Qin Dynasty Epic used to be called Qin Empire 4, I watched the previous three installments last year, they were about previous kings/duke of Qin, all building up to this installment's Ying Zheng unification and start of 2000 years of Imperial China. I'm not overly familiar with Ying Zheng, but he's too well known and has too many achievements for this to not be epic, but I came away rather disappointed. (spoilers reference historical events)

First of all, the drama focused on the wrong bits and have terrible pacing issue. Ying Zheng died at 49, most of the common achievements people think of are unification at 38 and what comes after it. He had a fairly interesting childhood and rough start, so I totally understand giving fair amount of attention to that. I'm perfectly willing watch him grow from ascending to the throne at 13 to gaining control of court at 22, clearing obstacles and finding awesome generals and ministers before starting to conquer other kingdoms. Hell, aside from setting up prefecture system, standarising writing system, linking great walls and building roads for carts, his life after unification could have been neat too, he defended Qin against Huns, conquered Bai Yue (modern southern China), and did bunch of things to ensure his reform stayed. Not to mention there's the whole elixir for immortality, didn't name a successor that resulted in Qin's early demise.

The drama covers up to unification so 78 ep over 38 years, which I somewhat understand, since it's more positive ending then setting up for tragedy. It spent 13 ep on first 13 years of his life, bit longer than what I expected but hey it's a long drama, and then 9 ep on last 9 years. These are IMO the best parts of the drama, not just due to pacing but also acting and writing were the best. I'm happy to note that the drama bought up some of the reform fairly early in the drama, and it's sprinkled here and there, so it's not just battles and unification. But these last 9 ep should have been the focus of the drama, I understand that battle scenes are expensive, you could have given me more time to battle strategies? Or other kingdoms' internal issues? Like Chu Kingdom, it lasted less than 2 ep!

Ep 22 to 60 covers him from 18 till 22, that's roughly 10 ep per year, is that really necessary, drama? There's two major events that I expected (from wiki'ing Ying Zheng when I saw him ascend the throne), one lasted 3 ep (bit longer than I expected but reasonable pacing for this story), one lasted 15 ep! There were number of episodes used to set up Zhao as a major opponent, which I don't mind as they were historically rather strong and formidable at the time (featuring two well known generals of Warring States, the other two are Qin's), but I do feel it could have been shorter, or again maybe other kingdoms could have used some focus too? Other episodes feature one major battle and two minor battles, and couple small notable events. Zhengguo Canal was a marvel at the time, but we never saw other big construction projects either, like mausoleum or the roads mentioned in later parts of the drama? The way the drama is paced, the ending arc where the meat of the story should be just feel really rushed. If you slash the middle by half, the pacing would feel much more balanced.

Secondly, the drama's writing was all over the place. Some of the dialogue swere classical Chinese, some of it were fairly plain modern Chinese, which is fine. What's not fine is certain word choices, why does the drama start with what sound like a translation of a western king's speech? What was with that conversation between Ying Zheng and Lv Buwei at ep 12 (?), they make me question if I'm watching a historical epic or a fluffy romcom? To get across the shock, hurt, and confusion, there could have been a lot of other ways, in fact if you just delete some sentences, I wouldn't be all "wtf???" Not exactly word choice, but how the scene was shot, what was with the assassin scene? Okay he got his hair cut to show it was dangerous, but why was he rolling on the floor? What were the other people doing? Why was he fighting like a samurai, it seriously looked super kendo-y? Director, did you just watch the 1998 movie and used that as inspiration and called it a day instead of using historical records?

A big part of the drama was humanising Ying Zheng, as his image to average person is a tyrant. That might have partially been due to Han's Sima Qian's "Record of Historian" demonising him and Qin, since Han is Confucius while Qin is Legalist and dynasty they overthrew, not to mention Qin probably overdid it when it was reforming. That said, I'm constantly confused by the drama being bizarrely in love with "pls love me one more time" narrative, I guess because he had troubled childhood, it make sense and it plays up the tragedy? I found it rather awkward though and it was used way too many times for my taste. The drama was also very intent on selling him as a benevolent king, and it feels super wrong to me. It's fine to have him want to conquer the other kingdoms AND also help some common people he might have met, but why does every decision where he has to kill someone, it's always like he's forced to? He's an emperor, I'm sure they sacrifice some things for their goals, and I'm sure there's some calculated moves, that would made this more interesting. Even with all his flaws (even including tyranny + elixir) , it doesn't diminish any of his achievements.

