Peony
Please see my commentary on ep 1 before proceeding- https://mydramalist.com/73313-chen-yuan/episode/1Top student Angelababy is mad the new guy she brought in is getting all her spotlight. But she thinks he's hot too. What a dilemma.Meanwhile a completely different sect, while complaining the Angelababy School got their hands on the "god" first, accidentally find the actual god from where he fell off the cliff ?JC is resurrected. "What happened? What did that waiter in the restaurant do?"The evil sect leaders say "He killed you"JC: "omg why tho ?"Evil guys: "coz he's lame" (Where's the lie)JC: "oh no, what do I do now"Evil guys: "stay here till you get better and take revenge"JC: "Ok, thanks for the help!"Like...I wish im making this all up. Cdramas can be SO unserious sometimes? Honestly I think this would've actually worked if they went more full on camp and truly embraced it. But it's discordant in all the weird ways.From ep 4 preview: Stone-shijie reappears, sees her stone on ML, and mistakes him as her god boyfriend. ?JC has all the more motivation to take revenge on ML now.My goodness i think I reached my limit. Peony livestream service ends here, you are welcome lmaoI find it pretty darn funny and interesting as an afterthought tho, how the ACTUAL heroic god undergoing epic tribulations ended up being the villain of the story because a random waiter boy with a bigger main character energy than him waylaid him unexpectedly ?????Dude was peacefully on his way to reunite with stone girlfriend and ascend for the 100th time (pun not not intended). Can't believe I actually ended up rooting for JC and shijie lol
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Warning for fans of The Untamed, this could be horror for you as Xuan Lu and Jiang Cheng are meant to be a couple here lolI will summarise what happened in ep 1 using their names from TU (because i can't help it lol), read at your own risk!The intro says that Jiang Cheng is the patron god of this river, one day he sat by the river and studied so hard, he manifested a river stone into a minor deity ?And then they hug, so random. There's too many disconnected points there. Did you read the book with the intention of manifesting a lady? Or was the stone fangirling at this good student and made a conscious choice to become a person? So they can.... study together?OK so newly minted stone-fairy did an oopsie and set off a great imprisoned demon. Heavenly lords are mad and want to punish the fairy and river god chooses to share the punishment. LBFAD except the couple are Changheng and Xiao Lanhua hahaSo CH and XH... I mean Jiang Cheng and shijie are now banished to earth for 100 lifetimes. That tracks.And, they spent 99 lifetimes happy together but not really knowing who they are and why they are here. (They have sex too for like 1 sec and I did NOT want to see that)In the 100th, JC remembered ooh OK I need to get back on my studies and also pick up the stone fairy on the way back to heaven. And unfortunately (ofc), the three realms decided now is the time to have some major destabilization fun. And ofc the chaos can be solved only by JC and his stone wife according to a prophecy ?? She's not yet discovered/reunited with JC in this 100th lifetime yet and now everyone's searching for her. Backstory ends. The ACTUAL ML is narrating this story, he's a waiter at a restaurant. He dreams of becoming a cool hero just like that banished god one day. And chance oh chance, not a minute later, the god from his story (JC) appears on his doorstep and go like "bro, did a beast pass by?"The ML is living fanboy dreams, except the ML doesn't realise this is his idol. The reason is because he imagines the god to look like himself in his head pfft.He tries to rob the godAnd JC pulverizes his shop?. Fast story.ML's hidden powers get activated and JC is now hurt and unconscious ?This show is unpredictable if nothing else lmfaoShijie's Stone is around JC's neckML robs him and throws him off a cliff. What is even happening. How dumb the ML must be, he didn't recognize the god with a magic stone from his story even when he was right at your doorstep, and now some random customers instantly recognized the stone hanging around his neck. Now he's the one getting robbed.Everyone from 3 realms got their eyes on him now. It has not even been five minutes after this twink aquired the infamous stone. They all have radar sensors or what.Two random jiejies with powers joined the fight to take the ML to their own places. Here comes Angelababy, the third girl calling dibs on the ML. ML is incredibly flattered a pretty hotshot like Angelababy wants to get him?.At least 10 more sects came to get him.ML is totally normal with the wild day he's having, living his dream of meeting cultivators and fairies and whatnot.There's too much competition and they ask the ML what HE wants. That's new lol. He picks his dream hogwarts, which is apparently the sect Angelababy is also from, and they are not planning to do anything to him but train him as a successor. How convenient (they lied, they DO want him for his supposed River-godhood)ML keeps pretending as the lost god and starts his school life. End of ep 1.The intro backstory is the much tried xianxia arc of gods being banished to earth, and the ML's restaurant arc is old wuxia format from like 15 yrs ago. It could've worked better better if they acted more self aware like this is an intentional homage/parody.But instead it's just coming off sloppily written with too many clashing flavors in the pot.Oh well, weirdly I did have some fun. But mostly because I watched on 2x, was looking through the additional TU lenses, and was narrating it. I cannot make myself rate it more than 2.5/10 tho.
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Why I started watching it- Because of baby Zhou Xun. Who is excellent and amazing and SO cute back then too. Like.. really actually cute. She's wonderful. I'm not even surprised anymore that old dramas are leagues ahead the ones we have today which are mostly just looks and no substance. It's really really good. Effortlessly funny without being a comedy. Despite being set on Wu Zetian era, it treats even the court and royalty as human beings who are not always so grand and uppity but would do ridiculous things every once in a while. The end result is utterly genuine and adorable AND believable. There's a scene in ep 1, where Wu Zetian stays behind curtain in hall, she can't even take maternity leave because the emperor is so incompetent and lazy. Her baby girl Princess Taiping escapes her clutches and goes onto play with eunuchs' whisks and ministers'robes lol. The ministers try to keep a straight face AND make cute faces at the princess at the same moment. THEN the princess accidentally pees in the middle of court. Wu Zetian comes to the rescue with witty explanation that this symbolizes proper irrigation can save the country from drought ?Not only because of Censorship, I think dramas as a whole these days (kdramas too) try to whitewash things that are unappealing to modern palette.... there are lots of viewers who cannot understand that depicting something that used to happen matter-of-fact does not equate to promoting and advocating such things in real life these days.I always find it refreshing to see old dramas like this that do not shy away from things~ Warning: there's bit of incest in the palace. I mean I'm sure everyone who knows about Wu Zetian's life story alr expect this lol.And the thing that MOST IMPRESSED ME: There's an actual LGBTQ couple here and they actually get to express their love for each other and the entire arc is handled with a respectful and considerate manner and not a negative way.So yeah guys, go watch Palace of Desire! ?
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