Chang Feng Du (2023)

Who's your daddy?

Destined is a story about how an unlikely couple discovers themselves and each other and survive turbulent times together. Liu Yuru has been auditioning all her life to be a worthy wife to the finest young gentlemen in Yangzhou. To her aghast, she finds herself engaged instead to Gu Jiusi, the scandalous scion of Yangzhou's wealthiest family. Gu Jiusi is no less dismayed to find himself shackled to such a paragon of virtue but he is chastened by his careless prank that got them in that situation. They hilariously find that they are actually well suited and the sum of their parts is greater than the whole. The first arc is by far the best; it is funny, romantic and underpinned by genuine chemistry and rapport between Song Yi and Bai Jingting.

The couple's newfound bliss does not last as the country is swept into chaos as civil war breaks out. At their loss of influence in the capital, the Gu family is forced to flee Yangzhou for Youzhou far to the north. There they are still inevitably caught up in the war and ensuing political upheaval. Meanwhile, in the shadows, a hidden mastermind plots their downfall at every turn. There is a marked dark tone shift in the drama as it delves into the political arcs in the latter half. This drama explores the - "Who's your daddy?" question and whether it matters. All of the main characters have bad dads to different degrees; overly-indulgent, indifferent, overly-judgemental, negligent, wilfully blind and missing in action. Most of them are no worst for the wear but others allow their resentment to get the better of them.

This is a very entertaining drama despite that the second half is sloppily written and ridden with logic holes. The source material evidently had more substance and depth but the drama adaptation falls short on multiple fronts. The plot and character designs don’t make sense without novel readers to help connect the dots (see @CloudA’s discussion threads). The best written parts include most of Jiusi and Yuru’s arcs and humorous moments. The political arcs have too many logic gaps and farcical sub-plots that undermines the intelligence of allegedly smart characters. The writers have a very superficial understanding of history, politics and inner palace protocols. It is mystifying why the Dowager Empress does not secure the position of crown princess for her daughter in exchange for her support. Instead she uses up all her goodwill to try to foist her on a happily married man! The new emperor is so weak instead of banishing these harpies to the cold palace, he allows them free rein to bully his loyal court officials and interfere in official proceedings. He puts a known villain in charge of the crown prince's education when both Ye Sh'an and Gu Jiusi are obviously better choices. They forgot to tell us Luo Zishang has an invisibility cloak that gives him better access to the emperor's bedchamber than a favorite concubine! Game of thrones in this drama pretty means Pass the Throne (parcel). This kind of writing is why fluffy romance writers should stick to their knitting and not try to write about stuff they know nothing about.

What does make this drama work is phenomenal acting all around that papers over the lousy writing. All of the main actors are incredibly charismatic and blend into their roles so well that the portrayals surpass the character blueprints. This is especially true of Liu Xueyi's mesmerising ability to make the vicious, misguided and tragicomic Luo Zishang seem sympathetic even though his backstory and motives are not well explored and only fully revealed at the end. As a result, for most of the drama, this character comes across as a cardboard villain; a delusional sociopath that is just evil for the heck of it. Similarly Fan Yu's character evolution takes abrupt turns and his interest in succeeding his father is not well explained. Fortunately the good characters in this drama are far better written than the tired trope of villains who blame their bad behavior on their bad dads. Their motivators are not as forced and it is a lot of fun to watch the rapport, loyalty and friendships between them blossom so organically. After Jiusi and Yuru, Zhou Ye is my favorite character even though he can be a noble idiot. He just gets really hard things done and done right in the nick of time to save the day.

In the final arc, both Jiusi and Yuru are sidelined so that everyone else can do absurd things to let the villain easily get the upper hand. We are short changed of a satisfying final battle of wits between Jiusi and Zishang to make way for a very anti-climatic reveal of Zishang's backstory that devolves further into a maudlin moment of truth and reconciliation that somehow diminishes both characters.Along comes Zhou Gaolang to bravely re-take a city that was already in hand! There was a senseless, gratuitous death of a terrific character just to squeeze a few audience tears and to add insult to the injury, the perpetrator was unjustly sentenced to live the life of the idle rich. While many favourite characters got good outcomes, some of them deserve better and the final denouement fell flat and was anti-climatic This drama peaked too early at King Liang's epic siege and went downhill from there. The early arcs were an 8.5 for me but the back half was at best 7.0/7.5. Even though I can only rate this 8.0 overall, it is still a very enjoyable drama that is shored up by some fantastic acting. It is best watched tipsy or with your brain half switched off as the plot does not bear close scrutiny.

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