A Dream of Splendor

[superborb]

Haohao, the best singer in the capital, is incensed upon learning there is a new pipa player eclipsing her fame. Naturally, the first thing she does upon meeting said pipa player is to praise her beauty ('even I can't help falling in love upon seeing you') and play a duet with her.

Nominally based on the Yuan dynasty opera, set in the Song dynasty, this drama follows three women as they try to make a life in the capital. Zhao Panr was once a music entertainer, a legal status denoting the lowest social class, but now runs a successful small teahouse as a businesswoman. Sun Sanniang is a former butcher who dreams of her son passing the exams to become an official. Song Yinzhang is the best pipa player, which comes with the entertainer status that she desperately wants to escape.

[Spoilers ahead]

It had beautiful sets and moments of compelling plot. Yinzhang's character growth is especially well done! The show also is, I think, trying to call on its theater roots with some of the staging, to unique and interesting effect; it makes the show feel different from the standard costume drama.

There are two broader storylines: that of the women starting a teahouse and their struggles to be respected, and that of the politics of the court. While the latter had somewhat interesting dynamics, once we realized we would actually have to pay attention and like, remember their faces and names, it was let down by... being completely dropped in the last few episodes. Unclear what happened there; it got subsumed by a 'righteous Emperor' storyline. In light of that, the additional complexity that the show attempts to add with the politics storyline fails to do anything but serve as an excuse to add some barriers to the main romance. The politics behind how the teahouse works are moderately interesting and reach a resolution at least.

As mentioned previously, the storyline of Yinzhang maturing and learning how to express her care for others is really well done, while keeping her innate arrogance intact. I did like that the women had flaws and were allowed to be selfish, while still having deep friendships with each other. Panr gets to solve some problems without having to rely on male lead, so I forgive the show her occasional over-competence. A particular plot point I thought was excellent was everyone thinking Yinzhang had left due to being upset over a crush, when it was really about her not feeling trusted, which nicely subverted expectations.

In contrast, we don't really see any depth or growth in any of the men; the closest is Chi Pan, who goes from a comic villain to a comic semi-ally in a dubious transition. (He just made one too many actually damaging actions to be easily forgiven.) You'd think that the motivation behind the politics men would at least lead to interesting choices, but no, the side characters are all pretty one note. The show does do well in making you wonder if the potential male love interests are decent men or horrible deceivers though! I definitely was unsure and nervous while we waited to find out. Ditto the process of figuring out the politics men's various motivations.

The first arc is very loosely based on the opera's plot, but this criticism asserts that the drama hugely sanitizes the women and... it's definitely correct. The drama tries to have its cake and eat it too wrt prostitution: that Panr is hugely protective of her chastity and both she and Yinzhang never sold their bodies, but also both of them defend other women who have their choices constrained. It /could/ work in a more subtle or better integrated piece, where the emphasis on purity was shaped differently, but here it just felt unconsidered. (The morals of the torture / murder / beatings are also never addressed, which is certainly ...a way to deal with it.)

The tension in the storyline is also oddly paced. As a whole, it dwells too long on villains when we already know they're evil, without adding any interesting complexity or any internal motivation whatsoever. There are also many small competitions as the main women establish their prowess, and I understand why it dwells on those, but I thought they were somewhat repetitive and poorly filmed. It /is/ hard to show off better tea art or fine knife work, but if you're going to go this route, you have to figure that out. (ALSO, the whole point of a fancy tea pour is that it doesn't splash!!! Cut away like you do the pipa playing if you can't produce a nice pour.)

Overall, the show started reasonably strong, flagged a bit, picked up again around ep 20 for a streak of compelling episodes, and then crashed headfirst into a stupid ending. In addition to the previously mentioned failure to resolve the politics, the women's storylines were resolved too neatly, while the big bad escalates the villainy to a ridiculous, unexplained degree just so he could be fully destroyed. Not cathartic.

However, I am impressed that Yinzhang gets to end the show without being paired off! She and Haohao are meant to be!

Comments

[chestnut_pod]

Hm, I'm glad to have heard about this, though I don't think I'll be watching it. I think I'm most interested in the concept of a very modern adaptation of a Yuan-dynasty opera -- that sounds neat! Do you know off the top of your head if there are other c-dramas of that lineage?

[superborb]

One thing I didn't mention was that this drama actually felt much more modern in speech pattern than most costume dramas are!

I know of a handful of films or dramas where an episode / couple episodes are based on an opera, but not another full length drama. And to be fair, only the first arc of this is really based on the actual opera; I think a single opera might not provide quite enough material for a full length drama?

[halfcactus]

The framing of your review, 10/10.

He just made one too many actually damaging actions to be easily forgiven.
He definitely represents what I think is both a feature and bug in the show, which is that every transgression is just a plot device for the women to overcome. It’s good that we understand who the main characters are (well, mostly—I still think they make the ML more central than he should), but the lack of any tangible fallout makes the conflict feel so artificial.

Definitely agree with the show dwelling too long in villain scenes—especially since the villains in the girls’ stories were very one-dimensional, so it was like??? What’s the point???? Sanniang’s storyline had almost the right pacing, though. I just wish we had the time to explore her emotional space.

Among the three, I’m really pleased (and pleasantly surprised!) with Yinzhang because she’s the only one who seems to truly react to situations? Pan’er is too invincible, Sanniang too reflexive. Weirdly enough Pan’er ended up feeling more like the foil to YZ to me. Which is kind of interesting??? (Then again I have YZ bias and I spent too long being nervous and uncertain about YZ’s trajectory that her ending means si much to me. 😂) She was also so much more fun once they didn’t have to show so many obviously cropped fake pipa playing, which was what defined her for the first half of the show. 😂

[superborb]

I thought it would be more of a lede than it's turned out to be though ahaha.

YES, I remember I complained too that because we know the women will overcome xyz obstacle, there's just no tension.

I realized we never saw what happened to Sanniang's ex-husband and in laws, but yeah, the core of her story happened at a good pace. I think partially we just see bits and pieces happening in the corners of scenes, which helps it feel more natural? Also, we never DWELL.

Ultimately Yinzhang was the most compelling character! Panr just suffered too much from main character syndrome...