Broken the Heart (2024)

Not for the faint of heart !

This is absolutely a story where the female population is depicted as weak due to her emotional entanglements. The emotional and mental torture is too much to bear while watching the story unfold. I am surprised that aside from PTSD, she did not go insane. Unnecessary scenes such as letting the FL watch her husband being intimate in bed with another woman just horrifies me to the core, I understand that Chinese drama themes most often than not runs along the same lines. Even if she is the most forgiving and kind person, why would she subject herself to such disrespect.FL keeps saying they cannot go back to where they were before but then in the end she did the opposite ( I am rolling my eyes). I cannot imagine these are scenes and personal heartbreaking experience can be easily erased or forgotten just because the ML says he is regretting everything that happened. Anyway, enter this story at your own emotional risk and sanity. After all, each one has their own take of this kind of drama and we all can agree to disagree.

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Beautiful cinematography, very angsty, love-hate relationship

This mini drama is about the female lead who is married off to the enemy’s kingdom as a peace treaty. After three years of hell in the palace, she manages to escape. With tons of injuries, a man uses his medicine skills to heal her, in the process changing her face. Just when she thinks she is safe and sound, her husband (the male lead) shows up and thus their cat and mouse game begins.

POSITIVE:
- 100% angst vibes.
- Love-hate relationship.
- Face swap trope.
- Villain/morally grey male lead (basically a total red flag).
- Beautiful cinematography.
- Cat and mouse game between the leads.
- Soft, beautiful and strong-willed female lead.
- Selfless second male lead.

NEGATIVE:
- Very dark vibes, definitely not for the faint hearted.
- Not much soft and sweet romance.
- Male lead who is perhaps too dark which makes it harder to ship him with the female lead.

OVERALL:
If you are looking for a very angsty, love-hate relationship with a morally grey male lead and beautiful cinematography, watch this drama.

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and it could have been a good mini-drama, if not for the beginning...

I watched this drama even though the reviews I read were not encouraging, but were actually discouraging. But I like this actor Deng Kai, so I wanted to form my own opinion.
A drama based on classic themes of love and hate. Two warring countries and their young princes who fall in love beyond the divisions, but unfortunately the situation forces actions that lead to aggression, hatred and pain. Briefly. The initial episodes are full of ML violence towards FL. Even though he loved her, in order to protect her from the hatred of the general of the court and his family, he decided to pretend that FL was foreign to him and an enemy. The only thing is that if the director wanted to convey these emotions, he did not have to use such sophisticated and drastic means as the scene where ML forces his wife FL to watch a scene of lovemaking with another concubine - although in the end it did not happen because he found a bag in the bed with eggs and he thought it was poison, but if he hadn't found it, what would the director have done and FL would have watched them copulate? No, there is no consent to such psychological violence. I don't know why the screenwriter and director came up with such a plot. Mental abuse in the form of showing a pile of bodies with people from FL's country and her brother, although they later explained what it was about, but this scene is cruel mental torture for FL. The opening scenes of Fl and ML's wedding where the general, his hate-sick sister and ML's concubine shoot with a bow at the group of wedding guests and FL is terrifying, but the worst of it all is the hateful expression on ML's face. I don't know why, whether it's a suggestion from the director and the script, or whether the actor came up with this attitude and facial expression, but at the beginning, in the scenes where Fl is already married to him, ML has a look full of hatred towards FL all the time, even when others can't see and they are alone, the expression on his face still didn't change and it wasn't obvious that he really loved her and was suffering because of what he had to do to her. And this was not visible, on the contrary, I had the impression that he took great pleasure in causing her pain... although at the very beginning of the drama, when they met outside the imperial court, he looked at them completely differently, with gentleness and a budding feeling of love. Then, when he found FL after her escape from the palace, the feelings of love for her appeared on his face again, although they were still tinged with emotions of jealousy towards SML, when he tried to find out if FL was his wife who had run away and he didn't know if she really was FL. is the wife of General SML and is she pregnant with him or not.
Finally, after returning to the palace, he changed dramatically and it was clear that he could actually be emotional, understanding, and had no need for revenge (he allowed the release of General SML), unless it concerned the protection of the FL against the family of the evil imperial general.

Now the threads with General SML who helped our heroine FL and did her face change, as we would say now, with plastic surgery, and this is a fantasy thread for me, because looking at those times and skills, it turns us watching into useful idiots, so that be able to accept such skills... the operation, of course, went fantastically well and to such an extent that FL now resembled the general's deceased wife - he was an amazing plastic surgeon, even now they can't make a perfect transplant.
In addition, the ability to heal, especially to deceive the imperial doctor, when he gave FL some medicine to pretend to be pregnant in order to deceive ML... well, bravo, another medical genius... but ok, I assumed that some screenwriters have such a thing that they can't control their lush imagination.
FL herself was so clever in this second part that she was ahead of all the ideas of Prince ML checking her identity and she already knew in advance what moves she would make, so she was prepared for it... it's a bit funny and generally impossible even if she knew him before, but ok I digested the fact that she revealed tactical genius. Generally, from the very beginning, FL lived in violence, first in her childhood, because she had a cruel father who abused her and her mother, so this girl had already experienced trauma in her childhood, and then in her marriage to ML, she experienced further pain and fear, so in fact , then any weak person would have broken down a long time ago, but for me the character of FL had to be mentally strong despite everything to survive it and not hate all those who hurt her. Ultimately, it looks like she forgave her husband ML and the ending shows that she gave him a chance.
In general, to sum up, this drama could have had better reviews if the director had not gone into such far-reaching violence of ML's character towards FL in the initial episodes of the drama, because it could have been shown completely without these drastic violence threads and with threads when FL and ML are together and his eyes , facial expressions and gestures say that he is only pretending to others to protect her, but this was not done, so I am not surprised that most of the reviewers complained that after such traumatic experiences, how can you love your practically tormentor. It may be that the director wanted to show that love conquers all and for these reasons he made these scenes that turned violent...
The themes that still made a negative impression were, first of all, the editing of the film... the episodes were heavily cut up and the episode ends with an open scene and then in the next episode there is a jump and the actors are in a completely different place, there is no connection and coherence.
There is no well-translated English version, so honestly, I don't know if I understood everything correctly because of the translation.
The costumes and wigs were well prepared, the fighting scenes could have been better prepared, the acting of the actors was good, the OST was also ok.

