A bustling place, or a battleground, a life of absurdity, a story of mistakes and regrets - KUNNING

Story of kunning palace is an intriguing spin about Jiang xuening, daughter of a minister official who made her way to being an empress with the price of betrayal towards her loved ones. Her greed lead to her own demise, with woes and regrets. By the grace of God, she gets another chance to turn the wheels of fate, prevent the mishaps, and change her mistakes from past life.
And coming back to main review:
- the plot is fabulous. The acting, dialogue delivery it was all beyond my expectations. The chemistry between all the leads is no joke. It has dynamics between " fl- male bestfriend" " evil lady- upright official", and "enemies to lovers" troupe! And guys, we have ANGST, one of my super fav genre. Romance isn't the main genre since it's a slow burn, but whenever it's there, it's insane level!

The ambigious atmosphere is once again no joke. Some scenes are insanely hot and seducing, gosh, my heart still can't calm down. The fact that she has ambigious vibe with literally all the leads is even more insanely heart fluttering. ( I hope my constant use of the word 'insane' can explain how good this is)

I love the opening in the drama, it kinda sums up the whole angsty past life which answers lots of question in our mind and makes the first few episodes less confusing. The style of using dialogues in opening song is new, and I am loving it.
The story contains lots of twists and turns, revenge, unopened secrets and plottings etc etc etc. it's not just romance guys, there's a lot of more than that to it. The tension of revenge in each scene. The anxiety of being caught or betrayed, the excitement of plotting against enemies, is so satisfying. It's not only well written but also a well delivered plot. I personally did not find plotholes, everything was well covered (ofc unless you are curious about lots of things). Each and every little action serves as great potential for further plot developement.

Most importantly, the growth of each character is so beautifully sketched and that doesn't just include the main leads, but many of the supporting character too. It's a tearjerking yet satisfying revenge.

The rebirth may not have changed some of their fates, but it has given them the happiness and satisfaction of being needed, loved, and gave them the oppurtunity of finding their real selves and holding the mirror to them, the themselves that deserved to be shown to the world.
The acting doesn't need questioning to it, so I won't be wasting time on it.
The costumes were so well planned with their character and personality. I will be writing a spoiler with spoiler alert on it at the very end. It's not exactly a spoiler, but more of costume analysis with character sketch. You can choose to read or not.

Negative points of drama:
1) Not a fan of director's camera. Either the camera angles are weird at few scenes and the blinding lights take away your attention. And also there's green and pink filter making its way home. Hope that could be amended in his new works. But don't worry, that doesn't affect the thrill and excitement much. You are still gonna fall in love with this drama.
2) A certain death did not convince me, not gonna say much about this point since it could become a major spoiler again. But once again these two points are minute points. So you better not hesitate to watch the drama just because of these two points.

So to sum it all up if your are fan of following genre:
- smart, quirky and black bellied fl
- domineering, yandre and black bellied ml
- reverse harem
- angst
- well plot revenge
- power struggles
- best retribution to evil character
This is exactly your type! Congratulations you have a recommendation in your 'must watch list'. Trust me, you wouldn't wanna miss this!
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COSTUME ANALYSIS
Jiang xuening: She mostly wears blue costume with a hint of orange shade which signifies her wish to live a peaceful and serene life, yet her witty, spontaneous and bold personality.

Jiang Xuehui: She is often seen wearing purple which depicts that even though she is a girl who looks calm outside, she has a stubborn personality in her. In the last episode, she is shown wearing light red colour dress which telss us her current life is filled with happiness and the feeling of abundance.

Xie Wei: In the former episodes, he is shown wearing dark black or blue colours which represents him as a sad, evil, mystery, cunning, and rebellious character who is willing to die for his revenge. But in latter episodes after he starts falling for JXN and acknowledges his trusted and close family, he starts realising that revenge and death aren't his only goal in life, he must live with and for his loved ones, he starts letting go of his burdens, and hence with his changing beliefs and growth, his clothes colour change to a lighter shade of blue signifying his wish to live a peaceful life.

