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Mandy Yang

Greater Los Angeles Area

Mandy Yang

Greater Los Angeles Area
Under the Power chinese drama review
Completed
Under the Power
2 people found this review helpful
by Mandy Yang
Apr 28, 2020
55 of 55 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 10
Story 10.0
Acting/Cast 10.0
Music 9.5
Rewatch Value 10.0
TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read) at the end

Story:
I loved it. As an avid fan of all historical dramas (keep in note this is a romcom, so there's obviously historical inaccuracies) and all things history, I always keep an eye out for historical inaccuracies. Admittedly, I'm not particularly well-versed in Ming China, especially under the emperor in the show, but I can say that this show did a very good job at sticking to the original historical facts and "story line." Yan Song, Yan Shi Fan, Lu Ting, Xia Ran were all real people and Yan Shi Fan's actions, such as connections with wokou pirates, conspiracy against the emperor, etc. were all real. In fact, there's an opera written about his downfall.
The romcom aspect of this was great; I loved watching it. I personally can't stand plain romcoms, as I find the plot rather pointless and just fluff. However, with the historical aspects, this romcom was very consumable and engaging. It's definitely a slow burn romance, but it's cute and I shipped them right off the bat.
I loved the characters so much- I loved how they were all good people. It was realistic how hard it was to put down a crush and their reactions were very genuine. The characters' responses to adversary was amazingly realistic.

Acting and Cast:
Wow. They were phenomenal. Admittedly, I'm always super easy going on Chinese actors, especially cute ones (ehm... Ren Jialun), but I genuinely loved their acting. Their mouths matched the sounds or words they were saying (some young, popular actors nowadays in China are just counting/saying random things and the sound is dubbed on). They cried and it looked realistic. I really enjoyed the cast together because they had such amazing chemistry too. All the couples just felt right.

Music:
The music isn't the best-- like "I would listen to that in my free time" good-- but it's still amazing. The music always matches the mood and I really liked the songs. I actually did go and find the songs on Youtube to listen to again.

Rewatch:
Very few dramas make me cry (I believe I'm at the third drama to make me cry), but by god, this one did so many times. Once, I cried twice in the same episode. Let it be made clear too- I watch a lot of dramas and I rarely cry. But this one genuinely made me cry... I'm not particularly ashamed to admit it either.

TLDR: Amazing show with a great story, a cute cast with amazing chemistry, and good music. Definitely recommend.
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