Lets play a game of pick-a-plot

This is the first time I watched a drama where a plot felt like a combination of several dramas glued together, as if a bunch of different people wrote it without communicating with each other. There were several parallel storylines with characters that often crossed paths, but their stories were completely independent of each other. You will miss nothing if you skip entire scenes and focus on the characters you like. So, to save yourself time and sanity, start a game of pick-a-plot and make friends with the fast-forward button.

Li Qian was a valiant and brave soldier. Baoning was a spoiled princess. But the difference in their status did not prevent them from building a loving relationship based on trust and communication until, towards the end, they regressed into complete knuckleheads who refused to communicate, jumped to conclusions, and threw asinine accusations. In the last 5 episodes, Baoning's character drastically changed from a spunky young woman to a calculating persona resembling Wang Xuan from The Rebel Princess. This change showcased Ju Jing Yi's ability to play more serious roles. But, it wasn't necessarily good for the story, because it happened without any actual character development showing Baoning's transition from a care-free princess to a mature woman with experience dealing with scheming villains.

The first 12 episodes were very engaging showing Baoning and Li Qian's blossoming romance. But then, the plot suddenly got hijacked by secondary characters and became a continuous onslaught of love rivals' deranged schemes to break up the happy couple. A love obsessed and jealous villain is one of the worst, most uninspired, uninteresting tropes to manufacture conflict. The writers threw in every cliche and rehashed idea instead of writing an actual story. Zhao Xiao was a nobleman with a bright political future. But, every single action he took was to get into Baoning's pants. And, Miaorong's slimy schemes resulted in the same predictable outcome again and again. The writers did not even try to create compelling villains, but love-obsessed psychos who just wouldn't get the message that the object of their affection couldn't care less.

More often than not, I ended up throwing my hands in the air and screaming "FFS!!" When I did not suffer from second-hand embarrassment, I pressed on the fast-forward button. The drama is a convoluted mess of jealous lover tropes, scattered plot, and a marketing scheme for the supporting cast.

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When everything is stupid

Watching this show was truly a chore. All of the characters were unlikable with no real motivation or common sense. The show used every cliche, trope, stereotype under the sun - dorky FL, a jealous side chick, misunderstandings, withholding information, separating for no reason, mother-in-law from hell, accusations without any evidence. Everything was stupid.

I am glad I watched Ju Jing Yi's work in backwards chronological order starting with In Blossom. Otherwise, I'd stop on this show. Yunxi was a carbon copy of Fu Rong from The Blooms at Ruyi Pavilion, the same clueless turd who became bffs with a man with questionable motivations and identity. She completely trusted him and was blissfully unaware of his feelings for her while being married to someone else. I cringed when silly Ningjing had to explain to her that running around with a man who wasn't her husband was problematic. Moreover, Yunxi was portrayed as kind and intelligent. Apparently, feeding one person diarrhea poison and threatening another with bad marriage was considered "kind". Just no.

Most of the secondary characters were either forgettable or annoying. Ningjing and Tang Li were unbearable together. They bickered constantly for no reason whatsoever because the writers decided that two adults acting like toddlers was funny. Ningjing was only tolerable when she was in the company of other people. Telling Yunxi that running around with Qishao was no bueno was probably the highlight of her character development.

The plot was a directionless mess. Most of it consisted of forced tension based on the characters' complete lack of common sense. All this nonsensical drama could've been easily avoided if everyone did the obvious, like telling the truth. Watching characters consistently making stupid decisions caused me nothing but second-hand embarrassment. Their actions ranged from withholding important information because reasons, bringing jealous side chicks into a married couple's home, refusing to be rescued, and so on. Feiye never seemed to know where his wife was. They kept separating for nonsensical reasons again and again because we needed more tension. "How did we end up like this?" You literally did not. All you needed was to talk to each other. None of their angst was justified because the problems were laughably superficial. It's like the drama was written by high school students. Stupid tropes everywhere.

