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Sugar Crown

not a damsel - only in distress

Sugar Crown

not a damsel - only in distress
The Princess and the Werewolf chinese drama review
Completed
The Princess and the Werewolf
1 people found this review helpful
by Sugar Crown
Aug 9, 2023
30 of 30 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 7.0
Story 7.0
Acting/Cast 8.5
Music 8.0
Rewatch Value 6.0
This review may contain spoilers

"Warm On A Cold Night" meets "Royal Rumors" and adds fantasy to the mix

This is more of a rant/after thought upon finishing the drama than a review. Please don’t read it if you really want to watch it.

But first let me get the good things out of the way:
- the intro OST is very fitting, down to the lyrics.
- ML is a good actor with facial (especially eyes) expressions that bring the character to life
- The initial set up is different from other dramas
- No parents are interfering or seen for more than 1 episode (this is always is a plus for me)
- FL is pretty independent, thanks to her parents (although she is clumsy once she enters the beast palace/ is taken hostage)
- The references to S1 were funny although they were few (like english words or the statue)
- No love triangle or people saying Leads can’t be together
- The first few episodes were a lot of fun

Now to the rant:
Drawing direct ties to my feelings when I watched "Royal Rumors" earlier this year… I kept waiting for "IT“ to happen but that never came.
Both dramas had enough of a unique set up / character dynamic for the drama to be exciting. However both dramas had low budget and nothing ended up happening. Most of the interesting stuff happens in the first few episodes and then the characters stay at the same location for the rest of the drama.

It’s unpredictable in the worst way - because non of the things that I thought might happen happened and although it did all romance to-do‘s, I thought there would be more to the plot given the beginning of the drama and the overall set up. The romance was good, especially near the ending. But I didn’t quite catch the moment where they fell in love. Especially on his side. It kinda just happened.

Like so many asian dramas that include werewolves, vampires, etc in romance dramas, it’s a let down.
I love asian dramas and think they’re superior to American TV but when it comes to Werewolves & Vampires American TV is just miles ahead.

There were some funny moments and scenarios that I wish they had explored more but from the target audience and set up, I didn’t expect them to go down that route anyway.
If it was higher budget then it could have been able to pull of comedy like "The Starry Love".

In the case of "The Princess and The Werewolf" I had expected there would be much more back and forth between the beast realm and daxia (also thought they’d be the villains) but was disappointed when the princess is basically stuck in the beast palace the entire time. She goes back one time for no more than one episode and we don’t see anything about Daxia.
Quite disappointing when you think that this is season two of "Go Princess Go", which only had daxia(and the modern world)and it was a quite funny place.

Another drama that did this - but the other way around was "Warm on a Cold Night", where they never went to the wolf tribe, despite that looking like a exciting place. They only stayed in the human city. So in a way these dramas have quite a few similarities but switched.

Kui Mulang - is like that old vine "on all levels, except physical, I am a wolf“… because that boy looks like a dark elf or mage but most definitely not like a wolf.

I Understand they had a low budget but why give a werewolf elf ears??
Just call him a dark elf at this point- the wolf in "Warm on a cold night“ didnt do much wolf-ing either but he was much more convincing, since he transformed into a wolf once and generally had more wolf-human features than Kui Mulang.
On top of that he hides his "wolf“ appearance from the beast tribe because they‘d call him a monster. -It’s the beast tribe.
Aren’t they supposed to look like beasts?!
What they going around acting shocked when they see a "beast"?
I mean for god’s sake there is a farting(!) butterfly (tbh i find that funny tho).
Plot hole is all I can say to that.
Because ofc there needs to be struggle for the ML, otherwise how would we feel empathetic towards him?

The male lead actor is good, I like his facial expressions (specifically his eyes) Convinced he can pull off all sorts of romantic roles at this point… whether that’s modern, fantasy or historical.
Female actress was okay, although I was very frustrated with the character she played at certain points. Random thing I noticed: Did she get veneers/dentals without fixing her overbite first or does she just have super prominent upper teeth?

The villains in this drama are unnecessary and worst of all - uninteresting. They just kinda appear and start doing their secret plotting. And once we get to the end it’s way too easy for them to take over the situation. Honestly this just felt lazy… but also very on point with it being low budget.

I did my fair share amount of complaining and ranting but I did complete it and if I had hated it or found it very boring I would have dropped it. So ultimately- yes it’s watchable but it’s quite silly.
Best enjoyed if you turn off your brain.
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