over-rated drama

Just finished all 40 episodes of this drama and must say that I am surprised to see all of the 10/10 and 9/10 ratings it has received.

The drama started off strongly, I really liked the first 15-20 episodes or so. The plot moved along well with a great story line, liked the actors, also some good comedic scenes helped make the first 1/2 of this drama a decent watch.

Then somewhere around episode 25 this drama goes off the rails and just gets worse and worse until the awful ending. The last 15 episodes or so were terrible. Every episode seemed to have a 4-5 minute scene with the male/female leads being all lovey-dovey, sweet-talking each other with the obligatory love song playing in the back-ground. This got tiresome and repetitive. Every character seemed to experience a near death scene and then the other characters help them miraculously pull through. This got tiresome and repetitive. Each episode seemed to have 3 or 4 song interludes, starting to think the producers were either getting royalties or really trying to push the soundtrack. This got tiresome and repetitive. Each time a character died, there would be 7-8 minute montage of flashback scenes with that character, of course, with some song playing in the background. This got repetitive and tiresome as well. In addition, the drama had the worst ending of any C-drama that I have personally watched. It was like the script writers gave up and just wrote some nonsense to get this drama over with.

Gave this drama an overall rating of 2.0 solely based on the 1/2 half of the drama. Re-watch value should be 0 but apparently 1.0 is the minimum value I can assign. It was painful watching this drama once, can't imagine that anyone would go back and re-watch this a second time. This drama won't be showing up on any top 10 best drama lists, but wouldn't be surprised at all to see this drama on a number of top 10 worst drama lists though. Starting to think that the producers must have paid an army of people to give glowing reviews.

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binge-worthy

This is one of my 2 favourite dramas of 2023 (the other being The Blood of Youth). Would regularly watch 3-5 episodes at a time, probably took me less than 2 weeks to get through entire drama from start to finish.

For me the sign of a good c-drama is when I don't fast forward through scenes or episodes or just drop the drama entirely. This drama had a great story and the plot moves forward every episode, never once had the urge to skip scenes. The cast was excellent and there was not a single actor or character that annoyed me or felt out of place. It's about a lady that goes back in time to try to fix the past. It is a similar concept to Bai Lu's other 2023 drama (Till the End of the Moon) but Kunning palace is far superior to that one. It does a good job of inter-twining her past life with the present as she seeks to change outcomes. I could nitpick at some of the familiar plot devices used in this drama, for example, the evil empress dowager or the corrupt high-ranking official but there was so much that was good about this drama that these can be over-looked. Also liked the music in this drama and how it was used, they don't overdo it with the song interludes which was a nice change. Finally, the ending although a bit predictable was very satisfying and much better than many of the c-dramas from 2023.

This drama is a definite binge watch, once you watch the first few episodes you will be hooked

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avoid this drama

Caught this drama on Netflix a couple of months ago. Noticed all of the 10/10 ratings people were giving this drama so had to set the record straight. I am guessing it was a bunch of AI chatbots hired by the studio that are giving this drama high ratings.

I actually watched up to episode 18 of this drama but it was so boring and the story so bad that I started fast forwarding and skipping episodes just to get through this awful drivel. It looked like the producers spent some money on this drama since the CGI and costumes were of excellent quality, but wow was the plot bad. As others have pointed out, the female lead was so whiny and constantly pining for her master that she was annoying to watch. Even Xiao Zhan who I have enjoyed in other dramas, was annoying to watch in this one.

Gave this drama a 2/10 solely for the production quality and CGI which were good, everything else about this drama was bad though. Even noticed this drama showed up on some "worst dramas of 2023" lists on Youtube which I tend to agree with. Avoid this drama, there is much better stuff out there to watch.

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confusing drama that dragged on far too long

Caught this drama on iQIYI when it was getting good ratings but was unimpressed.

The CGI and costumes were quite good and on par for other C-dramas in this category but wow was the story bad. Also, found this drama very confusing to follow along. I mean there was a grief tree, but never understood what the grief tree was or what powers it had. The grief tree granted couples wishes, but also had some evil person living inside of it for a while. At one point one of the characters gave their "love seed" to the grief tree (I am not making this up) to help cure it of some ailment. The characters were trying to save the 6 realms even though there were only humans and spirits fighting each other. Not sure what the other 4 realms were. One of the female characters had a school girl crush on some guy Ao Lai, turns out her friend just happened to be that guy all along (what are the odds!). By about episode 25 or so, was completely bored of this drama, just wanted it to be over so started fast forwarding over the filler scenes. The villains were boring and uninteresting, the story was just dragging. There is really nothing worth recommending about this drama.

Zhang Linghe even shows up in the later episodes of this drama to participate in a silly sub-plot about some 7 treasures bark, not sure what the 7 treasures bark is or why it is important but at this point in the drama who reallly cares. After the success of some of his other dramas you have to wonder why Zhang Linghe would take a small part in a bad drama like this but I guess he must have owed someone a favour.

Ending of this drama was confusing as well, some characters who died in earlier episodes were alive and well in the final episode in some alternate reality. Overall this drama gets a well-deserved 2/10.

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decent revenge drama as long as you can believe the opening premise

This drama was probably the first good drama I have seen in 2024. There has been a lot of sub-par dramas released so far in 2024 so this drama was a welcome change.

If you can believe that a child can be framed for a crime they didn't commit (by the evil step-mother no less). If you can believe a father couldn't recognize his own daughter (even after 10 years), If you can believe said father wouldn't visit his own child for 10 years. you know, just to check up on her. If you can believe a husband couldn't recognize his ex-wife after a few months apart (hey your daughter looks an awful lot like my ex-wife) . Then the rest of the drama is pretty good. For me the main knock was believing the opening premise that one person could impersonate another without any changes to their appearance, you know, just jump in and say hey, I am now Jiang Li, and you should just believe it .

Once you get past the initial set-up of the drama, the story and plot are pretty good and the drama moves right along, very little filler scenes. Not once did I fast forward through this drama. I liked the fact that the main villain in here was the psycho princess, a nice change from other dramas. This drama has a good revenge story line and is worth the watch......as long as you can buy off on the opening premise.

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OK drama but exhausting to watch at times

Caught this drama on iQIYI recently and actually watched most of the 40 episodes, although I did start fast forwarding through episodes when I reached episode 30 or so. Just felt that this drama started to drag on too much and it probably could have been cut down to 35-36 episodes

The sets and CGI on this drama were good, and you could tell they spent some money on the production. The story was good although it was a bit predictable insofar as how it was going to end. Liked the actors, didn't really feel anyone annoyed me but also didn't feel that anyone was great in this either.

Felt like this drama started to drag as it was nearing the final stretch of episodes. The fight scenes got tiresome to watch after a while. Once you knew a big battle was going to start, it was a good time to just fast forward to the end of the fight to save time. After you watch a few CGI fight scenes they start to become repetitive. Some of these C-dramas like to fill up screen time with song interludes and flashback scenes and this one was no different. The song interludes, sometimes 3 or 4 in a single episode, were also good opportunities to fast forward to save time.

Overall drama was average, not terrible but not great either. Have no interest in watching any part of this drama again so rewatch value is a well-deserved 1.0.

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