Let’s dive into one of the most popular dramas of the 90’s — “Princess Pearl”, aka “My Fair Princess“, aka “Huanzhu Ge-ge” — where the number of episodes is small, romance is not a source of misery, no illogical plot twist, where martial arts simply mean flipping yourself in the air, and people wear a lot more eyeliner than they need.
EPISODE 1 RECAP
It is a special day for everyone in the capital city. The emperor has just adopted a daughter and he plans to hold a public celebration in which the people get a chance to wave at the new princess’ sedan as it passes by. In the middle of it all, a girl from the crowd, Ziwei, starts yelling and running after the procession, followed by another girl who… doesn’t really need to be in this drama (but we’ll get to that later).
Some of the guards attempt to hold Ziwei back but she shakes them all off. Wow, Ziwei is strong. She calls after the new princess and shouts things along the line of “how could you lie to me?”. It’s a death sentence for sure to behave like this when the emperor is present, but something has gone so wrong that Ziwei doesn’t care if she lives or die.
Backtracking a little, we learn the reason for all of this.
Ziwei’s mother has just passed away; she and her maid Jinsuo have come to the capital city to look for Ziwei’s father. Who is her father? The Emperor of China himself! It’s not a scam, I promise.
Ziwei knows where the palace is but she has no way of entering it. So she and Jinsuo just kind of stand there and look like the world is ending for a while every day then go back home.
You see Jinsuo’s eyebrows up there? Yeah, they’re always like that. She almost always looks miserable about something.
By the way, Ziwei and Jinsuo are together most of the time; but because the latter contributes almost nothing to the story, whenever I say Ziwei does this and that, it usually means Jinsuo is there doing the exact same thing and I see no narrative need in pointing it out.
One day, Ziwei runs into a street performer, Xiaoyanzi, who is being pursued by security guards. *Drumroll for our leading girl*
She didn’t do anything wrong, just impersonated a reluctant bride, crashed a wedding and stole some wedding gifts. Good-hearted Ziwei covers up for her. Good thing the officers aren’t very bright to begin with, they pass by Ziwei and Jinsuo — who are dressed in shiny rich lords’ clothes and stand still with their eyes wide open while everyone is scrambling out of the way — and suspect nothing.
So, that is how Ziwei and Xiaoyanzi become friends. Ziwei helps Xiaoyanzi dodge prison and Xiaoyanzi points out to Ziwei that her boy-disguise is crappy.
COMMENTS
Vicky Zhao’s acting is so good that she took all the tropes drama-viewers would hate about female leads nowadays — reckless, innocent, impulsive, occasionally irresponsible – and turned them into something watchable.
I personally have no problems with reckless and doe-eyed female leads as long as their stories have a direction for them. But it’s without a doubt that there is just something natural and lovable about Xiaoyanzi that similar characters nowadays can’t reproduce.