#story-of-kunning-palace

[gizkasparadise]

[zhanglinghez]

STORY OF KUNNING PALACE 宁安如梦 (2023) → EPISODE 34

[storge]

Ning'er and her harem

Story of Kunning Palace (2023)

[cdrama-action]

🍉SIGNUPS FOR CDRAMA GOTCHA FOR GAZA CREATORS NOW OPEN!🍉

We are a fundraiser event dedicated to creating fanworks in exchange for donations to the people of Palestine. Creator signup is now open for fanfic authors, fanartists, vid makers, and graphics/gif creators.

Once creator signups close, for small donations of at least 5.00-8.00 USD to Palestinian direct aid organizations, you will be able to receive a fanwork from one of these talented creators

CREATOR SIGNUPS OPEN: March 30th, 2024 to April 14, 2024

All creators welcome! Whether you can create for three or one hundred fandoms, we'd love to see you on board. Fanartists, fic writers, fanvid creators, and gif/graphic creators can sign up.

Please visit our CARRD HERE for more information on both how to create and how to donate.

Then, if you are a creator, go sign up here.

You can also follow our twitter here.

Inspiration is @SVSSSAction, @TGCFAction , and @MDZSaction on twitter.

We greatly appreciate you promoting our project, even if you can't participate yourself. As this is a multi-fandom event, we need all the plugging we can get. Thank you!!

-Cdrama Action Team

[dramashii]

ZHANG LING HE as Xie Wei in STORY OF KUNNING PALACE (2023)

[animebw]

Everyone say thank you to Madhouse and JC Staff for keeping shoujo/josei anime alive in the modern anime era.

[goddessofwild]

Chinese drama logic -

If you are a protagonist and want to do evil things, the first thing you must do is wear red eye liner/shadow. Accompanied by red lipstick.

Wen Kexing from Word Of Honor mentioned by @seekerofpatterns

[dangermousie]

2023 End of Year Post - cdrama edition

Yes, we have a lot of December left, but I don't think anything else I want to check out will air before 2024 hits (it's cdrama so caveat is - you never know.)

This is only going to cover cdramas that aired in 2023; if I watched it but it was made in a different year, it's not on the list. This was a pretty good cdrama year, all in all.

DRAMAS WATCHED

(In order of liking from least to most as opposed to pure quality; I am including if I’ve seen enough to make up my mind; yes I realize that’s inaccurate, but that’s my list)

30 legend of twin flower - Not dignifying that drama with capital letters, as the only capital that should be associated with this is capital punishment - which is what watching this feels like.

29 Dominator of Martial Gods - sounds like a bdsm gay porn title. Would probably be better acted and written if it was.

28 Beauty of Resilience - you'd need a lot of said resilience to sit through this incoherent, barely acted mess. The thing that I remember the most other than my annoyance is all the jingly-jangly head gear on JJY. Perhaps they could have sold some of them and spent the money on a better script.

27 Divine Destiny - if you think you have too many brain cells and want to get rid of some, boy do I have a drama for you!

26 Wanru’s Journey - honestly it's probably tied with SEL - I mean it's worse but it has actors who are nowhere as well known and a fraction of SEL's budget. Still, this is a big fat nope. I will not say what I think of Aoi Rupeng's "acting" or I'd have to put money in the curse jar.

25 Snow Eagle Lord - Gulinazha's stone face, nonsense plot, terrible CGI. Take your pick as to why this is terrible.

24 Scent of Time - it was uneven but fun but then that ending was dumb enough to destroy the whole thing. Show me on the doll where common sense hurt you, makers!

23 Royal Rumors - Jeremy Tsui and Meng Ziyi are utterly wasted in this nothing trifle of a drama.

22 Legend of Anle - I had high expectations but alas. This is the drama version of color beige. There is nothing offensive about it but nothing good either. Mediocre actors are mediocre, good actors become mediocre, this is just a waste of our finite time on planet earth.

21 Romance on the Farm - it's not you, it's me in action. I can see why people would like this wholesome slice of farming family life, but it's tailored to trigger every one of my "nope" opinions.

20 Back from the Brink - if I were 12, it would be my favorite thing. I am not 12.

19 Journey of Chong Zi - objectively a terrible drama with plot holes the size of Mars and a leading lady whose face has apparently frozen when the wind changed. But I am a total sucker for the trope of upright shizun falling for his demonic disciple and going mental so here we are. Objectively, garbage, subjectively my precious!

