In Blossom (2024)

Your Inner Beauty Speaks to Me

Face swap. Murder investigations. Blossoming romance. Gothic cinematography. These are the four ingredients that create this stunning drama. The story is about the female lead who has a scar on her face. On her wedding day, a beautiful and obsessed woman swaps her face with the female lead, in order to marry her husband (the male lead). But ends up being killed the same day. With a new face and body, the female lead begins to investigate her death in the sinful city, alongside her husband who doesn’t know her true identity.

It’s important to mention that the first two episodes are unusual as they give all the screen time to the guest actress who portrays the original body of the female lead (scar face). This is a great exposition in establishing the relationship between the main leads and enhancing their love story. However, the drawback is that when the main actress shows up at episode three, it feels a little off and it takes a few episodes to get used to seeing the same character portrayed by someone else. (I discuss more about this below).

The biggest highlight for me is the wonderful writing of the male lead who truly makes us all believe that he falls in love with the female lead’s personality and that no matter what face or body she possesses, he will always choose her and love her unconditionally. I loved seeing their blossoming romance, which was kind of slow burn but more like steadily built up in a realistic and mature way.

What truly surprised me in this drama is the intricate murder investigation cases which felt real, raw and well developed. They had the right amount of mystery and cool twists to keep the audience engaged. They never felt like filler scenes as they always connected to the main conflict of the plot. The fact is that I absolutely loved the cases despite being someone who rarely watches investigation dramas or even likes them.

MAIN CHARACTERS/ACTORS:
- Pan Yue (male lead) is written to perfection. You cannot not fall in love with him. He puts personality above looks. He is a great fighter, great poet and probably great lover (hello kiss scenes). The actor Liu Xue Yi has such a strong on-screen presence, he is smoking hot and totally underrated. His character felt well developed especially in showing how he falls in love with the female lead. Perhaps his only flaw is that he might be too perfect but I ain’t complaining.
- Yang Cai Wei / Shangguan Zhi (female lead) is shown as strong-willed, brave, intelligent with a unique forensic skill. My only issue with the way the character is written is the slight inconsistency of her personality after her face is swapped (I’ll discuss in more detail the negative points below). The main actress Ju Jing Yi was fantastic in her role and especially her acting impressed me massively when she portrayed the villain in the first two episodes. I feel she did really well in playing two distinctly different characters and I was easily convinced of the face swap.

POSITIVE:
- Blossoming romance that’s built well and steadily (like a mature and realistic relationship).
- Devilishly handsome male lead with strong on-screen presence.
- Dark and mysterious murder cases that are well written and show the brutality of humanity.
- Male lead falls in love with the female lead’s personality, not her physical looks.
- Smart female lead with unique forensic skills.
- Hot shirtless scenes (yes I said it).
- Hot kiss scene (one but worth the watch).
- Perfect balance between the romance story and the investigation plot. I never felt one overpowered the other.
- Gothic and sexy cinematography.
- Liu Xue Yi (male lead) brilliant acting in every possible way. The way he speaks, the way he moves, the way he walks. He is simply captivating to watch.
- Ju Jing Yi (female lead) portrays two characters beautifully. Her villainous role, although short, is a total scene stealer.
- Engaging and well executed plot.
- Beautiful OST.
- Great support cast and guest actors that stand out with their acting.
- Nice push and pull dynamic between the leads (at the start).

NEGATIVE:
!!! No drama is without flaws and although there are negative points here, none of them took away from my enjoyment. The main issue I had was how the face swap was handled at the beginning of the drama.

- The drama gives all the screen time in the first two episodes to the guest actress (who portrays the original female lead) which creates an awkward emotional bond with the audience when she is suddenly replaced by the main lead at episode three (after the face swap). In terms of the love story, this is great as it emphasised the male lead’s love for the female lead and clearly showed the audience that he did not fall in love with her because she suddenly had a nice face and body. However I feel the actual female lead JJY suffered since the audience had to get used to seeing the same character as her. What would have made it better is, if they had started the drama with JJY (as the villain) and given her more screen time to establish her as the main lead.
- The actual face swap remained a mystery in the whole drama. It was never explained how it was done. In fact it felt very unrealistic that the characters kept referring to it as a face swap when it is very clear that the two actresses have different body types, weight and skin tone. I feel it would have been better if they had chosen an actress similar to JJY or just called it a body/soul swap.
- Personality switch. The original YCW (main character) is shown as mature, calm and level-headed but after the face swap she oddly becomes extremely carefree as SZ. We are told that the character is trying to pretend to be SZ but even when she is alone, we don’t really see her as the original YCW from the first two episodes. Having said that, in the later episodes and especially when her identity is revealed, her personality does appear very similar to the original YCW. So I do blame the writers for this inconsistency. I believe the reason they made her carefree after the switch was to give us light-hearted scenes (especially with the male lead) which meant they sacrificed logic for cuteness.
- Although the drama wraps up well and resolves the main conflict related to the leads, it still leaves it open for a second season. But we all know chinese dramas rarely do second seasons so I kind of wish the last 10 seconds of the drama were cut.

OVERALL:
This is the Best 2024 Historical drama for me so far. Even better, it’s the best 2024 drama for Youku so far too. It has gathered millions of views with a 10,000 heat index by day three of its release. In fact, it became such a huge success that Youku upgraded it to S+ treatment (promotion and live events). I’m very much impressed by what the production has done with an A level (low budget) drama.

