Becky
North Pole
This review may contain spoilers
Court Lady -- a historical fiction drama that showed so much promise, but became a messy wrack
I watched Court Lady while it was airing, and initially had such high hopes. Saw the production documentary videos and they have spent 9 MONTHS to construct the palace setting. Probably another 3, 4 months to draw the design. Estimated of 1 year (and several millions cost) spent on architecture design, workmanship and construction, and costume design and tailor work went into the production for this drama..... It has 2 gorgeous and good actors in the leading roles, supported by a strong cast.... so why, why did it shoot itself in the feet with the poor scriptwriting and editing work?
The story showed a lot of promise too, scriptwriting was quite genius at some parts..... but it then 'set fire' to the good stuffs with poorly written character developments, overly-contrived schemes and sub-plots, and one of the WORST editing seen in cdrama history. There is a rumor that the drama was originally 69 episodes but due to China's recent guideline on too lengthy dramas, it was re-edited to 55 episodes. But this is still no excuse for the eventual product -_-" there are surely better ways to edit and compress a long drama into an acceptable length-- they could have taken out the scenes of some unnecessary supporting characters, or cut down on the regretful Emperor monologues, etc. but no, lo and behold, the editing team thinks it is alright to keep these fluff and EDIT OUT key transition scenes that affect the main plot! The ending scene in ep 46 and opening in ep 47 made a lot of viewers thought they are watching the wrong ep.... that edit was like: you were watching someone preparing to do a bungee jump, and the next scene cuts to the person undressing the safety gear. Jump was over and you didn't get to see it.
Should you watch Court Lady? Only if you are a fan of Li Yitong and/or Xu Kai, and/or Tan Jianci, else it is highly likely that you would drop the drama midway through.
There are some really good parts in the first half though. The crown prince friendship with Chen Ji, and that phoenix embroidery mystery..... the script was very well-written in these parts and quite clever, director did a good job maintaining the tempo and tension too (I was literally sitting at the edge of my chair when I was watching the phoenix embroidery part). Unfortunately the clever scriptwriting did not sustain in the 2nd half and the editing got more haphazard...
The only consistent elements in this drama are:- good cinematography, good acting (Xu Kai had some high tension and emo scenes), and the beautiful palace grounds and high quality costumes. If you can close an eye to the poor scriptwriting and editing.
The story showed a lot of promise too, scriptwriting was quite genius at some parts..... but it then 'set fire' to the good stuffs with poorly written character developments, overly-contrived schemes and sub-plots, and one of the WORST editing seen in cdrama history. There is a rumor that the drama was originally 69 episodes but due to China's recent guideline on too lengthy dramas, it was re-edited to 55 episodes. But this is still no excuse for the eventual product -_-" there are surely better ways to edit and compress a long drama into an acceptable length-- they could have taken out the scenes of some unnecessary supporting characters, or cut down on the regretful Emperor monologues, etc. but no, lo and behold, the editing team thinks it is alright to keep these fluff and EDIT OUT key transition scenes that affect the main plot! The ending scene in ep 46 and opening in ep 47 made a lot of viewers thought they are watching the wrong ep.... that edit was like: you were watching someone preparing to do a bungee jump, and the next scene cuts to the person undressing the safety gear. Jump was over and you didn't get to see it.
Should you watch Court Lady? Only if you are a fan of Li Yitong and/or Xu Kai, and/or Tan Jianci, else it is highly likely that you would drop the drama midway through.
There are some really good parts in the first half though. The crown prince friendship with Chen Ji, and that phoenix embroidery mystery..... the script was very well-written in these parts and quite clever, director did a good job maintaining the tempo and tension too (I was literally sitting at the edge of my chair when I was watching the phoenix embroidery part). Unfortunately the clever scriptwriting did not sustain in the 2nd half and the editing got more haphazard...
The only consistent elements in this drama are:- good cinematography, good acting (Xu Kai had some high tension and emo scenes), and the beautiful palace grounds and high quality costumes. If you can close an eye to the poor scriptwriting and editing.
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