Hao Lan zhuan

The 3 stars:

• Beautiful scenery & costumes
• Very good acting from many actors (Han Qiong Hua, a side cast did very well. Most impressed.)
• Some good moments of ingenuity and cleverness

THE BAD:

• Horrible script. The writer keeps dilly dallying and using a multitude of irrelevant filters to fill the episodes.
• Just when you think the lead male hardens his heart for a bigger cause, he weakens and falls back into her arms, and ruins his plans once again. This carries on at least 20 times. For Christs' sake. Once is fine. Twice is plenty. Thrice is stale. And they went more times than that.
• There is just no sense of a good script at all. People can walk in and out of the palace to anybody's content. The way they write this is ridiculous.

If you are a big fan of Yanxi Palace, stay away from this. You'd be sorely disappointed.

I was reluctant to let go of the characters from Story of Yanxi Palace and was hoping The Legend of Haolan would sate said longing. WRONG!

I understand this was an adaptation of true events which meant the writers and creators were restricted in what could be changed, however, the plot was needlessly dragged out with each episode seemingly a reoccurrence of the previous one. Li Hao Lan, the titular character, was played by one of the best Chinese actresses yet even she couldn't breathe life into such a mundane character who was 1-D and completely inept at palace schemes. Time and time again, she's framed for some crime and is saved by either of the two male leads and obviously, this got old very quickly. The actors were hampered by the bad script and nothing could save the series from being just slightly above average.

Jinyan Wu is the Kristen Stewart of China, dull, expressionless, and for some reason all the men in the series are madly in love with her. The script is terrible, full of conveniences and characters taking meaningless actions.

The series is supported by the magnificent costumes and excellent actors (except the protagonist).

Yuan Nie in many moments maintains the series with his charisma and Jing Ning created a very interesting character who is cruel and wonderful at the same time.

It had everything to be a memorable series, but the terrible script and dull protagonist ruined the series.

But in the last episodes the series becomes terrible, boring, almost unwatchable.

Soooo boring and it's worse than Yanxi Palace, the storyline was all about some boring war, failed attempts to escape for several time. So boring hrmm

The shooting scene is very beautiful, the actor's costume is also beautiful, and the heroine is very smart