Untouchable Lovers or Huang Feng Prison

Zhu Que: Our heroine, a spy who impersonates Princess Chu Yu.
Sent by a secret organization, Tianji Tower with a mission to kill the tyrant emperor because she looks exactly like the emperor’s beloved older sister, Princess Chu Yu, Zhu Que’s first task is to make sure that Princess Chu Yu’s many male concubines would not see through her pretense. Our heroine later finds out that she is actually Princess Chu Yu’s twin sister but due to a prophecy, our heroine was abandoned as a baby.

 

 

 

 

 

Rong Zhi: Our mysterious hero who despite his brilliant mind is strangely content to be one of Princess Chu Yu’s concubines. Rong Zhi is Princess Chu Yu’s most trusted confidant and her favorite male concubine so he has privileges that no other concubine has.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Episode 1-16 Super Quick Overview (with spoilers…obviously)

Extremely wary of our mysterious hero, the very first thing Zhu Que did is to make sure that she takes away Roung Zhi’s previously unchallenged rule over the princess’ manor and sets up Huan Yuan, a talented poet as her new confidant.  Unfazed by the fact that he has seemingly fallen out of favor with the Princess, Roung Zhi is more interested in the changes in the princess…and finding out who she really is.

Ignoring the increasing pressure from Tianji Tower for her to finish her mission, Zhu Que is starting to wonder if killing the emperor is the best course of action…especially after she finds out that she is actually the young emperor’s older sister. (So she and the real Princess were twins.) Making up her mind that instead of taking a chance on some unknown stranger to be a good emperor, it would be better to teach her younger brother to start acting like one. Amused by Zhu Que’s attempt to inject human decency into the cruel emperor, Roung Zhi is generous in providing Zhu Que with whatever help she asks for…knowing full well that her attempt will be futile and will not prevent his own plan from going ahead smoothly.

As our hero predicated, Zhu Que’s attempt to make her younger brother into a good emperor was useless and she is forced to admit defeat after watching the young emperor continuing to shed innocent blood including that of her best friend. Finally realizing she has to finish her mission, Zhu Que gets ready to kill the emperor but things spin out of heroine’s control when her personal bodyguard AND Tian Rujing betrays her. (Tian Rujing is an important secondary character who knows the future and is determined to not let anyone change it. In the novel, Tian Rujing had a device from the future that was kinda like a small computer that could also protect its owner so that’s how he knew the future. The drama didn’t have the future element so the “computer” didn’t show up as well.)

Watching with cold eyes when soldiers storm the palace, Zhu Que finds the young emperor hiding among dead palace guards. Unmoved when her brother eagerly calls out “Sister!”, Zhu Que walks away and leaves the young emperor to die by the hands of the rebels.

Escaping away from the capital with those closest to her, Zhu Que finally finds out that Roung Zhi is actually a general of the enemy country (Northern Wei) and has been using everyone around him (including…or perhaps, especially her) to create chaos in Liu Song (heroine’s country) so his country could capitalize on it.

Here is one of my favorite scene:

The other shoe finally dropped as all her wild guesses about our mysterious hero are finally answered in the most distressing manner, yet our heroine somehow felt like she had always known it somehow. Calmly staring at the man in front of her, the man she has fallen in love with despite knowing all along that he is dangerous, Zhu Que realizes that there is one question she has to ask even if she can already guess the answer.

