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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Okay Royal Court Drama! (Surprisingly)
“The King’s Woman” was actually one of my very first c-dramas. I watched this drama without the same criticism that I have today. However, I remember this drama as one with a good cast, including Dilraba (one of my favourite actresses) and Vin Zhang, who I thought played the role of the emperor quite well. The story… could be better, but I think this is still a decent historical drama based on the royal court/family. If I were to watch this drama again, I don’t think it would be all that interesting, because I never really rewatch dramas, to be honest. Overall, I give this piece a 6.5.Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
Is is a bird? Is it a plane? No, ITS A TOXIC ALERT!!
Although it was intended as the main storyline of this series, personally I wouldn't watch this drama for 2 main reasons:1. The toxic relationship between the male and female lead
2. The amount of ? moments in the drama that kinda make you go huh?
Unfortunate to say, but I did finish this series only because I was hoping for it to pick itself up at the end but it didn't so it was relatively disappointing.
The utter tyrrany, manipulation, obsession, corruption and toxicity radiating from this series is just not healthy and it's definitely hard to preservere through the drama knowing that it's there in every episode.
Overall, I wouldn't recommend the drama if you're looking for a healthy and lovable one although, if this is your kind of trope, by all means, it's possible one of the best ones in that category.
Happy Binging!!
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Mission Impossible
I picked this one up because I quite like Vin Zhang as an actor - he has a certain intensity that in the right role could be quite powerful. I was quite excited to see he him cast as the male lead and as the first emperor of China Qin Shi Huang no less! I also (rightly) suspected that Dilraba Dilmurat would pair up quite nicely with him as the female lead Gong Sun Li.After getting about halfway through this, I realized that the good chemistry between the leads just really wasn't good enough to hold up the challenging story-line that doomed this drama from the start. The lovely Dilraba/Sun Li had the misfortune to catch the eye of the tyrannical Qin emperor. Being all powerful, he tears her from the arms of her childhood love Jing Ke and makes her his concubine. He keeps her by his side by adopting their child and holding him hostage. Despite all of this, we are supposed to be moved by his persistent and not always tender efforts to win her heart. As the Qin emperor, Zhang was mercurial, suspicious, petty and jealous - often coming across like a petulant rejected teenage suitor. Despite his personal intensity, Zhang was not able to round out these lesser qualities with the requisite gravitas of such a powerful emperor. Don't get me wrong, I still think Zhang is a promising actor but the character that he plays is not an innately likable one.
Switching to Dilraba, she also had her work cut out for her - how to betray her love and eventually succumb to such a petty tyrant and not alienate the audience? To make it more palatable, they cast some completely vapid, limp noodle of an actor to play Jing Ke, supposedly the love of Sun Li's life and the father of her child. Needless to say, there was even less chemistry between Jing Ke and Sun Li so we didn't even get a good and convincing triangle. A jealous misunderstanding set him down the path of falling for someone else with the heartbroken encouragement of Sun Li. All I could think was wow, this girl has bad taste in men and they (Sun Li and Jing Ke) were really not that into each other. The rest of the cast was rather insipid and didn't really resonate. There was some silly assassination sub plot that Jing Ke is likely in on (yes kill the tyrant that stole your wife and child) but I didn't get far enough to see it play out. Don't think I am missing anything.
And finally of course there was the requisite palace harem cliche of beautiful women doing their absolute worst to each other - oh yes of course they picked on Sun Li. I can usually tolerate some of it but in this case it was just the last straw. In hindsight, I should have known better than to spend time on this and I have much sympathy for the leads. To begin with, the plot is a super challenging one in which none of the lead characters can possibly come off in a good way. It didn't help that the script writing and character development was shallow and completely not up to the formidable task of making wife snatching romantic. In this regard however, my irritation is squarely aimed at the scriptwriters and not the actors. Their job was literally mission impossible. Instead of self destructing, hopefully they both (and I) make better script choices going forward.
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Mediocre Acting for a Tragic Drama
Summary: just watch the first few episodes bec of its original lines . This is not a romantic lovely story. More tragedy really.Pro:
- good casts but could be better
- many original plot . Watch till about 11th episode and enjoy.
Cons
- chemistry is just plain. The main actress is really cute and sweet but she lacks the toughness and can’t act on the most painful crying scenes. I wanna cry because she can’t cry well esp the last episode.
