OMG Lily. HELLO! I love you, and this is my just short fangirling letter to you. While I know it is fun to debate dramas with different viewpoints, I feel your train of thoughts is at a high calibre compared to mine. You've essentially said almost everything I've been fuming to put into words the last few days having finished this drama. I felt alot of rage for this drama, and I went into it with high expectations. It is hilarious to me that we both saw XW attempting to follow in the footsteps of MCS from Nirvana. I am going to come back tonight after I finish all my work to write more, because I think in seeing your posts, it helps me organize some of mine, since I've been jotting notes about what enraged me. LOL. Just wanna send a hug and hello first to say thank you for sharing your thoughts.
I'm not as outraged as you are. :D LOL. But I am brimming with curiosity about your opinions and I look forward to hearing them here. I'm not sure about "high calibre" thoughts but I feel obliged to try to give reasons for why somethings just don't work for me at least.
I don't know much about the novel and I've heard that the show made major changes to it but as I always say, an adaptation should be able to stand on its own merits.
Nov 28, 2023·edited Nov 29, 2023Liked by 40somethingahjumma
Hi Lily! (I didn't know there was a word limit to the comments so I'll be splitting up my thoughts to fit the formatting. I learned something new!) I put off writing this because I was nervous it would come out messy, but then I knew I had to get my thoughts out even though it’s 1am my time.
I finished the drama about 2 days ago with my two friends, and I sat through like the last 4 episodes fast forwarding because I was so frustrated. Or raging as I was telling you. This was my most anticipated drama for 2023, and sadly, it was disappointing for me. Yes, the drama isn’t a masterpiece, but gosh, it had so much potential. I saw the ratings recently and viewed the discussion board on My Drama List, and it actually shocks me how high people are rating this. I absolutely know I am in the minority in not finding this drama great, and perhaps even if I wrote a review, it’ll be flamed.
The first parts of the drama was done well enough that I was quite immersed. I lumbered through the latter parts, especially the last 6 episodes because we had a watch party at my friend’s house. When you mentioned having to suspend a certain amount of disbelief, same same! I feel this part will be a jumble of a mess of thoughts. I have a lot of issues with the drama, so I’ll do my best to get through to them in hopes that I’ve covered them all.
First of all, for Xuening who has all the knowledge essentially of the first lifetime, she was quite reactive…The way she handled the information she had was quite lack-luster, because I felt she couldn’t really do much and had to rely on Xie Wei. Yes, the drama tried to tell us how some fates can’t be changed, but it was quite inconsistent. People previously died in the first timeline, also died here, such as Zhang Zhe’s mom, Zhou Yin Zhi (the Xingwu guard double agent), and Fangyin. The princess died in the first lifeline, but in the second one, she didn’t so the drama bent the rules when it felt like it and remained inconsistent. Speaking of death, I’ll add a short note, Fangyin’s death was about the dumbest way for a supporting character to go out that I have seen in a Chinese drama.
I thought the drama was supposed to be centered around Xuening as well, but as we delved deeper, it seemed to be a set up for Xie Wei’s story. I had told my friend as we delved deeper into the drama, that Xie Wei is the substandard, messy version of Mei Changsu as a strategist. I adore Zhang Ling He, and I think he can definitely play the villain/gray characters, but in here, towards the later parts of the drama when he came on screen, I was quite annoyed and at times, livid. At the moment, the only time I appreciated him on screen was when he was teaching the princess and her study partners, and telling them how women were already oppressed as it was. That was about the only forward-thinking moment I remember of Xie Wei. Anything else, like making Xuening study the qin at his place, his demands, and just the way he was when he was around her later, was such a turn off for me with how volatile he was.
