Gorgeous Dream

Not Cute. Not Soft. Just Vengeance.

Dear viewer, if you came here for fluff, butterflies, and soft romance… wrong exit. Missed it by miles.

This story is, at its core, a blunt showcase of the ugliness of human nature. It isn’t pretty, and more unsettlingly, it often doesn’t feel exaggerated. The drama never flinches from showing cruelty as it is.The whole thing gave me The Glory vibes, even though the plots are nothing alike. Same oppressive atmosphere, same moral rot, same “something is deeply wrong here” feeling. And yes, probably the unhinged FL too.

We follow a revenge-driven FL who survives a brutal massacre orchestrated by her own so-called family and proceeds to dismantle them piece by piece. Credit where it’s due—the writers did an excellent job crafting this family, because every single member inspired genuine disgust. Watching them fall felt less like triumph and more like grim inevitability.

The ML exists mostly in the margins of her story, acting as a quiet, shadowy supporter. His presence is subtle to the point of near invisibility, but it works. This is her story, her descent, her reckoning. I actually appreciated that he wasn’t another lovesick, simping puppy (though those have their time and place and are well enjoyed). There’s something deeply appealing about a male lead who supports from afar, steps in only when necessary, respects her strength, and trusts her to walk her own path. That said—his presence definitely amps up in the second half, and somehow the man’s lone tear moments absolutely sent me. I don’t know why, but every time he teared up in silence I was cackling. Tragic? Yes. Effective? Probably. Unintentionally funny? Extremely.

The FL herself is… frustrating, unpredictable, and captivating? More than once, I doubted she had what it took to take these people down. And yet—she did. Again and again. Unhinged? Absolutely. But she delivered, yet not without ML's help.

Once the first major revenge arc wraps up, though, the vibe shifts slightly—around episode 15 you can feel the story recalibrating. It loosens the chokehold quite a bit, the dynamics start changing, and the second half leans more into character interplay rather than pure vengeance mode, and while the intensity doesn’t disappear, it takes on a different shape. Whether that works for you will probably depend on how attached you were to the pure revenge momentum.

The characters are intriguing and also comically dumb at times, which made the watch weirdly fun. It’s over-the-top, fast as hell, logic goes missing regularly, the budget is clearly limited, wig lines are doing the most, and the dubbing sometimes said “nah” to lip-syncing. Very classic mini-drama behavior.

Still, despite all that—or maybe because of it—the show is intense, dramatically unrestrained, and undeniably entertaining. It doesn’t aim to be elegant. It aims to leave a mark. And, against all odds and tonal expectations, our leads actually get a happy ending.

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Bloody REVENGE with a mere HINT of Romance

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Revenge with a capital 'R' and romance with a lowercase 'r' is the theme of this minidrama. The main protagonist is the FL and the the 'boogeyman' ML is mostly a shadow following her around to provide 'slight' assistance. This is especially true in the first portion of the drama which focuses on her personal revenge as opposed to uncovering the masterminds behind the scenes.

Negatives:
🚫 Short length requires break-neck speed and waving hand over details of the past
🚫 Some revenge is shown in detail and some, the end is left hanging in the end offscreen
🚫 There is no ACTUAL kiss between the leads (personally not a negative but for many I know this IS so listing here)
🚫 Typical last second ending

Positives:
✅️ Nietzsche
✅️ A take no prisoners style FL who isn't afraid of mass manipulation
✅️ Multiple layers of character stories told through lines of dialog and brief flashbacks
✅️ Unhinged OTT acting at it's finest (beyond more than just the leads)

IMPORTANT considerations:
🌸 This FL gets her hands dirty and her schemes may have you wonder if the is the same or possibly becoming worse than her object of revenge.
🌸 You must be able to overlook such things as full facial change and later a character having a 'full skin suit'..
🌸 Background information is given out scarcely and sprinkled unevenly. There is a LOT left unsaid which leaves the viewer either frustrated that 'nothing makes sense' if they can't make logic jumps with 2 lines of dialog episodes apart; OR wishing the story were longer so that the show could be more fully fleshed out and characterized.
🌸 This is pure entertainment value with MANY actual flaws, some seemingly in place because of the sheer nature of the scope of work limiting how the novel could be adapted.
🌸 The show provides PLENTY of scenes presented for 'shock value' but does not actually utilize on-screen rape and/or miscarriage - there are scenes of force and violence against woman as well as men.
🌸 If anything could possibly cause someone who is clapping their hands along with the mayhem to sigh it might be the switch-over from 'act 1' to 'act 2' as my personal reaction was: '....And suddenly there's comedy? The stare wide-eyed mouth open for flies, head cocked to the side, can't believe it sort...' Then... 'Omg I can't... This girl isn't acting unhinged but just plain off her rocker 🤣🤡'