You won't be missing much if you skip most scenes in the last 15 episodes. The show was just so damn boring. Most conversations were filled with fluff and should've been cut by half to get the point across. If there was urgency to do anything, the characters ended up not doing it and talked about their feelings instead. Nothing made sense and everything was stupid.

Romantic chemistry between ML and FL was passable, even though romance was not the main focus of the story. This brings us to the incomprehensible Chinese censorship. Mature romantic chemistry between a married couple that goes beyond grade school antics is problematic, but Long Feiye's naked a** is totally fine. Is anyone else confused? I know I am.

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How many husbands do you have?

The drama followed an old face swap/identity switch formula with a slice of revenge. Jiuling was a princess who assumed the identity of her deceased friend to plan revenge against her emperor uncle for the death her emperor father. Along the way, she met four men to whom she was either engaged or married. I actually enjoyed that the drama did not take the harem trope too seriously and constantly made fun of it. The question "how many husbands do you have?" led to hilarious back and forths.

The face-swap explanation was pretty lolsy - a super secret non-surgically invasive technique performed by a physician in ancient China. Gotta love Chinese tropes.

Jiuling was portrayed as a mature young woman, a mix between the heroines from the Story of Ming Lan, the Double, Rebel Princess. It was very refreshing to see a more mature heroine, rather than the typical infantile stereotype.

I normally don't like harem or reverse harem formula because of all the extra drama and love triangles/rectangles. What I appreciated about this story was that Jiuling had entirely different relationships with all four men. From the very beginning, it was obvious that Zhu Zan will be her one and only love interest. Chengyu will be like a younger brother, Yunzhao will be her friend, and, Yunqi will be her enemy. The story did not have her flip flop between the four men making it confusing whom she will end up with.

I enjoyed her chemistry with Zhu Zan. Even though he didn't look like a typical hero because the actor also played villains, he had enough charm to hold his own and develop great chemistry with Jiuling through their spicy bantering.

One thing I didn't like was Yunqi's character development. The writers decided that nobody died in this show, although Yunqi was the one character who should've died. He went from having obsessive romantic feelings for Jiuling, which lasted for way too long, to going full psycho by kidnapping and locking her up. Then, he suddenly had an epiphany and started helping her. Considering his complete mental breakdown, him trying to be a good guy at the end was pretty unbelievable.

Overall, the drama was very enjoyable, the romance had plenty of chemistry, and the story was well paced.

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A great take on old tropes

The drama takes a stab at the rehashed switcheroo brides trope but still manages to give a refreshing take on xianxia. One sister, born under a lucky sign, gets to marry a heavenly prince, another one born under an unlucky sign gets to marry a demon prince. On the day of their wedding, they get switched and hilarity ensues as the drama develops two parallel love stories.

One thing that I really liked was a focus on sisterhood, family, and women working to uplift each other, instead of sisters and friends competing for men, money, and power. Although, the drama also rehashes a jealous side chick trope, it's very minor and pretty forgettable. I really liked the chemistry between each couple, as they got to know each other, develop bonds which led to love. I liked that the story blurred some lines between good and evil and allowed some characters with a questionable moral compass a chance to grow and make good choices. Chaofeng started out an an anti-hero, not entirely bad but someone with questionable morality. Through his growing love for Qingkui and exposure to her purity and goodness, he developed a conscience. Youqin gaining back his feelings allowed him to realize that protecting the heavenly realm wasn't just an arbitrary duty but a desire to protect family.

The plot was mostly interesting, but some arcs were better than others. I thought the shards arc was too long and kind of boring. My biggest criticism, after the shards arc both Youqin and Chaofeng were reduced to house husbands. Youqin spent most of his time waiting for Yetan to come home from school. It seemed like attaining the perfect celestial body was the pinnacle of his development and he had nothing else to do, although he was the most powerful being in all the realms. Chaofeng was told to look for work now that he had a wife. Twirling store signs pretty much undermined his position as a badass prince from the void. The writers could've come up with something better for immortal beings with ultimate cosmic power than this.