This segues right into the problem of the romance. I can’t remember a moment in the drama when XN and XW were on screen together, that it made me gush or fangirl about how romantic or sweet anything was. Like you, I was in the camp of XL in LOST YOU FOREVER, based on the novel and it seems, the drama too, but I think it had to do with all you could see in XL’s actions and the justification. In STORY OF KUNNING PALACE, I felt nothing with XW and XN. On XW’s part, the excuse is how he grew up/his backstory and trauma. I couldn’t get behind this. Perhaps this is where one has to suspend their disbelief but I struggled with how whatever illness XW had that was being portrayed. People said it was dementia, but I felt it the drama could have angled it towards PTSD. Otherwise, the rest of the time, I was wondering about split personality disorder, or schizophrenia. Each time XW was filmed, he was mostly crouched or bent over…but at one point, he was strong enough to carry XN when she was whipped. Again, the inconsistency. They should have taken the pages from NIRVANA IN FIRE if they want to show a character who is ill. I laughed whenever they showed XW dropping his golden pills, or the guards and others feeding us endless information of how sad and tragic XW had it, and that he’s really a good person underneath all this, and that XW should not get angry, should not think, etc. because it was bad for his health and there was no cure for his illness. Well, buddy, you chose the wrong profession being a strategist, and being human. (In contrast, NIF did this so well with Mei Changsu and his illness. It was consistent). But wait! There is a cure, right? The power of love seemed to heal all of this by the end of the drama. Which I still don’t understand how XW fell for her XN and vice-versa. This left me scratching my head, because I also even wondered if XW had traveled back in time as well…but I might have fast-forwarded this and could have miss a key point. Based on the discussion forum too, XW had given a knife to XN to protect herself, but she misunderstood in the previous lifetime and used that to kill herself instead. If that’s the case of how he did love her in the first timeline and wanted her to protect herself, that was poorly portrayed in the drama for the second timeline, because it left us really confused. XW practically did not exist to XN in the first lifeline. Maybe the story should have been a redo of her romance with Zhang Zhe instead. (ready for the pitchforks to come at me). But going back to XW, I really didn’t care for him the second part of the drama. He just went Hyde most of the time without reason. I consider him toxic, and I think you had mentioned seeing that thrown around. I feel he never respects XN’s wishes and constantly orders her around. Then man-handles her several times, and forces himself onto her, while several times, holding her throat, ready to choke her. People probably find it cute that he can’t control his emotions around her, but to me, he’s just volatile with the hot and cold. Like she brings out the worst in him. The drama missed such a great opportunity to give him character growth. To me, he could have grown to be a better person, calmer and at ease in her presence, and to be a better person. I questioned when it was that Xuening even fell for XW. Throughout the drama, I felt she just kind of settled being with him because he was relentless. And I hated the message in a way that she chose to be with someone who was more powerful and could save her…Because she couldn’t seem to do much on her own and needed to rely on XW. In another drama/story, XW would be the cunning, calculative, manipulative villain who was obsessed with the female lead and would not take no for an answer. He would be hated in another story.
Nov 28, 2023·edited Nov 29, 2023Liked by 40somethingahjumma
Zhang Zhe was definitely my favorite character here, and they did him and his story dirty. I was waiting the whole time to see how this great love XN and ZZ had in the previous lifeline that she sacrificed her life to ask for his to be saved. Then when we got to see ZZ appear, the romance with Xuening in the 2nd timeline was over before it could even begin. At the beginning of the drama, ZZ felt like an elusive unicorn that we didn’t get to meet until much later in the drama. Then we watched as XN tried getting close to him, and then that sizzled out real fast with such a pathetic excuse. The way she gave up on this love seemed out of character without a real fight. ZZ would be the hero though in another story and drama. He has a wonderful back story that I feel could truly be made into a drama. Imagine, a poor, young man who had to study and work extra hard to take the exam to become an official. Then he lost his first love to some obsessive, volatile strategist (LOL). He does everything to try to do right in the world but continues to grow despite the challenges he faces in court, such as knowing how to read the room and when to pull back and save the chess pieces in his sleeves. This upright, loyal, official from humble background rising through the ranks to uphold justice without compromising his identity. Zhang Zhe to me feels like Allen Ren’s Zhou Sheng Chen from ONE AND ONLY while Zhang Ling He’s Xie Wei felt like Liu Zi Xing (played by Wang Xing Yue) in ONE AND ONLY. Hey the drama had a noble guy the female lead (also Bai Lu, HA) loved, and then there was the other manipulative one who was obsessed with her. Wait, I went back to read your post, and oh goodness, trueee about Zhang Zhe being Bao Zheng. I actually don’t know much of Di Renjie, so I’ll be googling this in a bit. I guess the drama kept the endgame the way they did based off the novel, but I still find the endgame hard to believe. I just don’t feel it.
This drama does seem to want to follow in Nirvana’s steps, but failed miserably. We have the strategist, and the young emperor in her reminds me of their attempt at being like the paranoid, and useless emperor from Nirvana who listened to the wrong people. I felt pity for the emperor in KUNNING at the beginning, but the moment he said to Xue Shu that as his cousin, she was never close to him, to him being well enough to sleep with Xue Shu …gross. And the audacity later on for the emperor to tell his brother that he married Xue Shu for his brother’s sake and to placate the court was utterly disgusting and low.
“The show repeatedly tells you who you must root for — who are the good guys and who are the baddies. And who should be together. It’s moralizing directed mainly at the impressionable.” I agree. Because of this, I felt the drama insulted their audience, or maybe not, since so many people love it so much.
I loved reading your comparisons to Sam, Frodo, and Mei Changsu. Makes me question if I should have tried watching LOST YOU FOREVER, even though I knew my ship was doomed from the start.
The showdown between Duke Xue and XW did not have any emotional punch for me either. The drama never really gave us, well me, enough reason to believe in this complex relationship between the father and son. Maybe that wasn’t their intention? Maybe their intention was that Duke Xue married just for wealth but had someone else he loved (the 2nd wife who is the mother of Xue Shu and Xue Ye)?
