So the trailer of Malicious Empress:
it looks like they poured money into it. It looks gorgeous. After watching cheap efforts like BoP or Key or Royal Betrothal, this is actually so welcome (I guess Dylan comes with a budget or something.) I mean, if the story is solid enough, I won't care if the drama will look like a high school production budget wise, but let's face, most idol costume dramas have terrible scripts lately, so I want to at least enjoy the visuals.
Meng Ziyi looks MILES better than she did in BoP where she looked like a starving elf. She actually looks beautiful here. (It helps that Shen Miao, unlike FL of BoP, is not someone who has every man she comes across fall for her.) I also love the fabrics of her outfits. She at least comes across as someone who can gut you without exuding mean girl vibes - she's fierce, not bitchy.
as is completely unsurprising when you cast Dylan Wang as your ML (esp opposite MZY and not a bigger name FL), they beefed the HELL out of the ML role. Xie Jing Xing is a very cool dude in the novel but he's really a supporting character - like a lot of QSCK novels, the novel was very female centric. I don't really mind because I tend to prefer narratives evenly balanced between OTP (over either female centric or male centric stuff) but between that and everything else in the trailer, this looks like a loose adaptation at best. I was not super in love with the novel tho it's very solid, so I don't really care but it does have a huge fandom whose wrath they are likely to bring on their heads.
the mask thing I'd normally laugh at but he was so OTT in the novel, it fits.
Dylan surprisingly to me gets the vibe really right but then the vibe always was a stunningly hot ruthless headcase so...
I mean here he is on a pile of bodies, what more can you want in a fictional man?
This man def got both a cardio workout swinging that sword and his steps in climbing that pile of corpses (every day is leg day in the Xie household.)