Zhangzhe: is mostly shown wearing red official costume signifying his morale and upright personality. He is also shown in light shades of grey and green showing his calm and reliable personality.

Xue shu: She is often shown wearing that unlikeable pink colour which looks pretty from outside, when seen as a small object to huge background of grasses and stones, but looking at it up close could annoy you and disturb your emotions psychologically to the point that you would feel like tearing it off. After you start cohabiting with that colour, it series and disgusts you, giving you vibe of fake superficialness. The pink gives a colour of graceful, kind and compassion to her personality from outside, but interacting her could make you realise that she is exactly that shade of pink which disgusts you after you get acquainted with it, depicting exactly that character of novel, whose mere sight disgusts you, you would feel like slapping everytime you look at her.

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" If I am a Weapon, only you can be my Swordsman "

'Sword and Fairy' as a drama, delivers deeper thoughts than it appears on the surface. The characters are deep and complex with an integration of different backgrounds, thoughts and emotions. No matter how different their paths maybe, even if the ending is controlled by fate, they are still willing to overcome the obstacles together, because, there are greater goals to live and die for.
Unlike other wuxias, the drama doesn't really start with a backstory, so viewers may find it confusing. But I won't label it as confusing because the story actually follows the journey of exploring the backstory, the reasons of where they are today.
Still, I will be stating a little bit of introduction ( typically things you need to know) first, before going to review.

- The story basically follows Yue Jinzhao and Yue Qi, two amnesic orphans (NOT SIBLINGS) who neither remember their past, nor their roots were stranded in Wuyan Village 3 years ago. Unaware of their past, both orphans found solace in each other's presence, being emotionally bound, to the point that they could not live without each other. The duo set off on a journey to find their roots and their identity. On their voyage, they encounter evil sect 'Qiyuan sect' who try to scam them. In the process for seeking justice from Qiyuan sect, they discover that the sect may be way more complicated than just scamming. This sect may also hold secrets to their past and origin.

That was an extremely brief introduction, cause anything more than that could be a potential spoiler.
The drama has wholesome level of ANGST, no misunderstandings, and great potential TEARJEARKER!
The main leads are extremely dependent on each other, being each other's support for 3 years, they have grown a level of trust and maturity that no external forces can break.
The angst basically occurs due to the common troupe of 'sacrifice for the better world'. And ofc to protect the world, sacrifices are inevitable. Letting go of somethings are bound to happen. But there are too many sacrifices, too many to bear.

The first half of the drama brews the beautiful relation, friendship, romance, and memories to ensure worser heartbreaks, y'all HEARTBREAKS (plural) in latter half of the drama. So prepare your tissues.
Once again, the start of the drama may not be everyone's cup of tea as I mentioned before, afterall we are so used to knowing the background story in the very first episode before the main story starts, especially in wuxias. But this drama is instead about unraveling the background, the back story, cause we have two amnesic youth who have no idea about their history. Since the journey follows them finding clues to their identity, we know the story only when these two characters unravel them. So this has good amount of mystery too.

Its particularly saddening to certain extent because even the villains have a sad backstory, and so you cannot even hate them. Because their backstory and dark past are gonna rip you off everytime you are about to label them as 'black characters', yet at the end these VILLAINS are the ones who were the most SELFLESS ones from the begining. That is why, the characters are way MORE DEEP and COMPLEX than you could think.
All ' stranded threads' that you encounter in the first half of the story will be woven in the end. Everything will be in place by the end of the story.
This plot of this drama does a lots of play with emotions, so if you are able to figure out the backstory and emotions of the characters, you would actually realise that the plot and emotions run too deep. So you need to keep constant track on the dialogues, understand the meaning and emotions the every sentence represents. We gotta remember the fact that most main characters are basically in their 20s or even younger. They are forced to grow up lonely facing the antics of the society. So it has good integration of thoughts of both old age and young age, making the younger characters appear more mature than their mindset at that age should be.