I can’t see this as the Disney version of rescuing Frodo or Mei Changsu. :D I think it’s just because it feels like such an insult to those characters, though I completely understand what you mean when you break it down, especially in it being a fanfiction. Our poor Zhang Zhe. I feel so much for this character. He deserves to be a hero in another drama. Some scriptwriter should write a fanfic about him now and then make it into a drama!
Thank you for such a wonderful and fun essay from you, Lily. It’s always a treat for me to read posts where we watch the same shows. I don’t get to watch a whole lot of dramas so I try to be wise of what I select. And I feel grateful when our paths cross in watching the same ones. I am sure we’ll continue discussing this for a bit, but I do plan to watch JOURNEY TO LOVE and hope you’ll be too down the line.
Yes, yes. I'm definitely watching Journey to Love. Big wuxia fan here. And I'm fond of Liu Shishi and Fang Yilun. I don't know how much I can blog about it because I'll be travelling soon. But before I do, I'll definitely have things to say.
Lots of thoughts here to respond to. It's weird to me that in this drama I'm not inclined to root for the antihero the way I did in Lost You Forever. I like Xie Wei enough as a strategist and Ning'er's teacher. There his domineering behaviour actually made sense and he wanted her to rise to the occasion. The qin lessons as a running gag was fine for me. As her teacher the tyrannical side of him worked well for me. But that transition from teacher to lover... not so much. I don't think he ever moved from being her teacher mentally -- at least not that I could see. He was always testing her like he did as a teacher so brought that same mindset into their "romance". Maybe it's because I'm a teacher that I find this a bit "ick" and the boundaries never really shifted for me. I detest Japanese manga stories about teachers having relationships with students.
Zhang Zhe isn't Tushan Jing at all so I probably shouldn't feel too guilty about rooting for Xiang Liu in the other drama. Zhang Zhe is a man of principles, a bit rigid but he's also a man of action. He's not wishy washy at all. It took the show 10 episodes to bring him in and just hearing about him is not the same as showing him as a morally upright, principled man who is adept at solving crimes. Sure there are a few scenes here and there showing him doing detecting but not enough. I would rather have less of Xue Shu and more of him. In another show he would be like Prince An in The Imperial Coroner. I want to know why she fell so hard for him and he fell so hard for her that he would betray his own principles. I was disappointed too that he was not fencing off more with Xie Wei.
I wish I had said this before rather in the comment section but it's a bit of an afterthought. There is something tyrannical about Xie Wei. And I use that word deliberately. His need to exert control over everything single thing is always there. It's a great quality as a strategist but as a husband it could easily become something else. Zhang Zhe on the other hand represents an old-fashioned nobility, respect and individual liberty. I have wondered if the contrast isn't deliberate and that a C drama is perhaps suggesting that it is better to be under tyranny and enjoy what protection it offers rather than to live in the uncertainties of liberty.
I don't know what the implied meaning of this is. But I wonder if there are political overtones.
That's why I say this show is a soap opera more than a serious palace drama. There was no complex relationship with Duke Xue because they weren't even remotely on friendly terms. If they had been and then things went awry -- that would have more interesting.
Di Renjie was a famous Tang dynasty judge and later statesman who was around during the time of Empress Wu. He apparently did his bit to keep her on the straight and narrow. There are a series of really good murder mystery novels written by a Dutch diplomat Robert van Gulik based on his character. The series is called Judge Dee.
There have also been different C dramas revolved around his character. Ren Jialun has been in one of them.
Mark Chao has played Di Renjie in a series of movies by Tsui Hark with Lin Gengxin.
Xie Wei definitely didn't have dementia. It's more like PTSD.
But like a lot of C dramas, this show doesn't really deal with mental health issues in any coherent, consistent fashion. The show glossed over his issues in that they were all solved because he found the right woman. I don't know what the novel did but I can tell you that having been around people with mental health issues in the last decade, they don't get cured just because they marry a nice person. In fact marriage and children can exacerbate the problems further. I hate to get all hung up on this because this is somebody's fanfic but it is somewhat irresponsible especially if young people are watching this to think that romance is some kind of panacea to past hurts. It could be if dealt with properly but it's not a guarantee.
I honestly didn't find it all funny that he tripped his son and kicked the little boy at the end because he mentioned Zhang Zhe in a preferential manner.
"In another drama/story, XW would be the cunning, calculative, manipulative villain who was obsessed with the female lead and would not take no for an answer. He would be hated in another story."
I have a feeling the showrunners know this too which might explain why they had to sideline Zhang Zhe as much as they did.
