The Legend of Zhen Huan Brief Thoughts

This is a series that I have previously never intended to watch at all. Interestingly, I really only paid attention to this series when I was watching "The War of the Beauties" and some netizens pointed out that the plot of that series was similar to the one for this series. Given that I was quite impressed with the plot of "The War of the Beauties" and my fascination of Chinese Ancient History, I decided to give this series a try and I don't regret it.

The Legend of Zhen Huan is a palace drama that revolves around the struggles and journey of Zhen Huan who eventually becomes in charge of the harem at the end. Born with a natural beauty and equipped with a sweet charm, she gain favours of the emperor and causes jealousy among some of the concubines (especially Consort Hua and the Empress). Both Consort Hua and the empress do whatever it takes to eliminate Zhen Huan but this only toughens up Zhen Huan ultimately not to take revenge but to be determined to stick up for herself.

No doubt this series was a big hit in Mainland China and other parts of Asia (Japan). Whilst I was impressed with this drama in general, it isn't without its flaws.

At many times this series could have just move forward quicker but refused to do so. Don't mistaken me as the pacing was ok but some dialogue was irritatingly long. There were too much fidgeting in my opinion; a few seconds would be wasted for some characters just to sit down, the overall dialogue is slow with the actors having a tendency to speak rather slow and just some lines that could be cut out completely. Yes these problems are quite petty and slow but if you add them together it can become quite menacing to watch at times. This series was 72 episodes and it could have been more exciting and enjoyable to watch with an adjustment of 25 episodes.

Lack of character development was also another issue that dragged down this series. Looking at it optimistically it's a good thing to just focus on the lead actors but I thought that there were quite a few pointless characters such as Huan Bi and etc.

Performances along ,this series boasted of some fine acting by some actors and actresses that I do not recognise until now.

For instance, Ada Choi was the only few of a small handful of artists I know. I've never really cared about Ada Choi or any of her roles in TVB before (the last memorable performance was when she portrayed the third sister in the Gem of Life?). That being said Ada is not a bad actress. In this series she did a decent job in portraying the phony, jealous and pretentious empress. She smiles with an obvious fakeness but it does in a way look as if she is generous and caring. She does stare at counterparts with some sense of suspicion and makes it as if she looks down at them (to create a sense of authority). The most memorable scene of her would probably be when she was trying to justify her evil deeds to the emperor by blaming him for neglecting her and favouring other girls.

Next one will be Betty Sun who was of course the lead actress in the series. I've never watched any of her series before but from this role of her alone as Zhen Huan she did impress me as a highly capable actress. There were many scenes that she did very much.

Overall a decent series.