After Hot Uncle reignited my thirst for Yan Yikuan, I decided to rewatch Glamorous Imperial Concubine, one of my all time fave old school cdramas.
Something I love on rewatch is that it opens with a "funny" montage of goofiness:
And in a recent drama, you'd assume this is gonna be a wacky funny drama with our heroine girlbossing her way to power/wealth/acclaim and general happy ending in a fun "costume as aesthetic" world. But this is a drama from 2011 and it's nothing of the sort because the bright colors and wacky moments coexist with truly breathtaking fucked-upness and cruelty of the world. Nobody is emerging from this narrative happy and well adjusted and in this drama, actions do have some nasty consequences and things don't feel safe (ten minutes later we see a supporting character casually order a servant beaten to death because she saw her master's mildly embarassing moment.) Nobody will be discussing how everyone is equal or mouthing off to a royal without consequences in this drama.
Oh, and here is Hot Uncle - that chiseled jaw is breathtaking even with face half covered:
And something worth noting - THIS IS OUR MALE LEAD AND LOVE INTEREST. He's not a cool secondary allowed to be psycho in nowadays dramas (a la Qi Min.) And yet, he thinks our altruistic heroine is stupid and has no interest in helping her unless there is something in it for him. This narrative realizes something - it hits harder when a genuine bastard/cold dude/wanting to use you dude falls and falls hard.
And speaking of genuine bastards, meet our other male lead (well, secondary male lead), played by Wallace Huo. Ruby Lin, to our benefit, got two of the hottest leading men of her time in one drama:
I love my unhinged emperor dude. He makes YYK's character seem functional.
Side note - it's fascinating to watch and compare how much into the bdsm/kink direction certain dynamics went filmingwise. Like - I don't get the sense off Wallace is getting off on Ruby sticking a knife to his throat the way you see Psycho Didi is with FL in PoJ.
But also:
In a recent drama, our pure heroine would convince the emperor (and/or YYK's prince) of this and save kingdoms and the men and what not. In this drama, she gets to find out HOW FUCKING WRONG SHE IS.
I still adore this drama to bits.
PS Wallace may have lost the heart of the girl in the drama but he got the heart of the girl in real life so yay.
