Love the costumes and the chemistry, not so much the plot.
With the perfect amount of bright colors and modern silhouettes without looking tacky, The King’s Woman 秦时丽人明月心 first caught my eyes because of its look (and Dilraba). The series is adapted from the prequel to animation Qin’s Moon and retells the attempted assassination of Ying Zheng (Zhang Binbin), the king who’ll eventually become China’s first emperor, by Jing Ke (Liu Chang), modified to become a huge love triangle featuring Gongsun Li (Dilraba).
The series opens with some classic clichés that they work in with mixed ability, including but not limited to having a long-lost childhood true love that you’ve only met once, no one recognizing the female lead is female, accidentally sharing a bed, the rich guy pretending his underling is his superior because we all know relationships that start with lies end well, and one or more lead’s guardian dying, but not before reminding them to hate their romantic interest for their parents’ sins.
Zhang Binbin is surprisingly (to me) the best actor of the bunch, and nails all the romance scenes, be it awkward first meetings, head over heels in love, or possessive creep. Dilraba feels a bit out of her elements in the more serious scenes , but is as cute as well in the romance scenes. I couldn’t get any chemistry out of her and Liu Chang, though. The pace is great and dialogue colloquial if not witty, and I was able to enjoy most of it without wanting to fastforward (okay, I admit I skipped all the political parts without the leads).
I probably won’t watch the rest because the leads are clearly going for the Stockholm Syndrome cliché soon, but I do recommend it for those of you who like historical romance. Watch it on YouTube here.
I watched until episode 8 (and also started to skip political parts without the leads), but the writing started to /really/ piss me off. (MINOR SPOILER:
Why was there romantic music as Ying Zheng carrier her to bed? She clearly did /not/ want this, and seems to have went along with it because he prefaced this action by threatening her baby???)
I have watched until episode 6 and I wasn’t convince of Dilraba’s acting. She lacks “something” to properly convey her character. I am still going to further watch the episodes to see if she improves.
Zhang Binbin is better but I am hoping he gets better. His character is complex, there is so much going on underneath that needs to be translated to the viewers. Sometimes I see it and sometimes, I don’t…
It’s predictable, cliched, slow-paced and the stockholm syndrome plot is supposed to turn me off, but I still like it so far. Acting is better than most cdrama’s I’ve seen. I hope it gets better in the upcoming episodes.
The dubbed voice for Dilraba annoyed me a little initially. It took a while to get used to it but you’re right, Zhang Binbin is hitting all the right notes.
I watched the first episodes and I agree with you for the overly used standard cliché. Come on, how are we supposed to believe that no one doubted Dirlaba being a woman even if dressed as a man? I am sucker for historical romance stories, as long as the plot is interesting and the actors perform well, I’ll stick with it.