Hime

Yeah. This drama has caused me to feel all kinds of things. I guess that was the writers plan from the start: to make us hate it but not be able to stop watching it cause it is addicting somehow. XD

I mean, it’s not a bad drama but I have watched several chinese dramas with a similar story, characters and pace so it I felt quite bored while watching it. But that does not mean you will feel the same way. You might like it a lot, especially if you have not watched that many dramas that are similar to this one.

Maybe skipping a lot did not help but I finished the drama already and I am still not sure of what happened with him. I honestly felt very confused with his story and I could not find the logic behind it. If you have finished watching and know what happened with him, can you explain it to me in a spoiler?

Why do most chinese dramas give so much screen time to supporting characters? I feel that the main leads did not get as much screen time as they should have. Also, the plot was all over the place. I am still not sure what I just watched, how things happened and who is who or why that person did that, so many questions in my head.

When I read the summary I was expecting something more organized and with more romance. I don’t know, I did not like it that much. I think the writers could have done a much better job.

When I first added this to my plan to watch list I thought it would be a modern romance with historical vibes because of the whole emperor/empress thing. I was expecting the revenge part but never imagined that this would be a makjang. Not only the tag but also the first few episodes really put me off. It was nothing like I expected and almost every character was making my stomach turn.

But later I found myself interested because of the female lead. (can’t say more or it would be a spoiler). And when I noticed I kept watching each episode and then the next and then kept going cause I wanted to know what was going to happen next even if the whole makjang thing was taking over the drama and I hated it. Now I have to wait for the last episodes to air so I can know how it ends, although I have a rough idea, but who knows, I might be surprised. Anyway, I should have waited for this to finish airing before I started it. At least, and if they keep the episode count to 48 (viki shows 52???), I should be able to find out how it ends in less than a week.

I would not say the ONLY decent people, there were probably other decent characters that had guest appearances LOL. But yeah, that was pretty much it. Probably one of the main reasons why I felt watching this was not worth it. There weren't enough decent human beings on screen for me to be able to ignore the trashy ones.

I will be honest here. I felt that watching this drama added legit nothing to my life or experience in kdrama watching. I was not able to emotionally connect to the the characters, in fact, only the male lead and a few supporting characters were decent human beings. Everyone else was one or more of the following: selfish, dumb, evil, irritating, greedy, ...

The romance was one of the least interesting I have seen and I have seen the main actors in other dramas so I don’t think the problem is them, maybe it’s the characters, but they felt dull, emotionless at times and I can’t say I saw the chemistry between the main leads, which should be a pretty obvious thing considering the plot.

At the end of the day, I watched it because I just wanted to get it over with but if I had not watched it I would have not missed anything.

No problem. ^^

This drama was a very nice experience. It had a little of several genres but they all matched well. It had cooking (obviously), history, romance, comedy, investigations, mistery, drama (not too much, which also made it free of frustrations), ...

Although I confess not all cases were to my liking and I did feel a little bored here and there, but it was still one of my favourite chinese historical dramas. I liked how food and cooking were a big part of it since I myself graduated from a cooking school and cooking is one of my main hobbies. The romance was there all the way but it was not rushed.

There were no characters that make you extremely frustrated like we see in most historical dramas (be it chinese, korean or from any other country) and the ending had what we so many times want to see at the end of a historical drama yet most of the time it does not happen.

So yeah, I was very pleased with this one. The long wait for it to be fully subbed (waited for about 2 years) was worth it.

Thank you, PP! You made it possible for us to enjoy this really good drama.

By the way, I forgot to warn you guys about something: NEVER, IN ANY SITUATION, WATCH THIS WHILE YOU ARE HUNGRY (especially if you have no food near you or if its too late to go cook something).

Some dramas are not meant to be taken seriously and its only purpose is to entertain viewers (go princess go is an example). But I did not think this one was entertaining enough for me to ignore how ridiculous it was. Also, without the second season subbed it is hard to judge it as a whole and I can only state my opinion considering the first 12 episodes which of course do not provide us with enough content or a proper ending. Even if the other episodes get subbed I probably will not bother watching them. I have no motivation to do it as I did with other dramas that were also not meant to take seriously but knew how to keep the viewers entertained.

Well, in case you have not read my other comment I requested for the Tragedy tag to be added. Why? I skipped a lot of things but from what I understood of the ending this is what happens:

- the male lead had to go back to this kind of weird modern looking capsule to sleep and heal or he would only have about 8 months to live;

- there is a fire and the said capsule gets destroyed;

- months go by and the male lead looks weaker and weaker until it’s their wedding day, he is sitting in a wheelchair looking more dead than alive, and he actually dies during the wedding leaving the female lead crying like a baby, then his body disappears and she seems to forget he even existed? (I think she remembers him later)

- many years go by, the female lead is now an old lady in her death bed, the male lead comes to visit (not sure his visit was even real or she was dreaming), kisses her and disappears and then she dies, or she dies and then he disappears (not sure).

Like I said, I skipped a lot of things because this drama was a disappointment for me, but one thing is for sure, no happy ending for the main leads.

How spoiled do you want it to be? Like telling the ending of the main leads?

Well, my first thought was honestly that this looked like a low-budget drama. For things that could have been easily filmed outside, like scenes on a roof, it was very noticeable that they were using a background screen. I know this is already common in many Chinese dramas, but this one was pretty bad at concealing it.

The actress playing the female lead also did not match the actor playing the male lead. It looked like a weird pairing and my guess is they chose her because they needed an actress that would actually be able to pull off a man’s character without being too obvious it is a woman dressing as a man. At least they were able to do that.

