Story (7/10):
In more ways than not, the premise is unconventional - not only by Chinese dramas standards, but in the realm of romance. If one is even slightly familiar with early Chinese history, then the idea of a forced relationship with a man whose ruthless tyranny is more infamous than his merits in unifying what is now China, has all the ingredients for an interesting romance. A romance tying into real historical characters and their famed personalities, leaves one curious to see how this equally unstable yet devoted ruler thaws his way into the heart of the object of his infatuation, after taking her away from the life she wanted and those she loves.
Throw in a second lead (Jing Ke) whose name is synonymous in history with balls rivaling the Great Wall for his assassination attempts on the emperor, and imaginations be running wild from all sorts of directions this story can go, and the immense potential it has. Sounds very ambitious, doesn't it?
And yet it fell flat. Over-saturated with unoriginal, predictable tropes that take away substantial momentum from the bigger picture, and in the end achieved nothing for plot and characterization. Despite active ingredients for what could have been good storytelling and real conflicts, poor characterization is probably what ruined the drama. Characters that garner neither sympathy nor respect, whose actions make no sense of the insensible, and mostly controlled by situations rather than in control of. Drama begins with a plot only to end with none (minus the part where they stuck to history). Seriously, will someone please think of the plot?!
And then there's flashbacks. The only thing more overused is good ol' flashbacks with the cheesy music, to cement itself as extremely lazy, poor writing at its finest. One flashback in particular has me thankful for helping me realize self restraint levels I never knew existed.
Because everytime it comes up the urge to shave myself bald before pulling my hair out from seeing it for the 100000th time is real. To paraphrase another user, the excessive flashbacks is "an insult to audiences as if the lot suffers from amnesia" couldn't be more accurate.
And ultimately, all is left are frustrating characters, unfulfilled potential and whole lot of disappointment.
Acting (6.5/10):
Not much to be said here. The cast does little to connect the audience, poor characterization aside on writers' part. Dilraba is wholly unimpressive as the leading lady , and proved herself as lacking depth to carry heavier roles like her character here. As for Zhang Bin Bin, he delivers as a mean guy with tender moments, but lacks the magnanimous charisma of a unstable frightening ruler that is Qing Shi Huang. Seriously just read up the guy on Wiki for those unfamiliar with Chinese history. Chemistry between the two however, might be the only saving grace for the drama, if ever is one.
Supporting characters played by actors for Han Shen and Li Zhong are more convincing than mains.
Music (7/10): The OST is good. And by OST I mean two songs for the entire 48 episodes. One in particular is the jack of all trades, used for happier moments to tragic ones, rain or shine, Li Er with Jing Ke, Ying Zheng, etc you name it. One can even guess when it cues and where. The producers of this drama tend to have a single favorite for everything, from music to flashbacks. Besides that, the OST reflects well the tragic theme of the drama, and is memorable. Though may be a function of being hounded into one's memory.
Rewatch: (5/10) only reason I can imagine anyone wanting to bother with this is for the leading pair during more romantic moments. One is better off finding those YouTube MVs for all those "swoonworthy" moments instead.
Am I being too harsh? Perhaps. However, as a frequent watcher of Chinese historicals, I can't help but feel unimpressed. Maybe a better writer, production team and leading cast would have brought out a better outcome. Went into this excited but came out with shattered expectations. Unfortunate because the cinematography, filming (minus choppy editing)and costumes are gorgeous, and despite the complaints, I wanted to like this so badly for parts I did enjoy. However redeeming aspects are largely overshadowed by what is not
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The King's Woman aims to portray a ruthless tyrant as a complicated character that we can sympathize with in telling the story of his true love for a beautiful and talented woman. It's kind of difficult to do well and basically I don't think this drama did a great job at it. It relies too much on the actors' charisma and good looks, slow mo flashbacks, and pretty cinematography rather than thoughtful story writing and good character development.
By episode 40 or so I had a lot of built up frustration and dislike for the main characters so I didn't really care about them anymore. The side characters were uninspiring, but at least Jing Ke and Han Shen were more consistently written and had some good fight scenes. The main characters behave inconsistently and don't feel like real people. The most problematic character is the heroine, Gong Sun Li. She is supposed to be wise, upstanding and tough. As the story progressed I felt more and more repulsed by the idea of her falling in love with the King and being such a martyr for him. He is murderous one scene and then suddenly cute and seductive in the next. The drama jumps into a romantic comedy tone whenever the king does something terrible and they need you to feel sympathy for him and buy into the love story again. It bugged me that an intelligent woman would become submissive to such a man. The main failing in the storytelling is that there was not a compelling reason for her to be won over by him. They didn't portray much of her internal struggle to be with him. It goes against her character to fall in love with him, so give us an explanation. There were hints that she might have done it for political reasons or to protect others. But mostly the romance is portrayed as just fate - that Li was fated to always protect, love and serve the King no matter what his actions and he would always love her because of it. But why? This wasn't enough for me to buy into the romance.