Sorry it took me some time to get back to you again, but I was really excited to read your comments. WOOHOO that you’re going to watch JOURNEY TO LOVE. I adore Liu Shishi as well, and my first time really admiring her was in BU BU JING XIN. Also, ohhh, where are you traveling to? I hope it’s a fun trip with the family. Safe and healthy travels!
I don’t think it was really weird that we didn’t root for the antihero in SOKP. I didn’t like Xie Wei as much as a strategist, but I think it’s because I kept holding him to Mei Changsu’s standards. I liked him more as a forward thinking teacher, and I agree, a tyranny works here. Like you, because I too am in the field of education, that I found the romance ick too. There has to be a build up usually for me to believe it and be okay with it, like Yang Guo and Xiaolongnu from RETURN OF THE CONDOR HEROES. I think that was like the only one time I can remember to date feeling that was okay. Otherwise, anytime there is a drama that has romance between a teacher and student, I just run the opposite way. (Does this mean there’s lots of Japanese manga stories that have this teacher/student romance trope? Because eww.)
The scenes where they showed Zhang Zhe solving cases were not enough. The drama didn’t spend enough time to build this great character that XN so greatly loved in her previous life, so I totally agree with you. In fact, a good chunk of the time when he was solving any cases, it was brushed over or he was working with XW. (I think that was purposely intended to steer the audience once again towards accepting XW was the OTP of the drama.) THIS STATEMENT RIGHT HERE: “I want to know why she fell so hard for him and he fell so hard for her that he would betray his own principles.” (I heard good things about IMPERIAL CORONER but have not been able to get into it. I saw you said in a post that it is quite well-written so maybe I will have give that another try.)
Ohhh, using tyrannical on XW is fitting! I always felt that he needed to be in control of everything, but never thought of the right word, so you nailed it. But friend, ahhh, if the C-Drama is suggesting tyranny and damsel in distress needing to be saved, that is sad. I would not be surprised of the subliminal propaganda given how tightly controlled and censored everything is in China too. There have been other dramas that I remember talking about with my friend that felt this way.
If Duke Xue and XW were even on remotely friendly terms, that would require the drama to go into deeper writing. (HEHE, don’t think they really cared for it to go there.) When I think of this, XW could easily also just been someone unrelated to Duke Xue in the drama, and just simply trying to avenge his family and exact justice, and that would have worked. The relationship between them as father and son was just unnecessary. There were little moments in the drama where people talked about how if Xue Dingfei was still alive, what great things he would be up to. I felt this was kind of inspired off of Mei Changsu from Nirvana, because so many people had wondered what a great joy and awe it would have been to witness Lin Shu grow up and see the feats he would have accomplished but never got to. I think on several occasions in Nirvana, Lin Shu’s old teacher, his aunt, cousin, and Princess Nihuang had mentioned this. And you could feel those emotions. With Dingfei…nope.
Thank you for the information on Di Renjie. It’s my first time also knowing about Robert Van Gulik’s Judge Dee. Did you read the series and if so, was it hard to read? I just looked at DETECTIVE DEE with Ren Jialun, and it didn’t seem to get high ratings. Same with the movie with Mark Chao.
I wish the drama dealt with XW’s illness with more care and sensitivity, but I guess this is in-line with how C-dramas deal with mental health issues. And I totally agree with you. Seeing more mental health cases being discussed and knowing people with them, it’s very upsetting to be sending the message that love cures all. Yes, it sure helps if relationships are healthy, but not the way it was portrayed here.
Ahh, like you, I didn’t find XW being petty against his son cute. My friend thought it was cute, but the comic relief didn’t work for me.
Poor Zhang Zhe getting a dumpster-fire story. I’ll end my thoughts here and hope we’ll gather together again for JOURNEY TO LOVE (the title also cracks me up, the same way I cracked up at WONDERLAND OF LOVE)
I finished 3 eps of AJTL and loveee how all the characters have been introduced. It's been great so far for me too. Hope to see your first impressions up soon too!
Just finished watching the show. I had started reading your post a couple days ago but then stopped when I saw that there would be character death (thanks for the spoilers warning!). Of all the people they could've killed ... they literally made the worst possible choice. I found the first episode (or maybe first two) really rough and nearly dropped the show, but I do agree on the whole that the first half was much better than the second.
Like you and Kathleen, I felt nothing for the main pairing. I was shipping ZZ and JXN so hard, but we know how that turned out :( I also felt short changed with how their break-up was handled, especially considering how much JXN supposedly liked him.
Welp, now transferring my hopes over to "A Journey to Love."
It was definitely not a perfect show and even with very little scrutiny it certainly had serious story issues. Even though I knew what the endgame was, I had a tough time believing that it was fait accompli. The frustration... oh the frustration.
We are currently watching a few of the same shows :) I can't believe how much I'm enjoying "Perfect Marriage Revenge" ... it's SO entertaining even though it's tropes galore. Also enjoying these initial episodes of "Chase The Truth."