I personally found the plot quite engaging, especially, since we had little bit introduction of every character posted by other fellow viewers ( I will write up the character introduction in the end), so it made my understanding of every characters' emotions very clear. The past titbits of memories, the timing of unraveling a particular mystery were well timely inserted. The pacing of story was quite good. The cgi wasn't the best, considering the fact that it's a tencent drama, but it has done a way better job than some of its last dramas. Besides the plot and the acting actually makes the CGI problem pretty much unnoticeable, and tbh it's not even that of a major issue, tho- I would label it as, has a room for improvement, since it wasn't the best.

The OSTS are beautiful, like so beautiful and once again, very well timed, earning brownie points to the scenes.
This drama, it's TOO BEAUTIFUL, and leaves too deep IMPRESSION, so do not miss it! You will definitely not regret watching!
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Now, let's go for a CHARACTER INTRODUCTION ( no spoiler, but I feel you may find it necessary to understand their emotions and thoughts better)

1) Yue Jinzhao - He is a mature thinking and decision maker when it comes to the Yue pair. He has great thinking cognitive skills. But he actually very careful and doesn't trust anyone except Yue Qi.

2) Yue Qi - basically has great IQ, but 3- year old EQ. She may be naive and have childlike thoughts but definitely not on spoilt side, but she is quite thoughtful and straightforward. She values friendship and relations a lot. She appears to be adorable and cute softie, but is quite sharp, strong and powerful. Latter episodes reveal that she is probably stronger than Jinzhao. She is dependent on Jinzhao, when it comes to decision making and taking sides. She trusts Jinzhao more than anyone else and is always willing to Jinzhao.

3) Bi Luohuan - mysterious complicated character? Let's unravel what secrets does his character holds. He basically seems very engaged with the life of Yue-pair, especially Yue Qi?

3) Luo Zhaoyan - A woman dressed on man's cloth. She is an upright head of the family. She puts protection of the people and sacrifice for people above anything else. She is always considerate of others even if that causes neglection of her own happiness. Bound by the curse ' Luo family twin's death, she holds many secrets and complicated emotions'.

4) Xian Qing - A thousand year old wolf demon. Demons are not really favoured in the world of chaos, so he faces lots of struggles in the journey.

5) Ming Xiu - has a dark past, hence she hates demons, but she trusts Xian Qing, since he is her master's friend. Growing up lonely with only her master around, she is emotionally very dependent on her master and doesn't like to approach people. She appears very cold and distant.

6) Ju Shifang - An orphan, who lost his parents at an young age. His mother was a well-known genius in gadgets and mechanics, so he has always lived with the motto, to learn his mother's skill, protect his mother's only gift for him ( DouBao), continue a hierarachy and be a hero who is respected by people, because he has always been neglected and looked down upon, since an young age.
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ENDING: (spoiler)
The ending, I personally feel is very satisfying. It leaves us with a message:
" No matter what fate holds for us, in the end, we are still destined to meet "
It is beautiful and leaves a deep impression, basically a happy ending, but in a different way.
They meet again and fall for each other again. But this time, not as a swordsman and a weapon fated with a short life with heavy responsibilities to protect people, instead as normal humans with emotions, feelings and freedom to live and love like normal folks, a carefree life.
So I would conclude it as a happy ending, I mean compared to them forcibly growing up and maturing, and leading rest of their life in such 'sacrifice for the world' like motto, isn't this a better ending. This time they can live a carefree life. No need to care about responsibilities of people, of the world. Just themselves in their own little world filled with peace and happiness.

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Dark, mysterious and extreme spy × target troupe

This is my first time writing a review and I am very very excited about it, cause this one's such an amazing masterpiece. It really forced me to write a review on it! I will be going for a normal and not so complicated review, rest of all is upto the readers.

We have already come completed the plot, and the only comment I have regarding this is WOW. To all the viewers out there who are still hesitating, just go and watch. You would regret missing this masterpiece. There are just so many things good about this.

Cinematography: top notch! Can we talk about the aesthetics first and foremostly. The dark clothes, dark music and dark vibes make it all so cool! The fight scenes by the artists are just wow. You are really gonna be blown off after watching those supercool fighting scenes.

