The Heiress (2020)

Start for the comedy, stay for the drama and end with frustration

So back in 2018, there was a tv show called "Legend of Fu Yao". And it was pretty great. Good story, interesting storylines and characters. Good acting. It had it all going for it. It got a little messy with some side stories, but the main plot was worth it so I watched that show for 60+episodes. And I got rewarded with the final episode wrapping up the final plot leaving behind gaping plot holes, in a weak conclusion that took 10 mins and a 45 second shot of the "Happy Ending for the heroine and hero". I was so angry. And now, whenever a promising show with everything going for it, pulls a "quick, conclusion without a satisfying ending", I call that "Pulling a Fu Yao". And that's exactly what this show did.

They pulled a Fu Yao. The first 21 episodes are worth it. They've got good pacing, a reasonable plot and the actors are interesting to watch. I don't even mind that (SPOILER ALERT), they don't end up together, something that is actually foreshadowed in episode 15 when Wang'er shows Shiyi the last episode of his play "The Heiress" and his female protagonist doesn't end up with her Prince. But Shiyi and Yanyi's split happens ridiculously quickly with very little build-up, and Wang'er's contribution to it seems stupid considering that he fesses up to it as she's leaving, but by then she's had enough.
The final scene of them ALMOST meeting and missing each other is just CRUEL to the viewer.

I don't think I'd watch all of it again, but I'd watch certain scenes that I really enjoyed. And the only reason I'm not more annoyed at this drama is that I only had to sit through 24 episodes to get a dissatisfying ending, and not Fu Yao's 60+

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Hoping for a season 2 :(

Just finished watching this drama and I can say, the storyline is really sad.. although in the beginning when she acted as a man, she did pulled it off, but was too dramatic. In my opinion though, she did the best job in acting as this 2 roles. Displayed her character well and really able to understand why was her character behaving in a certain manner.
I think the production crew did a great job in making an effort to make the female lead pull off as a man/woman. Also, many people are saying that this drama has a bad ending but I don’t think so. It explains the title of this drama so much and how the female lead and the male lead can never be together.
I just feel a bit upset that they ended this drama in a rush. towards the last episode. The story starts to conclude everything with little explanation, and then with many people start dying... I really hope they continue a Season 2 soon and maybe tell us more into the story of the female lead and what might happen if the both leads ever meet again.
As seen in last episode, they both passed by each other and was so close to seeing each other again, but it ended just like that. Which is such a cliffhanger and leaving viewers wanting to know more...
But overall, this is a good drama! Almost dropped it in the middle, but the story starts to get interesting again! Hoping for a season 2!!

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Great Cross-Dressing and Beautiful Ending

Recently, there have been quite a few cross-dressing Chinese dramas and The Heiress is one of them. I was hooked to this drama right from episode one because of the amazing cross-dressing, the plot, and the acting. The overall storyline is pretty serious but the dynamics of the characters and their relationship are hilarious and adorable. I was really enchanted by the acting of the female lead and her dynamics with the two male leads.

The heir, Han Shi Yi (You Jing Ru aka Una You), is supposedly the son of the General of the Han’s Army which guards the northern border. He is ordered by the Emperor to the capital because the Emperor is weary of the power of the Han’s Army. At the capital, Han Shi Yi is required to attend class in an academy which is meant for princes and nobles. Disguised as a flamboyant playboy, nobody knows he is actually a girl because her identity is switched with her murdered twin brother.

At the academy, Han Shi Yi meets the prince, Chen Ting Yi (Jiang Chao) and the son of the Prime Minister, Wang Zhong Yu (Wang An Yu). At the beginning, both Cheng Ting Yi and Wang Zhong Yu fight for Han Shi Yi’s support as they covet for her family’s powerful army as in palace politics. Han Shi Yi tries to stay neutral as getting on any one side may bring imminent trouble for her family, and she mustn’t expose her disguise as this would be punishable by death. Unbeknownst to themselves, the boys are attracted to her. Everyone thinks they’re cut sleeves. Even they question themselves of their own sexuality. However, very quickly, both discover her real gender and they help cover her secret because they are both in love with her.

You Jing Ru is actually a very beautiful woman. Dressed as a man without much makeup, she is very convincing. Her character as Han Shi Yi is flamboyant, bombastic, crafty and egregious, trying to annoy everyone around her to throw them off. But deep inside, Han Shi Yi is intelligent, kind and wise; she sees what others don’t. You Jing Ru’s portrayal is simply fabulous. I love the way she pretends to talk and fool around, twisting her words and fooling everyone. I love it when she fights with Wang Zhong Yu, naming her tortoise Wang Er (Wang Zhong Yu is also known as Wang Er) in retaliation to him naming his pet piglet Miss Han. The naming is super funny because Wang Ba (8) in Chinese means tortoise, and Wang Er (2) is like her calling him a brother of the tortoise. And Wang Zhong Yu’s use of the piglet to tease Han Shi Yi also has deep symbolism here as in the saying of pretending to be a pig and eating the tiger, calling Han Shi Yi a pretender.