I had a lot of fun celebrating amazing relationship between previous kings and their ministers because they shared common goals and overcame obstacles together. Ying Yiren and Lv Buwei sort of have that, but there were too little time for it. Lv Buwei became a reluctant antagonist at some point due to circumstances, but Li Si didn't fill his gap as he should have. In fact, Lv Buwei was the most interesting character of the drama, and I could see his love for Qin and I bought everything he does is for mighty goals. Li Si on the other hand, tend to be all talk and not much action, or what little he does seems to end up with a huge mess, e.g. Lao Ai. The writer's plotting simply isn't as awesome as they seem to think, and they really spent way too much time where every single person seem to think unification was totally sure-in and shout it at every chance they have, that's not the case!

Thirdly, our protagonist is completely miscast. I know casting Ying Zheng is real difficult, there's lot of expectation. He did so much when he was young but your average 20-something probably can't hold down such an epic drama and act reasonably well against so many veteran actors. I also know that dramas try to have main lead come out early, but if Han Wu Emperor's Chen Baoguo can come out at ep 22 (out of 58) and leave a classic epic behind, so can you! Casting 40 year old is totally expected, though I would have preferred 30 year old since aging makeup is easier than deaging someone. I can handle 40 playing 20, but you can't possibly convince me they are 13, especially when your actor look older than their age! Couple with some plot points that only make sense if he's super young, he constantly pulls me out of the drama. What's wrong with having him appear in ep 20 or 22 out of 78? You know what, your drama ends before Ying Zheng even catch up to Zhang Luyi's age!

I've been a casual fan of Zhang Luyi since I watched his slow burn republican drama The Red. He fit that role perfectly, he even had a tinge of Shanghaiese accent despite not being one, (it's fairly rare for accents or dialects to appear in cdramas!) Oof this role though, he really really doesn't look like an emperor, ok? He didn't look like one playing Li Longji in Legend of Demon Cat, and he doesn't look like one here. He doesn't always hold himself straight and seem to lean forward at times, it's very apparent when he meets up with Zhao Yan, who looks real regal next to him. The winter costume piled onto him also made his neck disappear, and couple with his posture, it's....not pretty. He tends to yell a lot during intense scenes too, it's not that he can't yell, but he doesn't have that powerful volume? powerful aura that I expect him to have, sometimes I think the scenes would have been more effective if he was quieter. e.g. there was an intense scenes with him and two kids, he looked dangerous and it was nerve-wrecking.

Then there were other little bits that's just really annoying. I know you want to differentiate the countries, but you can't possibly tell me Han could afford purple for the whole army 2000 years ago! Purple is not an easily found natural dye, especially one that bright, it's why nobility/royalty likes purple, did this not cross anyone's mind? Zhao Ji is really really stupid and appeared way too much, Lao Ai shouldn't have that much power and shouldn't look like a final boss! Seriously, why was there street celebration for that arc and not unification? Why was sexual assault even necessary as a plot point? Being Uncle Ying Xi is real suffering, but he was supportive all the way, just because of that one look? You could have implied something happened during that night or was it two nights (ep 12?)? Don't tell me they just stood there and talked?

Despite all of my complaints, I did like fair amount of it. It opened and closed with epic battle scenes, best battles I've seen in cdrama, thank you tencent for all your money. I really like the music, I think that one song that makes me cry is from previous installments but I still love every scene that use it (and important scenes really love using it). I actually rather like Zhao Kingdom's cast and their characterisations, they were source of comedy at one point, later on they had fabulous Queen who could actually scheme and plan and very hateable Guo Kai that I end up half rooting for. There were some memorable supporting cast that only appeared for few episodes, like Ying Yiren who managed to win people's heart with that one speech, or Han Fei with his lofty goals and dignity in dire times. There were a lot of segments I really liked as well, Ying Zheng and his dad overseeing the army and stating their goals, Li Si detailing Qin's couple failed opportunities to conquer, Lv Buwei's final scenes, Zhao Yan's entire visit to Qin, Ji Dan sending Jin Ke off etc.

At the end of the day, epics like this are hard to come by, so I definitely don't regret watching it from day 1. I think if you don't come in with expectation like me, and don't constantly compare drama to history, you would have lot of fun as others did. I had a lot of fun wiking and discussing with others in the comment section. I even made a timeline and everything, since I wanted time to move, which I'll post in the review comment section, as well as some other interesting bits I found that might be helpful. Shoutout to @PeachBlossomGoddess and @WandereR for encouraging me to post a rather negative review, since I wasn't going to write one as it felt bit like raining on people's parade. Little did they know, once I start, I can't stop!