Her face calm without a hint of anger as she faces Roung Zhi, Zhu Que confesses “I have one last question for you. Roung Zi, I like you. Do you like me? Even a little?”
After only a slight hesitation, Roung Zi replies “No. Not even a little.”
Staring at Roung Zhi intently, Zhu Que presses “All of your caring attitude towards me before were all lies?”
Nodding, Roung Zi replies “Yes. They were all lies.”
Mildly surprised when Zhu Que calmly thanks him for answering her question, Roung Zi asks “You don’t hate me?”
With a self depreciating smile, Zhu Que replies “No, I don’t hate you. I am just a very unlucky person. I was born as a royalty but was abandoned by my mother. I was finally adopted but almost became food during the famine. I found a friend that was like a sister to me but I lost her too. I fall in love with someone for the first time, but I liked the wrong guy. Roung Zi, it was my choice to like you. Leaving you now is also my choice. Since you don’t like me then I will just stop liking you. It’s that simple.”
Taking the sword to her long hair, Zhu Que resolutely cuts off a lock. Letting the hair lock fall to the hair as she points the sword at Roung Zi, Zhu Que declares “I am severing our connections. From this point on, may we never meet again.”
Rather stunned by Zhu Que’s declaration, Roung Zi silently watches as Zhu Que turns and leaves without a backward glance.

True to her words, our heroine is determined to move on with her life even if those closest to her could still tell that she is hiding a sadness inside. Not bothering to deny that she needs time to heal, Zhu Que is nonetheless convinced that time is also the best medicine to help her forget Roung Zi. None too pleased as he listens to his man’s reports on Zhu Que and realizes that she really is determined to forget him as she had declared, Roung Zi finds himself very much bothered…to the point that he can no longer deny what he once thought was impossible – He has fallen in love with Zhu Que.

Unfortunately, due to some misunderstandings, our heroine comes to believes that Roung Zi has ordered his soldiers to slaughter innocent townspeople so when it comes time for our hero to confess his feelings, it is Zhu Que turn to reject him.

Knowing how stubborn Zhu Que could be, Roung Zi decides to go along with a trap Tian Rujing has set to kill him so his “death” could become the catalyst for Zhu Que to forgive him and pave the way for them to eventually be together. Roung Zi’s plan goes perfectly and everything seems to be progressing as he had planned… that is until he finds out that he had avoided Tian Rujing’s trap only to walk right into another one that his own sister (the empress who has come to fear his ability) has set for him.

The ending: Our hero is controlled by a superbug so he would become a puppet working for his own sister. Believing our hero is dead, Zhu Que is convinced by Tian Rujing to go back to the palace so the two of them could influence the new emperor…who is an even worse tyrant than the heroine’s younger brother. The scene switches to a storyteller with a group of people and we realize that this whole thing was just a story after all. Agreeing good naturally when his listeners complain loudly that our two leads were cheated out of a happy ending, the storyteller decides to tell a complete different story with the same two leads but this time the stage is set in our hero’s manor in his own country and our heroine will be the one going to him.

Ninja’s Thoughts:

Sigh…So much potential… Anyone else feels like this was a total bait and switch? I walked into this one expecting it to tell the epic love story of a much beloved novel…which it did, sort of, for 16 episodes then suddenly we are told everything was just a made up story. Seriously show? Plus, in order to set the next “story” up the show had chosen to change the novel’s happy’s ending into a tragic one that really didn’t make any sense at all. In the novel, no one, NO ONE outsmarts the hero. If someone eventually did then it was only because he took a calculated risk for something else he has up his sleeve. Not to be outdone, our heroine has her own charisma in her stubborn determination in staying true to who she is that it makes it realistic for a change to believe why all our male leads would fall in love with her. Would two such awesome leads allow themselves to become string puppets to someone else? The answer seems obvious and thus make the ending that much more ridiculous.

Ok, I am done with venting. There were some things I did like. 1. I thought the casting was actually quite good considering there is probably no human being that could come close to such perfect/scary (in a very sexy way) hero. 2. The casting of secondary characters was good as well. 3. The chemistry between the two leads was great. 4. As much as I really didn’t like the “story” twist, I have to admit the next story’s set up was very intriguing and caught my interest right away so that did a lot to soothe my frustration over the ending. (Side note: Roung Zi’s character looks more sexy in the first story for some reason.)

For those who are curious about the book’s REAL ending, I will write another post next Monday that will cover the ending and some notable difference between the two versions (TV and the novel).

 

 

All text copyright @ www.Ninja-Reflection.com

 

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