So far… I felt the emotion of each character that if it ends as a tragic love story, I would completely understand why. From the very first episode, Duanwu is no punk! I love how Duanwu as a character even though she is naive in some aspects ai ly because she’s grown up in the Pearl farm but she’s also exceptionally smart for someone who has had to Literally fight for everything she’s ever had. The fire in her eyes is that of a survivor! She’s realistic. So far we’re seeing the development of an intimate storyline between ML and FL and it’s one of understanding, they’re from the same world, they make sense together. In the same light we’re seeing the expressions of interest to the FL by the SML and she’s shut him down at every turn. Like I said, she’s no punk so she’s not going to feed into his sugarcoated sweet talk! I love this aspect of the drama especially because there’s no dilly dallying of leading the SML on just to have an unnecessary additional plot line! She knows that in the world they live in, they could never work! I especially loved when she challenged SML when he spoke of the mermaid and the scholar story! She’s an ambitious dreamer in the sense that she knows what she wants and she’s not afraid to Grab it. She’s realistic (see her interactions with SML and his advances) and she doesn’t believe in fairytales which is what I’m sensing from the SML! I loved when his attendant asked him if he would be willing to go against his family for her, and judging by his character, a person who at every turn seems to do what is right, he probably wouldn’t.

Her journey with ML leaves us as viewer anticipating and trying to guess if they will make it! You may be thinking, why should she fall for someone who essentially abused her physically from the day he met her, but again this story is not that of roses and fairytales! KJ explains that he wanted her to become resilient because that’s essentially how he grew up. Then we get to see a little bit of insight into his survival story and we realise the beating she received at his hands was cherries compared to the tragedy he faced to become who he is. Again ML and FL make perfect sense together… there’s no other way to describe it!

Every single character so far in this drama has understood the assignment and has delivered! There has been no miss-cast and the drama engages you from the first scene in the first episode, I mean get your tissues ready. You’re thrown into a world that’s completely different from other CDramas! I think the story really sheds light into what life was like for the majority of people back then, because it wasn’t all fairies and a fight for the throne and power! There were people who were killed senselessly, kidnapped and thrown into slavery, tortured, raped etc! We get thrown into a world in cdrama that we as viewers are not particularly familiar with because most stories are usually toned down or they are Palace dramas so we know what to expect. With TSOPG we don’t know what to expect so it allows us to relate to FL even more because she’s taking us on that journey.

The soundtrack 10/10
The visuals 10/10
Casting 10/10

This show has been amazing so far and I really hope the momentum continues to build until the very end. I’m giving it an early 10 stars because of how captivated I have been from the first episode. I mean I was crying from episode one, I’ve laughed with them as well and I’ve cried again. The casting is EXCEPTIONAL! Ms ZLS NEVER DISAPPOINTS.