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The Substitute Princess's Love chinese drama review
Dropped 14/24
The Substitute Princess's Love
1 people found this review helpful
by oceanbreeze12
20 days ago
14 of 24 episodes seen
Dropped
Overall 3.0
Story 3.0
Acting/Cast 8.0
Music 7.5
Rewatch Value 1.0

A cliched and irritating mess

Right off the bat, a stark age gap between the two leads. Keyi could well be the general's daughter. This isn't helped by how childish and naive she is. She doesn't know shit about the world, which, fair enough given her background and everything, but leads to some very iffy dynamic with her much older lover. Sometimes I feel like he's mentoring her, being a father figure she never had. Which is wholesome until you realised THEIR ACTUAL RELATIONSHIP.

Because of the shit imposed on them by the schemes of various villains, there's some very uncomfortable stuff. Like the male lead treating her like absolute shit at the beginning, or trapping her in her room at some point to prevent her from running off. There's legitimate circumstantial reasons for this, but I'm not a fan of how controlling he is. (It only worsens the age dynamic.)

Seriously, if every romantic drama director wants to get their hands on the trendy jaded brooding man x bright optimistic woman troupe. They need to understand that optimistic =/= naive and quit it with the age gap.

Unlike most female leads who are at least shown to be clever and...uh..feisty, I guess, but not this time. Keyi doesn't blame her husband at all and never fights back. This is both baffling and annoying, as it makes her suffering essentially pointless. Writers, can you make your female lead an actual human being and not just a vessel for our frustration and catharsis?

Like...the premise is that Keyi is tasked (under threat) to steal her husband's token. So she needs to get close to him. A whole lot of episodes is just Keyi sucking up to the guy while he treats her like shit, including making her kneel in the rain until it stopped for no good reason. What. The. Fuck.

There is also a female spy character who is there All. The. Time. She screws up every mission she's given. (It's not really an issue with her, it's just that the male lead is all powerful until the plot needs him to get hurt, so if he's your target, you're gonna fail everytime.) Problem is, she is arrogant as hell and completely confident in herself. Loud, boastful, talkative, rude, even when she has to date accomplished nothing than kill a few civilians that she isn't even after.
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