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Wasted Potential: All the Promise, None of the Delivery

I. Introduction
I am no stranger to angsty dog-blood melodrama, and in fact I have been known to secretly indulge (hello, Circle of Love!). This short-length drama promised all of that and more, but delivered none of it. It's better described as a collection of scenes rather than a short-length drama, as viewers are tasked with Olympic-level mental gymnastics to fill in the blanks between scenes. It requires viewers to have a long history of watching/ reading angsty dog-blood melodrama to even consider this a 5 out of 10 stars, because our extensive experience and imagination would bridge the gaps where the scenes failed to deliver. It is as if someone wrote a collection of one-shot fics for a full-length drama and had them acted out, including the forced happy ending.

II. Storyline/ Plot
What storyline? To call it a line is a stretch; it'd be better defined as a series of story dashes or basic running stitches. The first few episodes contain some backstitches, with the objective of making the angsty Romeo-and-Juliet theme believable because otherwise, even if you are a Cirque-du-Soleil acrobat, it is tough for you to believe the FL could ever fall in love with the ML. Episode 1 opens with the ML insisting the FL watch him bed the villainess on the ML and FL's wedding night and closes with the ML setting the FL's dead brother on fire. In Episode 2, the ML shoots the FL's entourage dead around her, to satisfy the villains that he remains in their camp. A random backstitch comes, explaining how the FL had previously saved the ML's life and they had fallen in love then, and the ML promises to return to marry the FL, only for them to next meet on their wedding day in a politically-arranged marriage. The ML purports to have done his cruel acts to save the FL's life (and not her mental state) as the villains were watching his every move, but if that is the case, he should have let her remain as Qin Ruo Yao for her safety since no one else would have recognised her anyway. The last episode suggests that the FL could not forgive and forget just because the ML finally kills off the villains, but does a complete U-turn two minutes later.

Halfway through the drama, a randomly gapped running stitch reveals a secondary plot. The 2ML had subconsciously changed the FL's face to that of his dead wife's. This plot thread had a lot of potential, but was never developed further as to whether the 2ML had fallen for the FL or he remains enamoured of his dead wife's face.

III. Characters
The characters were as confused as the storyline. LMC is a beautiful FL, DK is a beautiful ML, JW is a beautiful 2ML, and that is all I can say about the characters. Again, it was as if someone wrote one-shot fan fiction and threw it at a bunch of actors to enact the scenes. It's difficult to comment on the characters when they are more underdeveloped than the average 15-year-old's brains and the actors haven't had a chance to showcase strengths (or weaknesses).

IV. Production Aspects
Other than the writing and editing, the production team did a good job creating a show that I wanted to watch. It had beautiful, detailed costumes, melodramatic cinematography, haunting theme songs, and extravagant sets and scenes. Unfortunately, because the storyline was so poor, none of these aspects could elevate the score for the drama.

V. Conclusion
If you have nothing else to watch or if you just want to tick this off your 'To Watch List', sure, go ahead. But I have never felt so strongly about not wanting to rewatch something before. There weren't even any scenes that I wanted to go back to to rewatch over and over again (you know, like THAT scene in episode 13 of Love Between Fairy and Devil).

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Can be better

While the storyline of the drama was promising, it lacked significant improvisation. By the 10th to 12th episodes, many parts of the plot became predictable, leaving much to the viewer's imagination. Additionally, pivotal scenes, such as the confrontation between the prince and the general, were merely hinted at, forcing viewers to speculate about the details. Despite portraying the crown prince as helpless and deeply in love with his wife, his actions contradicted his supposed affection, raising questions about his true intentions. Furthermore, inconsistencies arose regarding the prince's pursuit of his wife after she escaped and changed her appearance. Ultimately, while the storyline held potential, the lack of exposition on key elements left much to be desired.

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Abuse-fest with bad subtitles

I rarely write reviews for dramas that I drop after a few episodes. This one, however brings the notion of “disturbing” to quite a new level.
We are expected to believe that the obsessive ML who tortures and abuses the FL actually loves her and that the FL after being thoroughly abused finally sees the light and falls for him.
SERIOUSLY????
How sick must a person be to come up with such nonsense! No amount of pretty costumes and beautiful people in this drama can cover up the ugly truth that this drama is an insult to anyone who has ever suffered s from abuse and promotes a disturbing view of women.
Who would ever want to watch this for entertainment?

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