Plot- well since I already mentioned we are only halfway through, up until now the plot has all been them openning up clues, and the viewers being unpaid detectives analysing those clues and predicting the possible theory behind each gesture and sentence. You could actually see how everyone has different theories. It's really fun predicting those theories. The funfact is there's reason to everything being done. So the satisfaction you get when some or the other fact is revealed is worth it.

Acting: First and foremostly, every character, literally every character, be it major or minor, doing just guest role or acting as a passerby has a story. And every character plays significant role in the plot. And hence, in these kinds of plots, the acting of the actors become an important factor to enhance these plots and explain these plots. And hence acting of the actors won't disappoint you. Every single actor here did a great job in displaying their emotions. The fact that every gesture was perfect to explain everyone's character. There's not a single character in the cast you won't be curious about. Even a passerby character who was probably mentioned once in the whole plot would make you curious about their role in this story.

And then most importantly, anyone who is major fan of assasin troupe, strong and scheming male and female characters, this ones a must for you.
I swear, you won't find any single character insignificant here!

To all the people who were annoyed by GZY's personality, this is a small consolation to you!
"GZY isn't a character who turns from immature boy to an adult man within a day. He is a character who turns from immature boy to an young man with responsibilities because of gradual support from his family and loved ones"

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Basically a light watch to take a break from your overly sweet romance doses

Well, if you are here for a sweet fluffy romance, this drama won't be your cup of tea. I would rather label it as drama which you should watch without holding any expectations, then you would certainly enjoy it. Apparently I watched this in my drama slump era, so yeah it was an enjoyable watch for me

The story basically starts with FL who has a crush on ML in irl, and ML who has crush on FL in online platform. First 6 episodes starts with your same old average cliche lovelorn FL who is literally throwing off all her dignity cover to chase after the ml. But the hard hit rejection in episode 6 serves as an wakeup call inducing her cool, sassy and slaying comeback personality.

✔️
- the pacing of the plot was quite good. They introduced problems (complicatedly speaking arcs) and solved them within 2-3 episodes. So 24 episodes was actually good number of episodes and nicely executed.
- The dynamics and bickering between the leads were quite enjoyable.
- Slow burn romance which is one my fav subgenre in romance
- Yue Qianliang and her slaying comebacks were well served throughout the series ( tbh, I would say, ZY's execution of this character was one of the major reasons I got through this drama, especially considering the fact that I easily drop modern dramas in their airing phase)
- A rather light watch with no typical love triangles, sweet and happy side characters and overall certain enjoyable elements.

❌
- same old cliche plot with not much of change.
- You wont really find yourself having any extreme emotion be it sad, happy, ang le, excited or whatever ( well this could be a good as well as a bad point, at least it's not stress inducing)
- I would suggest viewers to not drop this in first 6 episodes, if your major turns out to be major reason for dropping, cause episode 7 onwards is a good turnback for her character.
- Romance didn't really seem to be the main element. Their dynamic from rejection phase to wife chasing phase was probably the 'looking forward to' part when we talk about their chemistry. So if you are watching this for some sweet kiss and hug scenes, umm well, you won't be that well served, especially considering the fact that they had their first kiss in near end episodes. ( It was a plus point for me cause I am not really fan of too many hugs, kiss scenes)
- There are lots of scenes you could watch in 2× especially if you don't really understand these gaming discussion.
( This is to say once again romance wasn't main element, it was basically an mix of romance, work and dreams, well actually this isn't a negative point about the drama, but still anyways)

Overall it was an light watch with well integration of love, life, work, dreams and little bit of struggle elements! So recommended! Do check it out :)

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Samdal-ri : An Intricately woven Story of Life