The acting was very good. Chen Xingxu showed his versatility where he didn't just portray a stony faced Empyrean Xuanshang, but a lover, a materialist, a pyromaniac, and a romantic. The character came to life as soon as he gained his feelings. Everyone else was just as good.

Some people were not happy with the ending, but I thought it was fitting for the xianxia genre leaving off the story on a positive and hopeful note. To me, that was a good ending.

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Not bad, but could be better

The drama definitely would've done a lot better with some plot and episode trimming. There were too many side characters with minor story arcs that were irrelevant fillers. I couldn't care less about every auntie's personal problems. That didn't add anything and only deviated from the story and dragged the plot.

In the last ten episodes, it became apparent that the writers completely ran out of ideas and just wrote whatever to finish the 40 episodes. The spy/envoy arc had nothing to do with the main plot. It felt like a filler and was completely uninteresting. The main story was about the FL saving her family from poverty and bringing the male relatives back and ML dealing with the royal family drama. The envoy arc had nothing to do with either.

FL also felt a little too perfect. There was no character development to show achievement through trial and error. At the beginning, she was a teenager from a privileged family who never had to struggle with anything and didn't have good relations with any of her family members. After the exile, she magically got her act together and had all the answers without having to overcome or learn anything. Even the mishaps were not due to her mistakes but mistakes of her aunties. Everything that she achieved was completely undeserved because she never had to struggle. She went from zero to hero overnight.

The acting was mostly ok. Hu Yitian's had his usual frozen face that took away from his chemistry with FL. But, he got better later on and started showing a little bit of emotion. Zhang Jing Yi was ok, but unconvincing as a historical character. It felt like a modern woman playing dress-up.

The chemistry was ok, but FL's Mary Sue personality made secondary couples a lot more interesting. Shen Huan and Shaoyao were a lot more fun because there was actual character growth and the couple looked like they really couldn't wait to be together while ML and FL just hanged out without taking any steps to move their relationship forward.

Overall, I enjoyed the show. Hu Yitian's is definitely an eye candy and the fighting scenes were entertaining.

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The drama starts to pick up at around episode 12. The first 10 episodes were slow with Fan Xian and Waner trying to find each other and cancel their engagement until they found out that they were actually engaged to each other. Then, the story starts to pick up with never-ending political intrigue mixed with comedy and drama.

Fan Xian was a complicated character. He comes off as goofy and happy-go-lucky. In reality, he was calculating, manipulative, loyal, and has a strong sense of justice. His goal was to build a better world but outsmarting and getting ahead of the powerhouse that is trying to kill him proved to be harder than he thought. The story did a great job at building up the intrigue and political drama in a very interesting and clever way without being draggy. However, the plot didn't quite explain Fan Xian's visions, where they came from, and his origins. At the beginning it was a rebirth backwards story. But it seemed to be more of a time travel story with Xian's mother traveling back in time bringing future technology, but the writers never truly explained it.

The romance needed work. The first 10 episodes were spent on ML and FL trying to find each other. After they finally figured out that they were actually engaged to each other, the romance fizzled out and FL gradually disappeared. Honestly, Fan Xian had a lot more chemistry with every other woman he interacted with than Waner. The fighting "dance" with the saintress made me question where the writers were going with this and why Fan Xian was even in love with Waner.

One of the best things about this drama was the goofy soundtrack with silly background music during fighting sequences.

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Great start with some plot holes

Overall, the drama was entertaining, but, there was a visible disconnect between the first and second half.

The first half was a comedy telling a story of a modern man traveling back in time and helping his wife in ancient China succeed in business and navigate through family intrigue. Ning Yi reminded me of Forest Gump, a seemingly obscure individual full of great ideas. He used 21st century business techniques to grow the family business and undermine the competition, had an answer to everything, and helped a whole lot of people. It was clever, funny, and very entertaining. The uncle and cousin were funny caricatures and Wu Qihao was a great villain to root against.

