction of another unnecessary SF and the numerous forced misunderstandings seemed excessive. Also, as much as I had come to love the Princess’ character, HYX’s serious side felt less engaging after a while and I started to lose interest. It even seemed like the producers themselves might have felt the same because the last three episodes felt particularly rushed.

Overall, it was still an entertaining enough show, so I recommend it for a light distraction.