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Becky

North Pole

Becky

North Pole
Bloody Romance chinese drama review
Completed
Bloody Romance
5 people found this review helpful
by Becky
May 21, 2021
36 of 36 episodes seen
Completed 5
Overall 9.0
Story 8.0
Acting/Cast 9.5
Music 10.0
Rewatch Value 10.0
This review may contain spoilers

A dark fairytale called Bloody Romance

Bloody Romance is one of the most beautiful wuxia fantasy dramas, and the most controversial. It is a drama which I have enjoyed a lot, but would hesitate to recommend to others. Hans Christian Anderson's The Snow Queen is my favorite fairytale and Judy Budnitz's The Flying Leap is one of my favorite short stories collection. So, if you like these 2 stories/books, you would like Bloody Romance too...

This is a dark, gothic dynastic drama set in an imaginary world, post Wu Zetian-era. The story revolves around our main female protagonist who was sold by her father to a brothel, where they would cut her arm to drain out buckets of blood... It was a belief in those times that drinking virgin's blood can maintain youth and for longevity. SO HERE, let's pause a minute. Human consumption of incompatible blood type would cause blood poisoning. What does this tell us about the drama? That the story is not logical... In order to enjoy this drama, you need to close an eye to logic--

Bloody Romance is essentially a fairytale about a poor and broken female who got into an assassins group and had to kill in order to survive. However, she had a deep sense of morality and justice, instead of killing her targets, she used her smarts and heart to complete her assassination tasks. While her world was full of cruelty and sexual harassment, she kept her innocence and continued shining bright like a candle in the wind (cue Elton John's song). In her fight to survive and not lose her mind, she had the time to fall in love with a man and attracted the attention of another man.... Forget about the poor logic in the script, watch this drama for the beautiful cinematography, the dialogues and mini stories, and ooooh the excellent acting by Li Yitong (Wan Mei) and Wang Dao (Gongzi). The supporting cast performed very well in their roles too, except for Show Qu (Chang An) who is the ML. His inability to emote with his eyes, made his portrayal of Chang An quite flat.

AND THE OST ♥ the music keeps to the heavy and whimsical mood of the drama. I like that both leads sang a song each, and it sounds like music director did not autotune their voices. Especially Li Yitong's song, sounds very raw, which add a sincerity to the drama. All 3 main leads and most of the supporting cast spoke their own lines, not dubbed by voice actors. This makes the watch experience more heartfelt and sincere, easy on the ears too.

The plot revolves around the 3 main leads, the assassins group, political intrigues, and unrequited romances and family relations that were torn apart due to the dark circumstances. The director's vision reminds me of Edward Scissorhands, Sweeney Todd, etc Tim Burton's movies. This is a drama worth your time to try out, personally I feel it is better than the more popular cdramas, such as Eternal Love and The Untamed.
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