The second half switched gears and became more of a political drama. I really did not care for the bandit arc. All the previous villains became irrelevant, and Wo Qihao was fully written out of the plot. The story wasn't as funny and interesting and it completely removed FL from several episodes. The new villains were boring and had no real motivation. Certain decisions made no sense and looked like the writers had no concrete idea how to move the plot forward. The story meant to be darker with more violence and death, but the writing was clumsy and made serious scenes look more lighthearted. Also, some plotlines absolutely did not need to be repeated. Taner was incredibly unlucky being almost raped twice. Here, the writers completely lacked any sense or imagination and force-fed us attempted rape scenes of the same character multiple times, instead of coming up with something new.

Certain arcs had plot holes. At the very beginning, ML used boxing techniques in a fight making it look like he was a skilled fighter. Later on the boxing techniques were mysteriously forgotten and he had to ask the assassin lady to teach him martial arts. She gave him one lesson without actually teaching him any martial arts and the story ended there making the whole thing utterly pointless.

The romance plotline was a minor side story. ML and FL were cute together and had chemistry. But, if you are looking for a romantic melodrama full of passion and angst, this is not it.

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Too long

The drama would've been monumentally better if it was cut down to 40 episodes, 50 tops. When something was happening, it was interesting. The rest of the time, it was draggy and boring. There were too many scenes and conversations that should've been edited. Watching characters interact in a regular home environment was not interesting even if the drama was portraying a more realistic family life.

It took ML and FL 40 episodes to get married. Before that, he was off somewhere serving in the military with the story rarely focusing on him. Instead, it was just her dealing with family drama and her childhood crush on a day-to-day basis. After the wedding, the sisters mostly disappeared from the plot making me wonder why the writers gave them so much screen time. It would've been more interesting if the drama was more narrowly focused on ML and FL growing up and falling in love, instead of less relevant side characters.

Another thing that was frustrating was the fact that none of the villains were properly punished. The evil stepmom burned the house down and died in the fire. The evil aunt got stabbed trying to kill FL. The fourth sister just continued on with her miserable life after scheming against FL. There was no actual punishment that they truly deserved after all the evil crap they pulled.

Overall, this was a one time watch for me. If I had to do it again, I would skip about half of it.

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Mediocre

The drama couldn't decide whether it was a crime drama, a political drama, a mystery, or a romantic comedy. The writers threw everything into the plot turning it into an incoherent mess. Starting out as a romantic comedy, it quickly devolved into a very complicated mess of political intrigue, mystery, murder, conspiracy, and extremely boring romance. All the characters were uninteresting. ML would apologize to FL in every episode for withholding information and then doing it again. The love triangle between the crown prince, ML and FL was pointless and really really boring. The plotline with the underground alcohol distillery was not even the main story, the main story was political conspiracy.

The show would've been so much better if the writers just kept it simple, a romantic comedy with the inspector trying to uncover an illegal alcohol business during prohibition with FL being the ring leader. What a waste of potential that could've been a really fun drama.

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Fun show

This is not a historical drama. This is a drama set in a historical period while applying modern concepts of female empowerment, which will never work in ancient China. Take this drama for what it is - entertainment, not an accurate representation of history.

The acting and chemistry between the characters was great. The relationship between Yin Zheng and Li Wei was endearing, wholesome, and very cute. They were the whole package - mutual respect, understanding, devotion, and love. Yin Zheng was unspoiled and dutiful. Li Wei was optimistic and loving. Even the side characters were fun.

