... that a single man in possession of a good plan, must give it up for a woman. *

As many others, I was fooled by the trailer and entered this with more than a few expectations. The material they had was original, intriguing, dark and thought-provoking, so how they managed to turn it into this mushy botch is beyond me.

First letdown: the tone. Episode one introduces the killing of dozens of concubines, the cold poisoning of a consort, a handsome eunuch who has clearly been the object of repeated and unwanted attentions of an older and greedy woman, ministers corruption and a good for nothing prospective emperor. The heroine is saved from a tragic fate and from then on we suddenly get a comedy that is laughable instead of being funny. The leads have both gone through hell? I want to see it on screen, and feel it! I don’t want to laugh two minutes after a poor kid is killed, or shallowly gloss over the main lead’s sense of guilt.

Second: the characters. We have a young eunuch who’s spent the last 6 years “carefully” planning revenge on his dead brother. The quotation marks are a must, because nothing of this plan is shown to the viewer: we know it because it is written in the synopsis. How he gained so much power at court is left to our imagination. He's known to be cold and unforgiving, but again, we're told rather than shown. Xiao Duo is given no real background outside the drama summary.
A narrative device? You wish! It takes a solid and nuanced script to make the viewer understand a character outside the few lines he’s given. It would have been if the character had behaved consistently with the premises, but as soon as the heroine enters the scene, Xiao Duo turns into a schmaltzy sentimental lamb and by the middle of the show the cunning revenge planner is still nowhere to be seen. Instead, we have him reading Mills & Boons, daydreaming of kites and butterflies, getting jealous over a paper lamp and generally making doe eyes at the female lead for no better reason than her being the female lead. Worst of all, he is already smitten in love by episode… 4? The revenge plan? Pft, who cares when we can have romance?

Meanwhile, Bu Yinlou (pronounced Boo In Law) is a supposedly clever woman whose mission in life is, by her own admission, be free to do nothing but lay around and play cards. Wow, I’m impressed. She’s witty all right, so much so that she turns every conversation into an attempt at cracking a joke. Her quick thinking is emoted on screen by her eyes constantly roaming around the room, moving south north east and west without ever resting anywhere, so that we intelligent viewers are made to understand that she is indeed quick thinking. She basically is an improviser, who nevertheless relies a little too much and too often on Xiao Duo’s connection and power to make her improvisation a really admirable or endearing trait.

The only character who possesses some substance and a narrative arc is the emperor, whose transformation from an innocuous court pariah to an insane tyrant is as believable as it is disquieting. The fact that he sits on the throne thanks to Xiao Duo’s cunning plan (?) would be ironic, if this script knew the meaning of irony.

Third: the chemistry. Oh, I’m fully aware of the hatred I’m going to get. Not that I care. As I said, the drama very quickly became a rom-com. If it has to be so, than I want comedy – but I’ve already said I didn’t even smile – and I want romance: intense, passionate, dreamy romance. Instead, because he falls in love for no good reason and her attitude towards him fluctuates from teasing to… well…. quick thinking how to be free to do nothing, their chemistry was that of two friends, or two siblings strolling around eating or stripping trees in bloom. The idea of them making out was kind of embarrassing to me. Awkward, even. Probably I should thank the crazy editors or the incomprehensible censure for cutting many intimate scenes. Their dialogues are totally devoid of subtlety and for the most part as shallow as a mud pool.
Also, the characters’ age. She’s older and it shows. This is normally no problem at all for me, but the script takes an inane amount of devices to let us believe that she’s younger! She calls that prince who looks like a 16-year-old “senior” and he insists she’s his “junior”. If it looks like a noona romance, why not sell it as such? Xiao Duo is called “godfather” by his clearly older eunuch attendant. Now, why would the translators come up with such a term? Did Xiao Duo hold his attendant’s head while this last was, ehm, baptized? Insert shudder. Did they go to the mattresses in the past? Another shudder.

And finally, we come to the execution of this plot. Tons of cuts, flashbacks of scenes we never saw before, unfunny jokes, a music – the music! I think I’ve heard that gling gling gingle before in an episode of Super Mario Bros – that announced the nth shift of tone every single time I thought and hoped we could linger on a serious matter, a gazillion convenient scenes with people talking with their minds or falling into tumultuous water only to wake up side by side on the river bank dry cleaned and ironed, with – oh, see, a hut! A wooden boat that darts on the water at the speed of a power cruiser, Xiao Duo suddenly fighting like Rurouni Kenshin and flying around in wuxia style, Yinlou still rolling her eyes around or faking a bravado with no apparent reason. This show is to good drama writing what McDonalds is to fine dining.

I couldn’t. Really. And I tried, for the sake of Wang He Di – who, let’s be honest, is the reason why we were and are all on this page. But a smouldering hot guy can’t stop a train from derailing; in fact, he didn’t. I honestly think he wasn’t that convinced by this character either. And while I found his costumes and make-up to glamorize his appearance for the most parts, sometimes he looked a little too much like a Jean Paul Gaultier’s mannequin – see his voile night gown for a reference. Here is hope he chooses better projects in the future, dramas or films where he can shine for his talent rather than his looks.

I know reviews should be written after watching the entire thing, but there’s only so much my neurons could take. But then again, many of the 10s are also given looooong before the drama is over.


*My apology to Jane Austen for quoting her in such a context. No comparison was ever intended.