Cdramas vol 1

[fujiko]

A few dramas that were left out of the last post for the simple reason that they are not kdramas. Here are three historical cdramas (okay, one is hkdrama) for you. All of them deal with the life in emperor's court, but duuring three different dynasties in three different millenia.

Schemes of a Beauty


40 episodes

The story is a fictional take on the life of empress Dou during Han dynasty. It takes over a long period starting when she and her friend/rival Shen Er are kids and ends when during her grandson's rule. When Dou Yi Fang is little her mother gets in trouble with empress Lü and ends up dead along with Shen Er's parents who tried to help her. Yi Fang and Shen Er make it to Yi Fang's uncle on their own, but his wife refuses to take Shen Er in and she is abandoned on the street. When they grow up, they both enter the palace as maids and treat each other as sisters again. Clever Yi Fang catches the empress's attention and she gives her a new identity to send her to become prince of Dai's concubine and spy on him and keeps Shen Er with her as a hostage. However Yi Fang falls in love with her husband and switches sides. Now she has to scheme to fool both sides. Over time her relationship with ambitious Shen Er changes till they find themselves as enemies. The plots in the palace never end and later she has to deal with the intrigues between her children and her son's women. I found it interesting how even though Yi Fang is depicted as loving and kind she is the titular beauty with schemes and she never admits to her husband that she came to him as a spy. I wonder if he ever suspected. If he did, he loved her enough to never bring it up.




Beyond the Realm of Conscience

33 episodes

The main characters are friends Sam Ho and Kamling. The story is about their life in the imperial household, their love lives and relationship with the prince who survives life in palace by pretending to be a fool and eventually becomes the emperor. Sam Ho is almost sickeningly sweet character. She always does the right thing, treats everyone with kindness and always gives the benefit of a doubt. Kamling starts out as a bit ambitious, but a good sister to Sam Ho till after losing her baby something in her cracks and she would do anything for power. I was a bit surprised by how many characters dies and the the bittersweetness of the ending. Maybe I shouldn't have since sweet lotus seeds as "sweetness in bitterness" came up quite often. Overall it wasn't bad, but I would have liked it much better if Sam Ho wasn't such an embodiment of virtue, Kamling was much more interesting even if she got a bit murderous in the end. Also I still need t get used to the sound of Cantonese.




Jade Palace Lock Heart



39 episodes

It's kind of like Hana Yori Dango in Qing dynasty with time travel. It has a lot of issues, but has certain kind of charm that makes it still fun to watch. An ordinary girl Qing Chuan, who has a thing for stories about emperor Yongzheng is about to marry according to her mother's wishes when she suddenly falls through time and finds herself in 18th century where she meets her idol while he is still a prince and not quite the man she thought he was. She encounters various other princes and deals with the life in court. The story doesn't take itself too seriously, there are quite funny moments. There are many similarities with Hana Yori Dango. They even had the scene where the boyfriend's mother finds him another bride and he tries to escape with the heroine and later discovered he grabbed the wrong girl etc! There's love pentagons, fighting for the throne, plots and crazy things like teaching an imperial concubine roller scate or making ice sculptures with martial arts. Oh, and the crown prince believes the heroine is a fairy.



I just finished the last one two days ago and got really confused with the ages. At first they really didn't indicate how much time has passed since her arrival. A few years maybe. Then she got married and 14 years passed, soon afterwards four more years passed. That would mean she spent at least 20 years in the past. Then she travels back to the future. Some time has passed, but it doesn't feel like 20 years, for example her fiancé is still around. So she got young again? Nobody is surprised she has aged twenty years? I just don't get it. The fact that they didn't even try to make the actors look older as the time passed doesn't help at all.

Comments

[fujiko]

I believe it is. I've been watching this year's taiga drama instead. I find it fun and it concentrates on female characters, but sometimes the main character feels a bit Mary Sueish. It's hard to understand how old she and her sisters are supposed to be from their looks or actions, so I end up checking the wiki a lot. XD

[ditch_gospel]

I was looking at the list of taiga dramas the other day to see if anything else looked interesting. Mary Sueish, huh? That Mary Sue turns up everywhere!

It's annoying when an actor's age doesn't match the age of the character they're playing.

[fujiko]

She has to take part in everything that happens. Rather strange if you remember that at first she is not even ten.

It becomes a problem if the series takes place over decades. What are they supposed to do? Change faces again and again? Let the same actress play the character when she is 20 ( and sometimes even 10) and when she is 60?

Empress Chunchu has two actresses. One for when she was very young. 17-18 maybe? Old enough to marry, but young enough to be still treated as a child in some ways at home. Ten around ten years pass and suddenly the actress is 40. It felt kind of abrupt.

The taiga drama I mentioned - Gou - Himetachi no Sengoku is especially weird with the ages. the actress for Gou is around 25, the one for her her eldest sister is almost 40. I checked the dates and when they first appear, Gou was historically 6 and chacha was 10 :o. And Gou kept writing to uncle Nobunaga and asking why he ordered Tokugawa Ieyasu to kill his wife and son. Do six-year-olds act like that? I'm sure eventually the characters will look their age, now it is just bizarre.

[ditch_gospel]

These days with good special effects and makeup, it should be possible for a younger actress/actor to change their appearance that way. Of course an adult shouldn't try to play a child, though, or vice versa. That would just be weird.

Wow. In that case, I can kind of see why they would change the ages of the characters so drastically. Since the children are behaving in a very mature way anyway, I guess it wouldn't seem really out of place to just up their ages. But from 10 to 40 is quite a huge difference!

[fujiko]

Usually they do it the other way around and use too old actresses. Experience has to count for something, I guess, however I just can't buy 40yo actresses as around 20.

They didn't up their ages, just used too old actresses. The dates are mentioned all the time, their births were included in the story, you can do the math and they are still 6 and 10. Maybe they just go with the idea that children had to grow up fast back then... Um, still doesn't make sense. Gou got married in recent episodes, I did the math and she is... 11. It was an arranged marriage and it was mentioned that she was too young, so strangely this might be one of the times when they actually do act their age.

[ditch_gospel]

I guess it's harder to decrease age by using makeup.

They didn't up their ages, just used too old actresses.

Okay, then that's just really odd. Maybe they couldn't find any children who could act well enough to fit the role? Surely they could have handled thngs differently so that it was at least semi-realistic.

[fujiko]

Maybe they wanted to attract audiences by using the well-known actresses from the start instead of waiting half a year till you get to the part when the characters are old enough? What makes it even stranger is that they did use little girls for elder sisters when their mother was still pregnant with Gou (they must have been 3 and 4). In the next episode 5-6 years had passed and they used adults for everyone.

[ditch_gospel]

Maybe they wanted to attract audiences by using the well-known actresses from the start instead of waiting half a year till you get to the part when the characters are old enough?

That reason makes the most sense. In the end, I guess they were willing to sacrifice realism in order to attract viewers.

In the next episode 5-6 years had passed and they used adults for everyone.

This is starting to make my head spin! Talk about confusing.

[fujiko]

And maybe people would feel weird if they realised they are watching a series about little girls discussing politics. XD

I think we need flowcharts or something.

[ditch_gospel]

*laughs* I can see how some may not appreciate tuning in every week for that.

Flowcharts would help!