The only minus is that the drama did not really have a coherent plot. I guess the central idea was the relationship between ML and FL, except most of the story centered around female characters and sisterhood. At the beginning, ML and FL met and started liking each other. Then the story switched to female characters, making the romance kind of a side story. And, towards the end, the story switched back to the relationship between ML and FL. Some characters wholly disappeared after they reached a certain milestone. Song Wu was completely written off after she got marred, even though she was a constant semi-annoying presence at the beginning. The same was with the second prince after he was exiled. It seemed the writers were not too focused on the conflict. Nevertheless, the drama had a pretty good pacing, character development, and wholesome relationships. This is one of those rare stories were women do not undermine and betray each other for men and power, but instead, help and uplift each other.

If you are looking for a feel-good story without a deep plot, this is it.

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Mostly good

Honestly, the drama should have ended after 12 episodes, after Min Hwan and Soo Min got married. That seemed to be the logical conclusion to the main plot of revenge and second chances. Instead, we got new characters and convoluted plotlines for the next 4 episodes involving an evil ex-fience and greedy parents. Those elements were completely unnecessary and felt very forced just to stretch the story until the last episode.

The acting was mostly good. The villains were very convincing. But I was not so sure about Ji Hyuk. I liked Na In Woo in River Where the Moon Rises, but aloof characters just don't work. Even the most stiff-looking character needs a personality and he cannot fully hide emotions. Ji Hyuk was uninteresting most of the time and that affected his chemistry with Ji Won. The kissing was hot, but everything else in between was kind of bland.

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Weird plot development

In the middle of the drama, the writers decided to throw everything in, including the kitchen sink. Romance? Check. A hint of a love triangle? Check? Multiple side characters with multiple romance side stories? Check? Anti-fandom villains? Check. Parental abandonment? Check. Crazy obsessive fans? Check. Bromance? Check. A dead friend trauma? Check. I ended up skipping through most of the scenes because this was too much!

The first half was very light hearted, filled with silliness and comedy. ML and FL were figuring out their feelings for each other and then became a couple. There wasn't any real conflict outside of the romantic development. After that, the writers suddenly decided to introduce a conflict - the anti-fandom, the crazy rich lady, ML's estranged mother and his childhood trauma, the dead best friend. The only downside was that the writers forgot to actually develop the plot and make these storylines interesting.

I did like ML's and FL's relationship, the love and support she gave him, with no cliche tropes involving misunderstandings and silly love triangles. However, it was very one sided. She was always taking care and supporting him because he was the celebrity and the center of all the controversy. But, he didn't do anything for her. She had virtually no personality and purpose outside of her role as his PR manager. The writers should've developed her character separately from his with her own story to allow reciprocity in their relationship where he could be there for her equally as much during hard times and trauma.

I ended up skipping most of the scenes with the side characters because it felt like filler. They were not developed enough to be interesting and the show gave them too much screen time.

Another cringey thing was the characterization of women and how they responded to romantic situations. These were not high school girls, or even young adults. These were adult women well into their careers, and they spent too much time running away and screaming when faced with awkward romantic situations. A little bit of awkwardness is ok, but this was a totally immature and childish response from grown-ass adults.

Overall, the romance was very sweet and cute, but there were too many filler scenes with forgettable side characters and a convoluted plot. The kissing was hot!

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Fun!

So fun! This drama manages to cleverly mix comedy with an actual plot involving conspiracy, murder, and corruption.

All the good characters are likable. All the villains are deplorable. ML and FL have really good romantic chemistry and are so much fun together. I normally don't like love triangles, but I didn't mind this one because it didn't drag out the romantic tension too much and settled who was going to be the endgame couple relatively fast.

Even though the drama was short with only 12 episodes, the pacing was good and the story wrapped up nicely. The acting was awesome. Kim Young Dae and Park Ju Hyun are both really good actors and have amazing onscreen chemistry.

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Started out so well

The drama had a lot of positives: good acting, compelling plot, romantic chemistry, and a complete lack of cliche tropes which I really appreciated. But, convoluted plotlines really brought the quality down.