OMG Lily. HELLO! I love you, and this is my just short fangirling letter to you. While I know it is fun to debate dramas with different viewpoints, I feel your train of thoughts is at a high calibre compared to mine. You've essentially said almost everything I've been fuming to put into words the last few days having finished this drama. I felt alot of rage for this drama, and I went into it with high expectations. It is hilarious to me that we both saw XW attempting to follow in the footsteps of MCS from Nirvana. I am going to come back tonight after I finish all my work to write more, because I think in seeing your posts, it helps me organize some of mine, since I've been jotting notes about what enraged me. LOL. Just wanna send a hug and hello first to say thank you for sharing your thoughts.
I'm not as outraged as you are. :D LOL. But I am brimming with curiosity about your opinions and I look forward to hearing them here. I'm not sure about "high calibre" thoughts but I feel obliged to try to give reasons for why somethings just don't work for me at least.
I don't know much about the novel and I've heard that the show made major changes to it but as I always say, an adaptation should be able to stand on its own merits.
Hi Lily! (I didn't know there was a word limit to the comments so I'll be splitting up my thoughts to fit the formatting. I learned something new!) I put off writing this because I was nervous it would come out messy, but then I knew I had to get my thoughts out even though it’s 1am my time.
I finished the drama about 2 days ago with my two friends, and I sat through like the last 4 episodes fast forwarding because I was so frustrated. Or raging as I was telling you. This was my most anticipated drama for 2023, and sadly, it was disappointing for me. Yes, the drama isn’t a masterpiece, but gosh, it had so much potential. I saw the ratings recently and viewed the discussion board on My Drama List, and it actually shocks me how high people are rating this. I absolutely know I am in the minority in not finding this drama great, and perhaps even if I wrote a review, it’ll be flamed.
The first parts of the drama was done well enough that I was quite immersed. I lumbered through the latter parts, especially the last 6 episodes because we had a watch party at my friend’s house. When you mentioned having to suspend a certain amount of disbelief, same same! I feel this part will be a jumble of a mess of thoughts. I have a lot of issues with the drama, so I’ll do my best to get through to them in hopes that I’ve covered them all.
First of all, for Xuening who has all the knowledge essentially of the first lifetime, she was quite reactive…The way she handled the information she had was quite lack-luster, because I felt she couldn’t really do much and had to rely on Xie Wei. Yes, the drama tried to tell us how some fates can’t be changed, but it was quite inconsistent. People previously died in the first timeline, also died here, such as Zhang Zhe’s mom, Zhou Yin Zhi (the Xingwu guard double agent), and Fangyin. The princess died in the first lifeline, but in the second one, she didn’t so the drama bent the rules when it felt like it and remained inconsistent. Speaking of death, I’ll add a short note, Fangyin’s death was about the dumbest way for a supporting character to go out that I have seen in a Chinese drama.
I thought the drama was supposed to be centered around Xuening as well, but as we delved deeper, it seemed to be a set up for Xie Wei’s story. I had told my friend as we delved deeper into the drama, that Xie Wei is the substandard, messy version of Mei Changsu as a strategist. I adore Zhang Ling He, and I think he can definitely play the villain/gray characters, but in here, towards the later parts of the drama when he came on screen, I was quite annoyed and at times, livid. At the moment, the only time I appreciated him on screen was when he was teaching the princess and her study partners, and telling them how women were already oppressed as it was. That was about the only forward-thinking moment I remember of Xie Wei. Anything else, like making Xuening study the qin at his place, his demands, and just the way he was when he was around her later, was such a turn off for me with how volatile he was.
