Da Song Ti Xing Guan II

[Lady Zhuge]

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It's too bad He Bing won't be back as Song Ci, but Wang Qing Xiang isn't bad. I'm excited. This serial covers Song Ci's later years and supposedly more of the feelings Song Ci and Ying Gu had for one another.

[Lady Zhuge]

This serial has been very disappointing so far. It tries to continue from the first installment by using the same moving music and having the characters make references to previous cases, but really fails to tie up loose ends. For instance, whatever happened to the child Song Ci's wife was supposed to be pregnant with?

About the thespian changes. Wang Qing Xiang is definitely better looking than He Bing, but he lacks umph...perhaps the word I'm searching for is 'charisma'. Or maybe it's simply a case of the original actor's superb performance being difficult to replace in the minds of the audience. He would have made a better emperor or at least someone in court like he was in Tian Xia Liang Cang. The dude cast as the emperor on the other hand looks more like a monkey. The new Ying Gu is bleh and looks neither intelligent nor attractive in any other way.

The worst part is the pacing. Yes the first DSTXG didn't exactly move along at a rapid rate, but at least viewers felt like the story was going somewhere, had some kind of direction. Not this time, however. I'm through the first 15 episodes and it's still the same ol' case going round and round that I could summarize in about one freakin' sentence. It's one of those "big ones" involving the emperor that series like this one usually save for last, so maybe I should have seen this coming when this drama started out with it. Thanks for taking dragginess to a whole new level.

-end rant-

[Surferket]

You're right. Part 2 is BLEH!!

Part 1 was slow and draggy over 50+ chapters but the leads were good looking or interesting.

Part 2 changed all the characters and I don't like their faces. Even the old court officials were changed for the worse. Ying Gu is BLEH to the max. Story is too convoluted. Emperor do look like a monkey.

Cannot recommend this whole series if one is talking about buying as the Part 1 is selling for SG$80. Only reason I watched it was thru renting it for SG$20. Part 2 of 40 chapters was on special rental offer of SG$9.