The Sleepless Princess (2020)

Great drama worth re-watching

This is a drama that you can re-watch.
After watching the epilogue I must concur with other viewers that Zheng Ye Cheng raised the bar for the role of General(XY). His chemistry with Hu Yi Xuan (CY)is well portrayed in many heart wrenching scenes.CY is witty, adorable and trusting which touched XY’s cold heart. I enjoyed the hilarious scene where she mistook roll call for hug a tree as they both sound similar in Mandarin.
XY and CY will sacrifice own happiness for the other. ZYC pull off crying scenes beautifully.
You can feel how torn XY was when learnt that his brother’s death is link to CY.
The support actors are brilliant especially XC who loved CY unconditionally.
I am thankful to the director for a happy ending. Enjoy!

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Beautiful but Sad Love Story

I’m a fan of Zheng Ye Chen and have been following his historical dramas. Unfortunately, all the characters he has played so far have been disappointing, including this one. My disappointment is not with the acting - Zheng Ye Chen’s acting is great - but with the characters of the stories. To be more accurate, I love all his characters but dislike the endings of the characters; they always end in deaths or simply disappear into oblivion. It is such a pity that a fine actor like him has yet to find a script that cheers the viewers up with joy.

To contain the power of General Xue Yao (Zheng Ye Cheng), the Emperor issues an edict for him to marry his adopted daughter Princess Xu Chu Ye (Hu Yi Xuan) so that he’d have to surrender his military power to the Emperor. The couple get married while Xu Chu Ye is in her slumber that cannot be woken no matter how because she has a weird condition. After their wedding, being suspicious and overthinking, Xue Yao interprets all Xu Chu Ye’s actions as puzzles to solve, and likewise for Xu Chu Yue, all his bypassing remarks become some hints. These lead to hilarious misunderstandings and they are really a fun watch. As the couple begin to get to know each other, very quickly they fall in love with each other too. They go through ups and downs, marriages and divorces, getting together and separating due to misunderstandings, and all their misfortunes seem non-stop. But one thing is for certain – their undying love for each other.

Xue Yao is a very serious character, handsome, no nonsense, suspicious and cold. Although he's a strategic general who wins in all battles and wars, he has no idea how to deal with women and his own emotions. He is heart-broken after the death of his beloved big brother, and determined to find out the actual cause of his death. Zheng Ye Chen’s styling as a general is amazing here. His super good look in the general’s uniform and then in the guard’s uniform is perfect. His sword fighting choreography is convincing too. His love for the Princess is endearing and sweet, radiating from his gentle facial expression and words. His gaze is tender and loving. Seeing such scenes, the viewers’ hearts are filled with love.

Xu Chu Yue is a very pitiful princess, and yet very lovable. She has a secret. She has a special stone in her that can turn her into one of the 12 animals on the Chinese horoscope whenever she sleeps between certain hours at night. Once she reaches her 12th animal, she will sleep forever, never to wake up again. So she has to stay up at night and go to sleep in the day time. No one knows of her secret except those within her small circle. Xu Chu Yue is innocent, forthright and curious, and loves her younger adoptive brother. Hu Yi Xuan’s portrayal of the princess is absolutely perfect. She is cute with bright eyes but carries an air of sadness between her brows.

Xu Xing Chen (Yang Lin) is a prince born to a consort who has lost favor with the Emperor. He and Xu Chu Yue have grown up together, taken care of each other, survived the viciousness of the palace politics. Xu Chu Yue treats Xu Xing Chen as a little brother but he is romantically in love with her. At times, he comes in between Xue Yao and the Princess. The scenes are funny and hilarious sometimes, and heart brokenly sad at others. For the Prince, he has wanted nothing but the Princess, as she is his moon and he is her star.

This story starts off very well as a flashback from the perspective of Xue Yao, telling his story with the Princess to a group of children. The story is serious and yet not serious as well. But as it begins to develop, the couple’s romance becomes a broken record, going round and round and round, frustrating the viewers. By the end of the story telling by Xue Yao, he takes his beloved sleeping wife and jumps of the cliff. Except for the ultimate villain, there is no resolution for many of the characters as what has come of them. For me, these are poor editing and lazy writing.

