PeachBlossomGoddess

Fu Tingyun seemed to have it all—she is the lovely, educated, highborn ninth lady of the Huaiying Fu family of four chastity arcs fame. In order to arrest their decline, the Fu family plans to match her with the rising Yu family of Yongning. Thus even the flowers at the Fu mansion seem to bloom in winter, and the snow dares not melt to dirty her embroidered shoes. But all the fake flowers and powder snow cannot mask the rot and false hypocrisy of the Fu family. Tingyun finds herself betrayed and cruelly cast aside at what should have been her moment of glory. With the help of Zhao Ling, a brave and ambitious young salt smuggler, she escapes and they reinvent themselves. They make a pact to work together to clear her name, reclaim her place in society, and ascend to the highest levels of official power.

The Road to Splendor is a sweeping critique of feudal society, seen through the harrowing ascent of an ambitious power couple through the treacherous Ming court and high society. On the surface, the narrative lays bare how suffocating and restrictive patriarchal society was for women, yet behind the scenes, evidently it was the women who really ruled the world. It is a plot- and character-heavy story steeped in the kind of realism that casual audiences looking for fairytales or light entertainment may not enjoy. Even though they did bad things, characters like Madame Zuo and Fan Yake (surprisingly) were products of their time and societal restrictions. I didn't approve of them, but I still pitied them. I found Madame Zuo to be the best-acted role in the drama. I am also a huge fan of Wen Zhongren and her Madame Yu is probably the best-written character in this story. That gave her a lot to work with and yet I didn't find her performance to be that differentiated from or on another level over her many other complex and superbly portrayed roles.

This is the first time I have watched Ding Yuxi and Deng Enxi. While neither blew me away, I thought they both delivered respectable performances. I won't lie—I did not enjoy Ding Yuxi's excessive posing, especially in the first half of the drama. He looked like he was auditioning for Batman Returns with the flamboyant sweep of his cape, his enigmatic tilted-head angle, and his silent, watchful glare. For a drama that takes itself so seriously in terms of production values and cinematography, such obvious idol fan service feels out of place. But he is a charismatic actor who does a noticeably better job in the later arcs, conveying an isolated, brooding Zhao Ling who suffers in silence.

As for Deng Enxi, her screen presence is not the strongest, and she bored me in the beginning. I also found her voice actor's over-assertive tone did not match her more demure and nuanced facial expressions. While I think she did a terrific job conveying a noble, educated, and imperious young lady and the character's aloof coldness, she failed to make her likeable. In the later arcs, she seemed angry all the time and wore a cold expression and perpetual frown that made me pity poor Zhao Ling. It is true the plot didn't give her that much to work with, but the actress also never convinced me she was in love. She looked at Zhao Ling like he irritated her—not like she adored him. Maybe that's a very young actor's inexperience showing, but either way, the romance never landed for me.

I did not mind that Zhao Ling and Tingyun's relationship is far from perfect—they had real personality clashes and conflicts that unfortunately never get fully resolved. I found their relationship journey a bit frustrating because they were often not aligned and seemed to be working toward different endgames. Their romantic journey, if you can even call it that, gave me frostbite instead of diabetes. I often wondered whether the real power struggle was between them and the Yus, or between Tingyun and the emperor over who was the master of Zhao Ling's fate. The love story was like watching Zhao Ling on the road to the Cold Palace. Luckily, I was not watching for the romance, and there was enough plot in the early arcs to keep me entertained and highly engaged.

What I enjoyed most about this story were the salt reform arcs and the mausoleum plot arcs. The rich history was so well researched and brought to life in such a vivid way that I was hooked. In both arcs, both the villains and the protagonists were smart, and their victories and defeats were well earned. Unfortunately, the subsequent subplots flirted with melodrama and were less logically constructed, forcing heavy losses on the leads. I don't mind when the villains get the upper hand because they were smarter, but after the mausoleum arc, it felt like they only won because supporting characters were dumb and greedy. After a low point around Episode 32, where I was bracing for dog's blood melodrama, the plot managed to recover and finish on solid footing. The ending was a mixed bag—the main villains got off way too easily, but some side characters I had already written off managed to surprise me in a good way. And while this is for sure an unpopular opinion, I personally would have set Zhao Ling free.

I was drawn to this drama because it was a story about someone who is a nobody, an outsider. Unfortunately it turned out that was how he was treated from start to finish. So while the rich historical detail and high production values engaged me during watching, the script lacks humor, the ending was only barely satisfactory and there is no part of it that I will rewatch. Thus my rating is 8.0/10.