18 Love you Seven Times - just call poor Ding Yuxi "Atlas," he carried this mess so hard.

17 Blooming Days - trashy dogblood harem fight fun throwback. It's not that great (and the fact that it was shredded doesn't help) but it's probably the last gasp of that genre for the foreseeable future, so I am grading on a curve.

16 The Starry Love - a fun fantasy where the secondary OTP stole the thunder but overall a really solid fantasy xianxia romance.

15 The Longest Promise - it could have been better - the secondaries were unbearable and there was too much of them and what they did with Alen Fang's character still gives me rage fits, but the main couple was impeccable and lovely and I rooted so hard for them.

14 Chang Feng Du/Destined - visually gorgeous, solidly acted, impeccable first half. Bland as hell second half. Win some, lose some.

13 Circle of Love - this drama is a nonsense trash heap on fire. After a typhoon hit it. It was also the most entertaining, addicting drama on this whole list.

12 Hidden Love - the sole modern on this list, this story has barely any plot but it made me care about the young, decent lovers so hard.

11 Choice Husband - starts out wacky, continues with angst and blood and happy ending. I loved it, but I've always had a soft spot for melo and schemers turning devoted.

10 Pledge of Allegiance - bromance, super solid acting, visuals, a really dark take on officials and the world. Insanely underrated.

9 Provoke - a truly fun Republican revenge and love tale, showing that short format can be wonderful.

8 Gone with the Rain - some of the secondary characters are rage-inducing (hi there, cardboard boy!) but the scheming, ruthless, vulgar FL is amazing and her slowburn with her age gap general who is delighted by her out-there-ness is great!

7 Wonderland of Love - Fei Wo Si Cun goes wholesome and the result is surprisingly entertaining. Battle couple, glorious visuals, a fast paced plot. It's the first Xu Kai drama I enjoyed in years (and he plays a rare cdrama ML it would be pretty neat to pair up with in rl.)

6 My Journey to You - that ending is infuriating (and I am OK with open endings if done properly) but what a visual feast, probably the most gloriously shot drama on this list, and that's a tough competition. Also it packs a hell of a lot of couples and familial and adversarial relationships into its slim running time; assassin lady won over by a gentle man is my favorite trope and so this is extra great.

5. Till the End of the Moon - the ending is a rage-inducing disaster for me, but this drama was the most incredibly emotionally intense, visually eye popping experience. It was deeply flawed but when it was amazing, it was like nothing else in its visuals, its characters and its narratives. It took insane risks; some paid off and some did not, but it was glorious.

4. Story of Kunning Palace - I don't often care for reverse harem stories but this one was such fun - the main OTP was glorious (strong FL, unhinged ML) but honestly everything about this was just so excellently done.

3. The Ingenious One - the most adult drama on this list. Smart protagonists, intelligent plot, emotions that felt true, this is a revenge and a mystery and found family and goes into so many directions you do not expect (Su Mengyu's PTSD after his first kill - that is something you never see in dramas, definitely not prolonged and profound - not like this.) If I was to say which drama was objectively the best on this list, as opposed to favorite, it would be this.

1 (tie) Lost You Forever 1 - this is an exquisite emotional jewel of a story about damaged people moving forward, with damage always present - their past informs their present and always will. The narrative about Xiao Yao and three very different men in her life makes me think that it's an equivalent of a neutron bomb going off right before the main narrative starts and now we are watching the survivors wander in the wreckage. This is very high fantasy setting but it's one of the most emotionally human narratives out there.

1 A Journey to Love - everything I ever wanted - assassins, ride or die adult OTP with genuine believable conflicts, great and complex secondaries, beautiful fights. Oh, and yeah Liu Shi Shi domming the hell out of every man in a ten mile radius, as she should.

FAVORITE DRAMA

It's a tie between Lost You Forever Part 1 and A Journey to Love. LYF1 is a bona fide art piece but it's only part 1 and who knows if part 2 will be any good (seeing the huge ep number cut, I have my doubts) and so it's incomplete. AJTL is an old school wuxia romance with incredibly competent, adult people in love and great cast of secondaries. I can't pick.

