Scarlet Heart (TV-2011)

I had wanted to watch this for long, but only recently had time. There is also a Korean version with Lee Jun-ki, which is also famous, but after reading the synopsis of this Mandarin version I decided to watch this one first.

I had watched power struggle among Qian Long Emperor and his brothers (like TV series War and Remembrance - with Louis Koo and David Chiang), and there are movies about Qian Long, like The Book and The Sword, Fong Sai Yuk (a.k.a The Legend), The Young Heroes, Chronicles of Qianlong, etc... but I think there had been only 1-2 movies about Yinzhen I had watched, including a short part in The Hitmen Chronicles. There should be some movies about Yinzhen made by Shaw Brothers but I cannot remember now which ones. In The Hitmen Chronicles, a female assassin took Yinzhen's head, so in his burial, the head had to be replaced with gold. I am not sure if this was only fiction because in other movies I've seen, the emperor did not lose his head.

Since this series is about power struggle among Kangxi Emperor's sons, I wonder how the Korean remake would be like.

Here the story centered around Rouxi, a young girl from the present, who due to an electrical accident transported to 16 years before the end of Kangxi Emperor's era in Qing Dinasty. She became the younger sister of the 8th prince's 2nd wife, befriended the princes, and soon became a maid for the emperor. Her duty was to prepare tea and snacks for the emperor.

The emperor had chosen his favourite son (from the late Empress) as the Crown Prince. This Crown Prince, however, was spoiled and disliked by many. So 1st Prince, 4th Prince and 8th Prince fought against the Crown Prince for the throne, but they had to be careful because of their fear of the Emperor.

4th Prince was supported by 13th Prince, while 8th Prince was supported by 9th Prince, 10th Prince, and 14th Prince.

As Rouxi came from the present, she had already known that it was 4th Prince who would ascend the throne. She warned her brother in law, the 8th Prince; but it would only cause a series of tragedy.

I rarely paid attention to the costumes, but here they were beautifully made. I loved especially the embroideries.

The pace of the story was good, especially because before this I watched 'General and I' which I thought was very very slow... 62 episodes and not much happened.

I had thought it was Kenny Ho who played the 8th Prince. But it was, of course, not him. It was a much younger actor, Yuan Hong.