Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace (2018)

I'm at episode 47 and I think I'm done. Something good finally happened to Ruyi and I can't watch everything go downhill from now on (no, I'm not spoiling, because this all happened in real life over 200 years ago).
I've managed to get this far only because of the amazing performance of Zhou Xun as the title character, fighting against my dislike of the Qing hair (at one point Ruyi looks like she has a hammerhead shark on her head) , the Qing clothes, the Qing interiors , and every. single. other. character. Except for two of the maids: pour one out for Suoxin and Lianxin. Ok, FINE. One eunuch (Li Yu) and one doctor (Jiang Yubin). And Ling Yunche, how could I have forgotten him.

Sigh. Maybe I'll watch a few more episodes, but as other posters have said, it does get a bit samey - 1. Ruyi's doing her own thing (love you, girl). 2. Horrible people plotting against her. 3. No one believes Ruyi. 4. Ruyi suffers (and yes, Zhou Xun suffers BEAUTIFULLY). 5. Ruyi is vindicated. And the cycle starts again.

The thing is, I watched Yanxi Palace first, and even though Yanxi Palace has some nonsense towards the end, the characters are generally much better developed. Also, Concubine Ling, the heroine of Yanxi Palace is entirely demonised here, and I'm kind of not there for that? Seeing as we know exactly two facts about the real woman, why make her evil? Yes, she has a different name here, but there was only one Concubine Ling, who, SPOILER FOR 2-CENTURY OLD EVENTS , was the mother of the next Emperor.

I mean, fine, Yanxi Palace made Ulanara / Ruyi into a villain, so idk.

Basically, it's well acted for the most part (90% of that being Zhou Xun - I'm not a fan of Wallace Huo's portrayal of Qianlong) , has some awesome exterior scenes which attest to the enormous budget this must have had, and it's massively interesting to watch. Just, you know, not if you're prone to depression.

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Leaves you feel perpetually depressed!

Let me start off by saying THIS DRAMA IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART!!! On that note... I am actually faint at heart so I was unable to finish. I'll let you know why down below but first a general overview.

General Overview
The drama starts off really slow. it sort of paces like a day time soap opera. Most episodes pick up right where it ended and it basically follows the day to day lives of the females who live in the emperor's harem. We see the hierarchy of the wives and get a basic idea of how things are done. The drama, however, does not pick up really until its well in its 20's (it drags quite a bit prior) but the episodes are still interesting to watch. Btw if you're watching this for the revenge..don't do it..not worth it...trust me..This is one of those shows that make you depressed and happy at the same time...Like while watching it I hated it but I always kept wanting to know what would happen next. The more I watched though the sadder I became. The one thing I will commend this drama for is how strong Ruyi is, regardless of what she faced she remained strong and that was awesome because her husband was wilding for literally this entire drama!

SPOILERS!!!!!!
Like I mentioned earlier this drama is not for the faint of heart. It made me extremely uncomfortable, Not because I'm conservative and couldn't get behind the many wives troupe, that was fine. What was not fine is how the whole sister wives thing affected all the women especially Ruyi (the main female lead) Okay from that get-go they introduced Ruyi and the emperor to us, they were childhood friends who loved each other hence they're both excited to marry each other. After the marriage however is when the shitshow begins,..Initially, the emperor started out with 2 wives and 1 concubine. However, by the time I gave up on the show he probably had about 9/10 in total. Now throughout the drama (up to where I stopped anyway) the emperor was constantly reassuring Ruyi that she was the only one he loved. He doted on her more than the others and he treated her the best out of all his wives & concubines. However, in this same breath, he would see a random girl and "fall in lust" with her and marry her and for a couple of months she would be his main focus the one he visits every night. Ruyi is obviously accustomed to it but you can see eventually it begins to take a strain on the love she has for him. This dude cannot keep it in his pants. Its so hard to believe that he loves her when you see him with all the other women (he treats all of them the pretty good too) some of whom he saw once or twice before being with them. Not taking away all the times he abandoned her in some instances to 'protect her' and in the end, she would have no choice but to go back to him. It was so difficult watching him basically fall in love with another woman while he claimed to be so in love with Ruyi

This drama is heartbreaking because eventually Ruyi can't take it anymore and she closes her heart to him and he eventually "sets her aside" for a shiner evil sly conniving bitch. No happy ending here folks. Its literally like watching a documentary on how the love of your life will eventually break you.

