Unchained Love (2022)

XIAO DUO & BU YINLOU IS THE BEST PART OF THIS DRAMA

Okay first thing first I’m the type to give review on mdl just for dramas I found really entertaining to watch from ep1- to ending. Now that the show had ended, I will give my review for this surprising very engaging drama to me. I watched this drama because of the dark trailer vibe and angst I thought gonna happened 90% of the time due to the eunuch-concubine love story but nope, this drama surprised me with romcom moments and I love it so much. Watch for super non-toxic and hot-cute couple. It’s serious yet not so serious drama I must say. And I love it!

This is my first time watching both main leads on a full drama, before this I did know them from drama clips on YT etc so it’s not that I’m entirely new to both of them but this is their first drama I watched in full until the end. And I love Yukee Chen (Bu Yinlou) and Dylan Wang ( Xiao Duo) so much on this drama. Sure, I can’t say their acting are perfect from beginning to the end but the definitely improved so much throughout the show. Yukee Chen is good with emotional scenes and she can cry naturally & easily imo. Her best scenes that are so memorable to me from this drama were confrontation scenes with the Emperor and emotional scenes with ML Xiao Duo and her father. BYL is very strong, smart, cunning and calculative. She’s not good at martial art like XD but she’s definitely strong willed and not the type to be bullied as well. In fact, the bullies are the ones who need to be scared with her comeback. If people hit her, she will definitely hit them back on the spot. I love this kind of FL in cdramas. I will drop dramas I’m watching if I feel like FL is too stupid, I only like smart people. And BYL is exactly the character I like to watch in dramas. I’m so satisfied to get this kind of FL who’s actually useful to the plot and helping the whole scenes along with ML.
Dylan Wang as Xiao Duo is a good match! He indeed looks suave while doing martial art scenes. He just nailed it with his posture and movements. Dylan is still young but I can see great potential in him. His memorable scenes in this drama are of course his fighting scenes whoa I repeated few times before I moved on to next scene, and his lovey dovey scenes with FL. He also has mature looks, so he can look older than his age with correct expressions. I think he did so well as XD. ML is a very smart, cunning and calculative person as well. XD and BYL actually have so much similarities in character imo, so their synergy are really good and they can simply understand each other’s plan when they’re scheming something. These two are too smart that they can’t even fool each other. Yet despite how cunning and calculative they’re, I like that they’re not toxic to each other. At first they did used each other for support but that’s before they fall in love. I love how these two didn’t have stupid misunderstanding because they just know each other very well. I’m satisfied with the romance despite the cuts (yes there’s many cuts due to censorship) but even without those cuts, the romance is still there. Despite all this ‘forbidden love’ thingy, don’t worry, these two especially XD didn’t even try to hide their relationship? He only tried to deny BYL’s feeling once but after that, he’s on full flirting mode with her till the end. He’s so hotly ‘dark’ looking on the first few episodes but once he started to have feeling for her, oh my this cold-hot-ML trouple turning into hot soft-husband to his wife will always make me melt. He didn’t even care if anyone in the Imperial City knows about them. Their romance is the best thing in this drama imo, I stick to them till the end because they totally worth my time. I think their chemistry is really convincing, no one can convince me otherwise. They’re cute and hot together. XIAO DUO AND BU YINLOU IS THE BEST PART OF THIS DRAMA!

okay plot wise, I’m majorly attracted to this forbidden love between eunuch-concubine because I had watched Serenade of Peaceful Joy and damn the angst between the Princess and her eunuch there was heart wrenching but I love that this drama made some plot twist. They made it lighter romcom, yes there are very serious moments here and there, you will get scared and creeped out by the Emperor because damn he’s SO CREEPY! Too obsessed with FL. Peter Ho did amazing job here because I cursed him so much throughout the show. Like seriously, he’s good!
But everytime there’s serious scenes, this show will manage to lighten the mood with comedy after it, so you don’t get traumatized. It’s light not light, serious not serious to me. I like it that way.

About the cuts, at first I was mad but after knowing how they only passed the censorship after 3rd time, I’m just thankful that they managed to release this. You can check out the discussion section here, the cuts to fill in your imagination will be there. That’s some high quality cuts YOU MUST WATCH (lot of kissing?) or else you will miss out the good stuffs, this is important!

