This review may contain spoilers
Supporting characters steal the show
I liked it, overall. Good acting, good, sometimes even clever, plot, couple of nice twists, lots of dying and betreyal.
The best thing in this drama was Fan Shuai Qi playing Bu Shu Lin. The best woman-pretending-to-be-man acting I've ever seen. The maleness was convincing, the aspect of knowing she's pretending was convincing, her playing a female character was convincing. Just across the board phenomenal acting.
One other thing that really made an impression was the absolute insanity of the levels of gas lighting of the 5th Prince Xiao Chang Qing. Obviously, he was meant to be the bad guy, albeit a complicated one, but the pure torture he was subjegated to from the FL as to weather she was or wasn't his deceased wife, was on another level.
I knew that Queen grandmother was the main culprit early on, because out of all of them she seemed the nicest one and that's just never true. But I liked the overall character set up and presentation where it was never trully black and white with any of them, it made the series more interesting.
Again, I'm not super happy with FL's no expression acting. Maybe I'm the problem, I don't know, but this is a trend among female actors that emoting is either extremely reserved or not present. Unless it's ugly crying and then some do it very well, but a lot of times it's just like watching dolls on a screen. There are micro expressions, sure, and the overall vibe of the actress, but it just feels flat. Especially next to Fan Shuai and He Yu.
The best thing in this drama was Fan Shuai Qi playing Bu Shu Lin. The best woman-pretending-to-be-man acting I've ever seen. The maleness was convincing, the aspect of knowing she's pretending was convincing, her playing a female character was convincing. Just across the board phenomenal acting.
One other thing that really made an impression was the absolute insanity of the levels of gas lighting of the 5th Prince Xiao Chang Qing. Obviously, he was meant to be the bad guy, albeit a complicated one, but the pure torture he was subjegated to from the FL as to weather she was or wasn't his deceased wife, was on another level.
I knew that Queen grandmother was the main culprit early on, because out of all of them she seemed the nicest one and that's just never true. But I liked the overall character set up and presentation where it was never trully black and white with any of them, it made the series more interesting.
Again, I'm not super happy with FL's no expression acting. Maybe I'm the problem, I don't know, but this is a trend among female actors that emoting is either extremely reserved or not present. Unless it's ugly crying and then some do it very well, but a lot of times it's just like watching dolls on a screen. There are micro expressions, sure, and the overall vibe of the actress, but it just feels flat. Especially next to Fan Shuai and He Yu.
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