I watched the last part of the drama mostly out of curiosity to see how the events played out. I knew I was supposed to feel the tragedy of it all as a result of the king's fatal character flaws and feel the heroine's selflessness and integrity, but the feelings just weren't there for me. Still, there were ample slow motion flashback scenes to inform me that something dramatic was happening. And every time they played a certain childhood flashback scene (which was A LOT) I knew I was supposed to be feeling how poignant it all was.
Then again after all my complaints about this drama again, I never once thought of dropping it. On a basic level it is watchable and entertaining enough to see the good looking costumes, actors, cinematography and martial arts scenes and find out what happens in the end.
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This review may contain spoilers
I started watching this drama with people's bad comments and bad reviews in my mind. I watch this because the story is interesting and I like Zhang Bin Bin and Dilraba. However, because of the bad comments and review, I had low expectation of this drama. But this drama did not disappoint! I don't find it draggy. I felt that the pace is quite alright and many of the episodes seem to end on a cliffhanger, giving me panda eyes in the mornings because I keep watching past my bedtime :) I thought that Zhang Bin Bin as Qin Shi Huang did a good job. Dilraba also did okay in my opinion. I like the actor that played Han Shen, but not the one that played Jing Ke. I like the scenes between Bin Bin and Dilraba, I thought they have chemistry together and the scenes where Dilraba's character started to fall in love with the king is so cute, one that I can definitely rewatch. I also like the fighting scenes in this drama. Production quality is also great, doesn't feel like an older drama in my opinion. Cinematography is great too.
This is a serious drama and although the title refers to Dilraba's character, the story is much more than that. There's palace politics and war strategies and loyalty. So much more than just love story between Gongsun Li as the King's woman with The King.
*Spoiler alert*
The ending, however is super brutal. I never liked Jing Ke, so I was rooting for the King to win, but never expected that he actually lost in a sense since the king's woman gets to be with her first love, Jing Ke in the afterlife. The last several episodes were also brutal as there is war and murder and revenge.
Overall, I thought this is a good drama and really worth watching. If you like historical angle drama and palace politics, this drama is recommended for you.
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A good story ruined by poor execution!
I am sure I heard this was a big hit in its country of origin. So, I got curious and had quite a bit of an expectation. After completing the drama, I am just utterly disappointed. I almost dropped this because of the poor casting choices. They could have chosen better actors in the leading role. I guess they went after who is popular at the moment. The actor playing the King is so wooden and uninspiring. I can't believe they got him to play the famous Qin Shi Huang. He was supposed to be an authoritarian tyrant. He exuded so much power and vitality in him but I couldn't feel it with this actor. He had almost the same expressions all throughout the entire drama. He looked and acted weak. Gongsun Li's character was supposed to be vibrant, smart and outstanding. Again, I couldn't feel it with this actress. She was bland. I like the actors playing Jing Ke and Madam Chu. I like her little facial expressions and the way she talks. She had this irritating persona and therefore, was a really effective character. I prefer Han Shen over everyone on this drama. You could feel his suppressed emotions. He portrayed the character of a man in love with a woman he could never have well. As for the visual effects, they looked like it was done by amateurs. Lastly, there were so many plot holes and inconsistencies with the characters. I really wanted to like The King's Woman but I just can't. It is a good story but ruined by poor execution.Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
Let me just say I created an account on this website to leave a review for this drama that I just finished. Rich with culture, the struggles of the times, and most of all their inner turmoils while the continent is going through massive change. I come from a family that has suffered under the Japanese Invasion, then subsequently the Communist Red Army Cultural Revolution, and this was a very philosophical drama, for me, that is somewhat based on history and it's players.
For someone that is looking for a tv series that does a good job of depicting history, but with decent drama/love story added into it, this is a good one.
I appreciated this drama for depicting:
- The rich costumes and cultures throughout the series, along with depictions of battles, watching along as each kingdom fell one by one...
- Brief overview of the Six Kingdoms and their states during that era, for example the kingdom of Qin was indeed well managed with strict laws that applied to all, versus other kingdoms.
- The perspectives of the common people of those kingdoms whose only wish is to live in peace
- The perspectives of those representing their kingdoms (royalty and aristocracy) and their unwavering loyalty to preserve their motherland.
- The perspective of the Qin Emperor whose desire is to unite all of China, even despite a massive bloodbath. How difficult it must have been for him to have his underlings (many from those other kingdoms) who serve him on the surface, but deep down is seeking to preserve their motherlands.
- The eternal perspective of strong women who wished they could've been more, if only they were born a man...
