The Princess Wei Young (2016)

What a journey for Weiyoung. Though the latter half of the drama fell from grace somewhat, certain elements stuck through and made it overall an enjoyable watch. But it did not deserve 54 episodes of repetition that got seriously old past the halfway mark.

Story (6/10): For those who read the novel and are curious about the drama version, it would be wrong to even call it an adaptation for it is nothing like it. "Inspired by" is far more fitting and is to be used loosely here. In a nutshell, the drama version of Princess Wei Young is about a Liang princess who tries to avenge her fallen kingdom by taking up the identity of a forgotten, illegitimate daughter of a Prime Minister in the enemy state of Wei and along the way meets those who either want her dead or love her for her wits, character and bravery. Of course, the drama is littered with people who want her dead because how else will we know she is the heroine?

The premise is exciting enough, though nothing entirely original. But it did deliver in terms of entertainment for the first half and had everything you would want in a drama: good pacing, decent story, romance, action, a likable and brainy female lead who isn't afraid to punish her enemies seeing as this is a revenge drama. Then up until halfway, the story soon became draggy and repetitive with similar conflicts in different guises, lack of development/depth in characters who even seems to have gone through reverse development all of a sudden. Even Weiyoung who was supposed to be resourceful yet showed signs of being a damsel-in-distress in the presence of her Prince Charming (aka. Tuoba Jun), completed the transformation into a full on Mary Sue and in my opinion, stopped being everything we loved her for in the beginning. It no longer became a tale of retribution or justice, but pure laziness on the writers' part.

I blame the production for dragging the series out to 54 episodes, when it could have - and should have- wrapped up by 30-40 episodes.



Acting (7.5/10):

All I can say is if there is anything worth watching here, it's the chemistry between the leads Luo Jin and Tiffany Tang. The type to give you butterflies from the way they look at each other. Luo Jin is such a wonderfully talented and natural actor, he never overacts and his crying scenes are so well done. Not usually impressed by Tiffany Tang, but she did well here and I think a lot of it has to do with her chemistry with Luo Jin (4th collaboration and reel to real relationship!)
Didn't think much about the rest of the cast in terms of acting, but a few grew into their characters as the show went on. Vanness there is something awkwardly charming about the way he portrays his character - it grows on you even though his character becomes gradually more despicable. His dubber deserves a star.


Rewatch: For the romance maybe, and especially strong beginning up until episode 30 or so. Could skip the rest until the end. But sadly no, won't be rewatching this personally.


I almost feel like the drama deserves two ratings, one for the beginning up until episode 33 then for the rest.

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