🔥Final Rating: 9/10🔥
This is HEAVILY weighted for enjoyment factor and scenes I feel will leave a lingering impact on my mind.
I greatly enjoyed the style of acting the actors were asked to portray, though the ML with his single tear drop was, in my opinion, a 'choice'.
The music was 🤷‍♀️ - it was background music and it fit the scenes
I doubt I will ever rewatch this show in its entirety again, but if clips came up on my screen or if someone were already watching, I'd sit down and rewatch parts.

I paid for the Express Pass and do not regret it.

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from perfectly unhinged to sheer nonsense

A short drama with an unhinged and ruthless female lead that cares for nothing else except her revenge. After being brutally discarded for her 'family' to earn a purity plaque and lift their rank she is given a new face by a powerful ally that comes upon her and makes her way back into the very family that killed her. Dismantling their influence from within our female lead manages to take them down one by one with seemingly little effort.

Short dramas in general have a much faster pacing format than normal dramas but this puts even that normalcy to the test. Moving at lightning speed, the story takes you unto the Liu household and topples each member systematically with ease and brutal satisfaction. But it fails to build a complete story or believable characters. The perfectly unhinged female lead, Wan Qing, has very little background information given to explain her initial sacrifice and then nothing to really give credit to her later revenge build up. You see her steal from and then abandoning her savior so where does she get the skills and network to pull off her schemes before he finds her again 3 years later? Then her massacre of the family becomes swift but with such little believability that you find yourself just sitting back and enjoying her truly insane enjoyment over the whole thing. Until suddenly the show shifts and you are instead scratching your head trying to figure out exactly what you are watching.

Our male lead if the powerful but silent backing that is only there to save her again and again as she recklessly throws herself into danger but you don't see how he really adds anything. He is a high ranking official that is set on bringing down the Liu family for its corruption but no screen time is given to his skill, network, or grievances to explain his whys. The pair do have plenty of chemistry so I found that all the plot holes could be easily ignored until, again, the shift in the story happened.

Our villains here are one dimensional and stupidly easy to fool and manipulate. The son Wan Qing marries is just a drug addict with a bottle permanently attached to his hand and no other personality trait other than sniffing it. The mother is clever enough to embezzle money, control a kidnapping ring, and fool her husband but easily falls for the simplest tricks. The father is shown as just being greedy, lustful, and obsessive. But, sure, we can believe that they massacred an entire family and carried out their corruption by being pawns of the big bad. Now enter the big bad's story line. And this is when the show loses me. For all the enjoyment I got from the beautiful visuals and our female lead's one track revenge journey was snuffed out in a single episode where I truly though I had accidentally clicked on a different drama. The trek to the end of the drama from here really does not improve and just gets more and more ridiculous.

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Revenge? Yes. Deaths? Many. Romance? only if you squint reallll hard

First, I must mention the acting. Phenomenal. Every one was so good, especially the women--their insanity was so well shown. I loved Liu Matriarch, Xie Ruilan's, acting so fucking much.

Lead girlie Lan Mengyan was so, so, so good in all her insane moments. The killings, blood-splattered smiles and tears and revenge scheme scenes were so well executed by her.

Mo Xiu was good when he was pissed and enjoying Lan Mengyan's craziness. But his individual scenes and story/plot, fell flat. There was nothing in them worth seeing.

On that note, the romance was so non-existent that I wish it wasn't there to begin with--would've made the show much better.

The show wasn't 100% perfect but for a short length series, we can be generous, hmm?

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Very Dark Revenge, But Very Good Drama

