Reviews

An Inspiration Not An Adaption

I have read the novel, before attempting to watch this drama, so this would contain novel spoilers. You have been warned!

The overarching story premise was very well written, the flow and the progress, while seemingly slow was actually progressing and in a way to make sense. We are introduced to the FL (Luo YiNing) and ML (Luo Shen Yuan), who are siblings born in scholar family during historical times. FL was born as the Legitimate Child, but wasn't liked by her father and was sent away when she was young returning to the family after 10 years has passed, which was the beginning of the story. While ML was an illegitimate child who wasn't even recorded in the genetically book and was never recognized as part of the family scorned by his father, he didn't even have the right to learn how to read from a teacher. Both leads who weren't raised surrounded by love, began to rely on each other, becoming each others pillar.

ML (Luo Shen Yuan) was a diamond in the rough, a prodigy, he was extremely smart, had his own business that was thriving, and was strong martial arts skill. However, he had to do everything under another identity, because he was an illegitimate child, that was not recognized by his family. His own father wouldn't even let him learn how to read, and he self taught himself, with little guidance from a teacher. The most impressive part of this story was not the romance, but the character development of ML and FL, and for ML while he was prodigy, he lacked love/compassionate. He learned to be righteous from his teacher and fellow classmates, but never really had anyone truly care for him. Which FL teaches him, tries to give him, telling him he's not alone and he doesn't have to do everything himself. Which I liked this premise, because novel to FL was obsession (not a very good one), novel ML and drama ML were both born to be politicians, but novel was much more cunning and ruthless. He didn't really care for anyone, but FL, which to be honest, all the characters written in Luo Family was quite dumb or "not very nice people". Nobody in the Luo family really ever treated ML like family, while in the drama, we see how he is accepted. The scene when gets written in to the genealogy book, perfectly filmed, show the nervousness and the moment to be remembered.

What makes this character even more memorable was the actor Zhang Wan Yi, the slight expressions, movements, and the tension he creates in the room OMG, just such an impressive actor. He perfectly acted how ML slowly falls in love with FL, and his slight changes from how his surroundings changes, like when he goes from being an illegitimate child to Legitimate child, become FL's actual brother on paper. He changed the way he walked, and the air around him goes from being nobody to a confident noble scholar.


I also love the portrayal of FL in the drama compared to the novel, the more I read the novel the more annoyed with FL I got. This drama seems to have taken the criticism towards the novel and rewritten FL setting, and they did so in an impressive way, Lets make one thing clear, novel FL was reincarnated after dying at 17 and then spent 20 years as a soul in a hairpin so she knew of some future event. She knew ML would become a prime minister and did everything to treat him well, but she reincarnated into a 7 years old after 7 years she died. She was married before she died and had a husband which is SML, that was well alive in his late 20s. In the drama, instead of starting FL as a 7 years, because no way is anyone watching a grooming process and pedophile happening, they started her off in her teens who came back after being sent away for 10 years. The good thing the production did was avoid mentioning age at all times, which the novel kept mention (aka shes 10, 12, 14 - the main story ended at 15 and she had kids....). During those 10 years she was sent away, she so happen to come in contact with SML, who was blinded because of an injury, and they become close. SML falls in love with her and he was set on marrying her, but some situation happened that led to FL being badly injured believing that SML tried to kill her. SML develops an obsession with her, while FL has moved on and matured from that experience, which was portrayed very well, she was firm toward SML, not even letting the slightest action to hint towards anything except for her personal hobbies/habits. Novel FL will piss you off, supposedly over him, but some how always thinks of him, remember what he likes, and what he did, and the past, what even gave her away was that she remembered that SML went gambling. Drama FL was mature and intelligent, she grew up in a house with only a few maids and developed an independence by herself. So when she came back to the family, she started her own business, navigated herself away from trouble. Her only weak point, was that she was still too soft towards her opponents, and ML will take care of that, but overall she didn't really need saving from ML and there were even instants of her saving ML. The actress really portrayed YiNing as her natural self of caring and her love/care to ML was what gave comfort to ML, that he would even sharing his deepest secrets with. The relationship was mutual and balanced, with no problems at all, even when FL was hiding her assiocation with SML, and he was deeply jealous, he never forced her to say anything.


This is a slow burn drama, for more than half the episodes FL still didn't know ML was not her biological sibling, but what I appreciated was the character growth of the characters. Like how Luo Yi Xiu and Lin Mao (i kind of skipped alot of their story), growth from each other company and to be honest while Luo Yi Yu didn't have much screen time, her character growth was probably the most interesting one. Luo Yi Yu was raised to be a proud scholar girl by her mother madam chen, and madam chen always wanted better for her kids, so her strictness towards her children was suffocating especially to Luo Yi Xiu and Luo Shan Yuan. While YiYu was her mothers perfect child, she initially was slightly arrogant, but she wasn't a bad person when Liu Ming proposed, she initially didn't like him because his family wasn't exactly known/wealthy, nor was he good looking, and he didn't score on the yearly examination. However when encountering a family crisis, he was the only one that didn't ostracize her and she finally understood, to live a good a life you don't need all the other worldly things, just having someone there to stay by you was the most important. I do with they expanded more on how FL finds out shes in love with him, because they kinda of wrapped up everything pretty quickly near the end. The pacing wasn't bad, I wish there was more.

Somethings I do wish they kept in the drama was novel Lin Mao's character setting, they revamped him to a guy whos terrible at studying and in to medicine. However novel Lin Mao was a very interesting character, he was carefree and does pretty crazy thing like he caused an explosion because he was trying to create an elixir XD. Lin Mao characters was smart, but he was very eccentric and liked to do things by impulse. I also wanted them to keep ML confidence, novel ML was confident in everything he did, no matter what trouble FL caused, he always had a back up plan, while drama ML did portray him as smart, they took out the absolute confidence he had in his plans, which to be fair make sense with the character setting they set for him as he does fail.

I highly recommend this drama, do not even bother reading the novel, you will not like it. The character growth and the story flow, is the quality point and you won't get bored of the interactions between characters. There is no misunderstandings and if your a fan of mutual support relationships, this is for you. FL and ML supported each other through out the novel and they never overshadow each other. They both have their expertises and their own strong qualities, and how these qualities come together to support each other is most fascinating to watch.

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