spicyeggroll
This review may contain spoilers
Female lead that I ended up falling out of love with...
I initially liked the first 2 ep as it featured a cold and cliche general, funny and outgoing female lead, and lovable side characters (there's side couples EVERYWHERE. At least 4 by the point I dropped the series). I love the romance-centric theme of General's Lady and how the leads fall in love quickly and have great screen time together. BUT. It got a bit boring for me so I decided to read recaps of the rest of the episodes - lol.
Satisfying/sweet ending, but I don't think it was worth it to watch the last 10 or so episodes (especially since I was watching it in 2x speed).
PROS
❀ Sweetly/sickingly romantic | Like I said, there are side couples everywhere lol, and the main couple gets together pretty quickly. (The FL confesses in the first couple of episodes and the ML follows after another couple of episodes. Out of 30 episodes, they are officially a couple with reciprocating feelings in the first 10 episodes.) I liked this deeply romantic plot and how their love was emphasized throughout the story. BUT. At what cost?? (More on that in the CONS section)
❀ Pretty set and outfits | The visuals were aesthetically pleasing.
❀ Satisfying face-slapping | As the drama takes place a bit in the FL's family home, there are some cunning concubines/sisters she has to deal with. I loveee reading about family feuds and seeing the FL overcome abusive households, which happens in this drama. BUT I also feel like the abusers were let off a bit too nicely.
CONS
✕ The trade-off between romance and misunderstandings... | Okay, the thing about the romance is that you have obstacles to overcome romantic conflict, right? There's way too many for me in this drama to continue watching. Most of the conflicts arise from miscommunication/misunderstandings, and after reading recaps of the next episodes I saw it continued down the line. No thank you from this watcher.
✕ Wasn't feeling the 2 leads | I already wrote off the ML in the beginning because he literally has no personality, lol, other than being a military general and loving his wife, but I was super disappointed in the FL. The actress herself was hilarious and, imo, did the role well (she wasn't annoying in the beginning despite her antics), but I got tired of those machinations after 10+ episodes. She's not the brightest bulb, but she's also not dumb. She's just... there. In the beginning, she was quick-witted despite not having many skills and straightforward. As the pair fall in love, she starts scheming behind her husband's back (very inconsequential but also annoying things) and basically not contributing to anything. The bulk of the face-slapping with her own family was initiated by the ML (her plan with the new concubine was a small redemption). She just gave off very classic shoujo anime main character energy. The ML's character is hard to work with already, but the actor's stone-cold face didn't help. His lack of emotions was almost comical, and this stayed true to the end (as I ended up skipping to see the last episode). I mean yeah, he smiled sometimes, but I kinda need more than a couple of smiles to make me like the character... lol. He definitely becomes a devoted general husband, don't get me wrong, but his face didn't match his actions.
✕ Misunderstanding level: 7/10 | There weren't big misunderstandings in the grand scheme of the couple's love but it's still present. Even though the misunderstandings were about small things they were cringey and I had to skip through them. Chinese dramas really love to make use of the "innocuous yet grating for the sake of angst" situation, and this one was no different.
OVERALL
In essence, I had high expectations for General's Lady after the comical first couple of episodes, paired with my favorite tropes. (Tropes being: cold ML/heartwarming FL, FL gets married off to 'demonic' general instead of another girl (Beauty and the Beast energy), FL comes from mean family (Cinderella energy), etc.) BUT I should have known better, because along with those tropes came 2010 drama energy, where the girl is 80% of the time in need of getting saved, and the romantic plotline obliterates most of the characters' common sense. Which is fine! But hun, this was aired in 2020 and at this point of my life I'm ready for better romcoms than what we've had for the past 10 years.
(Note: My rewatch value is set to 5.0 always as a default as I'm not the type to rewatch dramas EVER. Thus, I do not take it into account when calculating overall score.)
Satisfying/sweet ending, but I don't think it was worth it to watch the last 10 or so episodes (especially since I was watching it in 2x speed).
PROS
❀ Sweetly/sickingly romantic | Like I said, there are side couples everywhere lol, and the main couple gets together pretty quickly. (The FL confesses in the first couple of episodes and the ML follows after another couple of episodes. Out of 30 episodes, they are officially a couple with reciprocating feelings in the first 10 episodes.) I liked this deeply romantic plot and how their love was emphasized throughout the story. BUT. At what cost?? (More on that in the CONS section)
❀ Pretty set and outfits | The visuals were aesthetically pleasing.
❀ Satisfying face-slapping | As the drama takes place a bit in the FL's family home, there are some cunning concubines/sisters she has to deal with. I loveee reading about family feuds and seeing the FL overcome abusive households, which happens in this drama. BUT I also feel like the abusers were let off a bit too nicely.
CONS
✕ The trade-off between romance and misunderstandings... | Okay, the thing about the romance is that you have obstacles to overcome romantic conflict, right? There's way too many for me in this drama to continue watching. Most of the conflicts arise from miscommunication/misunderstandings, and after reading recaps of the next episodes I saw it continued down the line. No thank you from this watcher.
✕ Wasn't feeling the 2 leads | I already wrote off the ML in the beginning because he literally has no personality, lol, other than being a military general and loving his wife, but I was super disappointed in the FL. The actress herself was hilarious and, imo, did the role well (she wasn't annoying in the beginning despite her antics), but I got tired of those machinations after 10+ episodes. She's not the brightest bulb, but she's also not dumb. She's just... there. In the beginning, she was quick-witted despite not having many skills and straightforward. As the pair fall in love, she starts scheming behind her husband's back (very inconsequential but also annoying things) and basically not contributing to anything. The bulk of the face-slapping with her own family was initiated by the ML (her plan with the new concubine was a small redemption). She just gave off very classic shoujo anime main character energy. The ML's character is hard to work with already, but the actor's stone-cold face didn't help. His lack of emotions was almost comical, and this stayed true to the end (as I ended up skipping to see the last episode). I mean yeah, he smiled sometimes, but I kinda need more than a couple of smiles to make me like the character... lol. He definitely becomes a devoted general husband, don't get me wrong, but his face didn't match his actions.
✕ Misunderstanding level: 7/10 | There weren't big misunderstandings in the grand scheme of the couple's love but it's still present. Even though the misunderstandings were about small things they were cringey and I had to skip through them. Chinese dramas really love to make use of the "innocuous yet grating for the sake of angst" situation, and this one was no different.
OVERALL
In essence, I had high expectations for General's Lady after the comical first couple of episodes, paired with my favorite tropes. (Tropes being: cold ML/heartwarming FL, FL gets married off to 'demonic' general instead of another girl (Beauty and the Beast energy), FL comes from mean family (Cinderella energy), etc.) BUT I should have known better, because along with those tropes came 2010 drama energy, where the girl is 80% of the time in need of getting saved, and the romantic plotline obliterates most of the characters' common sense. Which is fine! But hun, this was aired in 2020 and at this point of my life I'm ready for better romcoms than what we've had for the past 10 years.
(Note: My rewatch value is set to 5.0 always as a default as I'm not the type to rewatch dramas EVER. Thus, I do not take it into account when calculating overall score.)
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