The story basically starts with Cho Eun Hye, a well established and highest grossing photographer, whose fame spreads even among top stars of the korean industry. But the betrayal of her assistant led to the downfall of her long standing career. The little girl who dreamed of being the dragon for a small city was forced back to the small city, her hometown, because if this series of events. Returning back, it follows the unknotting of various misunderstandings, feelings and deeply rooted emotions.
This story may not be everyone's cup of tea cause, the story is slow, not high excitement of anticipation of any thrill or plots. It's a beautiful story which mainly deals with emotions, dreams, feelings and we'll basically 'slice of life'.
Love the fact that the characters were so beautifully written, each playing a role of its own in the story.
I would have been disappointed if it had only focussed on fl's comeback, karma of villain and the romance between ex-couple. But it had way more substance in it, which interested me.
The plot pace is quite good. Up until episode 8, they take their time laying the threads, building the set up of the story. The next 8 episodes follow weaving these thread into the now coming story.
We see, clearing of many misunderstandings, letting go many past burdens which has been rooted in their mind for the past few decades.
The beautiful thing is, you will never see critical schemes or typical twists and turns to cause the downfall of the villain. The script was mainly for every single one to find themselves back and it has always stayed like that till the end. even the downfall of villain was taken as an insignificant side-plot. Rather than the person who betrayed her, maybe it was her own in confidence and loneliness that stood as a main villain to this story.
To sum up, the return of female lead back to her hometown triggered a lots of knots that she, her friends and her family members had burried in their mind, and finally they got a chance to unknot these burdens.
It felt as if, a lots of them had lost their real self, their free self and their beautiful relationships, but they are slowly finding themselves back now in the beautiful sea town of jeju island.
And to end this,
"No matter how high you fly, no matter how low you fall, no matter how much you loose yourself, your roots will always lead back to yourself, they would stand as your highest confidence and lowest embarassment."

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Technology or time travel?

The story and plot is quite good. It started off really well and interested me a lot personally.
The suspense they created in first few episodes continued to intigrue till the end. It was fun predicting things, trying to solve mysteries. I don't know how much I would rate it in a whole bunch of mystery sci-fi thrillers, but compared to currently airing dramas, this one got me interested the most.
The ost is really cool, I mean, okay, it's just way too good. The character sketch of fl was something, I liked a lot. First time seeing Liu Haocun, and her acting was amazing. I never expected her to do so well. Her expressions of confusion, panic happiness all of them were done well.
The last few episodes seemed a little bit boring to me, but ofc, that doesn't stand much infront of the intigrue the first 25 episodes gave us.
It's a mixture of:
-suspense
-mystery
-thriller
-sci-fi
-romance.
Do check it out! Gave it a rewatch value of 7.5 because, the drama is really good, but I dont think it offers me enough to want to watch it yet again right now. But yeah, if you are maybe bored with none of your type dramas airing, then you can go for a rewatch maybe.

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Running against the wind

The chemistry between the main leads is insane. You would find them flirting, bickering, making fun of each other, teasing each other, sexual tension between them, yet healing each other unconciously in their rough times!
The clothes and cinematography smells luxurious. The colour aesthetics are so good!

Story of a rich conglomerate daughter who apparently loses everything because of betrayal of her trusted person. Her story of growth from an arrogant heiress and inexperienced lady to a succesful woman with empathy, humbleness and maturity.It follows the twists and turns of her life. The male lead is an opportunistic good guy ( won't get on your nerves cause he seems to have empathy towards fl) something you would expect from an investor who only cares about profit. He seems to guiding fl with her journey.

Main leads have ENEMIES TO LOVERS troupe. Second leads have FRIENDS TO LOVERS TROUPE, so if you are fan of any of these, congratulations, you have got yourself 'to watch' in your list.
And once again, to repeat it again, the chemistry between all the characters, ALL THE CHARACTERS is good!

But, but but, it has good amount of comedy, sincerity, love, hot flirtings , growth! Overall it has healing elements to certain extent.
REVIEW AFTER WATCHING 26 EPISODES
Well, I don't know what it is about the story that didn't keep me going anymore. Probably because of the release of better dramas in this period of its airing time, but inam not that attracted to watching this daily anymore. But story going good. I am probably not satisfied with dialogue. The dialogues seem to be too simple at certain point, and hence sound a bit emotionless. Maybe the dialogue delivery could have been better. Or I don't know if it's my problem since I watch English subtitles. But anyways, it could be good pastime if you are bored and wanna watch something new. But I won't categorise it in must watch anymore! That's all!
Have a good time watching!

