I...have some mixed feelings. I waffled between giving it a 9 or an 8.5 because when the show hits its highs, when it writes its likeable characters, it's fantastic. When the script drags or the writers spin themselves into a corner, I was so frustrated I couldn't fall asleep at night after watching it.

But I do think it's a show very much worth watching, and that a lot of the negative press it got was mostly because nothing could really follow up on the cultural landmark that was Zhen Huan. And to be fair, Mi Yue doesn't really do the best job of severing those comparisons--Sun Li aside, Hua Fei, Jin Xi, Jian Qiu, and even Meizhuang's actresses all appear at some point in the series. But Mi Yue's scope is also much wider than Zhen Huan, which is its strength--it is thinking beyond the inner palace to the Warring States era as a whole, and that's where it shines. We get to see Mi Yue handle affairs of state as the Queen Dowager after she ascends, which is one of the highlights of the show and see the difficult choice between love and the stability of her state and kingdom as it becomes clear she can't have both. This is one of the recurring themes of the drama--Mi Yue clings onto this idea of living an ordinary life and living for herself, even though her position and the position of the men she loves restrict them and keep them away from acting for themselves.

This is a Zheng Xiaolong drama--in terms of production value and casting, it's in a league of its own. The show spared no expense with the wedding scenes especially--the Mi sisters marrying into Qin is a ten minute sequence of pure aesthetic joy. Sun Li and Liu Tao are both great in their respective roles, and I am embarrassingly attached to Alex Fong's Qin Huiwen, who perfectly captures the character's uprightness, honor, and depth of feeling. Actually, Mi Yue and Qin Huiwen's relationship is shockingly romantic, and probably one of my favorite cdrama romances ever. Ma Su's Wei Furen was also great--she was the steady, plotting villain to the volatile and outburst-heavy Mi Shu. I also, along with everyone else in the comments section, adored Zhang Yi, who is the funniest and greatest side character in this show.

Now here are the bad things. There are two sections of the script I had the most problems with and are what, imo dragged down my enjoyment of what would otherwise be a fantastic show start to finish. If you've watched the drama, you probably know what I'm talking about. The aftermath of the killer bee incident and Mi Yue's later dealings with the Yiqu are...frustrating because it felt like the scriptwriters were truly backtracking the character development she had had at that point. Hold your nose and the drama will reward you, but I was definitely tearing my hair out a little. What the show also suffers in comparison to Zhen Huan is the relative intelligence of the villains--seriously, some of the people Mi Shu has on her side exemplify "don't be afraid of god like enemies, be afraid of pig like teammates".

Overall, Mi Yue is very much worth watching. It's one of those high production historicals that I've been missing from recent releases, I'm sad that the subtitle situation is so bad, because I really do think western audiences would enjoy it if it were more accessible.

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The series was at its best with the main couple and how their relationship grew, it felt authentic and enjoyable and I love the transformation of DFQC to wifeguy extraordinaire. Xiao Lanhua was annoying at the beginning, but post-mortal realm she had a lot more depth and even some pretty thought-provoking insights (I'm not even talking about post-Goddess, because vanilla XLH in the arc pre transformation's maturity and willingness to accept responsibility surprised me a lot). This is where I agree that the drama really makes you fall in love with her through DFQC's eyes. She grows on you, until her absence is very much felt. I really appreciate the themes of peace and breaking the cycle of revenge and the very blatant anti-war message. The drama conveyed these ideas very well and with weight. I think the only thing that would've made it better is if Yunzhong Jun actually...faced some kind of repercussions for being a warmongering bastard and just generally an extremely unkind being with the empathy level of a rock. But I suspect that would've been too much for the censorship standards, and well, George Bush never got repercussions for war crimes so I guess it's only realistic Yunzhong Jun doesn't either.

Plot wise everything with the Tai Sui stuff gets sillier and sillier until you're just like lollll at the end. Whatever intricacies Ronghao followed to not only resurrect Chidi but also fuck it up spectacularly are kind of muddled and run on shaky internal logic. I also thought Changheng overstayed his welcome sometimes, as did Jie Li. Danyin, Xun Feng and Shang Que are great; I'm glad Danyin got to be her own character, and I'm predictable but the family drama with Xun Feng and their father is the part that made me most emotional. It made me cry a couple times, which is the base line of an enjoyable cdrama imo.

Effects and production wise this unfortunately was kind of a reminder as to why I usually avoid Xianxia dramas. It has some great elements and characters, but that doesn't change the fact that I just don't tend to enjoy the stylistic and trope choices of the genre, and watching the fight scenes that consist of two guys pointing CGI laser beams at each other didn't really help. You can tell where they used up the budget and where they didn't, because the backdrops and main characters' costumes tend to look great, the animated opening is one of the most gorgeous things I've ever seen in a cdrama, and then you get to some of the gods' costume and crown pieces and it's like a piece of plastic. And yeah, I know it's not super fair to pick on a silly little drama for its visual effects, but I also wouldn't do it if xianxia dramas didn't rely so much on it. I would even accept poor effects if they were even a little more creative about it, instead of just having a stream of little light.

Overall a pretty okay way to pass the time, but wasn't the It drama for me like it was for so many others. Which is totally okay. Not its fault, I just prefer my dramas a little weightier.

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