Juniper
Another Qing palace drama? There are so many of these every year and the story is really more or less the same with scheming concubines as the villains. Sometimes the heroine is a naïve, unknowledgeable downtrodden victim who gets bullied and beaten time and again. In “Love Story Of Court Enemies”, it is set in the Yongzheng era. By the way, this is the first time I have seen a Qing Emperor wearing one long dangling ear ring on his right ear. Almost makes him look like an ancient rock star. Give him a guitar and he might start belting out “We Will Rock You”.
In this drama, Yu Xing is an orphan. Her parents were killed, there is an inkling from the beginning that it has something to do with a plot in the palace. Yu Xing likes collecting herbs and lives in a village with her foster father and foster sister, Cai Hong. One day, rebels arrive and the villagers flee. The sisters are separated and foster father killed saving Yu Xing. Cai Hong is saved by a noble man whose daughter has fled, she has been ordered to be one of the candidates for concubine selection for the Emperor. Cai Hong takes her place to repay the noble man who saved her life and enters the palace where despite her strategy to prevent being selected, the Emperor selects her as one of the concubines.
Emperor has a favoured concubine, Concubine Shu and she is the main villain here. I think this drama production doesn’t spend much on costumes as I see the concubines in the same costumes in every scene in every episode! Yu Xing befriends the hero of the drama, Yue Zong Lin who is the son of a General (the same General who was ordered to kill Yu Xing’s parents and even wanted to kill Yu Xing too).
Yue Zong Lin works as a bodyguard to the Emperor and therefore he bumps into Yu Xing at the palace. The interesting thing about the drama is that Yu Xing can hold her own even though she gets bullied over and over again. I like this character as she is sharp tongued and not stupid. Also, the actresses don’t look as anorexic as some other dramas. Yu Xing and Zong Lin get along quite well and it doesn’t take long before they fall in love but as usual, there are many obstacles in their path.
Yu Xing and Cai Hong who has taken on the identity of nobleman’s daughter Qiu Qing are banished to do manual labour as they breached a taboo that is punishable by death. At first the Emperor ordered both to be beheaded but commuted the sentence to hard labour. That’s about as much as I have seen so far and I have just completed Episode 10.