WORST DRAMA

romance of twin flower - this is a drama that should not exist. If I could hex everyone involved with it, I would. It's a terrible, stupid, shrill, badly acted drama to start with, but where it really is catapulted into stratosphere of horror is that is took my very favorite non-danmei web novel of all time, a smart and complicated tale with incredible protagonists and turned it into that barftastic abomination. Peng Xiao Ran kept making horrible drama after horrible drama but I kept giving her a chance because of Goodbye My Princess but after this disaster, I've had to accept GMP was a fluke and she is on my "if she's in it, I am out” list. Ding Yuxi is not that far yet (his performance in Seven Lifetimes was the one thing carrying that mess afloat) but he's on freaking thin ice. Anyway, I like to pretend this drama does not exist.

FAVORITE MALE CHARACTER

It was hard because there were so many I loved this year - Deng Wei's traumatized, gentle Seventeen from LYF1 (if someone told me I'd swoon and weep for a character played by Deng Wei, I'd have told them to examine their brains asap), Liu Yuning's incredibly capable, deadly, contained Ning Yuanzhou from AJTL, Zhang Linghe's unhinged Xie Wei from SoKP, Chen Xiao's schemer with a heart Yun Xiang from TIO.

But ultimately, it couldn't be anyone else but Luo Yunxi as Tantai Jin/Demon God/Ming Ye/Cang Jiumin in Till the End of the Moon. He was everything - a demon, a saint, a martyr, a monster, a tormented abuse victim, a savior, joyful, unhinged, smart, pitiable. It was the cdrama performance of the year for me. Luo Yunxi even in a mediocre role is impressive but in a complex (series of) role(s) designed for his strengths, he is a force of nature.

FAVORITE FEMALE CHARACTER

Xiao Yao (Lost You Forever Part 1). Once again, there were runner ups - Bai Lu's smart a little evil FL in Kunning, the gloriously unhinged assassin domme Liu Shi Shi in AJTL, Esther Yu's assassin longing for a different life in MJTY etc etc etc. But Xiao Yao's damaged, difficult, very self-aware woman stole my heart. I was skeptical going in because I haven't enjoyed a Yang Zi performance in a long time, but she was the wounded beating soul of this incredible drama.

NEEDS TO BE MURDERED

Where do we start? How about all of Seventeen's (LYF1) monster family? His brother, who tortured him for years physically and emotionally to such a degree his body is a horror map and his personality is permanently altered because "mommy liked you better." Psycho mother who created a situation where the kids were going to turn on each other and "let's get my grandson raped" grandma. Where is a well-placed meteorite when you need one.

FAVORITE SHIP

Xiao Yao/Seventeen, LYF1. Yes, a ship of characters played by Yang Zi and Deng Wei is my favorite. Leave me alone, I am on my tenth helping of crow already. They are both incredibly damaged, barely functioning survivors who find what they need in the other - he finds a savior and someone who sees him as a man and rebuilds himself around her and she finds someone who will always put her first and only, and subsume himself in her. Is it healthy? No. Does it make sense for them and is it making them slowly functional? Yes.

Runner up: Ren Ruyi/Ning Yuanzhou, AJTL - two adults, so competent, so chemistry full. She has so much damage and so little normalcy but is so strong and he is oddly gentle (in between murders) and incredibly self-reflective. They are each other's mirrors and I love them.

FAVORITE SECONDARY OTP

Su Mingyu/Ke Menglan, The Ingenious One - the idealistic merchant who wants to join jianghu until he sees its horrors firsthand and a slave entertainer who wants security but decides she wants him more. They are gorgeous and glorious and wholesome and I adore them.

Runner up: Liu Gong Quan/Ming Zhu, The Ingenious One - that drama was a shippy gift, especially impressive considering it wasn't even romance-centric. He's the officer who has to bring down her treasonous father but loves her. Delicious.

Another runner up is Chao Feng/Qian Kui, the angelic good girl and the scheming bad boy in The Starry Love. They stole the drama from the main OTP for me.

NOTP

Scent of Time endgame. What the hell was even that. It made NO sense.