The female lead Lan Meng Yan / Shen Wan Qing (played by Zeng You Zhen) was so very good. Her acting was superb. After all of the women of the family were killed, except the father's wife, most of the women's bodies were burned. Lan Meng Yan died and her face was cut (a giant "X" across her face), by her stepmother. She came back to life and she escaped. She was rescued by Qin Mo Xiu. He had her face changed and her voice changed. He trained her for 3 months in archery, weapons, some martial arts and more. When Lan Meng Yan married into the Lui family, she started her path for revenge. She turned father against son, both vying for her attention and affection. Her new background was being a daughter from a merchant family. Yes, she married her own brother, but she kept him at a distance. She turned her stepmother (father's wife) against her own brother and she soon killed him. Since the stepmother's son was being threatened by his father, the stepmother tried to sneak him out of the household in a casket. She thought her stepdaughter was dead and in the casket with her son. The stepmother nailed the casket shut, only to find out later that stepdaughter (Lan Meng Yan) was not in the casket at all, but very much alive. The evil stepmother rushed to remove the casket lid that she had previously nailed shut, only to find her son dead inside. The stepmother ended up killing her brother and her son, driving her mad. She was beaten severely by her husband (Lan Meng Yan's father) and locked in a room. Lan Meng Yan entered the room and dropped a bottle of poison for her evil stepmother. All the while, Qin Mo Xiu kept an eye on Lan Meng Yan, acting to protect her when necessary. He did call Lan Meng Yan his pawn one time to many and she let him know that she did not like it; he never called her his pawn again. Lan Meng Yan and Qin Mo Xiu took out all of the Liu lamily member, with the exception of her father. He showed up at the opera as one of the actors. We was later exposed to the crowd and his image was ruined. He was later killed.

Next, Lan Meng Yan and Qin Mo Xiu entered a secret spy club and Lan Meng Yan was poisoned, making her into a controllable puppet of sorts. Qin Mo Xiu broke her out of the puppet state. Later, Qin Mo Xiu was hit by a poisonous dart, as him and Lan Meng Yan investigated the areas of the facility. She cured him of the poison. There was a contest between the young woman of the spy facility. Lan Meng Yan was knocked out and tied up, so she could not participate. A strange man came into the room and he wanted to have his way with her, but she killed him with the weapon strapped to her right leg. She untied herself, grabbing a bow and some arrows. Lan Meng Yan went from room to room shooting the evil men (mostly ministers of the court), killing them and helping the young ladies escape. She killed almost all of the ministers herself, but one was left for the other ladies to kill.

The last part of this drama was about a general who was receiving all of the monies from the Liu family, via the opera and the spy organization. The general was planning to rebel against the emperor. In the meantime, the emperor wanted to question and punish Lan Meng Yan and Qin Mo Xiu for the killing of his ministers. She told him that the minister were trying to torture, rape and kill the women of the spy faculty. He did not seem to care about the women, just his ministers. Whe the general's rebellion started, two eunuch's tried to poison the emperor, but Lan Meng Yan shot both of them dead, saving the emperor. She lead some women (in special outfits) into the room where the rebelling general and Qin Mo Xiu were. Between Lan Meng Yan and Qin Mo Xiu they killed the general's soldiers, thwarting the rebellion. Qin Mo Xiu fought with the general, beating him down. He handed the sword over to Lan Meng Yan who stabbed the general and quickly slashed his neck with the sword. The general died.

The emperor wanted to make Qin Mo Xiu a Duke, but Mo Xiu declined. He wanted to walk hand in hand with Lan Meng Yan. At first she would not take his hand, but later reached out and took his hand. They ended up walking off, hand in hand. The end.

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A Brutal Spiral of Greed, Betrayal, and Payback

FL is honestly hard to predict. She’s not always in control, and there were moments I genuinely thought she might fail. She can be reckless and a bit unhinged, but somehow she still keeps pushing through and getting things done. That’s part of what makes her interesting to watch.

One thing that stands out more the longer you watch is how unfair everything is for women in that era. A lot of what she goes through isn’t just personal betrayal—it also reflects how little power women actually had, and how easily they could be controlled, discarded, or blamed no matter what they did. 😔

ML stays pretty lowkey for most of the story. He’s more in the background and doesn’t try to take over her journey or act like the typical “saviour” type. When he does step in, it feels more intentional. Later on, he becomes more present, and some of those emotional moments actually hit… even if a few of them made me laugh a bit. 😅

The story itself is basically about revenge.... FL is going after her own family after what they did to her, and she doesn’t just wipe them out quickly—it’s more of a slow breakdown, piece by piece. Sometimes it feels satisfying, but other times it’s just dark and kind of grim, like everything was already doomed from the start.

Honestly, the first episode already pulled me in because of how brutal it is. The greed and betrayal are just on another level. It doesn’t hold back at all, and it immediately sets this uncomfortable tone where you know these people are rotten.

Around the middle, the vibe starts to shift. It moves away from pure revenge and leans more into character interactions and relationships. It’s not as intense as the first half anymore...but it was still good! 😘

Overall, it’s chaotic, dramatic, and definitely not perfect—but it keeps you hooked. And surprisingly, after all that darkness, it still manages to end on a pretty satisfying note. ❤️❤️

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