The story was promising and I can imagine several ways they could have used it to make a super interesting drama yet they did this with it and, at least for me, it did not work. I was able to stand the first few episodes and then I found myself skipping every scene that did not have the main leads.

The ending was not a surprise for me, but to be fair the Tragedy tag should be added up there (working on it) for those people like me who would probably stay away had they known how it was going to end.

Overall I felt I wasted my time watching this. It just had too many flaws for me to ignore them and the way a promising story turned out to be very boring and even frustrating made me feel like this was a disappointing drama.

I am sure someone else out there liked this (looking at the rating) and hope this does not have a rating of almost 8 just because the male lead is very good looking. XD

If you like food/cooking as much as me (I actually studied cooking for 3 years and it is one of my main hobbies) then you will think this drama is better than average BUT not amazing.

If for you food is simply a necessity and cooking is the way to make it tasty, then you will probably think this is an average drama, feel bored a lot of times while watching it and might even consider dropping it.

I think this could have definitely been better. The extension was not needed but I did not feel as bothered by the extra episodes as I have felt in other dramas that just seemed to get supper draggy in the last episodes. 12 episodes would actually be the right amount for this story and what added enough content for the extra episodes was the love triangle, which in my opinion would make the drama a lot better had it NOT been there. They could have just made the second male lead be her best friend without any romantic feelings between them and that would not only make the story more interesting and less painful but they would also be able to keep it shorter (the original 12 episodes).

I have to say other than the food/cooking and the romance, I also though this had plenty of funny moments. It was not a comedy but the female lead’s way of describing food after first tasting it and the weird/crazy manager provided many scenes that made me at least smirk.

The last episode was also pretty good. Did not feel as boring as I expected it to be (after all it was the last episode of a drama that was extended). Everything was wrapped up nicely and every character had it’s "ending".

I was quite surprised because I did not love it but I liked it a lot more than I thought I would so I gave it an 8. Does it deserve this rating? Maybe not but I gave it anyway just for the fact that I felt pretty entertained while watching it.

Again, liking food/cooking related stories a lot or not caring much about them can make it or break it for you. The concept of food/cooking is a HUGE part of the drama.

I really liked the first half but was quite disappointed with most of the last half. The first 8 episodes made me laugh, made me wonder what ridiculous situation would happen next and the romance although not as developed as in the second half, was still nice to watch.

The second half had moments I liked too but it was mostly drama, drama and drama and that made me feel overwhelmed. I did not mind the whole mysophobia thing being the center of the story, but I do agree that the story was missing something and that some elements that were shoved in the second half were not only unnecessary but also took the fun out of the drama.

In the end, a drama that could have been a 9, ended up being a 7.

Uff, I finished it, but I kinda had to force myself.

Let me tell you why this drama has such a low rating (especially considering the average rating for kdramas is much higher) and why there are so many negative comments. You might decide if it is worth your time or not after reading this.

So, what is wrong with this drama? Well, personally I would say it is the writing. The story feels like one you would watch in a 2010 kdrama (maybe even older). Now, don’t get me wrong. Some of the older dramas are way better than the new ones.

At the time everything was new, every character was either likeable or hateful, every twist and turn in the story was unexpected, every family drama was annoying but made the story even more rich, every romantic scene made girls all over the world scream.

This drama tried to be just that, except many years have passed and hundreds of other kdramas were made with similar stories and many characters were made with personalities that were copy-pasted from previous dramas, ...

So unlike the older dramas, the writing for this one looked really bad. It was nothing new, the characters were just hard to connect with and had personalities or traits that we all have seen many times, nothing was unexpected and everything was predictable, the family stuff was not only predictable but seemed quite ridiculous and the romantic scenes made many cringe (me included).

That, for me, was the main problem and where this drama fails. It tried to be something it could not be. It tried to recycle a bunch of things from older dramas and present them as if they were a completely new product. It did not work, at least not for people like me who have watched hundreds of kdramas and have been in this journey for several years.

If you are new to kdramas or dramas in general, go ahead, you might enjoy it since everything will seem new. But if you have been watching kdramas for a long time and are looking for an interesting plot that will keep you on the edge of your seat, characters that are refreshing to see and a romance that is either sweet or hot...yeah, I don’t think you will find it here.

I had this on my plan to watch list for a while and Zhao Zanilia is one of my favourite Chinese actresses but this had nowhere as much romance as I expected. After watching 12 episodes I saw romantic scenes but very few and some episodes had none at all. It was mostly business and some action moments in between, maybe even more than romantic ones. As I am not a business drama kind of person (find most of them quite boring if there are no elements to keep me interested, like comedy) and since the romance is secondary and the action is not that appealing to me, I just don’t think its worth going through 38 more episodes of this when 12 were already hard for me to watch.

This does not mean the drama is bad or the story is boring, you might like it. It just isn't my kind of drama and I am definitely not in the mood to force myself to watch it. I usually hate dropping dramas unless I hate them or think they are not worth my time, but this one is different. Just not my cup of tea.

The raws are available for anyone to watch on dailymotion in one of the alwaysmeena playlists. Now it would be awesome if someone showed up willing to sub it.

At first I was surprised, I did not have high expectations but it turned out it was pretty interesting. Then as I watched and around episode 9-10 I started to feel like the story would be wrapped up soon since everything was pretty much solved or at least obvious enough so they could get it done without the ending looking rushed. But the truth is this is 15 episodes long and each episode is almost as long as a movie so I felt like I had to force myself a little through the last episodes just so I could finish it even tho I already knew everything that would happen next. I would say that was the only issue I had. The mistery was probably the main reason for me to like this so once I had figured out things it was not as much fun to watch. They should have either kept it shorter or not revealed as much as they did so many episodes (which means several hours) before the ending.