The 2024 summer C-drama wave is here for realz, last week premiered Follow Your Heart starring Luo Yun Xi and Song Yi to kick it off and this week comes The Princess Royal with Zhao Jin Mai and Zhang Ling He. Earlier premieres Fox Spirit Matchmaker: Red Moon Pact and The Double were both late spring dramas and now we will see basically a new C-drama a week or maybe two a week across the various platforms. The first one is this week as Youku decided to jump ahead of another Zhang Ling He drama and release The Princess Royal on June 26th today. This drama is a double dose of Story of Kunning Palace rebirth story where BOTH leads are reborn as their younger selves to re-do their prior life ill-fated marriage into a clear minded alliance in this go-around. I really like the posters, visuals, concept of dual rebirth, and of the leads in the preview. Definitely checking this out!
Trailer for The Princess Royal:
Zhao Jin Mai is very pretty, talented and likable. I can’t wait. The second male lead Chen He Yi has potential so hopefully he will deliver.
By the way I wonder why the drama can maintain the rebirth theme and pass the restrictions whereas The Double couldn’t do so?
Will check this out besides Luo Yunxi’s current drama Folow Your Heart.
The novel is a masterpiece! Same author as destined (Baijingting x Songyi) drama based on. Really love the novel, at doubt 1st time read about the casting but turns out Zhao Jinmai is indeed good actrees.
The men’s wigs in this are giving me Elvis Presley vibes lol so distracting. Other than that looks interesting.
I’ve been excited about this since it was first announced and now it’s finally here! The trailers have been 🔥
I was gonna read the novel months ago but had to back out coz of the literal hundreds of chapters that I don’t have the headspace for. I’m catching the drama for sure since I’ve read the premise of the novel.
My bad. I confused it with a different novel. 😂😂 The translation isn’t over yet for this drama’s novel and I can’t start if it’s not even halfway done. That’d be torture.
Where can Instead it? Please help.
@Kai If you’re asking where you can ready the novel, check out novelupdates. Search for “The grand princess”. But like Trina said, only about thirty chapters out of 169 have been translated so far. I am on the fence myself if I should brave the headache inducing MTL😂
I was watching Song Yi’s new drama with Luo Yunxi but it was slow-paced for my taste. I’ll check this one, maybe it’s my cup of tea.
This drama is slow pace for me too. Was not my cup of tea
I have read the novel up yo 140. I think all 169 chapters are translated albeit not perfectly.
Does it have a useful female character?
Excited, excited!
The Double is still filling most of my head space but this looks equally good and am very excited to binge watch after a few more episodes come out. Quite impressed with Youku this year they haven’t dropped ball till now. Starting from dumb cuteness of Everyone Loves Me, the intriguing In Blossom, the compelling Blossoms In Adversity and the addictive The Double they have delivered good dramas this year. Does anyone know what their lineup for the rest of the year might be?
Watched 3 episodes so far. The premise is just as interesting as what I had initially thought, but its execution is kind of disappointing. The camera work is slightly above average, the filter used is pretty natural, and seems like the sets and props are of decent quality too. However, the characters’ lines sounds too modern and Su Rongqing’s voice is especially distracting, they should have dubbed him. The male lead isn’t convincing to me as a 40yo man in a 20yo body, and the palace politics are also pretty superficial. With that said, I’m still interested to see how the drama will pan out so I’ll continue on for now.
ZLH can’t really act and I’m so disappointed about the casting. He’s not Pei Wenxuan to me.
I’m up to 6 episodes now and I have to say…it’s another drama where you have to throw logic out the window. ZLH does seem to have chemistry with ZJM though, so based on what I’ve seen so far, I’ll recommend this drama to people who like shipping.
Just finished JOL2 and so I watched 3 eps of this. Idk why it bores me so much. Maybe I should try The Double instead which seems to be more story driven.
I read the first part of the novel in Chinese so i) this is a solid adaptation at least till ep 6 (small changes made actually made it better! I love that they’re getting 2nd male lead more involved from the start) and ii) Zhang Linghe and Zhao Jinmai are doing good with their simultaneously blase/annoyed on surface, fearful/regretful/tender undercurrent chemistry.
ZHL in his prior stuff- SoKP & JTY was disappointing, but here he has the sharp but not cold, passionate but not naive thing down. I love his take on his past life- “I upheld justice and gave my all for the people… the only person I let down was the Princess.”
So yeah I’m in!
Follow Your Heart is so slow that I switched to Princess Royal. Different than everyone else, I don’t find Zhao Jin Mai all that pretty. She has big checks and bulging eyes…not sure if I can take 40 chapters of the FL. The premise is intriguing, but the story telling and execution sucks. Luckily, Lost You Forever is just around the corner.
I don’t like how she looks either.
@dcc I prefer to see ZJM over LYX. At least she doesn’t look like she’s unhealthy.
This is dreadfully boring.
I don’t dislike the two leads but a quick glimpse of the trailer gave me the impression that ZJM’s visuals, mannerism, and aura just appear off in costume. This may be biased. But who knows? I’ll check it out. Now I’ll give most of the C costume dramas “who knows” reaction after a pleasant surprise from the Double. LOL.
I felt a bit lost after the Double wrapped up and have been shopping around for fun romance to watch. LOL. I haven’t had good luck with 2024 K drama. I tried to pick up Lovely Runner again thanks to all the buzz around the ML but LOL I dozed off through each ep so far. It’s just not for me.
I also dropped Lovely Runner, I found it predictable. LOL. I’m going to check To The Wonder, I’m curious about it since it has been receiving critical acclamation.
I stopped watching Lovely Runner too. I found the plot predictable. LOL.
Zhao Jin Mai in The Princess Royal reminded me of Bai Lu in Till The End Of The Moon because of her overly modern mannerisms. Watching both of them I felt like they were just cosplaying. LOL.
There are C-dramas I need to check out. There are three in particular that received critical acclaim: To The Wonder, The Long Season and Ripe Town.
Ok. I’ll check them out too. I’m really bored without interesting dramas to watch now.
I have some old K dramas on my plate per fans’ recommendation. But I quit Chief Kim to watch the Double and don’t feel like picking it up again.
So far it is okay. The main leads performance in trying to portray 30-40 year olds didn’t seem too convincing but it has an interesting story. I just hope this does not end with it was just a dream because every time travel c drama so far has done so minus one or two dramas like kunning palace and yong an dream. I just feel it might do so. Hopefully I’m wrong and if they do please make it make sense. 🙏🏻