In between Untamed and the current spate of super good dramas, I watched this one. But I skipped a few episodes and hopped onto the end.
- Age: 18+
- Romance: 撩
- Genre: historical, fantasy romance
- Episodes: 24x45min (18 episodes)
- Actors: 趙露思 (Zhao Lu Si), 丁禹兮 (Ryan Ding)
- Wiki: Chinese, English
- Released: May 2020
- Where to Watch: WeTV
TLDR for Friends
A pretty good drama with some issues. The setup is funny, pretty unconventional and you can’t predict where things are going. But I kinda got bored by the end and skipped last 3-4 episodes and just watched the ending. Honestly the writing was definitely not quite there, even if the leads weren’t bad in their acting.
Also, I love all the red she wears, but I do not get the buns head.
Plot and Quick Review
The female lead, 趙露思 (Zhao Lu Si), is a script writer who stumbles into the historical drama she wrote. Except in the drama, she gets killed by the male lead, 丁禹兮 (Ryan Ding), by the 3rd episode. So she has to use her writing skill to change her own script. She has to stay alive till she goes back to her own world.
In her script, the world has two city-states, one is matriarchal (Huahuan City), where women are at higher social status than men, and the other patriarchal (Xuanhu City). She marries the prince (Ryan Ding) of the Xuanhu City and escapes being killed by him. Of course they eventually fall in love.
This story was a hit because the ML is so 深情. He falls in love and stands by FL’s sides even when she isn’t nice. So there’s apparently a name for the type of romance drama where the male lead totally spoils and serves the female lead. It’s called 甜寵劇.
Behold, evidence of sweet. ML (being of a prince from a patriarchal society) willingly washing her feet.
But the plot was…..very splotchy, as in things happen that make no logical sense other than to push the story along, and scenes jump or characters do things without proper set up. So I kept watching because the overall story was interesting and funny and the leads had good CP feel, but it kind of lacked something in execution.
While the setup of matriarchal vs patriarchal society is totally worth a discussion with the kids, the drama is totally saccharine, plus a few other issues. So I’m on the fence about watching it with the kids….
What Parents Need to Know
Characters can be mean and people die by swords.
As I mentioned, this is a 甜寵劇 and the drama is totally saccharine with tons of flirting and interesting kissing setups, way more than most tame historical dramas. I mean, technically this is more fantasy historical so they don’t have to follow those propriety rules as much. 很撩!
I think there is maybe one forced kissing scene, one scene where the ML is tricked into eating some “Spanish fly” type of aphrodisiac and is locked into a room with the FL, and one attempted assault scene though he comes to his senses when she starts crying.
Hmm…I guess this drama isn’t very PG.
Chinese Aspect or Things to Talk to Kids About?
In the drama within a drama, Huahuan City is ruled by women. The women are the rulers and generals, parents want to have girls, and it is the men doing the hard menial labor and entertainers.
There was a scene toward the end where 趙露思 (Zhao Lu Si) tries to explain to the people of Xuanhu City about women’s rights and the men looking awfully confused and affronted.
However, as 趙露思 (Zhao Lu Si) comes to understand through her journey in her own script, her two worlds are of the most extreme and neither world is better than the other. She spoke of her realization near the end, that it is better if both sexes respect each other.
Oh! And there was a 彩蛋 egg (is that what it is?) in her script story where she meets her mother-in-law, who turns out to be 花木蘭 Mulan. Mulan explains how she went to war on behalf of her father but “retired” afterward to raise her kids and take care of her family and her reasons why.
In my teens and 20s, I would have been indignant. But now, I felt like there was so much unsaid in that simple scene. All of these scenes are very good jump off for discussion.
