Okay Royal Court Drama! (Surprisingly)
“The King’s Woman” was actually one of my very first c-dramas. I watched this drama without the same criticism that I have today. However, I remember this drama as one with a good cast, including Dilraba (one of my favourite actresses) and Vin Zhang, who I thought played the role of the emperor quite well. The story… could be better, but I think this is still a decent historical drama based on the royal court/family. If I were to watch this drama again, I don’t think it would be all that interesting, because I never really rewatch dramas, to be honest. Overall, I give this piece a 6.5.Esta resenha foi útil para você?
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Is is a bird? Is it a plane? No, ITS A TOXIC ALERT!!
Although it was intended as the main storyline of this series, personally I wouldn't watch this drama for 2 main reasons:1. The toxic relationship between the male and female lead
2. The amount of 🤦 moments in the drama that kinda make you go huh?
Unfortunate to say, but I did finish this series only because I was hoping for it to pick itself up at the end but it didn't so it was relatively disappointing.
The utter tyrrany, manipulation, obsession, corruption and toxicity radiating from this series is just not healthy and it's definitely hard to preservere through the drama knowing that it's there in every episode.
Overall, I wouldn't recommend the drama if you're looking for a healthy and lovable one although, if this is your kind of trope, by all means, it's possible one of the best ones in that category.
Happy Binging!!
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Mission Impossible
I picked this one up because I quite like Vin Zhang as an actor - he has a certain intensity that in the right role could be quite powerful. I was quite excited to see he him cast as the male lead and as the first emperor of China Qin Shi Huang no less! I also (rightly) suspected that Dilraba Dilmurat would pair up quite nicely with him as the female lead Gong Sun Li.After getting about halfway through this, I realized that the good chemistry between the leads just really wasn't good enough to hold up the challenging story-line that doomed this drama from the start. The lovely Dilraba/Sun Li had the misfortune to catch the eye of the tyrannical Qin emperor. Being all powerful, he tears her from the arms of her childhood love Jing Ke and makes her his concubine. He keeps her by his side by adopting their child and holding him hostage. Despite all of this, we are supposed to be moved by his persistent and not always tender efforts to win her heart. As the Qin emperor, Zhang was mercurial, suspicious, petty and jealous - often coming across like a petulant rejected teenage suitor. Despite his personal intensity, Zhang was not able to round out these lesser qualities with the requisite gravitas of such a powerful emperor. Don't get me wrong, I still think Zhang is a promising actor but the character that he plays is not an innately likable one.
Switching to Dilraba, she also had her work cut out for her - how to betray her love and eventually succumb to such a petty tyrant and not alienate the audience? To make it more palatable, they cast some completely vapid, limp noodle of an actor to play Jing Ke, supposedly the love of Sun Li's life and the father of her child. Needless to say, there was even less chemistry between Jing Ke and Sun Li so we didn't even get a good and convincing triangle. A jealous misunderstanding set him down the path of falling for someone else with the heartbroken encouragement of Sun Li. All I could think was wow, this girl has bad taste in men and they (Sun Li and Jing Ke) were really not that into each other. The rest of the cast was rather insipid and didn't really resonate. There was some silly assassination sub plot that Jing Ke is likely in on (yes kill the tyrant that stole your wife and child) but I didn't get far enough to see it play out. Don't think I am missing anything.
And finally of course there was the requisite palace harem cliche of beautiful women doing their absolute worst to each other - oh yes of course they picked on Sun Li. I can usually tolerate some of it but in this case it was just the last straw. In hindsight, I should have known better than to spend time on this and I have much sympathy for the leads. To begin with, the plot is a super challenging one in which none of the lead characters can possibly come off in a good way. It didn't help that the script writing and character development was shallow and completely not up to the formidable task of making wife snatching romantic. In this regard however, my irritation is squarely aimed at the scriptwriters and not the actors. Their job was literally mission impossible. Instead of self destructing, hopefully they both (and I) make better script choices going forward.
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Mediocre Acting for a Tragic Drama
Summary: just watch the first few episodes bec of its original lines . This is not a romantic lovely story. More tragedy really.Pro:
- good casts but could be better
- many original plot . Watch till about 11th episode and enjoy.
Cons
- chemistry is just plain. The main actress is really cute and sweet but she lacks the toughness and can’t act on the most painful crying scenes. I wanna cry because she can’t cry well esp the last episode.
If you compare her with the actress in Princess Agents, you’ll get the feel why she’s not so great in this story. She doesn’t exude that tough persona. She’s great with the Pillow Book & ten miles of peach blossom kind of story. She’s not appropriate for tragedy
- the chemistry between main characters are so-so. Even with the rival is so-so.
