Hello, you are watching AvenueX and today let's talk about the chinese web drama.
Hua Liu Li Yi Wen, Royal Rumours
This is a 24 episodes web drama that's been aired on the platform Tencent
produced by one of the tv production companies owned by Tencent,
directed by Zhou Jiawen, Sun Mengfei, written by Wang Hong, He Wenzhe,
based on a novel written by the author Yue Xia Die Ying called Zao Zuo Shi Guang
which was also the original title of this drama before it got changed
to the current Hua Liu Li Yi Wen
The drama is led by Xu Zhengxi, Meng Ziyi, Zhu Yuanbing, Su Mengyun
It was shot from November 2021 to January 2022.
And this is a fictional time setting romance idol period drama
as this drama is only 24 episode and at thisp point making this video,
i've watched 18 episodes, so it's a little bit too early to fully conclude on it.
But based on what i've seen and also just all the future episodes'
already trailers and promos and clips you can see,
you kind of already get a picture of how it's gonna end and what it's gonna look like.
So it's a good enough time to talk about this drama.
I'll give it a one gold mine rating on my seven level scale.
It is still a positive rating, meaning the drama is rather watchable,
but then it is not that impressive and definitely don't expect a masterpiece of period idol drama.
Let me first briefly introduce you to the story and then let's going to talk about the good and bad as usual.
In the stoy's fictional dynasty period time setting,
you have a crown prince of the kingdom played by Xu Zhengxi
and you have a daughter of the most powerful military general character played by Meng Ziyi
At the beginning of this story, she comes into the capital from the border town
where her parents have been stationed, military family and general and
guarding the border of the kingdom, pretty much as a political hostage.
Meng Xiyi's role Hua Liuli is actually in secret a master of kung fu,
and she's super strong as she grows up in such a family,
but her life goal is actually to be remembered in history as a weak pretty sickly lady.
It's one of her inspirations.
She also doesn't really want to show people that how strong she is.
In case it brings trouble to the family.
Then our male character played by Xu Zhengxi, the crown prince
is also pretty much somebody who is always putting on a facade
that is different from who he really is in front of people.
He has very bad reputation in the capital, he's known as the playboy who doesn't really do anything proper,
but secretly a really ambitious, really clear headed, actually has a really good relationship with his emperor father
type of crown prince, who has challengers, but not really
because the other prince is pretty much useless.
So that's the setup and and these two people would meet.
They were actually childhood friends, but they haven't seen each other for years.
And when they meet again they have to test each other out.
Eventually obviously see each other as the real person.
you know, they're gonna fall in love
Now let's go and talk about what is great about this drama
and what is not so great in AvenueX's personal opinion
on the positive end, number one, if you're looking for a very light hearted drama,
everything considered, no burden, no psychological pain, no any real fight.
In terms of you actually worry about the leading characters life getting threatened.
At any level, this is the drama to go into
So far I haven't even found one moment where it is actually seriously worrying
even the court politics that's described in this drama, whether it's diplomacy,
whether it's fighting with other countries,
whether it's different political groups within the same court,
trying to you know get the upper hand, it's all just very relaxed and funny
and not serious and not really cutthroat.
so this is as light as it gets in period dramaland
and I know these days, most people don't want to watch very serious and difficult and hard stuff.
So this is the light stuff for sure
point number two, this is actually a positive point that can also be a negative point
I'll talk about the negative part in a negative part,
styling of this drama, on the positive end of this drama,
which is worth encouraging is that finally,
you see a not so high budget period drama where most of the characters have
proper hair style that is up-do
which is what's proper technically speaking in period time china.
So this drama have a every character designed and quite properly done
with their hair and ornaments and costumes,
80%, 70% based on the Tang dynasty style,
one of the supporting roles, one of the princesses,
she's got probably the most looking like ancient style makeup,
and costume and looks among all the female characters.
The third positive point is this drama does provide a level of
qualified enough casting and acting for this type of period, idol drama
I'm being very specific here.
