The story starts with our FL played by JJY climbing a tree to get a kite stuck in a tree for her younger brother and slips and falls. While passed out she dreams about an impending doom that would bring misfortune to her and her family. To see how she can save her father from this, Fu Rong disguises herself as a fortune teller and sets up shop in front of the place she’s scouting. Here is where she meets our ML. Our ML played by Zhang Zhe Han, is the 4th prince Xu Jin/Prince Su.

For anyone who has watched The Legend of Yunxi, this indeed started off hitting the right spots. With most of the original cast brought back for this drama along with our main lead, you can’t help but get butterflies at the slightest interaction as old feelings rush back. In the first few episodes, for lack of better analogy, I once described it as “your favorite band getting together for a reunion concert”. The nostalgia, the excitement.. those were the feelings this drama brought.
The writing itself was teasing fans of The Legend of Yunxi by hiding little hints in the dialogue or certain scenes. Like the fireflies scene that Fu Rong and Xu Jin wake up to on the beach is a throwback to how Long Fei loved to see those. Or when Prince Su told Fu Rong ‘having a son would elevate her status” was a reference to what Yun Xi said to Long Fei. Little hidden Easter eggs like this were an absolute delight to fans of The Legend of Yunxi.

If Legend of Yunxi was on the serious side of the spectrum TBORP would be on the lighter version. Even when you can’t help compare the two you can’t help seeing the difference either. I have found myself grinning more watching this. The main couples interactions has initially been light, fun and cute. Prince Su was not shy about his feelings and was quite forward. His failed attempt to maintain his stern looking face when she tickles him or does something to make him smile added to his charm. It is undeniable that JJY and Zhang Zhe Han work really well on screen. They know how to work off of each other’s emotions and actions, that you can easily see it comes off natural. I adore how good these two look that if they were to be cast in another drama, I’d be the first in line to watch it.

I have often said, a good side couple can help increase the charm of a drama. Thankfully this is true in this one. The love story that revolved around Kiki Xu’s character Fu Xuan and Wang You Shou’s Wu Bai Qi has been captivating to say the least. Kiki played the reserved but smart elder sister of our FL. It would be a crime not to mention Wang You Shuo’s absolute glow up. His look, combined with the actors portrayal of the slightly damages but arrogant general topped with a husky voice has made this character one of the sexiest characters in recent memory. The couple seemed to be made for each other as our calm and reserved Fu Xuan has balanced Wu Bai Qi’s impulsive and somewhat volatile nature while Wu Bai Qi’s more carefree personality has helped Fu Xuan come out of her comfort zone. Like how she was the reason for Wu Bai Qi to clean up his act, while he was the reason why Fu Xuan tried her first alcohol drink. The undeniable chemistry between the couple, the organic growth of their relationship has made this couple more interesting than our leads.

Of course this drama has its share of problems. From weird cuts, disjointed scenes, half explored half dropped plots. Our FL’s (Fu Rong’s) choice of wardrobe and hairstyle also was unfortunate. With her petite frame, and the ribbons stuck to her hair she looked like a child instead of a girl of marriage age. The make up baked on her beautiful face, with an orange eye shadow that made her look sickly, a very bright red lipstick and the overall outfit ended up making a naturally beautiful woman look tacky.  But these were not issues we all were going to linger on, a charming story with leads that give off great chemistry can make you forgive slight problems since most of us were only looking for a light entertaining drama.

But what ultimately failed this drama is a truly poor writing. If the first half of the drama was written to invoke nostalgia then the latter half was written with the intention to cure us of it. One dull plot followed another, with little to no character growth or development for most of our leads. Plots that were initially put forward as important like the prophetic dream were left as an after thought and more time was spent on an absolutely unnecessary jewelry making corruption ones.

One of the biggest shortcomings of this drama would be the villain. I don’t know how, but the writer along with actors portrayal have managed to manifest the most pathetic of villains to waddle around for 40 episodes. The villain caught a whiff of a “who could it be” and ran with it. He fixated on one person as the source of all he lost and immediately started planning his “I’ll make them all pay” plan without taking a breathe to investigate if his hypothesis was true or not. This pathetically reasoned quest for revenge was compounded with his absolute obsession to protect and own his childhood friend. The writing for this villain was so weak I was hoping that he was a minor player and someone more formidable would come into picture down the road. However even to the end this villain has stayed consistent in being mediocre. I guess its a befitting end to a villain who embarked on his journey for the most pathetic of reasons to end in the most pathetic way.

My least favorite character next to the pathetic villain would be our supposed FL. If the problem with this character was limited to unnatural makeup and ill fitting outfits, that would have been good. However, this one has earned the right to sit among the most weakly written, useless female leads. She has made so many idiotic choices, jumped to so many conclusion, I was hoping that the ML would just give up on her and walk away. She laments on how she is not free, or how she’s wronged and yet as a married woman she has run countless times into another man’s house without giving a single thought as to how it would make her husband feel.
The writing made a big deal to have our leads reiterate how much they don’t want to hide anything from each other and they should trust each other and yet the first one to suspect Xu Jin would be our dear Fu Rong. Literally everyone close to him trust him unconditionally except the wife he married despite his parent’s objections. If her elder sister was a case for “one should marry for love” than Fu Rong would be a great advocate for arranged marriages. The more I saw her the more irritated I become by her hypocrisy. The only thing this woman managed to do is make the spoilt Princess love rival look like a better choice. Personally even if it wasn’t the Princess any other sensible girl other than Fu Rong would do.

I understand we all have our own version of a happy ending, mine would have been if Prince Su had turned back and left Fu Rong in the dust behind.


If my rating was based on the nostalgia it would be an 8.5. If it based on the latter part of the drama it would be a 6. So I’ll average it and give it a 7.5