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Serious historical/costume cdramas

AhRa

Hi,


I would love recommendations for cdramas:

+ historical/costume/wuxia/xianxia

+ serious (not light hearted, humour, cheezy etc)

+ strong female lead


Thank you <3 

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Tvvelve
  • Story of Yanxi Palace
  • The Story of Ming Lan
  • Serenade of Peaceful Joy
  • Secret of Three Kingdoms
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autumnsun

The Long Ballad 

The Sword and the Brocade

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kisiamiumiu

Forget about all the above

you can watch them after MAIN ONE.

Exactly what you wish. Super strong , very beautiful, interesting!

Empress of China

https://mydramalist.com/9215-the-empress-of-china

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AhRa
 kisiamiumiu:

Forget about all the above

you can watch them after MAIN ONE.

Exactly what you wish. Super strong , very beautiful, interesting!

Empress of China

https://mydramalist.com/9215-the-empress-of-china

I shall do just that :) 

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AhRa
 autumnsun:

The Long Ballad 

The Sword and the Brocade

Thank you for your recs, 

Both of these are on my dropped list :(

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AhRa
 Tvvelve:
  • Story of Yanxi Palace
  • The Story of Ming Lan
  • Serenade of Peaceful Joy
  • Secret of Three Kingdoms

I haven't seen the last one so looking into this one now. 

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awkward potato

You can try The Promise of Chang'An :)

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Marpleme

RIse of the Phoenixes - my favorite strong FL, it's serious, moving and worth watching although last episodes are rather rushed and messy

NIrvana in Fire - all was probably  said about this one, my No 1  of this kind of dramas ; this is male leas drama but two main female characters are both  awsome

Royal Nirvana -  (watching it now)  it's not only serious, psychologically nuanced, it's downright depressing but at the same time really, really  good - that is if you can stand all the pain the characters go through; great visuals

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Knavery

The Song of Glory - might be worth giving a chance.

The drama takes a serious tone. The female lead is a fighter, smart and driven on a mission at least from the first half and what I remember.

The downside is it feels a bit long at 53 episodes so you start to get into that territory where there are twists and turns and the leads get caught by surprise by the bad guys. Side characters turn on the leads. 

It's one where they build up the main characters and then find ways to give the bad guys plot armor so the show can keep going on.

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ArniA

+ Story of Yanxi Palace

I watched some behind the scenes, and they did immense etiquette training for that drama, so that they instinctively behaved like they do, bowing, kow towing, saying the right phrases, moved in the right way, what they looked at, etc. It's difficult to learn all this strict etiquette. They did it so well. Also the clothing was awesome, and the palaces and everything was so well done. Out of all the cdrama I've watched the Story of Yanxi Palace does it the best, etiquette, clothing, the stage/buildings and the forbidden city environment.

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Wish Upon A Star

Prince of Lan Ling (2013) - A partly factual, partly fictional drama on a real historical prince, with serious, emotional and also light hearted moments, and a smart, cheerful, kind and compassionate female lead. A drama, not in your watchlist, that touched me. Do check out

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kisiamiumiu
 whatever:

Prince of Lan Ling (2013) - A partly factual, partly fictional drama on a real historical prince, with serious, emotional and also light hearted moments, and a smart, cheerful, kind and compassionate female lead. A drama, not in your watchlist, that touched me. Do check out

I finished that one. FL wasn't strong enough. Was soft and annoying a lot of times. Show itself not grabbing interest and little draggy. I put 5.5 to it. Watchable of nothing found.

But I see author dropped very good ones as Princess Agents. FL was strong. And there were very powerful beautiful moments.

If you likes Lan Ling- Very recommend Princess Agents. 

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Wish Upon A Star
 kisiamiumiu:
I finished that one. FL wasn't strong enough. Was soft and annoying a lot of times. Show itself not grabbing interest and little draggy. I put 5.5 to it. Watchable of nothing found.

But I see author dropped very good ones as Princess Agents. FL was strong. And there were very powerful beautiful moments.

If you likes Lan Ling- Very recommend Princess Agents.

On Prince of Lan Ling, i dont find the FL soft at all. Rather, she is kind and compassionate, and strong and resolute in her heart to help the underprivileged, and protect and save her beloved Prince Lan Ling time and again.  i do find the part where Zheng Er tried to break the newly wed couple up draggy. The rest are well paced and enjoyable with elements of war fighting, alliance, and internal power struggles. The FL's relationships with Prince Lan Ling, Xiao Dong, Zhou King and her grandma touched me.

Will try to check out Princess Agents when i have more time - the 67 episodes are kinda overwhelming.. A friend recommended 78-epsiode Story of Minglan last year which i am still hesitating to start

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kisiamiumiu
 whatever:

Prince of Lan Ling (2013) - A partly factual, partly fictional drama on a real historical prince, with serious, emotional and also light hearted moments, and a smart, cheerful, kind and compassionate female lead. A drama, not in your watchlist, that touched me. Do check out

Don't worry about many episodes. This one you will not want to end :) very enjoyable. Especially after Lan Ling. ML there are several. And very interesting each of them. FL is really strong and cool. Story line is grabbing you from first minute. 

Try 1 minute and see :)))

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