If you are looking for a drama with blossoming romance, murder investigations, beautiful gothic cinematography with smart and skillful main leads + a male lead who falls for the female lead’s personality not her looks, watch this drama now.

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Soul Swap & Case Solving; Possible Season 2?

This series mystery solving and "face swap" intrigued me plus I wanted to see LXY in a different role as when I put this on my watchlist I had only seen him in TBOY and though he did well, I wanted to see him play someone other then a sarcastic, bald monk with insane powers. Since then I've seen him as an antagonist in Destined too. This was a very different soul swap & case solving with a cliffhanger ending to the storyline so a possible season 2?

Pros: I liked the cases themselves and that one case was connected to the next and so forth; slowly exposing the massive organization behind it. LXY or PY was impressive as he moved from various emotions of love, grief, revenge, foresight into just about everything, his swords skills were quite impressive, and his jealousy was hilarious. This show was able to make sadness and comedy pop. FL or YCW/SZ played by JJY held her own and I can say that her acting has improved from the first couple of times I've seen her; she was able to portray her character very convincingly. I actually thought the show had some fantasy elements too like the soul swap (I can't call it a face swap because the two actresses were different; both in body type and height. Even though they tried to pile JJY's hair on top of her head to make her appear taller, to a discerning eye, it didn't work), and the bugs spell incantation to make someone blind and how it reversed itself upon healing. This made the cases even more interesting as it wasn't just another coroner and investigator type thing. I liked SML whom I nicknamed Sparky, when he showed up because let's face it, the guy is hot and he played his character very well though I'm glad they got rid of the extra eyeliner he was introduced in (as the young master) as it was very distracting. Though I liked SFL as a friend of FL and a part of the foursome, I'll talk more about her below.

Other characters like the maid, A Ze, brother of the original SZ, Lady Qi, the princess, and even fat Liu were all great characters. The villains and spies even the supposed mastermind all did their roles well. The story of PY trying to bring down the organization that "killed" his wife on their wedding night when it was really the obsessed sister of his best friend that had kidnapped and soul swapped with her just before the wedding, pushed her off a cliff and than got handed her own karma due to the death warrant by the mastermind of YCW’s parents murder and many others in a huge conspiracy. SZ didn't deserve that kind of death and YCW was going to get to the bottom of it. So the husband and wife team that didn't trust each other at first, still started to work together. Second leads also helped in their own way. Though Sparky had a thing for YCW, that was a silly competition and never really felt like a love triangle. Also liked that they showed a few decent kissing scenes and even the second leads getting it on. Plus YCW told Sparky from nearly the get go that she only saw him as her best friend. Best part was the revelation of when PY figured out finally that FL was indeed YCW. It took a bit for them to get together but they did and it was super cute.

The costumes, sets, OSTs, all fit as they should. The story ended on a bit of a cliffhanger in the storyline as the real mastermind wasn't really unveiled leaving room open for a possible season 2 but what they were doing was totally revealed so the mastermind had lost that element so also could just have been set up as an intriguing finale.

Cons: While I loved Sparky’s character, his ending was just weird. It was like they needed to add more tragedy to this; really? And it had nothing to do with his acting but the writing was inconsistent with how we saw him for the rest of the show. One could argue that when he saw his dad essentially die twice, he lost it and decided to go infiltrate the big bad organization all by himself. It made no sense though; if he found information that was useful to his friends ie PY and YCW, he had no backup to bring it to them and everything was just very haphazard. Essentially he was going on a suicide mission with no real assurance that he would even succeed; he ignored his friends warnings repeatedly when they told him how dangerous it was. We saw his death coming very soon after his father's death because it was just that stupid. They essentially did him dirty by making a smart, decisive man just impulsive and dumb. Also the actor lied to fans when the foursome did that Sina building sweep to promote the series and they were asked if both sets would have a happy ending. The leads didn't say anything and he said the second leads would; in reality the very opposite happened (don't get me wrong, I'm happy the leads at least are together). Same was done by the cast of A Journey to Love, when in reality everyone died lol. I think fans should not trust actors from these types of series with this question anymore.

SFL was just strange. Her romance with Sparky was sort of lopsided. It felt forced and she couldn't even talk without pouting 95% of the time. She followed Sparky around like a puppy even before as someone said in the comments he had "runner-up feelings" for her. Yes, they got together but I can't say the chemistry was real to me. Even the maid and A Ze had more chemistry than these two. Can't even compare to the leads; those two had chemistry before her identity reveal even happened. I would have preferred them two to just be friends. We really didn't need a second or third romance. This story had so much going on already.

Suspension of disbelief had to be deployed several times; other than Sparky's whole suicide mission decision but the abuse case with the girl fighting her father in the alley while both male leads just watched? She knew information about that ripple organization but they didn't act and just watched her father essentially kill her or she herself by his sword. Like what even? You've got two highly skilled swordsman just standing there watching their only real lead die? Just beyond.

The ending was rushed with the "mastermind", death of the princess, Sparky and his thing but at least he gave them the evidence they needed even if it was just a clue off his dead body, dad and son reconciling. Like a lot happened in a very condensed amount of time and I wish it was fleshed out more. The pace of the rest of the show was great but the ending definitely took off like its pants were on fire.

Would I recommend it? Yes I would. This show has many layers and despite the minuses, it was a good watch. Actors for the most part did a great job and it's nice to see the alliances form the way they did.

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