ML went through a very intense character development starting as a clumsy and goofy mountain man and graduating to a giga-Chad "God of War". Na Im Woo playing Dal really helped in developing the character. He is probably the biggest man I've ever seen in Asian drama, so it was completely fitting for him to play an unbreakable warrior. Writers did a great job at flushing out Dal's motivations for fighting. Being a pacifist, he stayed away from conflict. But falling in love gave him something to protect. Him calling Ga Jin his "country" was very meaningful and it showed that she was the center of his universe and everything he did he did for her.

While the drama had really good characterization and good romantic chemistry, the plot gradually became very convoluted with more plotlines than it could handle. The story started out as a political drama where ML helped FL fight political corruption and an uprising against her family. This should've been the only plot line because there was plenty of story to work with. Unfortunately, the plot got entangled with additional characters and storylines involving outside forces that had nothing to do with the main plot, the assassin's sect and another country, none of which had anything in common with the main story. The writers tried to tie it all together, but it wasn't really convincing. The assassin's motivation for revenge was the murder of his family. But the writers didn't develop the character enough for us to care. There was one flashback of his family dying and that's it. Other than that, he was just a plot device for the main characters to act and drive the main plot forward without getting any meaningful development of his own.

The writers also seemed to be confused about Dal's character direction. His personality went full circle back to pacifism because the writers unnecessarily created too much conflict that involved unnecessary fighting. Fighting was his own decision to protect the woman he loved, which was enough to resolve his internal conflict between staying peaceful and fighting for love. Some reviews here put the blame on the princess who fixated too much on the country's problems and disregarded Dal's feelings. I cannot agree with that. Ga Jin was the princess who had the weight of the world on her shoulders and a warrior trying to protect the country and her royal family against assassination attempts and a political revolt. She did not have the luxury to worry about feelings, even when it came to Dal. Dal just worried about Ga Jin and followed her. Creating an additional arc about his feelings and just have him leave went completely against everything he worked for. Ga Jin was his entire world. He lived for her. The way he was originally written, he would've never left her.

And then the ending... **SPOILERS**

Honestly, it would've been better if Dal died in battle. Even his "death" scene was underwhelming - getting randomly ambushed after the war ended and pretending to die by getting into suspended animation so he could disappear from civilization. Dal and Ga Jin could've just retires from war and lives a peaceful life. If the writers stuck to the original plot involving political intrigue, the show would've been so much more interesting. Moreover, the last few episodes introduced a completely new storyline which did not even fit into the original plot. I didn't want to drop the drama because I was so close to the end, but I couldn't wait for it to end.

Overall, I really loved the drama even with all of the unnecessary plotlines, but the ending just completely disappointed me.

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A decent medical drama with lukewarm romance

I liked the medical aspect of the drama involving figuring out difficult diagnoses and treating patients. It was also interesting how doctors resolved the moral dilemma between saving lives and ensuring the quality of care for terminally ill patients, and, the moral implications of voluntary euthanasia.

I didn't really care for FL and found her a bit boring. At the beginning, she had her own story and trauma, which made her interesting. Later on, her arc was forgotten and she just obsessed over Dr. Cha's diagnosis involving a lot of overacted crying on her part. This was a bit disappointing because trauma was what allowed FL and ML to form a bond. Overcoming their issues together would've been an interesting character and plot development. The romance was also a bit underwhelming. After FL confessed, the story was left at that as the plot centered around Dr. Cha's illness until the romance arc was nicely wrapped up at the end in a feel-good way. I do like happy endings.

I did like the resolution to the Dr. Cha's/prosecutor's/nurse's arc relating to the murder of their children and the resentment from Dr. Cha's mercy killing of the suspect. We had a very genuine apology, a heart-to-heart conversation, healing, and moving on. I also liked that Dr. Cha helped with the prosecutor's cancer which allowed them to actually become friends at the end. This story left me feelings really good and hopeful that even the worst of tragedies can be overcome with forgiveness, acceptance, and moving forward.

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