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rare in chinese

I had little hopes for this drama; i was expecting a lavish set and terrible story-line HOWEVER i was proven wrong these are the few Chinese drama that are comparable to its competitor genre. Let me start with the plot, obv, this is gonna be tragedy but the plot line started strong and ended strong; there's no confusing villain every episode but just like a novel it has it's introduction, middle, climax, and ending. I love how the cast portrayed the main characters with the emperor down to the concubines, no cliche-devotion shz here sist. These are few of the Chinese drama that are definitely written well i'm surprised it didn't get the high rating it deserve. (I used to hate half-shaven head but boy oh boy the wallance hou didn't let me down) This drama lit ignited my interest toward my old-hate and now ignited curiosity about qing china. I love how every character has it's yin-yang and there's no cliche-ass female lead like the title suggest.

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Well then,

I couldn't pull myself to finish episode 3... it felt like those 3 hours drained 60 years of my life - in other words, it was so goddamn boring i couldn't restrain myself from dropping this series.

Also, the cast put me off which played quite a big role in one of the list of reasons why I should go kill myself.

FL's appearance and voice were irritating. It was as though I was observing an unattractive male. - the same goes to the ML; he was a bore and the clothes he wore were hideous. All one could do was look away.

Yours truly,

Suicide.

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A most unsatisfying female protagonist