I will assure you that you will be fine with the ending. Some plot holes here & there which is expected to me but as long as my CP is okay I don’t really care about anything else, as simple as that. To me this show is a MUST WATCH for news stans of Dylan Wang and Yukee Chen. Good performances from both of them and shout out to Peter Ho for being effective psycho.

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Missing parts.

Let me preface this review with a warning - this is a well-loved drama that I simply fail to appreciate. If my criticism of it will offend you or ruin the joy you found in it, best give this a skip.

The soundbites are tantalizing: a taboo romance between a eunuch and a concubine; a ruthless and scheming male lead; a spirited and clever female lead; and palace conspiracies and mysteries aplenty. Not to mention Wang Hedi's Xiao Duo exudes that intense tall, dark, and dangerous kind of sex appeal that screams he is no Lord Varys. So I jumped in despite my reservations over Chen Yuqi's acting. As it turns out, that is one of the drama's lesser problems.

This drama is an inane attempt at dark satire aimed at the obscene privilege of emperors. It opens with the shockingly cruel practice of sending off childless concubines, known as tribute ladies to accompany the emperor in the afterlife. After high powered eunuch Xiao Duo rescues Bu Yinlou from this dastardly fate, an alliance of sorts forms between the two as they navigate treacherous palace politics in a time of power transition. I like how it was just a mutually beneficial relationship initially and how they disliked and were wary of each other; that the romance did not blossom instantly. Where it falters is in showing me why the two most powerful men in the palace connect with and fall so utterly for a woman afflicted by bizarre facial paroxysms.

Xiao Duo's wicked ruthlessness is gleefully conveyed with wit, panache, and flawless comedic timing by Wang Hedi. This is well matched by Peter Ho's slightly over-the-top portrayal of the deceptively simplistic, cartoonish-ly obsessive, and delusional emperor. Both portrayals convey each character's underlying ethos; a past sadness and secret loneliness. Unfortunately, Chen Yuqi’s jarring and tacky comedic interpretation is far more typical of a slapstick comedy than dark satire. Her exaggerated rapid eye movement and outlandish facial expressions had me triple-checking the synopsis to see if the character is supposed to be epileptic, schizophrenic, or simply possessed. While a huge upgrade from her usual vacuous sleepwalking, for the first 14 episodes, there is little beyond brazen tasteless humor in Chen Yuqi's Bu Yinlou. After that, she gets into character and delivers some really good scenes. She has good romantic chemistry with Wang Hedi that elevates her performance and the more serious tone the story takes also helps. But her acting is not consistent and wobbles again at the ending episodes. It highlights her limited range and is quite inexcusable for someone who is an acting school graduate with a long list of drama lead role credits. This is the best I have seen from her in years but that says nothing at all.

This drama's biggest issue is that it is missing a good plot. The storyline is contrived, naive and so ridiculous it is disdainful of audience intelligence. The writer's ignorance and superficial understanding of feudal imperial inner palace workings are embarrassing. It is impossible for someone like Bu Yinlou to waltz in and out of the inner palace like it is a hotel, live at a brothel and gallivant all over the kingdom with Xiao Duo. The production leaked "cut" romantic scenes like a sieve, trying to blame the abysmal failure in storytelling on censorship. The truth is all the kiss scenes in the world cannot salvage the messy plot and inconsistent characterizations. We are told both leads are smart characters but they are actually the architects of their own troubles. The allegedly Machiavelli Xiao Duo wrests the crown prince from the custody of the one person with the highest incentive to keep him alive and healthy and puts him in the hands of the person with the strongest incentive to kill him dead! As a couple, they have repeated opportunities to escape, but choose not to. Xiao Duo's revenge is anti-climatic and hastily swept under the rug once the killer is uncovered. They flaunt their affair with such reckless impunity they so deserved to get busted. I stopped caring if they ended up together and sat on the meh ending episode for weeks. I finally finished watching this so you don't have to. To my dismay, they got an ending they didn't earn or deserve.

The bottom line is Wang Hedi is the only reason to watch this drama. He is sexy even when he glowers and scowls and his costuming and visuals in this drama are swoon-worthy. In fact, save yourself some time and just watch all the fan-made videos of the romantic scenes hard-core fans have stitched together. You can skip all the rest because as foreshadowed by the eunuch theme, this drama has critical missing parts. I can only rate it 6.5/10.0 to finish at the rock bottom of my completed list for 2022.

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