Though there were parts where the acting could have been better (I agree the flashbacks are a bit much after a while), and some of the actors you never really feel for, but other strong actors did such an excellent job to carry the drama forward, and finally I was extremely impressed with how they weaved a pretty complex love story into this historically based drama. For those that appreciate culture and history, but would like to see it in Story Mode (you can then go read up the actual history in books or Wikipedia), this is a drama that is worth your time.
Last words... the final episode was epic.
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Zhang Bin Bin acting is beyond brilliant, its hard to imagine he was only 24 /25 and he overshadowed other characters,
The chemistry between Zhang bin bin and Dilraba in super strong ,
Ying Zheng has his dark side of course but Zhang bin bin made it so attractive, chilling ,i didnt know that those dark character can be so sexy , Amazing perfomance Zhang Bin Bin!!!!
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First of all I want to mention, that I was really excited about this drama, and the trailer just made us love it even more, but not the end was a decision as the course of the drama was too fast and very cruel to our protagonist.As typical of Chinese dramas, especially epics, here we have the case of "everyone loves me", that is, all the male characters love our protagonist but the female ones feel envy and hate .... I thought it was like Empress of China a sweet woman with men who love and respect her. However, this turned out to be a lie because only one of the protagonists truly loved the senior, since the king, in my view, saw it as a necessity, an obsession ... many excuse the attitudes of such because it is beautiful, but put yourself in the the protagonist's place ... to suffer physical and verbal abuse as she suffered no one deserves it, they would like someone who you are not attracted or like to start assaulting you to put you down whenever you can, because in Women Kings we witness this ...
Too much shit and obsession from the male leads..
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I found it difficult to sympathize with any of the characters in this drama They all do unrealistic things. Han Shen is the only exception, as the long suffering senior brother who sacrifices all happiness to protect the one he loves.
The costumes, design and on location departments get top ratings from me. They did a wonderful job making the show a feast for the eyes as usual. Unfortunately, it isn’t enough to help a show that lacked substance in plot. Nothing was really happening and the final 20 episodes tended to meander towards a predictable end.
My biggest pet peeve was the spoiler previews. What was up with that? I could have skipped whole episodes with all the storyline they gave away. Great soundtrack, weak drama that left me sad and disappointed.
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It's a good watch, but the pacing was a bit weird for me. The amount of time skips made it a bit rushed feeling even though the romance had good pacing. There were some characters I found did not add much to the plot and were added in only for more romantic plots (ex: Gai Lan) and they did not interest me at all. I wanted to skip their scenes most of the time, what kept me watching the drama was the chemistry between Diliraba and Zhang Bin Bin. Although in our modern time, the romance would not be well received due to the mistreatment of Gong Sun Li, it should be kept in mind that in their time, the king does whatever he wants LOL. When adding his past, you can kind of empathize with him. Personally, I liked the progression of the romance between the two. The characters are all very flawed, and sometimes although human, makes you want to strangle the person for their stupidity. Some poorly written characters aside, the story itself was pretty good, although the ending left me feeling a bit empty. Characters are very one dimensional for a 48 episode drama.
Cast/Acting:
Love the cast, but felt like the acting could have been better. I have high expectations of Diliraba and Zhang Bin Bin. They did well, especially ZBB, but there were moments where the emotions were not as well received on my end. There were scenes however, that damn, ZBB delivered so well I had to rewatch some parts due to feeling the intense emotions and not on what was being said. Major props to the actors of Han Shen and Li Zhong. They did great in their character portrayal and you can really feel their love/loyalty towards Sun Li and the King. As for Jing Ke, I've watched the actor in other dramas and he was pretty great in them, so I will chalk it up to poor writing of his character. He did well for what he was given, but all he was able to show was self pity most of the time, not much to show his acting abilities. I think the rest of the supporting casts did great, from the kings mother to the evil eunuch! The only one that bugged me was the actress for Gai Lan. Something about her acting made it seem forced and unnatural, but she wasn't horrible.
Music:
Standard sad OSTs that sound nice. Will be on my chinese OST playlist but isn't anything groundbreaking.
Rewatch Value:
I will most likely just watch the romance between Ying Zheng and Sun Li due to Jing Ke and Gai Lan being very boring.
Overall:
Keep in mind that the characters are based off of real people, but it is not very accurate in portrayal. Jing Ke 90% of the time was in a mode of self pity and Ying Zheng was not as ruthless compared to in real life. Not recommended to watch this if you want to learn about the history of the characters. They were changed to put more emphasis on the romance. However, if you put that aside, the romance was great between Sun Li and King Ying Zheng. The ending left me feeling a bit empty as it did not show much, wished we could have seen more of little Tian Ming.
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I rarely do fast forward when I'm watching but with this--especially scenes & conversations about politics, I just did. I also got disappointed on how they came up with episode 1, it didn't leave any impression at all.
BUT, i loved the sweet moments between Ying Zheng and Gongsun Li especially when GL gave in and finally learned to love YZ
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