A Thought on Guanshan? Maybe "Reflections on Chinese version of GOT's "All men must die"

Unfortunately, I've watched all the episodes, while this entire drama should have been stopped at the episode 34, after which nothing makes sense, and my ratings refer only to that point. And until that point, the investment made by the creators was such to make a very picky (I usually drop 99% of shows of any production or country) and have-no-time person (as myself) to spend her time watching it with great expectations, all deluded by the last 6 eps.

The creators made a huge effort to build up credible characters within a credible story. The Italian saying for fiction: se non è vero, è ben trovato (if it is not true, it's (still) nicely figured out", usually used for the works of fiction) had its application. Further, a huge attention of creators was made to make sense: plots, subplots, all human relations made sense, characters were well explained, had sufficient screentime and particular personal growths that allowed us (the audience) to care properly about each and every of them. And after all that construction effort, what happened next was a complete disaster.

In the last 6 episodes the creators decided to massacre everybody and destroy every sense in the story they've built up so nicely. As in Italian saying, "everything was figured out nicely". Holly crap, can someone tell me what's the purpose of such a thing? To tell us "wars are sensless"? Well, we know that without investing so much time and feelings. Or to tell "all men must die"? We know that, too. But such a huge sacrifice happened without principle of justice being properly served. Ending such a great story with CY's dream of unprobable "10 years after" not only doesn't render justice to its protagonists (btw, some of them dissappeared without trace, minister Du, where are you?), but makes their (and our emotional) sacrifice senseless, too.
Or the message was "there's no tomorrow"? Indeed, there's no tomorrow expecting our heroes' & heroines' next move. Hello, authors, what was your final message? From the original Chinese poetry, I deduce Guanshan is a place or time or circumstance where a person can reflect on their "wordly" attachments and loyalties. The Chinese title did not serve the purpose, while the English title is missed, too, ie., it served untill the episode 34 - after that episode nothing makes sense.

Special "Guanshan thoughts" for the scriptwriter:
1) It's impossible to move such a huge military forces in a presided area without being noticed.
2) you did fine with LTG's Oedipus complex, but once they drop it, no way any marriage or relapse will occur.
3) what kind of message you've exactly wanted to launch?

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inconsistent patchwork of trendy/cheap plotlines, motifs and tropes, fails all genres it mixed

Introduced as a family-intrigue drama, the story is supposed to (r)evolve around FL, (Yi)Ning, legitimate daughter of Luo family 2nd House, punished as a child to grow up in countryside, returning to the main mansion from which she was dettached for many years but somehow (it isn't explained) well acquainted with things going on in the family. Her relations with Luo family members are set: father, influenced by his concubine, distrusts her, grandmother adores her, half sister plots against her etc., all motifs already and more credibly used in several other dramas. In this drama, not even one side character is properly introduced or later properly deepened in order to hint to the audience their psychological characteristics, as it was done in The Story of Minglan, drama to which TRON frequently makes references (FL is motherless, her mother's name is an obvious homage to Minglan, father preferring a concubine to a legitimate wife etc.). Eg., not one scene explains the (important) bond between Yi Ning and her grandmother and why they should be so fond of each other.

The only relationship in which the authors put some effort is with her illegitimate and outcasted half brother, ie., with the ML. The first arc, in which FL investigates her mother's death and her real identity, covers more than two thirds of the drama. FL's former love interest (from the times she lived in countryside), powerful Lu Jia Xue, is shown early on in this arc, as a villain of the story, a person she believes ordered her murder (typically, she was thrown down from a cliff when living in the countryside). Being blinded at the time, he is not sure she is the person he desperatly searched for and surprisingly, such a powerful person could not even later discover the identity of the person living in the neighboring courtyard (this plothole will be repeated with her biological father, who despite his powers could not find out the real identity of her mother). FL is shown as perspicacious and wilful, in investigation of her mother's death she even uses herself as a bait, but strangely has zero interest in her own attempted murder and in front LJX she is just a terrorized victim of a psycho-thriller. Numerous lacks of elementary logics in the plotline regarding the FL, as well as huge inconsistencies (the other important one is her different treatment of the ML when he hurts her in comparison to LJX) in how her character was written, makes her unrelatable, unless we are inclined to relate to double-personality-disordered characters (which was certainly not the intention of the authors). It is not the fault of the actress or her voice many people complains about, Ren Min just delievered what she was told to.