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Ordinary sweet love story but did not really catch interest.

I am honestly so disappointed how it all went to certain extent. The drama was good only because it had all the popular and highly anticipated actors in it. Yeah, we had a lots of famous figures in it, who are quite popular in lots of famous dramas which have got the best drama recognition from viewers. But the story was disappointing.
Looking back at the comment section, you can guess, how much highly anticipated drama this was, so maybe that's the reason for the heavy disappointed, probably because we expected too much.
Now, coming to WHY DISAPPOINTING?

- Character sketch: Apparently, the character sketch of fl, and her bestie disappointed me the most in the whole story. One is weak and dumb when misunderstandings stand, other is worse in giving advices, and barely held her own relationship. It kinda annoyed me that everytime, their male partners were the one taking initiative, yet they kept acting as if they were being ignored and excluded.

- Plot- too ordinary, too flat, too uninteresting. Once again I would say, it barely got so many viewers because it had popular actors, literally so many popular actors. Even the supporting characters acting mother, father and colleagues are quite famous. That's the only reason it was continued by so many and not dropped. Mainly because we expected since it has our fav actors. The plot seemed a lot draggy.
I am guessing all of the popular actors took this because they wanted to expand their reach internationally, since these kinda modern sweet love stories attract the foreign viewers first, that isthe genre us foreign viewers all started with, when we entered the Cdrama industry. But to the regular viewers, who have been regular watchers of their dramas, it turned out to be a flop :(
Umm, that's all I guess was there to it. That was my personal opinion, I hope, you would have happy time seeing this, and it won't seem disappointment to you, like it did to us. Happy watching!

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The bickerings, plot, amazing cinematography, and and and, ANGST IS BACK! Ladies and gentlemen!

I am honestly surprised by the current 7.3 rating this drama is having right now. No idea what the reason.
Is it the fact ml seems weak? Or the fact that we have a bitch and misunderstandings at the very beginning itself.
I thought that was a basic characteristic of XIANXIAS! NO?
Hats off to all those people who are up with there first xianxia because of ZLS. You would be needing some experience to get used to this plot right now! Maybe try out some other famous XIANXIAS like ashes of love, eternal dream, TTEOM, love and redemption etc first.
Coming back now, I personally would have dropped this if the ml was shown too much of a weak guy who is gonna be the typical princess in damstrel, since I am not a fan of plots with heaven and earth crust difference of powers between main leads. But I am satisfied that even though the ml is weak, up until now, both of them have been capable of protecting themselves to certain extent and are also improving together. That obviously is a good sign.
The peacock princess ✌️ is the legendary GTB of every xianxia, who always ends up with the worst ever and most satisfying outcome of their cheapness, so no mess!
The bickerings between fl and ml lightens the atmosphere a lot and is hence very enjoyable. The cinematography is beautiful, absolutely gorgeous except a few scenes which looked a bit too weird to me (for example hong yi fight scene in demon realm). But the magical elements and shiny costume designs adds brownie point.
The trailer and mvs scream of angst, sorrow, misery, comedy, friendship, romance and literally everything, and most of the viewers are here for them. Afterall, no matter how much we complain, xianxia isn't xianxia without-
1) 10L of blood being vomitted out of a 5L body.
2) A legendary bitch with expertise on 1000 ways to kill main leads emotionally.
3) Powerful main leads with tragic past.
4) Powerful main leads with hidden powers, who burst themselves out all of a sudden one day, due to typical sufferings created by the GTB.
And hence we still love these LOL
That's all for my rant. Gonna update this review with literal and proper opinions as time goes by.
HAPPY WATCHING!
Also the ratings are just temporary, will be changing them after the drama completes accordingly.

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