If you compare her with the actress in Princess Agents, you’ll get the feel why she’s not so great in this story. She doesn’t exude that tough persona. She’s great with the Pillow Book & ten miles of peach blossom kind of story. She’s not appropriate for tragedy
- the chemistry between main characters are so-so. Even with the rival is so-so.
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This review may contain spoilers
(Spoiler) If you have watched Haolan BEFORE watching this...like I did... you will be instantly mad and confused. So I never do long reviews because I simply cannot describe in full flair what is going on, but I can tell you this: every single one of these episodes could have easily been 30 minutes long, that being said...this is a flashback drama. Storyline gets to going real good...then poof back in time.
The female lead finally has a role where she is not acting like a timid joke (mind you this is my opinion and I prefer a stronger woman instead of Juanita Sausage-Head), and the male lead is strong as expected...funny thing is in the (spoiler) love trio one would think that baby daddy would have more of an aggressive feel and look considering history's telling of this man. My insignificant opinion, the Eldest Han Shan should have had the Jing Ke role and vice versa...dude needs some man weight on him.
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+1 Videography/Cinematography: was absolutely amazing. Probably one of the only reasons why I kept watching this drama was because it was greatly done. The visuals were amazing.
+1 Music: It didn't catch me at first but wow, towards the end the music really gets to you
+1 Value of Friendship, Peace and Kindness: The female lead did a great job holding a strong character that stood up for her values of friendship and kindness and pursuit of peace. However, it's what got her in trouble and what made me upset at the same time.
+1 Complex Relationships: The main two leads had a complex relationship. I'm not sure if I liked it or not. All I can say is, they both have trust issues. At different points I had feelings of contempt for both of them.
+1 Action: Action was better than most I've seen in dramas. The swordsmanship and fighting kind of got redundant for me because so many fighters kept showing up and some of the same fights kept happening over and over again so I skimmed through those parts knowing that the action was already good. It was the storyline that needed to hurry up.
+1 Clothing Line: I was a bit disappointed in the female leads clothing set but I knew it showcased her value of modesty and simplicity. However, two particular I enjoyed seeing clothes in was the first male lead (King) and the Han Shen.
+1 Tragedy: I enjoy tragic genres in general
-1 Story dragged like most dramas do. I'm glad it wasn't a 50+ drama. Hallelujah Amen!
-1 I felt uneasy about the female lead the second male leads relationship (her senior, not the king). I guess I'm just never comfortable with the idea of a person who walks into another relationship while still in love with another person. On top of that, I personally wanted her to only be in love with one person.
-1 Redundant political schemes as always.
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This review may contain spoilers
I was hesitant to watch this drama because I knew beforehand about the ending, but gladly I did watch it for my love to Bin Bin and Raba, really despite the ending, don’t regret at all watching this series and gonna be among my all time favorite dramas. If I did not know that this drama based on historical facts, I would rate it 8/10 only because I wished the King trusted Li Er , but after knowing its truly that he didn’t trust anyone, did not appoint queen and he was the one who united China, So gonna rate it 9.5/10. The acting was brilliant by Bin Bin, the clothes and styles of The king and Li Er are incredible and probably the best ever I have yet to see! I watched countless Historical chinese & Korean dramas, but love this one so much because it’s unique & will be hardly to be forgotten! It’s almost a straightforward, not complicated plot yet magical & super addicting!
I don’t know why but truly this drama has a magic that Keeps me under its spell & makes it hard for me to move on ! I spent sleepless nights watching this series over 3 days !
Bin Bin & Raba are the most gorgeous Asian couple of 2017 & hands down ??
Love also the BGM & OSTs..
I would recommend watching this drama for any fans of the leads, historical dramas or Asian dramas. It was a wonderful journey.
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If you're a fan of this genre and are immune or enjoy endings that are meant to piss you off, this is the one.
If you are new to this kinda stuff, don't feel guilty ff through second lead jerk-face's scenes. You'll still get the idea of what's going on Ff bith hs scenes and what I call "The bad people plotting/doing/discussing the bad things'. I swear the second leads story arc despite the head-scratching simple conflict of the OTP, is the weakest and somewhat unnecessary part of the show.
I found it evtertaing until a certain point, then I just wanted to know how it ended, which as you either know or will find , a lot of stuff is given in the open/ending credits.
I wouldn't watch it again and would only recommend to the male lead's an without reservations. He did look good in this.
Other than this, I wouldn't recommend this drama to those new to historical Chinese shows, under any circumstance.
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