Reviews

First of all, this series maximizes the creative team's respect for history. None of us have experienced the Qing Dynasty, but we can see the historical authenticity in the main characters of this series (including the fact that the historical characters look like the actors in the series, such as Li Hongzhang and Yuan Shikai), rather than over-dramatizing them.

Secondly, the series tries its best to do what Dr. Sun didn't do: educate the general public about democracy (or what he called "political training"). After watching the series, I had an immersive feeling and understood Dr. Sun's ideas in general.

Lastly, the series leaves behind a lot of research questions that are worth pondering over, such as:

1. Who actually sabotaged the road to the republic? Was it the conservatives (fake constitutionalists) consisting of Cixi and others, or the real constitutionalists like Emperor Guangxu and Tan Sitong. My personal figure is a utilitarian like Kang Youwei. Although he also advocated constitutional monarchy, it seems that he was more willing to arrogantly display his talent and compete with the conservatives, but he overestimated his ability. In a way, Kang Youwei was naive, and I think it was his recklessness that undermined the original constitutional monarchy and victimized those young people in the Hundred Days of the Past, leaving room for dictatorship enthusiasts like Yuan Shikai to flourish, to this day.

2. Does the road to revolution necessitate bloodshed and sacrifice? Sun Yat-sen's revolutions were accompanied by a large number of casualties, back to the Sino-Japanese War, which can also be regarded as a derivative of Li Hongzhang's revolution, and was also characterized by a large number of deaths and injuries. Unfortunately, none of their revolutions ended up with the desired results. Were those sacrifices worth it? In particular, the assassination of Xu Xilin, who died in vain, also failed to shake the original system. When Dr SUN Yat-sen and WONG Hing (aka Huang Xing) were arguing about leadership, I think it was an argument about efficiency and fairness. Setting up a leader whom everyone respected and obeying the leader might be able to solve a lot of problems efficiently, but would the things decided by such a leader be fair to everyone? So what Huang Xing is advocating is the need to trade time for efficiency, and the success of a revolution needs to be hard to see immediately, but if we all want fairness, we have to need patience.

Suddenly I remembered what Li Hongzhang said: A generation can only do what a generation should do. Qu Hongji had analyzed the key point for the survival of the Qing government, and I think it happens to be the best answer for the road of revolution towards republic: To popularize the concept of constitutionalism\democracy among all people.

From this episode, It gradually began to reveal the secrets of the revolution. The various political techniques of the revolutionaries seem to be the same as those of the present people.

When Liang Qichao lobbied Zhang Zhidong, Ku Hong-ming revealed a terrible truth:Some will use patriotism to do whatever they want.

Yuan Shikai was ambitious, and the first thing he had to do was to cultivate an army that was subordinate to their superiors, primarily Yuan himself.

Sun is full of idealism, but when he saw his brother and sister-in-law who support him, he has to face the harsh reality: The uprising relied on revolutionary fervor and doctrine, but the most important basis was money.

The performances of several main actors were basically passed. But their characters more or less repeat the past history, so I don't feel surprised.

It is also a homicide case involved in small things among teenagers. The end of the story is a little disappointing.

Maybe it's my prejudice. I always think the screenwriter is vilifying the transvestites. The end of the whole story seems to be attributed to the manslaughter of transvestites under the trouble of mental illness, but will this make the audience have a greater misunderstanding of transvestites? That's why I gave 5/10.

The fog has dissipated, but the root cause of the fog has not been eradicated. The power of social tolerance and justice needs more time to explore and practice.

The story is heartbreaking. To some extent, the sisters and brothers (that rapist and his brother) mirror each other. The sisters' parents hurt them and made them depend on each other since childhood. What about the brothers? It is not clearly stated in the story, but I can guess that their parents did not give them a good childhood. The feelings between the brothers are also touching, just as the sisters clearly show in the film. Education in the family environment is so important for both boys and girls and may affect their whole lives. Unfortunately, the boys and girls in this story are tragedies.

The crowd of onlookers in the film twice criticized the victims' sisters. The lens language is very ironic. This is not only a Chinese characteristic, but also an exaggerated expression of social behavior. These onlookers are numb to other people's pain but so curious. Is their performance also a bad response to family education?

Oh, by the way, there are two nude bathing scenes at the beginning and end of the film. The young bodies of the sisters are full of hazy beauty. The rapist's robust body is also full of hormones and repressed desires. This is really an imaginative image language. Great movie!

This movie is full of memories of 1980s, including the school management method (it still seems to be the same today), students' clothing, their entertainment, and popular music they like. Most of the scenes and stories give me credible feelings and a strong sense of substitution. It could have been awarded 8-9 points, but when the story was about to end, An Jing went to the county government to redress the injustice for Teacher Miao made me feel over sensational. To make matters worse, the heroine actually had a car accident. I think the screenwriters had tried too hard for expected high tide, divorced from reality, and undermined the overall credibility of the whole story. The final score is 7 points.

This TV series surprised me by 3 things.

First of all, members of the emperor family are full of Atmosphere of ordinary life. They no longer just get along with the etiquette of monarchs and courtiers, and the younger generations will even call the emperor or other elders by "daddy and mother". In the first 10 episodes, I was moved to tears many times by the emperor's father love and responsibility for 3 sons. This emotional climax occurred when the old emperor summoned his three sons and grandsons to cry and bleed blood as an alliance. They reviewed each other's growth and identified interdependent relationships. Although the temptation of ultimate rights did not allow future generations to honour their promises, the family relationship in that short reunion completely showed that the face of a royal family is no different from that of ordinary people. It can be seen that the first big advantage of this series is the high-level royal family are all human beings, and everyone is the same.

Second, reconciliation. This episode dramatizes the slaughter caused by the overthrow of the regime in the history of the Ming Dynasty. When the old emperor met with the pursued emperor (his nephew), the pursued emperor was already a monk. He saw the gains and losses of life and was relieved of his political defeat. He eventually said, "Everyone can reconcile with their unbearable past." This view is incompatible with Hardliners who advocates of revenge or war, but it has to be said that it is a feasible solution. This reminds me of the TV series Lang ya bang (2015) which is also a story of political struggle and injustice. The two happened in different times and adopted different solutions in completely opposite directions. Both of these fictional stories have implications for today's Chinese society. How to deal with the historical tragedy deserves everyone's consideration. In addition, the monarch should win the hearts and minds of the people, and the social system is not only unique to the royal family, but should pay attention to the wishes of the people. These all make this series worthy of appreciation!

The shortcoming is that some actors and actress in the last 20 episodes are unable to perform in right place. For example, the old queen mother acted like a girl. The character's age was completely out of touch with the actor's own age and the makeup could not be improved or compensated. It would be even more perfect to replace some older actors.