Despite some of the plot holes here and there, and my frustrations at times, I have rather enjoyed this drama for the love story which is beautiful and sad. If you don’t mind all the usual tropes such as love triangle and a rather sad ending, this drama is quite a good watch.

Updates:

There is an epilogue released some time after the final episode and I almost missed it. The epilogue in effect is an alternative ending. It includes all the things I've described earlier concerning loose ends. Here in the epilogue, everything is tied up nicely.

In the epilogue, Xue Yao doesn't jump off the cliff holding a sleeping Xu Chu Yue in his arms. Instead she wakes up in the nick of time and they make up all their lost time together travelling the world. All the other second couples also have their happy endings. I believe this happy ending makes many viewers very happy too.

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Awesome Fast paced drama

Love this drama!
I have high demand and expectation. Im the type that does not hesitate to drop drama. This meets my expectation.
Super fast pace, without much fillers and nonsense.
Within 1st episode i got drawn in. Compare to Love and Redemption, this is faster.
Funny plot with FL turning into animals
ML is on point with his acting skills. Handsome and can fight. FL is cute and innocent look very very brave. Both have chemistry and can feel their love. Great pairing. I feel its much better than previous ML show and lead in Love Three thousand
The set and costumes are just nice, not overly stealing e actors limelight. ML always have such nice clothes and cloak. Director praises ML is very suitable for the role in an interview.
Director is very good at making all angles look perfect.Esp the wedding fight scene. Storytelling and pacing a0lso makes sense. Every episode leave u waiting for more. Sweet sweet love makes you feel sweet sweet. Nice feeling show and leave you wanting more. Not so much CGI and have real fight scenes which are not exaggerated make it more realistic. Added in a bit of poofy comedy lines. ?

I already rewatched twice while waiting for episodes.
Great show despite such tight filming schedule. This means most shoots went well and very few NGs. Very
Impressive. Means all actors and production team are hardworking.
Very sad only have 35 episodes. Need more of such masterpiece please. Bring back original team and actors for another drama.
P.S-was confused by the ending. Then heard episode 35 got cut and extended to episode 36!

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Cringe, frustrating to watch and fast forward

The story started nicely and the hook is well laid out to keep the audience going.

But it just turned dark mid way and with a bad ending too, makes it seems to try too hard to be a tear jerker. Maybe that is why they added a special episode after episode 35. I just did not like the story flow of this series, the plot is just obvious and the story just tries too hard to inject all these crazy break up misunderstandings. etc like the fact that the general's brother had loved and saved the princess only to get revealed that he went back into the burning building to be killed by the advisor is just such a forced tragedy.

The fact that from episode 1, this series started by showing the princess sleeping and not having an escape clause means that the tear factor must be the developed love, challenges and hardship, but the 2 leads just love too easy, break up too easy, patch back too easy, so alot of attachment to character then becomes lost.

I wished the story had developed slowly, showed the cute animal transformations of the princess and how the general tries to cover up or accept the changes, it might have been a better story than how it developed. I mean if you watch episode 1 and then watch episode 35, you really did not miss anything.

I also did not feel the chemistry between the stoned faced general and the princess, they fight, they break up, they patch back and then repeat the cycle, by the 3rd time it just gets old. Even the lines just feels forced after that. So by mid series the fast forward is used alot.

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Main lead and Female have best chemistry

i like the story, the story is rational, but sometimes it is too rational to make the audience nervous, but the rest is very good and not too much. I really like the chemistry of the main lead and this is a Wuxia drama that has a very beautiful custom, especially since the male character is very suitable. the songs are also very nice to hear. if it weren't for mangotv cutting the ending, this would be the perfect ending. The drama which received a little promotion but received a lot of attention from fans outside of China, I think this is the reason they charge to see the last episode.

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Sad

The series was interesting. It started out a really nice pace. The interaction between our leads was enough to pull you in. It was upbeat and had a bit of intrigue and comedy to. You will also see some mystery. For the most part both leads have some hidden secrets and etc but that doesn’t take away from the overall plot.

