Deirdre19

These flexible swords are quite common in wuxia. Zhou ZiShou uses one in Word of Honor.

I think what makes even the "villains" likeable, or at least not annoying, is that they all have some clear motivation for their behaviour. In my opinion it's one of the reasons why all the characters in CZ were so unlikeable: nobody was able to understand why they loved or hated CZ.

True, he is the type of guy that every woman should avoid. The actor portraying Prince Ying, however, is doing a brilliant job!

That seems to be the case for everything nowadays 🤬🤬

In processed foods, the packaging is worth more than the content and when it comes to medicine, the pharma industry spends more on marketing than on research...

To summarise:
- FL is clever and pleasant to watch (no stupid baby-voice, etc.)
- Acting is pretty decent
- Chemistry between main couple is 🔥
- Costumes are beautiful
- Story is funny and so far avoids most stupid clichés
- There are a lot of quirky details (the cat business, the FL grilling meat while ML worries about dressing up, etc.)

Yes, it is wonderful to finally see a clever and supportive maid!
The moronic maid is such a lame cliché... these girls didn't become maids because they we too stupid, but usually because they came from poor(er) families. In the case of noble ladies, they maids often also came from noble families so would have had some education.

Scroll down, I've already explained this in an earlier post...

There is absolutely nothing to justify the sudden drop of the rating from 8.3 to 8.0. It seems like some malicious trolls are working hard again...

There were two independent poisoning attempts:
1) The one by the inept assassins that we keep seeing. They had a small red vial of the Sanxisan (Three Breaths) poison which they dropped and which the FL then replaced with her diarrhea powder. This is what she drank in the wine.
2) An unknown person poisoned the red snacks that we see at the beginning of the banquet and which Hua Liuli ate. We see this only later in a flashback when then mastermind complains that she apparently cannot be poisoned.

Well, if CZ was so important to them, why didn't they make any effort to give it a decent script, professional make-up and, most of all, an FL who can act?

Yeah, well, they don't seem to care much about badly written FLs or boys who can't act.
I see it happening also with some full-length dramas, that are actually good, but missing the idol boys, like Royal Rumours which suddenly dropped from 8.3 to 8.0 for no reason whatsoever (95% of the comments are positive).

Seems like they're relying solely on JT's bathing scene for promotion...
Even though these clips are worth seeing, it's a bit sad for everyone who's invested time and energy in this production.

I think it's one of the princes who is behind it all... maybe in collaboration with censor Zhu. As this has probably started even before the crown prince and the other princes were born (I suspect CP was poisoned as a child...) there must be someone older involved.

I really like Leo Luo, too. I saw a few scenes where he was on a horse and I could tell that he didn't look at ease which I found astonishing. As an ex-ballet dancer he should have the necessary balance and body control, but maybe there were some other reasons.

Yes, he did the riding himself, you can clearly see the face when he's galloping through the street. But in this one scene where the horse reared (I think it was 1st episode), I don't think it was him on the horse. The shot is taken at such an angle that the rider's face cannot be seen. Even for a proficient rider this would be a very challenging stunt to perform, so it seems reasonable to me that this was a stuntman.

Yeah, Wu Lei is quite good with the horse, it shows immediately. I've seen JT in several dramas, riding while holding a spear/sword in one hand and the reins in the other, he seems to know what he's doing. I'm a rider myself, so some details are very obvious to me.
Some of the worst fake riding that I've ever seen was in And the Winner is Love. They actually used fake horse-heads and the movement of the riders are completely out of sync with the sound of the hooves. That was so painful to watch...

It was definitely him on the galloping horse, the cut with the rearing horse was very cleverly done, because you don't see the face of the person on the horse. I had to reverse/repeat it several times to see that there was actually a cut, so I don't think that was the actor.
For me it's already a big plus that he always does these riding scenes - I've seen some really cringe-worthy fake riding in some other dramas

The Protector General (Hua Liuli's father) has just won an important battle and forced the neighbouring state Jinpo to surrender. The whole Hua family is fighting at the border and hold the power over the army.
When generals become very (too) powerful they can be a threat to the imperial family, as in previous dynasties the generals then removed the emperor to seize power. So the Emperor will be suspicious as soon as some general becomes too popular or powerful. This is the reason why Hua Liuli was sent back to the capital as a sign of loyalty to the Emperor (in the drama version she is considered a sort of "hostage").
Right now as the two states have entered peace negotiations, there seems to no longer any need for a powerful general and some officials are asking for him to be removed from power, which makes the situation very dangerous for the Hua family.
There is a Chinese saying that features quite prominently in the novel:
蜚鸟尽，良弓藏
When all the birds are gone, the trusted bow is no longer needed (my translation, Chinese speakers feel free to correct).
It means that the general has served his purpose and now that the purpose is gone, he can be dropped.
Hua Liuli was born weak, but got better and now pretends to still be weak to manipulate people. If she appears weak they will lower their guard and feel sorry for her.
As the children of the imperial family and a high-ranking general it is normal that they would have known each other since childhood. The who-is-who of important families was a popular pasttime before TV and internet.

Quite honestly, I think there are some trolls going around down-voting everything that doesn't have their idol-boys in it.

JT has perfect comedic timing, that's what makes Be My Princess so funny. There is a subtle irony in his acting that many casual viewers seem to have missed. Towards the end, every time he says "Princess" with that stiff face, it totally cracks me up!