This segues right into the problem of the romance. I can’t remember a moment in the drama when XN and XW were on screen together, that it made me gush or fangirl about how romantic or sweet anything was. Like you, I was in the camp of XL in LOST YOU FOREVER, based on the novel and it seems, the drama too, but I think it had to do with all you could see in XL’s actions and the justification. In STORY OF KUNNING PALACE, I felt nothing with XW and XN. On XW’s part, the excuse is how he grew up/his backstory and trauma. I couldn’t get behind this. Perhaps this is where one has to suspend their disbelief but I struggled with how whatever illness XW had that was being portrayed. People said it was dementia, but I felt it the drama could have angled it towards PTSD. Otherwise, the rest of the time, I was wondering about split personality disorder, or schizophrenia. Each time XW was filmed, he was mostly crouched or bent over…but at one point, he was strong enough to carry XN when she was whipped. Again, the inconsistency. They should have taken the pages from NIRVANA IN FIRE if they want to show a character who is ill. I laughed whenever they showed XW dropping his golden pills, or the guards and others feeding us endless information of how sad and tragic XW had it, and that he’s really a good person underneath all this, and that XW should not get angry, should not think, etc. because it was bad for his health and there was no cure for his illness. Well, buddy, you chose the wrong profession being a strategist, and being human. (In contrast, NIF did this so well with Mei Changsu and his illness. It was consistent). But wait! There is a cure, right? The power of love seemed to heal all of this by the end of the drama. Which I still don’t understand how XW fell for her XN and vice-versa. This left me scratching my head, because I also even wondered if XW had traveled back in time as well…but I might have fast-forwarded this and could have miss a key point. Based on the discussion forum too, XW had given a knife to XN to protect herself, but she misunderstood in the previous lifetime and used that to kill herself instead. If that’s the case of how he did love her in the first timeline and wanted her to protect herself, that was poorly portrayed in the drama for the second timeline, because it left us really confused. XW practically did not exist to XN in the first lifeline. Maybe the story should have been a redo of her romance with Zhang Zhe instead. (ready for the pitchforks to come at me). But going back to XW, I really didn’t care for him the second part of the drama. He just went Hyde most of the time without reason. I consider him toxic, and I think you had mentioned seeing that thrown around. I feel he never respects XN’s wishes and constantly orders her around. Then man-handles her several times, and forces himself onto her, while several times, holding her throat, ready to choke her. People probably find it cute that he can’t control his emotions around her, but to me, he’s just volatile with the hot and cold. Like she brings out the worst in him. The drama missed such a great opportunity to give him character growth. To me, he could have grown to be a better person, calmer and at ease in her presence, and to be a better person. I questioned when it was that Xuening even fell for XW. Throughout the drama, I felt she just kind of settled being with him because he was relentless. And I hated the message in a way that she chose to be with someone who was more powerful and could save her…Because she couldn’t seem to do much on her own and needed to rely on XW. In another drama/story, XW would be the cunning, calculative, manipulative villain who was obsessed with the female lead and would not take no for an answer. He would be hated in another story.
Zhang Zhe was definitely my favorite character here, and they did him and his story dirty. I was waiting the whole time to see how this great love XN and ZZ had in the previous lifeline that she sacrificed her life to ask for his to be saved. Then when we got to see ZZ appear, the romance with Xuening in the 2nd timeline was over before it could even begin. At the beginning of the drama, ZZ felt like an elusive unicorn that we didn’t get to meet until much later in the drama. Then we watched as XN tried getting close to him, and then that sizzled out real fast with such a pathetic excuse. The way she gave up on this love seemed out of character without a real fight. ZZ would be the hero though in another story and drama. He has a wonderful back story that I feel could truly be made into a drama. Imagine, a poor, young man who had to study and work extra hard to take the exam to become an official. Then he lost his first love to some obsessive, volatile strategist (LOL). He does everything to try to do right in the world but continues to grow despite the challenges he faces in court, such as knowing how to read the room and when to pull back and save the chess pieces in his sleeves. This upright, loyal, official from humble background rising through the ranks to uphold justice without compromising his identity. Zhang Zhe to me feels like Allen Ren’s Zhou Sheng Chen from ONE AND ONLY while Zhang Ling He’s Xie Wei felt like Liu Zi Xing (played by Wang Xing Yue) in ONE AND ONLY. Hey the drama had a noble guy the female lead (also Bai Lu, HA) loved, and then there was the other manipulative one who was obsessed with her. Wait, I went back to read your post, and oh goodness, trueee about Zhang Zhe being Bao Zheng. I actually don’t know much of Di Renjie, so I’ll be googling this in a bit. I guess the drama kept the endgame the way they did based off the novel, but I still find the endgame hard to believe. I just don’t feel it.
This drama does seem to want to follow in Nirvana’s steps, but failed miserably. We have the strategist, and the young emperor in her reminds me of their attempt at being like the paranoid, and useless emperor from Nirvana who listened to the wrong people. I felt pity for the emperor in KUNNING at the beginning, but the moment he said to Xue Shu that as his cousin, she was never close to him, to him being well enough to sleep with Xue Shu …gross. And the audacity later on for the emperor to tell his brother that he married Xue Shu for his brother’s sake and to placate the court was utterly disgusting and low.
“The show repeatedly tells you who you must root for — who are the good guys and who are the baddies. And who should be together. It’s moralizing directed mainly at the impressionable.” I agree. Because of this, I felt the drama insulted their audience, or maybe not, since so many people love it so much.
I loved reading your comparisons to Sam, Frodo, and Mei Changsu. Makes me question if I should have tried watching LOST YOU FOREVER, even though I knew my ship was doomed from the start.
The showdown between Duke Xue and XW did not have any emotional punch for me either. The drama never really gave us, well me, enough reason to believe in this complex relationship between the father and son. Maybe that wasn’t their intention? Maybe their intention was that Duke Xue married just for wealth but had someone else he loved (the 2nd wife who is the mother of Xue Shu and Xue Ye)?