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Watch It for the Aesthetics
The King’s Woman (Chinese title: 秦时丽人明月心) was one of my favorite dramas to rewatch back when it first aired in 2017, if only for the actors and the costumes.Set in the Warring States period of China, the drama follows Gongsun Li, a fictional concubine of the King of Qin State, and her contributions to eventual historical events. After identifying her as the girl who saved him from certain death when they were children, Ying Zheng falls in love with Gongsun Li and poisons her childhood sweetheart, Jing Ke, in order to entrap and secure her for his harem. Gongsun Li slowly develops feelings for Ying Zheng even as she defies and tries to stave off the worst of his tyrannical nature. The King’s Woman is a story about Stockholm syndrome, manipulation, abuse, and, eventually, heartbreak. I think it’s one worth watching, but it’s not without some major flaws…
A+ Cinnamon Tography and Aesthetics
Let’s start with some positives. This drama looks amazing. The production designer, art director, the costume department, etc. went all out. I’d not seen a Chinese period drama with better costumes and set designs since The Empress of China. I love everything every character in this series wore. The clothes are mind-blowing and well worth watching forty-eight episodes for.
What’s more, this is one of the best directed Chinese dramas I’ve seen so far. There are no weird camera angles, no amateur special effects, and very little awkward choreography to take you out of the story. Every action and effect was framed perfectly. The remarkable cinematography was a breath of fresh air back in 2017.
Stockholm Syndrome Passing as Romance
Dilraba Dilmurat and Vin Zhang’s insane chemistry aside…You really have to go into The King’s Woman ready to buy into the romanticism of the whole situation between Gongsun Li and Ying Zheng because the moment you pull back and look at it from a more sobering perspective, the magic ceases to work.
This drama goes out of its way to depict pre-Qin Shi Huang Ying Zheng as a tragic figure who’s simultaneously the cause of his own misfortunes and a victim of his personal faults. You can see at the beginning that even in his cruelty, he has good intentions. But on some level, he doesn’t understand what that means or why people are so resistant to his good will. He was a child of abuse who, consciously and not, revisits his own pain on others a thousandfold.
What’s interesting is the way the narrative sides with him. As he thinks of himself as a victim, so does the drama cast him as such. It feels like we’re supposed to be in Gongsun Li’s shoes, seeing him through her eyes. This, of course, makes their relationship easier to swallow, even though we all know better. (The fact that Vin Zhang is handsome AF helps a lot too.)
Nevertheless, I felt very uneasy about the moments of tenderness, playfulness, and affection between Gongsun Li and Ying Zheng, especially given how resistant she is to him from the start. I mean, did she really forget how he threatened to abort her child, separated her baby from her right after childbirth, and tried to kill her martial brothers?
One moment later in the drama got to me particularly. In episodes 40/41, Ying Zheng goes on a killing spree of all his childhood tormentors, and instead of being horrified by this senseless mass murdering, Gongsun Li coddles and comforts him because he is… sad? After he killed a whole neighborhood of people? Like, boohoo, honey, he’s sad? The people he killed are dead! How the hell is that remotely acceptable to her?
She clearly knows what kind of a person he was, but the mental gymnastics she does to make excuses for him is frustrating.
Lastly, I think this whole trope of a male love interest falling in love with the female lead because she was nice to him for like five minutes when they were children is so trite. However, given that Ying Zheng’s a mega-creep whose relationship with Gongsun Li predicates on her developing Stockholm syndrome, it kind of works here.
One-Note Characters
Honestly, I wasn’t as resistant to Gongsun Li and Ying Zheng’s relationship as I could’ve been. The drama did a lot of work brushing aside all the troubling bits. Compounded with this following flaw, rooting for the main couple was a no-brainer: Jing Ke sucks. No, not as a person. As a character. For all that he has to work with—the martial arts talent, a handsome actor, a tragic love lost, a destiny unfulfilled—he comes off incredibly one-noted. He’s straight up uninteresting, which is just about the worst thing a main character can be.
This isn’t unique to him, unfortunately. Most of the characters in The King’s Woman have very little personalities to speak of. Instead, they’re relegated to playing cookie cutter roles that each serves one or two functions in the plot. I feel like the only developed character, aside from Ying Zheng and Gongsun Li, is Lu Buwei, who’s the only one with a personal agenda complicated and interesting enough. Sadly, he’s criminally unexplored and underutilized as a villain.
Plot and Pacing Issues
This drama is very slow. I found myself wishing I could watch it on 2x speed without ruining everything else about the experience. Instead I resorted to “skimming” i.e. skipping seconds at a time and only watching in full what felt like crucial scenes in an effort to make the story move along faster. To tell the truth, I did not missed much. This is definitely a drama you can stream in the background as you do other things.
There are also a number of minor Dumb Plot moments I picked up. For instance, there’s a scene in episode 5 where Gongsun Li stabs a soldier through the hand for five full seconds before his subordinates even react. Like, they did not move or flinch until she begins to flee. It’s stupidly convenient. Another example: In episode 27, the Crown Prince of Yan sends Gongsun Li a secret message asking her to smuggle him out of Qin State. But while he does the smart thing and communicates it via a code, he also “helpfully” circled his entire hidden message for her in red ink. What do I even say?
Other Nitpicks and Questions
- Why does Chengjiao wear his hair in the Chu style? Was he a political hostage of Chu State?
- That Godfather reference in episode 1 is hilarious and so out of place
- Ying Zheng’s eyebrows are impeccable (Not nitpicking, I just appreciate his eyebrows)
- Couldn’t Gongsun Li have avoided the whole ordeal had she just done her hair a different way after her wanted poster came out?
