Historical Setting, plus a dash of Sci Fi
The Qin dynasty (remember? Good old "First Emperor of China" and all that) has been overthrown. The Liu clan (Han kingdom) and the Xiang clan (Chu kingdom) had a big fight to see who would rule after that. The Liu clan came out on top, with the Xiang clan driven into exile (to be the subject of tragic operas thereafter...or something...remember the famous opera scene in "Farewell My Concubine"?). Now that the first Han emperor is dead, his widow has taken over (in the name of a boy emperor) and is plotting to replace all the Liu old guard with members of her family, the Lu clan. Not only that, the Empress wants to get ahold of the Immortality medicine (which turns out to actually work!) and be Empress forever. Naturally, the Liu clan objects...violently...
Plotting a Coup d'Etat iz Serious Bizness!
The Liu elder (Liu Yuan) is a wily old fox. He's planted our hero, Liu Xuan, next to the Empress. In order to gain her trust, Liu Xuan has to commit all sorts of atrocities. Everyone hates him and calls him the Empress's running dog. (Ok, it doesn't have the ring of "capitalist running dog", but there you go, the common Mandarin word for "lackey" can be translated as "running dog".) Liu Xuan also has sibling rivalry issues with his older brother (General Liu Xiang). They've had a love triangle going with Princess Qin Zi (the Empress's niece) since childhood, and their little sister Liu Shan is caught in the middle as Qin Zi's friend and bodyguard. You just know this isn't going to end well...
Commoners! The wellspring of the LULZ!
On the other side, we have respected elder physician Chun Yu Yi, his two daughters, and his gaggle of apprentices. Ti Ying is the younger of the daughters, better at treating animals than humans. She also has sibling rivalry issues, as her sister (too greedy for her own good) keeps trying to get rid of her. Ti Ying has a childhood sweetheart, too, in the hapless Tang An. Is he in this just to have a character who babbles even more than Ti Ying, and makes her look clever by comparison? Anyway, he's basically there for comic relief, and vanishes halfway through, before appearing again towards the end.
Immortality is a curse!*
What if someone really did come up with a way to live forever? (Barring accidents and violent deaths). And what if (reasonably enough) "not dying" and "staying young" were two entirely separate problems? So now we have two 200+ year old people wandering (or being locked up in attempts to extract their secrets) around the story, plus an apprentice immortal who's merely in her 40s or 50s. The ancients only managed the "not dying" part, so one of them, unhappy with looking her age, sends her apprentice to acquire the "staying young" medicine, which Empress Lu also wants. Wacky hijinks ensue!
* sorry, obligatory "Doctor Who" reference (from "The Five Doctors").
My thoughts:
- Story: Good! Interesting, engaging, with a good blend of drama, comedy, and romance.
- Characters: I liked most of them (and loved to hate the villains). They did a good job with making the villains three-dimensional enough that I really did sympathize with them as people even when disagreeing with their choices. Liu Xuan would have been insufferable if not for his (suppressed) sense of humor. Ti Ying was annoying at times, but she really was very cute and lovable, and honorable. The princess, Qin Zi, I didn't like so much. She overplayed the whiny "damsel in distress" thing, but they subverted it somewhat by showing that it was a reasonable strategy for someone in her position (nominally important in the court, but with no real power).
- The cast: Everyone was well cast, I thought. I thought Vincent Zhao had a lot of charisma in this, and really suited the part. (I haven't seen him in much else, but now I'm tempted to watch the "Wind and Cloud"/"Stormriders" series starring him.) Liu Xuehua/"Leanne", who played the Empress, was brilliant! Scary and pitiable in her desperation. Women in power are almost always portrayed as evil in these stories (damned sexism!), but in this case, we had a very human monster, and she wasn't the most evil by the end...
- Action, scenery, and costumes: all good! This series isn't mainly about the fighting, and who has what special martial art, but the action scenes were excellent. I'm not saying it was "realistic", but it wasn't too over-the-top nor a stupid looking CGI-fest, either. It probably helped that Vincent Zhao really is a martial artist. He moves well and looks damn good in the fights! And the series looks decent, but not spectacular. I hate it when it looks like everything was done in a studio, with fake rocks. The costumes are good. They didn't go crazy with the Stupid Weird Hair (as I've seen in some other movies and TV series). Ok, Mo Niang (the apprentice immortal)'s swarms of bats looked really fake. It's not a big deal.
- Pacing: decent. It felt draggy after Liu Xuan finally makes his assassination attempt, but then picks up again towards the end. And then zoom! Everything was tied up rather quickly in episode 40, but it was a good ending, so I was happy. Unlike some series, I kept on wanting to watch. (Some I've abandoned for months, or even dropped altogether.)
So, not the best ever, but a highly enjoyable series. I'd give it an 8 out of 10.
Is this what they call a "meet-cute"?
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