I signed up to MyDramaList simply becoz I wanted to rant abt Ruyi's Royal Love. Ruyi's Royal Love n The Story of Yanxi Palace came out in the same yr, both potraying the story of Step-Empress Ula Nara n Ling Gui Fei, w Ruyi potraying Ling Gui Fei as the villain while Yanxi Palace potrayed the Step-Empress as the villain. I cried watching Ruyi's but ultimately I was so turned off by the character Ruyi n ended up disliking her. Ruyi was supposed to be this character that retained all of her integrity n yet, for me, she was a weak woman that ultimately allowed her love for a man to overtake any consideration she could've given to her friends.
Why I disliked the character Ruyi in Ruyi's Royal Love :
1. Of all the characters, only Ruyi is potrayed as the completely virtuous one, while all others hv schemes. Even the good Hui Fei schemed to get the emperor's favor so that she could rescue Ruyi.
2. Ruyi depended too much on the emperor, believing that the emperor will always see the truth just becoz she loved him.
3. As a favoured consort n later on as a Step-Empress that has the support of the emperor, n later on even having the backing of the Empress Dowager, Ruyi did nothing to protect the prople that she supposedly love. She only cared abt how she would look to the emperor, presenting herself as the only one who didn't play dirty. As a Step-Empress that's supported by the Empress Dowager, she had a real power to make sure the concubines adhered to the palace rules. But, she still let the concubines continued scheming, doing nothing to stop them even when she knew what they're doing.
4. The emperor promoted Ruyi to Step-Empress w his full backing. N yet, the drama made it that Jia Fei was still so powerful that she could still immediately went to the emperor to complain abt Ruyi making her wore the big earrings, n the emperor somehow could continue listening to her badmouthing Ruyi.
5. Ruyi hid the gender of ther baby when she was pregnant, pretending that the baby was a girl instead of a boy. But, again, Ruyi was the Step-Empress. She had the power to protect her pregnancy. Why was she so cowed by Jia Fei, who actually didn't hv strong political relatives that the emperor had to appease? Jia Fei was frm Goryeo (present day Korea), a country conquered by China n Goryeo just didn't hv sny power in the emperor's court. Heck, at that time, even choosing an emperor in Goryeo required China emperor's approval. Ruyi could hv told the truth of all Jia Fei machinations to the emperor n the emperor would've believed her. N yet, it's Hui Fei that finally took the initiative to expose Jia Fei that made the emperor demoted her.
6. Suoxin n Sir Li worked tirelessly to protect Ruyi, yet again n again Ruyi didn't her power to protect them. They were slandered by Ruyi's enemies, but, as a Step-Empress, Ruyi could hv stepped in to at least made sure no one tortured Suoxin n Sir Li while investigations were made. N once the truth was known, Ruyi could've punished the actual criminals. Sir Li's fate was especially demeaning. N probably even Sir Li realised how any help he gave to Ruyi n whatever good positions Ruyi bestowed on him only resulted in him being tortured, demoted n castrated, n thus he actually asked Ruyi to stop doing things for him.
7. The Empress Xiaochang was potrayed as an evil character. It's not believable then that after knowing the truth of the Empress's evil doings, the emperor didn't do anything to clear Ruyi's name. The emperor actually raised the Empress's status higher upon her death, punishing his sons that he perceived to hv disrespected the Empress by not crying at her funeral. That's not the action of somebody being disappointed or angry w the dead person. Even if the emperor wanted to save face, he could've just overlooked the sons non-crying as something that the evil Empress perhaps deserved.
8. For me, the character Wei Yan Wan was more admirable. She started frm a lowly maid, didn't hv any backing whatsoever, no member of her family was an official of the emperor's admin, not even as a minor official, the Empress Dowager dislike her, she had no real allies w the other concubines, she didn't display any special characters that would make the emperor favoured her so much. All she had was the head eunuch Jiazheng n her own ingenuity. Compared that w Ruyi who came frm a highly respected clan, hv Empresses as part of the clan's list of impactful figures, hv the backing of the Empress Dowager, hv the love n support of the emperor. Ruyi had all the advantages.
9. Sir Li gave the ring token that proved his prior relationship w Ling Fei to Hui Fei. Yet, Hui Fei n Ruyi didn't use the ring to clear Sir Li n Ruyi's names.
10. This drama is supposedly a continuation of The Legend of Zhen Huan. Yet, Ruyi's Royal Love started w everything that's opposite of what happened in The Legend of Zhen Huan. In Zhen Huan, Hongli didn't like Ruyi/Xian n even asked Zhen Huan to replace her w Gao Feinas his second wife. In Zhen Huan, when the Empress Ula-Nara died, Zhen Huan told Ruyi/Xian to visit her aunt, but Ruyi/Xian said she had no such family member. Zhen Huan had no further need to scheme as all her enemies had died, she had protected her son by putting him in the 17th Prince's family, n Hongli revered her. Yet, Zhen Huan in Ruyi's Royal Love schemed against Hongli. Why? What political advantage she'd hv in having control over Hongli? She didn't hv anyone that she planned to take over as emperor. N if she's a continuation of the character frm Zhen Huan, then she had no further need to play court politics, becoz as the Empress Dowager, she's the most powerful woman in the inner palace.
11. Ruyi gave Rong Fei the infertility medicine when Rong Fei asked it of her. But, it's a very heavy crime to stop any concubine frm producing heirs to the emperor. How could Ruyi, who'd know of the severity of this action which totally goes opposite of making sure the emperor had many heirs, allow Rong Fei this medicine w/o telling the emperor first. N the emperor slapping Ruyi in public upon knowing this? That's a very gross breach of court etiquette. Also, an emperor losing control in public n displaying his anger would actually means the emperor was freely letting people see his weakness. N slapping Ruyi was basically taking away her face or her honour. N insulting the Empress Dowager as it's the Empress Dowager that allowed Ruyi to give the infertility medicine.
12. Much was said how the costumes n rituals in Ruyi's were so good. But, for me, there's nothing extraordinary abt them n it paled in comparison to the costumes in Legend of Zhen Huan.

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I loved the first part when they were young and the Prince admired Ruyi but then when they got married all the chaos started with consort this and that, concubines this and that. They conspired against each other to take one or the other out. The reason why I gave the cast a 10 rating is that they did their part in bringing that time to the audience. Wallace Huo did awesome in the role he portrayed. I cried in the two last episodes when Ruyi passed away. The costumes were beautiful but I still can't get used to those hairstyles in that era including the European hairstyles. The jewelry was exquisite as always. Thank you to the Costume team! Thank you to the cast, producers, visual, artistry, and the music team.

NOTE: Even in the present day, when a man has one wife with added lovers, it never works out well. Somebody's feelings are going to be hurt. That is regarding any culture!

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