- Why does she keep getting stabbed in the armpits?
Final Rating and Recommendations
The King’s Woman as a story isn’t executed to its fullest potentials. While I wouldn’t be as harsh as to describe the dialogue, plot, and characters as bland, they felt muted and secondary to the non-story elements of the production: the costumes, the set designs, the general aesthetic. There are Wuxia, harem, politics, and war plot threads in this drama, none of which are done well. The “romance” is riddled with problems.
On the other hand, the cinematography and camera work are incredible. The crew went all out for the set designs and costumes, which are easily some of the best work I’ve seen for Asian period dramas, and kept me coming back to this series over and over again. Not to mention, I can stare at Dilraba Dilmurat and Vin Zhang all day, and I’m sure I’m not alone; there are worse ways to pass time than watching two of the most beautiful people in the world together on screen, mediocre storytelling or not.
My Rating: 6/10
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(Spoiler) If you have watched Haolan BEFORE watching this...like I did... you will be instantly mad and confused. So I never do long reviews because I simply cannot describe in full flair what is going on, but I can tell you this: every single one of these episodes could have easily been 30 minutes long, that being said...this is a flashback drama. Storyline gets to going real good...then poof back in time.
The female lead finally has a role where she is not acting like a timid joke (mind you this is my opinion and I prefer a stronger woman instead of Juanita Sausage-Head), and the male lead is strong as expected...funny thing is in the (spoiler) love trio one would think that baby daddy would have more of an aggressive feel and look considering history's telling of this man. My insignificant opinion, the Eldest Han Shan should have had the Jing Ke role and vice versa...dude needs some man weight on him.
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+1 Videography/Cinematography: was absolutely amazing. Probably one of the only reasons why I kept watching this drama was because it was greatly done. The visuals were amazing.
+1 Music: It didn't catch me at first but wow, towards the end the music really gets to you
+1 Value of Friendship, Peace and Kindness: The female lead did a great job holding a strong character that stood up for her values of friendship and kindness and pursuit of peace. However, it's what got her in trouble and what made me upset at the same time.
+1 Complex Relationships: The main two leads had a complex relationship. I'm not sure if I liked it or not. All I can say is, they both have trust issues. At different points I had feelings of contempt for both of them.
+1 Action: Action was better than most I've seen in dramas. The swordsmanship and fighting kind of got redundant for me because so many fighters kept showing up and some of the same fights kept happening over and over again so I skimmed through those parts knowing that the action was already good. It was the storyline that needed to hurry up.
+1 Clothing Line: I was a bit disappointed in the female leads clothing set but I knew it showcased her value of modesty and simplicity. However, two particular I enjoyed seeing clothes in was the first male lead (King) and the Han Shen.
+1 Tragedy: I enjoy tragic genres in general
-1 Story dragged like most dramas do. I'm glad it wasn't a 50+ drama. Hallelujah Amen!
-1 I felt uneasy about the female lead the second male leads relationship (her senior, not the king). I guess I'm just never comfortable with the idea of a person who walks into another relationship while still in love with another person. On top of that, I personally wanted her to only be in love with one person.
-1 Redundant political schemes as always.
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I was hesitant to watch this drama because I knew beforehand about the ending, but gladly I did watch it for my love to Bin Bin and Raba, really despite the ending, don’t regret at all watching this series and gonna be among my all time favorite dramas. If I did not know that this drama based on historical facts, I would rate it 8/10 only because I wished the King trusted Li Er , but after knowing its truly that he didn’t trust anyone, did not appoint queen and he was the one who united China, So gonna rate it 9.5/10. The acting was brilliant by Bin Bin, the clothes and styles of The king and Li Er are incredible and probably the best ever I have yet to see! I watched countless Historical chinese & Korean dramas, but love this one so much because it’s unique & will be hardly to be forgotten! It’s almost a straightforward, not complicated plot yet magical & super addicting!
I don’t know why but truly this drama has a magic that Keeps me under its spell & makes it hard for me to move on ! I spent sleepless nights watching this series over 3 days !
Bin Bin & Raba are the most gorgeous Asian couple of 2017 & hands down ??
Love also the BGM & OSTs..
I would recommend watching this drama for any fans of the leads, historical dramas or Asian dramas. It was a wonderful journey.
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If you're a fan of this genre and are immune or enjoy endings that are meant to piss you off, this is the one.
If you are new to this kinda stuff, don't feel guilty ff through second lead jerk-face's scenes. You'll still get the idea of what's going on Ff bith hs scenes and what I call "The bad people plotting/doing/discussing the bad things'. I swear the second leads story arc despite the head-scratching simple conflict of the OTP, is the weakest and somewhat unnecessary part of the show.
I found it evtertaing until a certain point, then I just wanted to know how it ended, which as you either know or will find , a lot of stuff is given in the open/ending credits.
I wouldn't watch it again and would only recommend to the male lead's an without reservations. He did look good in this.
Other than this, I wouldn't recommend this drama to those new to historical Chinese shows, under any circumstance.
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