The "best father in the world" (her biological father), appearing later on, just added another flat, superficially written and over-simplified character in a row. At that point, I've thought I'd drop it, but was still curious (my curiousity arouse more from the talks on this aspect, here on MDL than from the thrill of the drama) how will end the psycho-triller between FL and LJX. That's the only reason I've endured till the very end and haven't missed the arc covering the ML's investigation and revenge of his teacher. The political plot pending throughout the drama and solved in its last quarter, was more decently written, and despite not being original, it offered a sort of closure, especially for the ML, who is the only "rising" character in this story, from an outcast to a powerful minister, always placing first in the exams, good at problem-solving, skillful fighter, smart and deceitful (for the last trait, not much relatable either). The inconsistency between such a character and his masochistic attitude towards the FL (continuously helping her out, backing her unconditionally) was overshadowed by the actor's perfomance, who played this role totally in his comfort zone, having mastered this type of characters in other dramas. Ci Sha's performance was also very good.

The second couple seemed to belong to another (fluffier) drama, but they are related to the only "character" I've empathised with or more precisely feared for: a goose named Fugui, poor real goose pecking an annoying blue scarf around its neck while performing a goose who may finish in the pot very soon. Their joint purpose was probably to offer some comic relief (and they've jointly failed to achieve the purpose). While the second couple received an (expected) closure, the audience was left with no clue what happened to the goose. Its missing is the ultimate proof of the sloppiness of the creators or better, collectors of pieces of plots frankesteinly glued together into a drama.

P.s. Persons who've read the novel told me the script was an improvement compared to how badly the story was written in the novel. Why on earth would anybody choose to put on screen a badly written novel, trying to improve smth bad from the start?

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Nothing special, no memorable quotes and yet... enjoyable and refreshing

If you skip this drama, you won't lose anything in your life. But if you need something to watch to relax, something that won't irritate you, something still sufficiently interesting that won't make you drop it, well, this drama is perfect for you.

The writer of the synopsis didn't make justice to introduce us to the plot, so, I'll repair it. This is a (not particularly defined) period ensemble drama which rotates around a young couple with their own struggles. FL is struggling to keep what remained of her family afloat, after the seizure of assets and exile of male members from the capital. Her struggle is a struggle of female empowerment. ML is a side member of the imperial family who struggles to figure out complicated relations in his own family. Favoured by his uncle, a wicked emperor who can't stand anyone who contradicts him, he is appointed the Commander of the Secret Bureau, a ruthless Agency that responds only to him with the power to take down any other force (including nobles, royals etc) aspiring to the power. The struggles of these two persons entagle in interesting way and they fall for each other.

Although it lacks in memorable quotes and has many elements of unlikeliness, the plot is solidly based on a well-written dialogues, a rarity in C-dramaworld. Tbh, they are not brilliant, but they abound in details, double meanings, premonitions/hints that make the story logical in cause-effect sequence. What enhance to make the story believable is a genuine romance between the main leads, displayed originally for this type of drama: calm discussions to overcome misunderstandings, no screeming or scheming, no knives, poisons or bloodspitting. If you can pass over the fact that the ML is a super-fighter and the FL a business genius, for the rest, the two are totally normal people. The scenes engaging other people, and they are many, are also well developed, at least in the 4/5 of episodes. These are the reason I've highly rated "the story" - I'd like to encourage the two scriptwriters to follow this path in the future (and to forget completely the mess they've combined with TTEOM). But I also couldn't rate more, because they've also comitted huge mistakes (due to the original novel, I suppose), such as... introducing a new villain in last 5 eps. The audience "likes" villains, too: we want to know what made them villains, we like to grow up some (negative) affection to the villains, too.

Generally speaking, all the actors delievered the story, but not on the same level. Who delievered better were support characters: Hai Yi Tian as that sick-in-his-head emperor, Lu Yu Xiao as a traumatised PTSP girl (this actress really knows her job!) in process of healing, Myolie Wu as Madam Xia. The leads were good in delivering their main traits (described above: fighter-businesswoman), but nothing more than that.

Direction: How did Chu Yui Bun restrain himself from all his "weird experiments" with lights, filters, camera spinning... is a mystery. I suppose, his assistants constantly kept an eye on him. Untill the last minute in post-production. They've thought they've wrapped it all and left him alone. Being unwatched, he simply decided to add some CGI dolphins in that sort of homage to the Titanic. Both dolphins and Titanic-homage were wrong ideas, assistants, please,, don't leave him unchecked ever more.

Music was nothing special, the reason of high rating is: it's fine because it wasn't invasive.

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