玉面桃花总相逢
Overview
Our unlikely couple decides to enter a contractual marriage for their own purposes. Together, they travel to various cities and face a variety of interesting characters and nefarious enemies. They slowly learn to work together and develop feelings for each other as they work together, hand-in-hand and unravel a country-wide conspiracy.
Review
I thoroughly enjoyed watching this. Drama is not without it's flaws, but as long as you don't dive too deep into the plot holes or take the scheming too seriously, it makes for a light-hearted, easy and enjoyable watch. The main story follows the ups-and-downs of Xu Qing Jia and Hu Jiao, our unlikely couple, as they progress from city to city, experiencing success and setbacks. The show is ripe with comedic relief, but at the same time manages to be a heart-warming story, both romantically and family/friendship-wise.
Main Characters
Hu Jiao: A daughter of the Hu family, she helped run the family butchery since young. She marries Xu Qing Jia first as a marriage of convenience, but later develop real feelings for him.
Hu Jiao is a street-smart, straight-talking person, and she has the martial arts skills to back it up. She doesn't hesitate to call things as she sees it (telling Prince Ning that he looks like those old uncles who frequent brothels LOL). On first glance, she might appear to be too headstrong and brutish, and way too money-minded. But the truth is, she has a warmth that radiates from inside her and attracts people while inspiring them to become better. Furthermore, despite her appearance of being money-minded, she never hesitates to spend her money to help people (building a school and feeding the suffering children, "buying" a cart of overturned and soaked herbs, etc).
Funnily enough, despite her tough exterior and ability to win people over, she is much more insecure and hesitant when it comes to her own romance. She fell in love with Xu Qing Jia, but she hesitates to express it. She gets jealous of Yu Niang, but she doesn't know what to say. Even when she wants to invite him to sleep with her, she doesn't dare to tell him so. Instead, she throws his floormat away. LOL. It's a hilarious contrast, but it's also sweet. More importantly, it also feels authentic because I do think love does make you feel insecure sometimes.
Xu Qing Jia: After his father's death, he was raised by the Hu family. He excelled at the imperial exams and is appointed as a court official. He offers to marry Hu Jiao, in part to repay the kindness of the Hu family, but also, I think that he has always loved her, even when they were young.
Xu Qing Jia is the typical bookworm, weak and easily scared, but he is extremely good at studying and being book-smart. Similar to Hu Jiao, he has a strong sense of moral principles and hopes to help everyone. And despite being a bit of a wimp, when push comes to shove, he is willing to risk his life, his career, his everything for the sake of the greater good.
Because he is book smart and not street smart, he is as much a bumbling idiot as Hu Jiao when it comes to affairs of the heart. He bumbles around, not knowing how to tell Hu Jiao he likes her. After knowing that she only wants a marriage of convenience, he simply yields and does whatever he can to make her happy. He's a bit of a block of wood, just like his best bud (Gao Zheng), but thankfully there's Yu Niang to play Cupid.
The Names
For their surnames, Hu is a homophone with Tiger and it also means reckless, representing Hu Jiao. Xu is a homophone with “weak”, representing our weak Xu Qing Jia. Both character names have a superficial and a deeper meaning, which also reflects the characters themselves.
Hu Jiao sounds like 胡椒 (pepper), which reflects her firecracker/spicy exterior, but if you look at the character for her Jiao, it's 娇, which actually refers to females being sweet and charming, and that's the deeper layer to her, beneath her tough exterior, that we slowly discover as drama progresses.
Similarly, Qing Jia sounds like 倾家, as in 倾家荡产 (to go bankrupt and lose everything). It's very apt for him, who shows up as a little boy in tattered clothing, with nothing to his name. Everyone first sees him as a boy with nothing to offer, but as they get to know him better, they find that he is actually pure and excellent, just like his name. This is shown even from the first ep, with his interactions with the shoe shop boss.
It's also quite smart to use the characters sounds vs actual meaning this way, because in the chinese language, characters sounds are not reflective of the words. So like, when you meet someone new, you learn how their names sound like first, and only after you become closer, then do you learn how the characters in his name are written. This accurately parallels how the sounds of their name reflect the first impression they give off, while the actual characters refer to their deeper personality that you discover when you get to know them better.
Minor Criticisms
Because we follows our CP throughout the various phrases of their lives, the pacing of the drama feels a bit rough. Every time they move to a new city, we need a long time to slowly build up the character, the backdrop and so on, and because of that, there are a few dry-ish eps at the start of each arc. Also, I think the medicine city arc was kinda... poorly fleshed out, which leads to my second point...
What the heck was that resignation and surrendering of evidence to the villain? Like yes, I agree that you don't want the commoners to suffer, but like the very fact that they are willing to let go of a literal gold mine in exchange for the evidence (even if they don't know what it means yet), should tell you that the evidence is goddamn critical. So clearly, hold on to it!!!!! I love our CP, but my god, that was literally the dumbest decision ever and it made no sense.
Lastly, the overarching plot. it felt like there was a lot of buildup and a lot of "scheming" and it all boiled down to let's pretend to lose and get the bad guy to blabber all their evil plans out. (sounds familiar? xD). That was utterly disappointing. Also, why couldn't they simply have stolen the document when they flipped the girl and shown it to the emperor instead of returning it to the big bad???? Wouldn't that have made things like 10x easier???
Romance
The main CP is great. I love how supportive they are of each other and how well they work together. They trust each other, they believe in each other and together, they faced down one difficulty after another. I also like how real their relationship felt, how both of them had times when they felt insecure, when they felt undeserving of their partner, and more importantly, how their partner comforted them, reassured them and helped them see their own light.
Individually, they too shine brightly. Hu Jiao is a firecracker, headstrong and reckless. But along with that, is a warmth that radiates from within, it's a warmth that draws you in subconsciously and wins people over. I loved the short stories in the imperial city as Hu Jiao, in her own unique way, wins over the two daughters of prime minister Jia. And in the end, it is this warmth that saves them, because of her and Yu Niang's kindness, they convinced the spy to help save their lives.
Funnily enough, Xu Qing Jia's role felt like it decreased in the imperial city (contrary to what I would expect), but regardless, I loved him for his straight as an arrow personality and his unwavering dedication to serve the people. I also like how it was revealed that Yu Niang's and Xu Qing Jia's dad worked together!
Secondary Characters
Speaking of, I also really enjoyed the second couple. I loved how Gao Zhen is all uptight and eager to draw his sword, but Yu Niang slowly melts his cold exterior. I had tears from watching their first marriage (when they thought they were going to die), and I loved that their second (and proper) wedding was used as the ending scene.
I also really loved Prince Ning as a comic relief. His segments are just too hilarious in too many ways. From when he was trying to teach Xu Qing Jia how to tame Hu Jiao (while flashbacks reveal the opposite is true), to when he was explaining to his son on why he needs to spend time with his mother (养子千日，用于这时), I absolutely burst out laughing at all his segments.
Conclusion
I don't think drama has very deep plots, in fact, it's somewhat bland and has some gaping holes, but I think it does well as a slice-of-life drama, following the up and downs of Hu Jiao and Xu Qing Jia, and the main characters are pretty well-fleshed out. These characters are lovely and relatable, and that is what made this show an enjoyable watch in my opinion.
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