Nobody is super outstanding and impressive at acting or giving me anything
extra than I expect they would be giving.
But then nobody really made the drama unbearable or unwatchable or
you know embarrassingly bad in anyway,
so basically everybody is doing an okay job and I guess that also comes from comparison
between same actor different dramas' performances recently,
for example Xu Zhengxi, the male leader,
he was in Chong Zi, just a couple of weeks ago
that drama was a disaster, I didn't make a video about it.
I wouldn't wanna do that. His acting and his role also in that drama is just so ~~~~
so in comparison to that, you can actually sit down and relax
and enjoying his acting and performance of his crown prince role.
And then for the female lead Meng Xiyi, for example, also this role,
I wouldn't say is the most perfect type of role for her.
Among her previous works, she has a particular type of character
that she would make it sort of shine most, which would be the
assassin, cool, pretty, cold toned and have a little bit dark side role
And this is totally not that type of role, she is the comedy funny,
not so serious and definitely almost having no dark side at all type of role in this drama.
So it's not her best match role, but then she's doing a good enough job.
She is not dropping the ball, she's not like Chong Zi's female lead who totally ruins the drama.
Sorry about that. If you happen to be a fan of that drama
can't help doing that because it just happened like 2 weeks ago
in comparison this drama acting casting is very acceptable
and then you do have a couple of supporting roles actors who are
not so well known, such as the actress Su Mengyun
who plays this adorable round faced princess.
and she creates a lot of comedy moment with our female lead,
and she also is the most ancient looking styling character in the drama.
She was actually in Zhou Sheng Ru Gu
If you haven't realized that,she looked like a totally different person in this drama
with those supporting actors' performance plus our main leads' performance
the averaged out acting quality of this drama for a period idol drama
from chinese dramaland that is not high budget and you don't really expect much from it.
It's good enough.
okay so I would still say that's a positive thing.
Then let's go on the negative side because this drama clearly to me is
not really perfect in any sense,
number one, 配音, dubbing. Aha~
Then the second point i've said earlier on the positive end,
having a couple of styles that are kind of based on historical looks and having
all the hairs up and carefully combed and designed which is nice.
But then the quality of the work if you look at the consistency of hair color, for example,
the actress actually has dyed a little reddish brown color.
That's not natural chinese hair color you can tell,
but it didn't get dyed back to black.
And it gets combed into the hairstyle with the black wig and parts
that that doesn't quite go together.
Also, even the combed work and design is not very refined.
If you have high definition, you can clearly see things don't quite match.
You can tell they've put work in it. but It kind of didn't go to the place where it's good enough.
So the effort for trying is,
but then the quality of the final thing is ~
definitely needs a lot of improvement.
Overall you can tell this is not very refined and very high budget drama,
so it still leaves a lot to be desired.
Then the last negative point in my opinion is the story is not that exciting.
If you're thinking about it as a comedy,
it is not as funny as a lot of other comedy heavy period idol dramas.
It doesn't compare to Tiger and Rose, it doesn't compare to Starry Love we've seen this year
unexpected comedy doesn't quite happen. It's almost completely expected comedy.
Then if you look at the romance in this drama, it is also not bad,
but then nothing stand out as extraordinary.
You can almost watch this drama as an audio play, 70% to 50%
concentrated on the drama and you leave the rest of attention to your
cooking or your housework.
That should conclude my opinion on this drama
since it's only 24 episodes and it's gonna finish very soon,
I will chase it to the end and see how they wrap it up.
It's gonna be HE for sure like there's no way it's not a happy ending.
This type of drama if they don't do a happy they'd be stupid
Hua Liu Li Yi Wen, Royal Rumours
it's one of those average period idol drama from chinese dramaland.
If you are a fan of any of the main actors featured in this drama,
it's still worth going into watching and wouldn't affect your good opinion on them.
But then if you have other things, you strongly feel you're more attracted to,
then you can definitely leave this one out.
You wouldn't really miss anything.
Thank you for watching AvenueX I'll see you in my next video.
Meanwhile, live long and happy drama watching.