EPISODE 1 RECAP
The episode opens with an attack on a military camp. A general is chilling inside his tent, the camera showing us his awesome clothes and his slender cheek as the soldiers outside battle the attackers. They seem to be professional bandits.
At one point, The general steps out of the episode and catches an arrow flying at him with his bare hands. I don’t know about this, can people really do this without getting hurt. But anyway, why would you want to risk it like that?
We don’t get to see the rest of this fight. The scene switches to a woman wearing a mask and sneaking into one of the tents and then it all goes dark. The next thing we see is a regular morning in a regular town, except that this town is not regular at all.
A beautiful lady — named Miantang — is strolling around with her servant. The people here are talking about Miantang behind her back, and the old servant tries her best to keep Miantang away from people in general. They’re not saying anything bad about Miantang, though. just enough to let us know something is wrong here.
For starters, the old servant (a nanny, it seems) keeps telling Miantang that her husband has been good to her so she’d better be good back. Everyone else is saying the same thing too. It’s like they’re trying to trap her in a ghost town or something. And that husband guy sounds like a dark lord.
But the good thing is Miantang is more than capable of handling herself. When she has had enough of husband this and husband that, she subtly tells the nanny to leave her alone, otherwise she’s got a strong fist and she’s not afraid to use it.
Later on, Miantang breaks off from Nanny and goes talk to a maid. The maid tells her the same thing: your husband’s great. This girl is not a very good liar, though, she makes it so obvious that she rehearsed those lines she told Miantang.
Now we get to see Miantang’s “husband”. It’s that general in the beginning, Cui Xingzhou, Prince of Huaiyang. He and his assistant are talking in a restaurant and they confirm that yes, something shady is definitely going on. So here it is:
A while ago, Miantang got into some kind of accident and was rescued by Xingzhou. She lost her memory and called him “husband” the second she woke up.
And then Xingzhou is just like: sure, why not.
But he does have a good reason. Miantang’s background is special and having her on his side — or in his clutch — can help Xingzhou with a battle he’s fighting. Who she is, we still don’t know, but she was involved with a lot of important people before the accident, all right.
Deep down Xingzhou doesn’t want to do this but his assistant friend tells him to keep riding it. It does sound like a big investment, keeping Miantang here and making the whole town play pretence and everything. So many things can go wrong. But then, what else can we count on these male leads to do except making weird choices and exposing themselves in the most ridiculous way to their love interests?
Now, because of this fake relationship, things are awkward between Miantang and Xingzhou. While Miantang tries to treat him like a husband, she just doesn’t feel anything. Xingzhou, on the other hand, prefers to keep his distance. Two reasons for this: first, he doesn’t want to make things more complicated than they already are; and second, even though Miantang lost her memory, she still has the muscle memory of a martial artist so she might knock him out by accident. And I can easily believe that. Wang Churan definitely looks like she can punch this guy out any time she wants.
Miantang is not content with just staying home. You see, aside from being physically fit, she’s also an active girl. She likes to run around managing things.
After she gets a shop open with all sorts of discounts, Xingzhou allows her to run this shop as she pleases. He’s playing with fire here. Doing things she’s familiar with may just trigger her memory to come back any day.
COMMENTS
Well, this was a surprisingly enjoyable first episode. First of all, I wouldn’t say the sets and the costumes are the best I’ve seen. But I’ve also seen worse, and to be honest, with romance dramas, my expectations about costumes and sets are low. The plot is easy enough to follow. You can guess what’s going to happen next from episode one so it’s also easy to decide whether this is the drama for you.
As of now, it looks like a light-hearted romance comedy with a touch of politics and warfare. If they decide to change the tone later on, let’s hope they do so without giving the audience whiplash.
Given the predictable nature of the story, how it performs fares on the acting a lot. Wang Churan is a great pick for this role. She can play both timid and stubborn and while this character is nothing revolutionary, the acting certainly gives her a unique edge. Wang Churan has some period dramas under her belt and if she can manage to make the girl in Love Heals likeable, this one is not a problem for her.
Regarding the male lead played by Zhang Wanyi, while he is not bad, he is also not commanding attention. He’s supposed to be an intelligent military general and a great warrior, but so far, that vibe is not coming off of him yet. I’m not saying that we need to see him stand up and do combat sequences right away, but a good actor should be able to convey his character’s unspoken power without moving a lot.
For now, he is simply being a likeable protagonist. If it weren’t for the special effects and the camera language propping up his performance, I would not know he was the male lead. But no worries, 30+ episodes left — plenty of time for change. Either for better or for worse.
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