I can’t see this as the Disney version of rescuing Frodo or Mei Changsu. :D I think it’s just because it feels like such an insult to those characters, though I completely understand what you mean when you break it down, especially in it being a fanfiction. Our poor Zhang Zhe. I feel so much for this character. He deserves to be a hero in another drama. Some scriptwriter should write a fanfic about him now and then make it into a drama!
Thank you for such a wonderful and fun essay from you, Lily. It’s always a treat for me to read posts where we watch the same shows. I don’t get to watch a whole lot of dramas so I try to be wise of what I select. And I feel grateful when our paths cross in watching the same ones. I am sure we’ll continue discussing this for a bit, but I do plan to watch JOURNEY TO LOVE and hope you’ll be too down the line.
Yes, yes. I'm definitely watching Journey to Love. Big wuxia fan here. And I'm fond of Liu Shishi and Fang Yilun. I don't know how much I can blog about it because I'll be travelling soon. But before I do, I'll definitely have things to say.
Lots of thoughts here to respond to. It's weird to me that in this drama I'm not inclined to root for the antihero the way I did in Lost You Forever. I like Xie Wei enough as a strategist and Ning'er's teacher. There his domineering behaviour actually made sense and he wanted her to rise to the occasion. The qin lessons as a running gag was fine for me. As her teacher the tyrannical side of him worked well for me. But that transition from teacher to lover... not so much. I don't think he ever moved from being her teacher mentally -- at least not that I could see. He was always testing her like he did as a teacher so brought that same mindset into their "romance". Maybe it's because I'm a teacher that I find this a bit "ick" and the boundaries never really shifted for me. I detest Japanese manga stories about teachers having relationships with students.
Zhang Zhe isn't Tushan Jing at all so I probably shouldn't feel too guilty about rooting for Xiang Liu in the other drama. Zhang Zhe is a man of principles, a bit rigid but he's also a man of action. He's not wishy washy at all. It took the show 10 episodes to bring him in and just hearing about him is not the same as showing him as a morally upright, principled man who is adept at solving crimes. Sure there are a few scenes here and there showing him doing detecting but not enough. I would rather have less of Xue Shu and more of him. In another show he would be like Prince An in The Imperial Coroner. I want to know why she fell so hard for him and he fell so hard for her that he would betray his own principles. I was disappointed too that he was not fencing off more with Xie Wei.
I wish I had said this before rather in the comment section but it's a bit of an afterthought. There is something tyrannical about Xie Wei. And I use that word deliberately. His need to exert control over everything single thing is always there. It's a great quality as a strategist but as a husband it could easily become something else. Zhang Zhe on the other hand represents an old-fashioned nobility, respect and individual liberty. I have wondered if the contrast isn't deliberate and that a C drama is perhaps suggesting that it is better to be under tyranny and enjoy what protection it offers rather than to live in the uncertainties of liberty.
I don't know what the implied meaning of this is. But I wonder if there are political overtones.
That's why I say this show is a soap opera more than a serious palace drama. There was no complex relationship with Duke Xue because they weren't even remotely on friendly terms. If they had been and then things went awry -- that would have more interesting.
Di Renjie was a famous Tang dynasty judge and later statesman who was around during the time of Empress Wu. He apparently did his bit to keep her on the straight and narrow. There are a series of really good murder mystery novels written by a Dutch diplomat Robert van Gulik based on his character. The series is called Judge Dee.
There have also been different C dramas revolved around his character. Ren Jialun has been in one of them.
Mark Chao has played Di Renjie in a series of movies by Tsui Hark with Lin Gengxin.
Xie Wei definitely didn't have dementia. It's more like PTSD.
But like a lot of C dramas, this show doesn't really deal with mental health issues in any coherent, consistent fashion. The show glossed over his issues in that they were all solved because he found the right woman. I don't know what the novel did but I can tell you that having been around people with mental health issues in the last decade, they don't get cured just because they marry a nice person. In fact marriage and children can exacerbate the problems further. I hate to get all hung up on this because this is somebody's fanfic but it is somewhat irresponsible especially if young people are watching this to think that romance is some kind of panacea to past hurts. It could be if dealt with properly but it's not a guarantee.
I honestly didn't find it all funny that he tripped his son and kicked the little boy at the end because he mentioned Zhang Zhe in a preferential manner.
"In another drama/story, XW would be the cunning, calculative, manipulative villain who was obsessed with the female lead and would not take no for an answer. He would be hated in another story."
I have a feeling the showrunners know this too which might explain why they had to sideline Zhang Zhe as much as they did.
Sorry it took me some time to get back to you again, but I was really excited to read your comments. WOOHOO that you’re going to watch JOURNEY TO LOVE. I adore Liu Shishi as well, and my first time really admiring her was in BU BU JING XIN. Also, ohhh, where are you traveling to? I hope it’s a fun trip with the family. Safe and healthy travels!
