429. Princess Weiyoung 锦绣未央 (2016) Chinese

Tiffany Tang, Luo Jin, Vanness Wu, Mao Xiaotong, Li Xinai 

Drama Rating: 6/10     Neck Score: A

Princess Weiyoung is just a hot mess of drama. It was a delightful hot mess, but also happened when I had my drama anxiety explosion that made me literally pause everything I was watching in favor of binge watching We Bare Bears. Sometimes the ridiculous drama where everyone is evil except the leads is fun and sometimes people's mothers are dying and I can't deal with that in the middle of a pandemic. However, after taking some time, I still came back and finished it, because it was ridiculous and I had to see the train wreck at the ending. It actually had a better ending that I expected. More... realistic, if you can believe that when everything was so over dramatic that it wasn't ridiculous. I just like that they didn't force a completely happy ending and were able to give us some tragedy that also wasn't forced. I had a whole thread on Twitter about this, because it was so 😲😲😅😅😂😂 that I had to shout out my feelings to the Twitterverse. You can probably get more details and spoilers from that thread then here. But at least you can know that it was crazy, dramatic, and I generally loved it, even then rolling my eyes and laughing every two seconds.

So, I started this show because I wanted something cheesy, and it had been popping up in my Netflix suggestions for like ever. I was struggling with other dramas at the time, so campy seemed perfect. And it was just that at the beginning. After I got past the first episode where she is constantly having her mouth covered as she shouts out people's names when they are killed, and her supporters drop one by one in attempts to get her to safety. Of course it starts with the massacre of her family. It is a revenge/political drama. Let's just say that her character grows a lot and at the start of the drama she isn't anywhere near her potential of awesomeness. She's the typical spoiled princess. Then she is the victim of a political massacre of her family. Then she befriends a girl abandoned by her family, who is then assassinated by that same family. So she assumes her identity and gets revenge. For her new dead friend, for her family, for her nation, and for everyone treating her like crap for like 60 episodes. JK, it's just 54, but still. The great thing is that all her woes stem from the same family. Convenient, right? It's nice to have one solid group of villains, even though they totally outnumber the good people.

We also have a lot of political intrigue with the battle for who is going to be the new crown prince. Will it be the son of the previous crown prince, who of course is already her true love? Or will it be his two uncles who are both clearly evil, just at varying levels of smartness. One real reason I decided to watch this is because Vanness Wu was in it. It's obvious from the start he's one of the villains, but it's also obvious that he's one of the best characters in the whole show. He's the puppet master type villain, and it is delightful to see him sit back and laugh at how stupid everyone else is. Of course he also gets annoying after a while, but mostly because this is the type of show where everyone either wants to kill the heroine or is in love with her. I liked him better when he wasn't in love with her. It's fine though, he stays sneaky and wicked the whole time, and he has a great evil smile. Quite sexy. Rawr.

So, if you like overdramatic historical Chinese dramas, this could be a fun watch for you. It's not the best, and sometimes was outright too much. However, I still enjoyed it most of the time, even if it meant I had to take it in doses, because you can't only take so much evil plotting. Especially when all the plots are almost the same and it's a wonder that they get away with it that many times. It's also a wonder that anyone takes them seriously, since she's able to prove herself innocent each time. A direct assassination would have made this show so much shorter, but no, they have to frame her for a various assortment of crimes, each worse than the last. That basically sums up the whole show. There are enough good people to like, and I even liked how evil the evil people were. I mean, they were enjoyably evil, so it made it fun to see how they ended up at last. Just a crazy show, so only watch it if you like that kind of thing.