The 5th prince Chen Ting Yi has a cold personality with no smile. Jiang Chao is a perfect choice as he is extremely good looking with a cold-face that is emotionless. Having said that, he does smirk whenever he approves of something, and that smirk usually says a thousand words. It is very funny when a cold face character meets a flamboyant character as in Han Shi Yi. Their interaction is hilarious and endearing. However, I find the chemistry of Han Shi Yi with Wang Zhong Yi much better than she has with Chen Ting Yi.

Despite his father the Prime Minister, an archenemy of the Prince, Wang Zhong Yi doesn’t get involve in his father’s politics and schemes. He is good-looking, artistic and romantic. For Han Shi Yi, he is a good friend that can be trusted and she goes all the way out to protect him for the treachery his father has committed. Wang Zhong Yi is one of the most well written and loved second male leads in dramas and Wang An Yu’s portrayal is closed to perfection.

The story is mostly funny and the dialogues are hilarious until episode 19 when Prince Chen Ting Yi and Han Shi Yi are separated as they go their separate ways to wars. The war scenes are authentic and Han Shi Yi's fighting choreography as a general is very convincing and beautiful. As with all wars, the scenes are sad and heart-wrenching. There has not been any misunderstanding between the two until this point. The whole misunderstanding and the dilemma faced by the Prince cause their rift and doesn’t resolve until the end of the story. Given the final statuses and positions of each side, I find the ending brilliant, beautiful and appropriate. Although without an explicit wedding scene, this is a happy ending.

By the end of the story, there are no loose ends. Everything is reconciled properly, all the characters receive appropriate retribution or rewards. The editing and screen play are good too. If you don’t mind some tropes such as love triangle, underwater kissing scene, falling off cliff and surviving scene, amnesia scene, this drama is a good watch. I have really enjoyed it.

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You know how some dramas have extremely shitty endings, but overall are amazing and you still truly enjoyed them and did not regret picking them up in the first place?
Yeah, this ain't that.

It had a strong beginning and seemed like a fun, well executed cross-dressing show with tons of cliches that make you laugh. Later, it became so amazingly bad I could still enjoy it. But.. At some point every episode either bored or frustrated me.

The plot just seemed like a whole mess. The beginning was strong on romance and had minimal politics, just enough to create the tension between the leads. But then, closer to the end they dropped all the heavy politics' plots, but since I could not care about them with the lack of explanation and elaboration previously... What exactly was the point of it? And when they tried to be semi surprised who the main villain was, WHEN EVERYONE KNEW and they knew since they talked about it more than once. The string of ridiculous events that happened in the 2nd half (and especially the last two episodes) had me questioning my existence.

Another flaw of the show was the male lead. Literally everyone was a better man than him. Heck, the female lead was a better man than him. He had truly nothing going on to make him more believable and relatable. He was a huge block of muscles with little to no expression and personality.

Now to the practical effects. This show made me laugh like maniac while watching the attempted murder of a child. The bridge scene (if you saw the show, you know exactly what I'm talking about) brought me to tears with how bad it was. I had to stop watching for a good 15 minutes because I could not calm down from the silly giggle/mad laugh. If you don't have money for the proper props, use smart camera angles so the viewers know what's going on without you really showing it. Just... be a smart director.

This drama had nothing innovative or refreshing. If you can think of any drama cliche: this had it in. It had the strong and smart female lead, but only for certain episodes and scenes, since she went full 180 closer to the end. The only reason I finished watching it was for Wang An Yu and the doctor guy. While I loved them, I still regret wasting the time…

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Really good drama

I really liked it. I loved that she was a badass, and that unlike other stories, she didn’t pretend to be a boy for dumb reasons.
The actress is great!!! I like her acting and character a lot. I like wang er character better than the 5th prince.
Also, i think many people did not like the ending, but i loved it. Why? Because not every ending ends with lovey dovey or tragic death! They just couldn’t not be together despite their love. And no matter what the 5th prince says and wants, she will always be han shiyi son of the Han Army.
If there is a second season or a movie, i hope she could build an new army since she is the last hope of the Han Army. That she would also support the emperor to save the country. That she could be reinstated in the northern part of the country and take over her family’s honor.

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Mulan warrior meets prince !!!

This drama is about the female lead who disguises as her twin brother, because she is the daughter of a powerful general and her twin brother died when he was young, hence no one to carry on the name. Thus forcing her to dress like a man.

