Erotic art mention by FL and the ML didn’t pass out. Applause!
Good, enjoyable watch. Not particularly deep or tragic, you’re not left emotionally hollowed-out at the end, visuals are well done and acting is excellent. Story felt pretty women-focused. Great chemistry, extremely extroverted, confident FL and a stoic but emotional (of course) introverted ML. It really follows the leads, doesn’t spend countless eps on only palace schemes and intrigues, which is great. The leads carry it.
It’s definitely a bit not-even-trying-too-hard-to-make-this-slightly “real” (FL is very petite, sub-100lbs and swinging a sword against giant, battle-hardened, sword swinging men 2-3x her size; an emperor who has a sense of humor; a woman who binds her chest which magically erases all feminine giveaways? Nahhh!) But it’s fine. It’s formulaic, but it works thanks to good acting and enjoyable characters by all.
Highlight: Pursuit of Jade advisor/strategist/comedic sidekick Gongsun Yin actor Li Qing plays nearly the same
character right down to his love of carrying fans. Note: think he looks weird, esp his mouth/teeth? It’s because his face was superimposed via AI over an another actor’s who got into legal trouble and had to be fully nuked from the drama, which was still in post-production when it all went down.
Chu Zhao actor Zhang Kang Le looks like he could be (he’s not) a close blood relative of actor/singer of Yan An (Fangs of Fortune, Veil of Shadows), which means he’s so insanely WTF good-looking it’s distracting in a pleasedon’tbeabadguy way.
I mentioned it’s very women-forward. I liked that. References of menstruation. Comments on erotic art when talking to a man and nobody fainted. A scene where ML had to excuse himself for what would probably be a cold shower in modern drama. Fun moments of ML personal guard not knowing He Yan’s true gender. She’s not doing what it looks like you think she’s doing moments. Not afraid to be fun/slyly suggestive in that way, it’s not stuffy with everyone fanning themselves over a glance.
It’s definitely a bit not-even-trying-too-hard-to-make-this-slightly “real” (FL is very petite, sub-100lbs and swinging a sword against giant, battle-hardened, sword swinging men 2-3x her size; an emperor who has a sense of humor; a woman who binds her chest which magically erases all feminine giveaways? Nahhh!) But it’s fine. It’s formulaic, but it works thanks to good acting and enjoyable characters by all.
Highlight: Pursuit of Jade advisor/strategist/comedic sidekick Gongsun Yin actor Li Qing plays nearly the same
character right down to his love of carrying fans. Note: think he looks weird, esp his mouth/teeth? It’s because his face was superimposed via AI over an another actor’s who got into legal trouble and had to be fully nuked from the drama, which was still in post-production when it all went down.
Chu Zhao actor Zhang Kang Le looks like he could be (he’s not) a close blood relative of actor/singer of Yan An (Fangs of Fortune, Veil of Shadows), which means he’s so insanely WTF good-looking it’s distracting in a pleasedon’tbeabadguy way.
I mentioned it’s very women-forward. I liked that. References of menstruation. Comments on erotic art when talking to a man and nobody fainted. A scene where ML had to excuse himself for what would probably be a cold shower in modern drama. Fun moments of ML personal guard not knowing He Yan’s true gender. She’s not doing what it looks like you think she’s doing moments. Not afraid to be fun/slyly suggestive in that way, it’s not stuffy with everyone fanning themselves over a glance.
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