choupettechou
A drama aiming at pleasing the young, female demography
So when we see raving reviews about a drama, we tend to build high expectations that it will be great, above the norm, amazing... then we watch it and feel cheated out... this is the feeling I am having right now.
There is nothing wrong about it per se, but at the same time, there is nothing great about it.
This drama clearly aims at pleasing a specific target audience, namely the young, female demography, nothing more.
But let me start with the things I did enjoy in this drama: the cinematography...the shots, the places taken, the sheer poetic backgrounds reminded me the reason of why I am such a C-drama fan. I cannot get over two scenes where they are under the apricot tree and sharing a sweet moment or of that one of two trees interlaced with each other. The major killings parts, when the Shaosheng rides the horse in her wedding gown to pick up and protect the Ling Buyi...these were the highlights of the drama.
In terms of the story flow, I really liked the first part better than the second one; especially the Hua City arc and when Shaosheng decided to marry Luo.
What fell short were mostly the:
1. credibility of plot...What really shocked me was the amount of time and scenes where the Emperor is portrayed as being concerned and even agonising over or intervening to catalyse the feelings between Shaosheng and Ling Buyi... I mean seriously...and that specially in a context when your own children are dreadfully arrogant and behave badly, when your own Crown Prince is so indecisive and not at par for shouldering the responsibilities as a future emperor. Again, I felt that the punishments meted to them were grossly exaggerated considering the nasty tricks they played on Shaosheng or by their own actions while Shaosheng especially was treated overly well and also protected. Then there were the mean girls... what can I say, they were just verbally nasty or their tricks just felt stupid. How I wished to see real plotting and how a budding Shaosheng struggles to deal with them. Also, I felt that too much emphasis has been on Shaosheng while Ling Buyi is a character who deserved more screen time to develop itself. There are so many other flaws that failed to make this a great drama...BUT the main one is, why in the first place Ling Buyi fell in love with a character like Shaosheng when he is on a revenge mission...IT just does not make sense. How or based on what Shaosheng's action made him fall in love with her and how did he imagine that he would be able to combine his revenge and a married life. I mean I am shocked that Zou Yue, who wrote the Rise of Pheonixes did this...
2. capacity of the actors being able to sustain their character development (with the exception of Leo Wu). I enjoyed Zhao Lu Si's portrayal of the young, petty and vengeful Shaosheng. She felt like a natural in the first part of the drama and I had a few good laughs. However, her portrayal of the growing of age and especially, the last part as the heartbroken one felt mechanic, lacked depth and mostly came out as a petulant, sulking child woman. Leo Wu appeared stiff in his portrayal of Ling bu Yi at first, but he pulled the fighting scenes, horse riding scenes and even the tortured ones better than his FL counterpart. However, to say that his character was dark is really an overstatement... I mean he was not given the screen time to really portray the calculating, dark character or of a tortured one between his love and need for revenge. Also, let not even get started on the mother-daughter relationship...it was so caricatural and really lacked depth and understanding.
3. The gross lack of sensitivity and attention to details pertaining to palace etiquettes. I feel that after having watched so many dramas on palace life on Imperial China, there needs to be a certain integrity that need to be maintained. I mean, if a drama will make use of a palace setting, then a minimum of attention should be paid...the love birds are seen to be cuddling in public, the female concubine appearing in the General Assembly, giving Ling Buyi a cup of wine before the Emperor on a same platter... arrrr, I hate such misrepresentations.
All in all, I cannot give more than a very generous 8 for the entire drama.
There is nothing wrong about it per se, but at the same time, there is nothing great about it.
This drama clearly aims at pleasing a specific target audience, namely the young, female demography, nothing more.
But let me start with the things I did enjoy in this drama: the cinematography...the shots, the places taken, the sheer poetic backgrounds reminded me the reason of why I am such a C-drama fan. I cannot get over two scenes where they are under the apricot tree and sharing a sweet moment or of that one of two trees interlaced with each other. The major killings parts, when the Shaosheng rides the horse in her wedding gown to pick up and protect the Ling Buyi...these were the highlights of the drama.
In terms of the story flow, I really liked the first part better than the second one; especially the Hua City arc and when Shaosheng decided to marry Luo.
What fell short were mostly the:
1. credibility of plot...What really shocked me was the amount of time and scenes where the Emperor is portrayed as being concerned and even agonising over or intervening to catalyse the feelings between Shaosheng and Ling Buyi... I mean seriously...and that specially in a context when your own children are dreadfully arrogant and behave badly, when your own Crown Prince is so indecisive and not at par for shouldering the responsibilities as a future emperor. Again, I felt that the punishments meted to them were grossly exaggerated considering the nasty tricks they played on Shaosheng or by their own actions while Shaosheng especially was treated overly well and also protected. Then there were the mean girls... what can I say, they were just verbally nasty or their tricks just felt stupid. How I wished to see real plotting and how a budding Shaosheng struggles to deal with them. Also, I felt that too much emphasis has been on Shaosheng while Ling Buyi is a character who deserved more screen time to develop itself. There are so many other flaws that failed to make this a great drama...BUT the main one is, why in the first place Ling Buyi fell in love with a character like Shaosheng when he is on a revenge mission...IT just does not make sense. How or based on what Shaosheng's action made him fall in love with her and how did he imagine that he would be able to combine his revenge and a married life. I mean I am shocked that Zou Yue, who wrote the Rise of Pheonixes did this...
2. capacity of the actors being able to sustain their character development (with the exception of Leo Wu). I enjoyed Zhao Lu Si's portrayal of the young, petty and vengeful Shaosheng. She felt like a natural in the first part of the drama and I had a few good laughs. However, her portrayal of the growing of age and especially, the last part as the heartbroken one felt mechanic, lacked depth and mostly came out as a petulant, sulking child woman. Leo Wu appeared stiff in his portrayal of Ling bu Yi at first, but he pulled the fighting scenes, horse riding scenes and even the tortured ones better than his FL counterpart. However, to say that his character was dark is really an overstatement... I mean he was not given the screen time to really portray the calculating, dark character or of a tortured one between his love and need for revenge. Also, let not even get started on the mother-daughter relationship...it was so caricatural and really lacked depth and understanding.
3. The gross lack of sensitivity and attention to details pertaining to palace etiquettes. I feel that after having watched so many dramas on palace life on Imperial China, there needs to be a certain integrity that need to be maintained. I mean, if a drama will make use of a palace setting, then a minimum of attention should be paid...the love birds are seen to be cuddling in public, the female concubine appearing in the General Assembly, giving Ling Buyi a cup of wine before the Emperor on a same platter... arrrr, I hate such misrepresentations.
All in all, I cannot give more than a very generous 8 for the entire drama.
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