This is a solid 10
I'm writing this review at 5am because I just finished binge watching the express drop of the final 5 episodes. What a corker of a drama, I have been watching the episodes as soon as they came out without skipping one bit and then rewatching them straight away as soon as I finished them.Cheng Lei's acting prowess has blown my mind, he's been going from comedy gold to deep inward contemplation to terrifying flashes of madness to pure selfless love to turning his heart to stone, all of it seamlessly. Act, he can. He is acting royalty, no less. Wang Churan is an absolute pleasure to watch, her acting being right on point with that of Cheng Lei. The chemistry between those two is stratospheric, they really drag you into their relationship.
The story is a great adaptation of a great novel, very well written, perfectly paced, interesting, entertaining, with superb support characters that grow along with the plot and a disturbing villain you can see slowly losing his marbles. The evil empress dowager deserves a shout out for a magnificent performance, and Mr Bei is one of the most likeable and masterly played characters I've come across lately.
I love the cinematography, lighting and direction. The sheer imagination of those impossibly beautiful costumes deserve their own top rating. The OST blends beautifully at exactly the right time. This is definitely a top quality, high budget production, and it shows. Recommended? Absolutely yes, rewatch value is 10.
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Most absurd script I've seen
This is probably the most nonsensical. badly stitched together story I've come across in a big while. I really tried to watch it, but there is only so much absurdity I can endure. Seriously dislikable characters, wooden acting from the ML, a mess of a story that comes across as being made up as the filming went along. Zero stars from me.Was this review helpful to you?
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Teenage angst badly done
I dropped this half way through ep 19, can't take any more of this nonsense.It's basically a bunch of teenage pretentious posers playing tough guys, the adults not being any more mature than them. The romance is so cliche it's actually cringe.
The plot is almost non-existent, it just repeats the same situations:
His father alternatively decides to keep him in his room, then let him go, then ground him again, his changes of mind being of course left unexplained.
Bad kids kidnap the FL, ML goes to rescue her and gets beaten up. 10 eps later, what happens? Yes, same thing, same gang kidnap her again, ML goes to rescue her again and gets beaten and stabbed again. At no point does it occur to him to call the police before heading off to get beaten up.
The amount of incredibly irritating details is unbearable:
FL just does the compulsory screaming and crying scene before she decides to call an ambulance.
He wakes up in hospital after being stabbed in his chest. First thing he does is asking her to help him remove his respirator, she immediately complies without a second thought to the fact that this should be a doctor's decision. He actually states there is no need to call a doctor, he knows better.
FL is shouting at ML from behind some bushes. He cannot find her by simply following her voice like any other mammal in the planet, instead he runs around in all directions except the right one.
The ML as one facial expression: broody. So does the FL: dreamy.
To top it all, the ML hairdo is so puffed up it looks like a middle aged western woman.
This is teenage angst really badly done. In fact, it only needs a little push to make it into a parody of it.
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