The series is one that I would place in a romantic comedy/ mystery/drama. While there were many comical aspects it really seems to take a more serious turn near the end. It switched back and forth and for me it ended in sadness. I don’t know I’d I believe in “bitter sweet.”

You’ll get your manipulative cast member, the loyal member and the misunderstood one as well. Overall I enjoyed watching it until it got to the last few episodes. It was not pleasant. The ending was not happy for me although some may say different. Because of this I could not rate it higher. Be warned spoiler below:


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After all of the struggle to get to a loving understanding, things fell apart and our female lead essentially falls into a coma in the end. Aka eternal sleep, leaving our male lead gloomy. For a romantic comedy, this wasn’t funny too me.

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I will consider it as an avg drama.

Talking abt plot, well the concept of birthstone and sleeplessness of princess is really interesting and has been used pretty well. I think it could have been better if they didnt dragged the drama by adding the jealous anagonist part(which happens in almost every love story and is most annoying part)and rathar actually finding a solution to the birthstone sickness that princess had. moreover it rathar ended pretty tragedically. whereas in additional special ep she woke up out of no where. Other than a good concept, it was a really typical love story with one the bold hero,the naive heroine , the scheming villane and certain side chars and nothing much special.

Acting as always, i really adore cdramas for they get the viewers connected to the story nd it was pretty good in this one too. music was pretty cute and well settled in the bcakground

Overall its an avg drama of a typical lovestory with a good concept ehich is not used efficiently, and a dragging story by stupid making love triangles. I myself will really not prefer to rewatch this drama

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Unexpectedly good

When I went into this drama I never really expected much. I just wanted a funny, sweet drama and I though I should give this a shot and it turned out unexpectedly good. Is ground-breaking? -No. Does the story have plot holes and it’s not realistic? – Yes. But the actors did such a great job that they draw you in and made you invested in them and their story. I am going to be honest the show is angsty, I think in every episode there is some sort of mis-communication-misunderstanding. Maybe the longest they went without something going wrong was about 15 minutes, but the couples’ chemistry makes it up for it and their interactions make you melt and then stick all over! The only thing that took you out was the first kissing scenes that were so uncomfortable to watch but it did make sense because at the time the couple did not really know or like each other or one of them was drugged or wanted to get away from something. Thankfully they get better as the drama moves on and the Main Leads fall in love. The writers did a great job showing their story and gradually having them fall in love!

The only time the angst got to much to the point that it made you want to go into your computer and punch everyone was around the episodes 29-31, when the 3rd Female showed up! I think if the couple wasn’t so adorable this story would not work!

The show gave us two 2nd leads that were loveable and likeable. Although the both liked the FL and ML respectively, they were mature enough to understand that it was going no-where and instead stayed by their side as their friends and “brother”. Honestly the SFL was sooo adorable and her friendship with the FL was everything!

The FL was also adorable. She is smart, cute and clumsy but not weak and her chemistry with the ML really amazing. At first she seemed really stubborn and always wanting to run away but if you really look at the story she really had a point for wanting to do so. My only issue with her is that she was too trusty and gullible to the point that sometimes it didn’t even make sense! The actress did a brilliant job ,she really is amazing! Definitely gonna watch more of her work.

And now to the ML. He was not your average historical drama ML / general, who are usually cold, emotionless and rough/rude to the FL. Rather than cold I would say he was an introvert and closed himself up after his brother’s death. In flash backs we got to see that he was more open and made jokes with his brother. Additionally, he was not rude or rough (maybe with the exception of when he found out what happened to his brother) but rather his awkward behaviour around the FL came from not being comfortable around women and did not knowing how to really behave around one. But even then he was sweet and caring towards her (most of the time). His reaction every time the FL was sweet and touchy-touchy was adorable. I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised by the actor. I had only seen him before in LOVE O2O and although I loved him in that drama, I honestly did not believe he could pull this type of role off, but I was wrong. He really is a great actor, I am a fan! He makes you care and fall for him. I was also impressed that that is his real voice.

All in all, I really suggest watching this show, although it literally ends in a cliffhanger (Thank God for the special/alternative ending that it’s pure fun and fluff and gives us closure)!! I really hope that the leads get to start again in another drama (maybe with little less angst and more “mature” characters that know how to communicate)

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