The female lead dresses as a man. Of all the people that play gender bender, she was believeable. Often time the female lead is too pretty to play a male, and i'm like the people who cant see she is a female is obviously dumb lol. She is beliveable because of her thick eyebrows >_<. I really really adore the female lead character because she is smart, loyal, brave like mulan. Initially she acts like she is dumb and lustful so that she wouldn't have to side with one of the princes. Because her family has an army, everyone wants to get her family on their side.

At the school she attends , she meets the male lead aka fifth prince, and the second male lead aka bad guy's son. She doesnt want to side with the prince and acts dumb. The bad guy's son initially doesnt like the female lead and often picks fights with her. Slowly the 5th prince falls in love with her, at one point he thinks he gay lol. He ends up finding out she is a girl and is relieved. Around the same time the second male lead also finds out she is a girl.

Romance: I like the romance between the 5th prince and female lead. He loves her unconditionally. and supports her, wanting to one day marry her and reclaim her female status, so she doesn't have to live like a guy. Their chemistry is pretty good too. Cute kissing scenes , although not too many. ( wanted more>_<)

Ending; I just really did not like how it led up and ended. I am totally expecting a season two because, it definitely left us hanging. The last two episodes were like wth ??? like why you gotta frame my 5th prince for something he didnt do , which made the female lead hate the prince. There's no need :( thats why i lowered it to 9. it just frustrated me so much... like why... why? honestly no need for that..... sighs....

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Great series but not so good ending. Please don't let the ending ruin your mood.

I've finished the whole series. It's a low budget series, so didn't expect much from this series. However, after a few episodes, I was hooked. The main actor, actress, and the supporting actor did a great job.

First of the all, the story line is refreshing. Gender bender is not new, but the make-up artist did a great job for the lead actress. I thought She Yi is actually a cute and fluffy boy. The main actress did a great job of portraying a playing for nothing to hide her intelligent. For the first time, the lead female character is not some sort of innocent and feminine. Shi Yi is actually a strong character and intelligent.

I like the leading and supporting male characters. Zhong Zhu and the fifth prince are both handsome in their own way. I like both characters, but I'm leaning toward the fifth prince because he is determined versus Zhong Zhu is a bit more indecisive. I like how the fifth prince chacacter was loyal to Shi Yi and remained single the end.

Overall, it is a great series to watch except for the last two series. The music is nice.

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Unbalanced and ending really not satisfactory

WHAT I LIKED:
- The main female lead Han Shi Yi. It takes some times to like her as for the first episodes her bahavior is quite questionnable as he is pretty rude. But you grow on liking her as she has a real backstory, she is intelligent and fun and behind the appearances, there is depth and complexity in her character.
- The main lead 5th prince: I really did not like his frozen smile on his face he has for the whole drama. Anyway his interactions with the FL were good and they had good chemistry. And the way he dealt with his rival/enemies showed him as a smart thoughtful and caring person for his girl anf for the people.
- The story: Another gender bender but this one is well made. The girl as a man looks like a man and as a woman she is beautiful. It gives credibility to the story and to the journey she lives from her arrival to the capital to the ending. It is fast paced and enjoyable.
- Wang Xi Yuan: she was annoying, funny, strong, dumb, genuine, pitiful sometimes. Overall she was a nice character.

WHAT I DID NOT LIKE:
- The rival in Love Wang Zhong Yu : basically he is a mom's son who can't oppose anything to his rotten father because he is a coward and too busy to be obssessed by his crush and writing plays while his dad is having people killed for his family's greatness.
- The quatuor of evil : The Empress/The Wang AnLi/the 5th prince's bother/The cousin : They have plenty of schemes but overall they were not very smart. They just shared the evilness.
- The ending : Han Shi Yi : towards the end when the final conflict it set in place, Han Shi Yi becomes a very weak and dumb charcater who looses all her guts, genius, intelligence, ability to question, her confidence in herself and in the one who helped her and who went through so much with her. Disappointing from her part.
- The endig: open ending. The drama ends in a way that cannot be called an open ending. Open ending means it announces rather good events to come. Here they just missed each other in the street and that's it. Very disappointing.

MUSIC: OK

REWATCH VALUE: No, although I liked the main couple and their adventures, the ending makes me unable to rewatch that.

OVERALL.
Could have been good. A 9/10 if not for these last very crappy episodes where the FL turns against the ML. I would have excused that if the final was good and it just left me thinking "what the ffffc ?".

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Catchy story but...

OMG! Seriously?
The beginning of the story is comedic enough that it'll make you stay to watch. Frankly, the story is good, but that last episode is such a bummer. I'm so frustrated.
They could've ended with a happily ever after if that other guy just admitted the truth. There was unnecessary bloodshed too, ugh. It all could've been avoided if the truth came out.
But seriously, it's such a nice story. Up until the end, it has a nice flow and catchy plotline.
Maybe they can reshoot the last episode? We need closure. So sad to see this series get so much hate.

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