Yanxi Palace: Princess Adventures

Episodes: 6
Synopsis:

A hard-headed Qing dynasty princess navigates the palace life and love in this short series (spin-off with beloved characters from Yan Xi) 

Review:

This was an interesting spin-off of Yan Xi Palac,  and it was nice to see familiar cast members from the original drama here as well. This series follows one of the princesses and her love life over the course of 6 episodes. As we all know, historical dramas usually go up to 60+ episodes and they go in-depth with world-building and story-telling. Hence, I wasn't expecting a lot of depth or fully connected story-telling in the span of 6 episodes. 

 It started off really strong. Our character is feisty and unlikable, and she butts heads with everyone despite having good intentions. She's the standard "spoiled and disliked" archetype of a princess. She also had very clear love interests in this series and also an opponent that was her exact opposite. While she was rude and wild, her opponent was soft-spoken and obedient. It was very easy to understand why our character disliked the other girl so much very quickly, and it was easy to empathize with her behavior and her attempts to be a better person. 

However, our main character got a bit weird as the story went on. I couldn't tell if she was actually mature and was playing this long game or if something clicked mid-series for her. Her character was not consistent and it was confusing where her true intentions lie. The ending was a nice twist, but it was just hard to fully follow due to the series being so short and the abrupt change in character/plot.

 I still enjoyed watching it and found it amusing. I wish that this drama could have been developed more though because it could have been really strong (especially with that twist at the end).