In the past few months I’ve been on this giant period cdrama watch spree, so much so that I’m kinda getting burned out on that stuff. 😀 It’s mainly been because those are the stories that I mostly seem to prefer over everything else. It’s only recently that I’ve come across couple of kdramas that I was able to stick to and not drop after the first episode or so.
Chinese costume dramas undoubtedly have their own problems with the recycled, cookie cutter plots and similar visuals, so in the sea of such dramas that get aired each year, only some are actually worth picking up. But on the other hand there are so many of them that it is somewhat easier to find those worth your time. In general I can usually tell by the first ep if the drama in question is for me, so it doesn’t take too much of my preacious viewing time before I give it Das Boot. The other problem these cdramas tend to have is the episode count. At 30-40 episodes most of them are just way too long and will suffer from extensive “padding” and the plot running on empty for several episodes on end. Then there are the dreaded WTF-endings that sometimes happen and ruin the whole drama for you. 😒 Not that dramas from other countries are strangers to that kind of endings, there are a-plenty in kdramas too.
That was a somewhat long intro to what this post is actually about, ha. One of the cdramas I recently watched was Melody of Goden Age with Ding Yu Xi as the male lead. I liked it well enough but it did suffer from too many episodes and kinda lost steam towards the end. I don’t usually follow actors from one drama to another but in this case I picked up two older DYX dramas on a whim. 😁 One of them was White Cat Legend. It’s a drama I took a look at when it aired in Feb this year but at that time it felt kinda too goofy and the laughingly bad CGI cat had me rolling my eyes, so I just dropped it and moved on to something else. Now, on the 2nd try the first few episodes were still kinda goofy and the CGI cat still had me rolling my eyes but that wasn’t enough to deter me this time. As I kept watched I started getting more and more interested in the individual cases and curious about the over arcing mystery involving our lead Li Bing (DXY). Although the comedic elements were still there, they sort got embedded into the overall story and became part of the charm. As one reviewer @ MDL wrote “It’s funny, cute, mysterious, interesting and heartwarming. I feel comfort watching this. It cheers me up.” Yup, all of that.
The DramaWiki synopsis or any other synopsis I’ve come across are practically useless.
The story takes place in the divine capital under the rule of the Empress. At a night banquet in the Tang Palace, the Empress recognizes Li Bing’s worth and appoints him as the vice minister of the Supreme Court of Judicial Review. Under the leadership of the new vice minister Li Bing in the Supreme Court, Chen Shi, Wang Qi, Alibaba, Cui Bei and Sun Bao unravel the layers of mystery surrounding the divine capital. They support each other and defy their fate while upholding their inner sense of justice.
Yeah, that didn’t tell you much of anything. The story doesn’t actually begin at the banquet but few days before when country bumpkin Chen Shi (Zhou Qi), our other main character, arrives to Shendu, gets mixed up with the first case and through it meets Li Bing and ends up working for the Mijing Hall of the Supreme Court with the rest of the gang. Chen Shi in the beginning is a sunny, sweet kid but very naive and easily fooled, especially as he is still illitterate. He came to Shendu to look for his older brother who left home some years ago and hasn’t been in contact until just recently when he wrote and asked CS to come to Shendu. Things don’t exactly go as planned and when Chen Shi finally reunites with his brother, it isn’t a happy occasion at all. A lot happens before that though.
As seluthing period cdramas go White Cat Legend was much better than my initial impression lead to believe. The cases were also more intersting and complex than they first seemed to. There are many interlinking threads and they all eventually lead to the same place. I did guess some of it but most of the reveals I did not see coming. Some important stuff is presented early on, like Li Bing’s secret, few tidbits about the mysterious and totally off his rocker Yi Zi Hua, the secret group of old geezers who seem to be the force behind it all, that something happened to Li Bing’s childhood friend Qiu Qing Zhi (now the general of Left Jinwu Guards and seemingly an adversary) at the war. But mostly the pieces of the puzzle come together during the course of the drama and things are not always how they seem at a first glance. The drama is mostly hearwarming and fun but it has it’s share of heartbreak. Good people die because of very basic human failures, like greed and thirst for power. Well, there’s that totally unhinged person bent on killing anyone for fun but it was a group of power hungry individuals dreaming of becoming immortal that ulitmately made him so. I wouldn’t count that bunch being mentally very stable either. 🙃
Anyone who’s read at least some of my ramblings surely knows how much I like camraderie in stories, whether it’s brotherhood, sisterhood, mixed bad, family units or close workplace colleagues. So, it’s no surprise that I just loved the “brothers” at Mijing Hall. They don’t start out as a properly coheisve group but once Li Bing becomes their boss they all start to grow as people and colleagues to become the best versions of themselves. Eventually they form a sort of family that sticks together no matter what. They are also fiercely loyal to Li Bing, nothing and no-one can shake that, not even finding out Li Bing’s secret. It’s endearing how much he seems to mean to them. 🙂 I got all teary eyed with Li Bing during the scene where he wakes up after being shot by an arrow and realises that they all know but don’t mind at all. Ding Yu Xi is great with these emotional scenes, he never overdoes it and yet you know exactly how the character feels. And that sweet, little smile at the end, aaaawwwww. 😻
I’m frankly quite impressed with Ding Yu Xi as an actor. I never paid much heed to him before but I’ve now seen him in 3 different dramas and though all have been costume dramas where the styling is very similar, the characters he plays in them are decidedly not the same. There’s just something about him when he acts, a certain kind of warmth that makes it easy to root for the characters he plays. I especially love his micro expressions, he can convey so many things just by his eyes. Yes, he’s also very, very easy on the eyes but the funny thing is, you sort of forget that after a while and only see the character.
I really like the OST too.
Here’sa playlist with lyrics. My faves are probably the opening theme by Liu Yuning – 莫问前程 (Don’t Ask About The Future) with apt lyrics and 乌云 (Dark Clouds), a lovely ballad by Ding Jiawen who plays Cui Bei. 神都打工人 (Shendu Worker/Divine Capital Worker) by “Li Bing” and his “brothers” is a fun one. ^^
