This was the drama that made me fall into the hole of China romance dramas.
- Age: 15+, high school and up
- Romance: tame
- Genre: supernatural, fantasy romance
- Episodes: 31x45min (24 episodes)
- Actors: 景甜 (Jing Tian), 張彬彬 (Zhang Bin Bin),
- Wiki: Chinese, English
- Released: March 2021
- Where to Watch: iQiyi
TLDR for Friends
If you are willing to watch fantasy sci fi romance, the drama has a really good premise, plus love across time and centuries is always a good draw. Needs a bit better execution but I stayed for the beautiful qipao and scenery. There are two endings and some people say you can just skip ep 30 (ending #1) and go to ep 31.
Plot and Quick Review
Rattan drew me because of its interesting premise. A rattan（司藤） becomes human (成精）due to a meteor rock, falls in love, splits into 2 because one wants to be human and the other doesn’t. One of them gets killed in the 1930s, the other 1940s.
In modern day, the male lead (張彬彬) revives her. The drama is split into two major plot lines. The first is fighting another plant-turned-human evil character, and the second is reviving her evil twin and fighting the big bad.
Sorry I don’t write the best enticing plot summary. I don’t usually watch sci-fi fantasy but I was on a hunt for famous 2021 dramas that were popular (高流量）and this came up.
And I stayed for the qipao 旗袍. The female lead (景甜) has like 20+ qipao costumes in the whole drama, going from the original period ones to more modern interpretations and they’re all super beautiful.
Let me show you some of them. If you want to see them all, you can check out this bilibili video.
Okay okay, another reason I stayed was that I went in with no idea what the plot was, and the plot was so unpredictable that it kept me watching. I seriously had no idea where it was going and it kept going in a direction I wasn’t used to, compared with Korean dramas.
That said, the drama wasn’t perfect. There are many convenient plots, weird scene changes, undeveloped characters, unexplainable character insertion. It got worse and worse as the drama progressed. Basically the writing didn’t flow. But the directing was beautiful and the acting was good enough.
Supposedly the drama was such low budget that the director played a an important side character. They spent all their money on location shoot and the beautiful costumes I guess.
After you watch the drama, you’d want to go to Yunan 雲南！ The whole drama was also full of these beautiful Chinese buildings or interior design.
I loved his lush viney backyard too. Made me want a garden like that!
I guess I’m not selling this drama here. It was actually an unexpected hit because of the romance. You can’t beat a drama where the guy loves you no matter what, even if he’s bound by some magic. Plus the leads had good chemistry.
What Parents Need to Know
Let’s see, is there anything else you should for if you’re watching with kids. It’s a 大女主 story, meaning the female character is the strong main lead. The male lead serves her on his hands and feet by a convenient plot device. And the draw of the romance is of course how much he serves her.
But the romance is a bit pat by Western standards. I put the age at 15+ because it was kind of gory in the first few episodes and I wouldn’t show it to Astroboy. And the romance and problems are more adult based.
The drama had quite a bit of violent elements that aren’t suitable for younger children: fight scenes between factions, people getting gored, etc.
Chinese Aspect or Things to Talk to Kids About?
Not much to talk about. But if you love the period costume, one can go all out studying 旗袍 qipao and its various styles! While you’re at it, look up Yunnan 雲南 and Shangri-La.
There is a very strong modern old Chinese design element to many scenes. For example, the FL is constantly writing calligraphy.
Let me end with more pics of her qipao!