FAVORITE SCENE

So many good scenes this year - Tantai Jin taking apart Li Susu in prison in TTEOTM, the OTP fighting in perfect sync and insane rhythm in the gorge battle in AJTL, Chen Ruoxuan's character stopping the execution in Pledge, Yan Lin's coming of age in Kunning, the poison/antidote "gamble" in MJTY, Cang Xuan detoxing in LYF1. But I think ultimately, me being who I am, my favorite scene is Xiao Yao kissing Seventeen's damaged, scarred knee to show he is in no way inferior for her. AAAAA!

In terms of pure jaw dropping visuals tho nothing will ever beat Ming Ye’s battle against the Devil God in TTEOTM.

BIGGEST CRUSH

Ning Yuanzhou, AJTL. He's sexy as hell (that height, that way he moves in battle) but he's also so incredibly competent, so adult, so self-reflective and so attracted to a woman for her strength. He also gets whumped on the reg. Anyway, my hormones are ready.

BEST SCENE STEALER CHARACTER

Gong Yuanzhi (My Journey to You) - I loved the unhinged, brocon poison boy. He was everything. Also Yan Lin (Kunning) - talk about sunshine; I totally got why all these people felt they needed to save him.

NEEDS A SEQUEL

My Journey to You - what the HELL was that ending?

NEEDS SCISSORS TAKEN TO IT

legend of twin flower - that is, stab it with scissors like it stabbed the novel until it's dead.

TOO MANY SCISSORS TAKEN TO IT

Till the End of the Moon - they clearly cut stuff to fit into the new regs about runtime and it made the last 1/5 rather abrupt. Gimme!

TROPE THAT NEEDS TO DIE

The emperor cannot be irredeemable. WTF, China, you are a communist country!

FAVORITE TROPE WE’VE SEEN A LOT OF

This is the year of a ML who yearns to be dommed by his FL. Long may it continue.

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT

The Legend of Anle - the novel had a great plot, the cast were all actors I either enjoy a lot or somewhat and we got - whatever that soggy piece of wonderbread toast was.

BIGGEST GOOD SURPRISE

LYF1 - I only checked out to mock because nobody could explain the story to me and nobody in the cast did anything I like either ever or in years. And then I fell utterly and completely in love and had to eat so much delicious crow.

2023 DRAMAS I HAVEN’T SEEN THAT I MOST WANT TO WATCH

Ancient Love Song is the only one on that list. It looks really good, I just need to brace myself.

BEST NON-2023 DRAMA I’VE WATCHED IN 2023

The Imperial Doctoress - best slowburn and pining and glorious character development and adult leads.

MOST ANTICIPATED

Anticipating any nonaired cdrama is a mug's game but if they air, I will definitely check out all the Fox Matchmaker dramas, LYF2, JoL2 and The Last Immortal. If Prisoner of Beauty ever is allowed out of the vault (dubious), it goes on the list too.

[cdramasource]

Xie Wei loves the qin.

Story of Kunning Palace (2023)

[sarah-yyy]

Jie jie are you going to do a rec post for SOKP?

aight!! i got this ask two?? three?? weeks ago, but never got round to doing this because work has been fdjkhdsghskjf, but here y'all go

what: period cdrama // completed // 38 eps, roughly 40 mins each (+ one bonus epilogue ep, about <10 mins) where: iqiyi (standard disclaimer that i don't watch with subs so i don't speak to the quality of eng subs)why: villain (of sorts) reincarnation fix-it, what's there not to like?? incredibly attractive cast.

this is jiang xuening. she is, as you can probably guess, the empress. there's been a coup. it's headed by her ex-best friend (who was in love with her until his family got massacred and she chose to leave him to pursue her dream to be empress) who resents her + a bloodthirsty advisor to the emperor. the only man she's ever loved (not the emperor ofc) hates her and is in prison because of her. her life is hell. she knows she has no way out. she trades her life for her imprisoned lover-

-and wakes up 18 again.

because jxn is not stupid, now that she's got a chance to do things again, she immediately decides this time she's going to do better!!

firstly!! she's going to be good to her bff yan lin!!

yan lin's family was massacred before?? not this fucking time!! not on jxn's watch!! she's got a few months to get her shit together and fix this for him!!