I don’t think it was really weird that we didn’t root for the antihero in SOKP. I didn’t like Xie Wei as much as a strategist, but I think it’s because I kept holding him to Mei Changsu’s standards. I liked him more as a forward thinking teacher, and I agree, a tyranny works here. Like you, because I too am in the field of education, that I found the romance ick too. There has to be a build up usually for me to believe it and be okay with it, like Yang Guo and Xiaolongnu from RETURN OF THE CONDOR HEROES. I think that was like the only one time I can remember to date feeling that was okay. Otherwise, anytime there is a drama that has romance between a teacher and student, I just run the opposite way. (Does this mean there’s lots of Japanese manga stories that have this teacher/student romance trope? Because eww.)
The scenes where they showed Zhang Zhe solving cases were not enough. The drama didn’t spend enough time to build this great character that XN so greatly loved in her previous life, so I totally agree with you. In fact, a good chunk of the time when he was solving any cases, it was brushed over or he was working with XW. (I think that was purposely intended to steer the audience once again towards accepting XW was the OTP of the drama.) THIS STATEMENT RIGHT HERE: “I want to know why she fell so hard for him and he fell so hard for her that he would betray his own principles.” (I heard good things about IMPERIAL CORONER but have not been able to get into it. I saw you said in a post that it is quite well-written so maybe I will have give that another try.)
Ohhh, using tyrannical on XW is fitting! I always felt that he needed to be in control of everything, but never thought of the right word, so you nailed it. But friend, ahhh, if the C-Drama is suggesting tyranny and damsel in distress needing to be saved, that is sad. I would not be surprised of the subliminal propaganda given how tightly controlled and censored everything is in China too. There have been other dramas that I remember talking about with my friend that felt this way.
If Duke Xue and XW were even on remotely friendly terms, that would require the drama to go into deeper writing. (HEHE, don’t think they really cared for it to go there.) When I think of this, XW could easily also just been someone unrelated to Duke Xue in the drama, and just simply trying to avenge his family and exact justice, and that would have worked. The relationship between them as father and son was just unnecessary. There were little moments in the drama where people talked about how if Xue Dingfei was still alive, what great things he would be up to. I felt this was kind of inspired off of Mei Changsu from Nirvana, because so many people had wondered what a great joy and awe it would have been to witness Lin Shu grow up and see the feats he would have accomplished but never got to. I think on several occasions in Nirvana, Lin Shu’s old teacher, his aunt, cousin, and Princess Nihuang had mentioned this. And you could feel those emotions. With Dingfei…nope.
Thank you for the information on Di Renjie. It’s my first time also knowing about Robert Van Gulik’s Judge Dee. Did you read the series and if so, was it hard to read? I just looked at DETECTIVE DEE with Ren Jialun, and it didn’t seem to get high ratings. Same with the movie with Mark Chao.
I wish the drama dealt with XW’s illness with more care and sensitivity, but I guess this is in-line with how C-dramas deal with mental health issues. And I totally agree with you. Seeing more mental health cases being discussed and knowing people with them, it’s very upsetting to be sending the message that love cures all. Yes, it sure helps if relationships are healthy, but not the way it was portrayed here.
Ahh, like you, I didn’t find XW being petty against his son cute. My friend thought it was cute, but the comic relief didn’t work for me.
Poor Zhang Zhe getting a dumpster-fire story. I’ll end my thoughts here and hope we’ll gather together again for JOURNEY TO LOVE (the title also cracks me up, the same way I cracked up at WONDERLAND OF LOVE)
I hope to get a First Impressions post of A Journey to Love up before the weekend. I really enjoyed the first six episodes.
I finished 3 eps of AJTL and loveee how all the characters have been introduced. It's been great so far for me too. Hope to see your first impressions up soon too!
Just finished watching the show. I had started reading your post a couple days ago but then stopped when I saw that there would be character death (thanks for the spoilers warning!). Of all the people they could've killed ... they literally made the worst possible choice. I found the first episode (or maybe first two) really rough and nearly dropped the show, but I do agree on the whole that the first half was much better than the second.
Like you and Kathleen, I felt nothing for the main pairing. I was shipping ZZ and JXN so hard, but we know how that turned out :( I also felt short changed with how their break-up was handled, especially considering how much JXN supposedly liked him.
Welp, now transferring my hopes over to "A Journey to Love."
Good to see you here and chiming in.
It was definitely not a perfect show and even with very little scrutiny it certainly had serious story issues. Even though I knew what the endgame was, I had a tough time believing that it was fait accompli. The frustration... oh the frustration.
Frustration, indeed.
We are currently watching a few of the same shows :) I can't believe how much I'm enjoying "Perfect Marriage Revenge" ... it's SO entertaining even though it's tropes galore. Also enjoying these initial episodes of "Chase The Truth."