"this sounds too easy, sarah, it's a reincarnation fix-it, she's got cheat codes," you say? you're wrong. did you expect jxn to pay attention to anything in her first life beyond clawing her way up to the position of empress?? hell no. she knows the what, the when and the how - she's missing so much of the whys, which is probably important if she wants to stop it from happening.

in the meantime!! my girl's got other problems to deal with!!

in her first life, she died a really goddamn tragic life in the palace. when she was rebooted into life #2, she made the decision to stay tf away from the palace and everyone associated with it. no jxn in palace = no jxn dying in the palace. easy peasy!! foolproof. no way she can mess this up.

she ends up in the palace as the princess's study buddy 🥰 ofc she does, because jxn just can't get a goddamn break. thank you yan lin and co for meddling. 😊

while she's there, she accidentally seduces befriends the princess.

princess was in love with a crossdressing jxn in life #1 and got Really Pissed Off about it when she found out jxn was in fact not the man of her dreams (or a man at all). she made jxn's life in the palace hell in life #1.

jxn: this time around i just won't dress as a man!! no male!jxn = no princess falling in love!! princess: fool. this time i'll love the female you 🥰

ykw? works for jxn. as long as she's not dying, everything is fine. girlfriend +1 it is then!!

while we're on the topic of sorting out her relationships while she's in the palace, let's talk a little bit about zhang zhe, aka the only man she ever loved in life #1

this is zhang zhe, low ranking officer in the ministry of justice. as straight-laced as they come. excellent cheekbones. in life #1, had a Soft Spot for jxn and did some stuff against his conscience for her. in this life, she's determined not to ruin him!! he's like her 白月光

ANYWAY these two meet again in the palace when he saves her life when she's being framed for treason. immediately, jxn is all 😍🤩 over him again. why would she not!! he was her biggest regret in life #1!! she literally died to save him!! (for those of y'all who expect to have SL syndrome over him, prepare to be WELL-FED, these two have a long arc)

alright y'all know how i said jxn was in the palace to be the princess's study buddy? well!! let's meet their teacher:

xie wei. advisor to the emperor. resting bitchface 10/10. petty af. occasionally feral and murderous 🥵. they were sort of briefly acquainted way back when they travelled to the capital together and jxn saved his life when he was having an Episode (long story short, bb boy is Unwell). the last face jxn saw in life #1 when she took her own life. you guessed it, he's aka the bloodthirsty advisor who staged the coup in life #1.

jxn is (rightfully) quite afraid of him. she tries her best to stay out of his way, but he's trying to sound her out (because she knows his ~secret) to see if she's friend or foe, so they end up in each other's paths more often than not, including important times such as these:

when jxn is trying to thwart a plot to frame yan lin's dad for treason

when xie wei is committing murder

when jxn is heart broken over zhang zhe

they kind of form an alliance!! in jxn's mind, xie wei and yan lin staged the coup together in life #1, so their interests must sort of be aligned!! plus!! xie wei is hella smart!! he'll know what to do to stop yan lin's family from getting masacred!!

ANYWAY that's the gist of the story - i've avoided most of the spoilery parts i think.

there's also the typical cdrama villains you'd expect in a show like this: evil empress dowager, power-hungry prime minister, spoiled brat daughter of the prime minister who is also scheming to be queen, evil uncle of the king trying to usurp the throne etc etc. all the things you need to prop the Palace Evil Schemes up.

i've seen some people say this is a 低配 version of love like the galaxy, which, ykw? fair. 😂 lltg is written better. sokp was a fun watch, though!! y'all know i am into reincarnation plots, and am basically predisposed to liking most of bai lu's dramas. and!! this show ends on such a good note!! i've been tricked into so many ~vague endings this year that this was so so so good to get <3

some of the parts dragged a bit for me (i am p meh about zhang zhe, i mean i get the appeal, but he's not doing it for me), but it wasn't bad! i liked xie wei's character enough to sit through a lot of things. could've done with like 300% more yan lin and the princess, but we can't always have what we want!!

[gizkasparadise]

Me every time I start a palace drama: can a bitch get a flowchart and some name tags

[zhanglinghez]

STORY OF KUNNING PALACE 宁安如梦 (2023)  EPISODE 38

[storge]

Why did you suddenly come out of the palace, Your Highness? Because I missed you, of course.

Story of Kunning (2023) 1.28

[zishuge]

Story of Kunning Palace (2023) | Episode 8

[zefile]

Story of Kunning Palace EP01

[dragoncharming]

Zhang Zhe: You can't behead me. You don't have the correct forms filled out in triplicate.