Kevin C. Wong

The Princess Weiyoung (2016) [/]

The Princess Weiyoung is a Chinese historical romance drama based on a novel. The series runs 54 45-minute episodes.

Feng Xin'er (Tiffany Tang) is a princess of Northern Liang, a client state of the Wei Empire. Unfortunately her family is betrayed by Wei general Chiyun Nan (Jin Han) who then takes over the kingdom and kills everyone as traitors. Xin'er manages to survive and is befriended by peasant girl Li Weiyoung (Li Yixiao) who is the exiled daughter of Wei Prime Minister Li Xiaoran (Bai Fan). Once again misfortune follows when Li Weiyoung is murdered Li Xiaoran's first wife Chiyun Rou (Lily Tien) — this is ancient times when rich men had multiple wives and concubines and Li Weiyoung is the daughter of the Seventh Concubine (Liu Jie). Xin'er takes over Li Weiyoung's identity to hide and because she seeks revenge on behalf of the old Li Weiyoung.

So the new Li Weiyoung is summoned back to the Li household where she is embroiled in scheming among the sisters and their mothers: Li Changle (Li Xin'ai) daughter of first wife and Li Changru (Mao Xiaotong) daughter of second wife Wen Weiyi (Hu Caihong). Since the family is prominent the sisters come in contact with Tuoba Jun (Luo Jin), Prince Gaoyang, the Emperor's grandson and possibly heir to the throne; Tuoba Han (Zhang Tianyang), Prince Dongping, a son of the Emperor and probably second in line to the throne; and Tuoba Yu, Prince Nan'an, the Emperor's son through a concubine and probably third in line.

Everyone is infatuated with Li Weiyoung which marks her as an enemy to eliminate. So although Li Weiyoung is a bit proactive about going after Chiyun Nan most of the series is actually Li Weiyoung reacting to various plots against her. Mostly at first Li Changle who loves Tuoba Jun but later also Li Changru who loves Tuoba Yu. Chiyun Nan also plots against Li Weiyoung. Tuoba Yu loves Li Weiyoung so his plots are more about getting her in enough trouble she needs to turn to him for help. Meanwhile Li Weiyoung and Tuoba Jun are falling in love, though at first she is against it as she also blames the Emperor and his family for her family's demise.

This is a mostly interesting series. Li Weiyoung has lots of ups and downs, victories and setbacks. She is almost executed a couple of times and ends up demoted to slave then maid and works her way back up. Although she and Tuoba Jun are fairly moral people they're both willing to use trickery to turn the tables on their opponents and cause their downfall and perhaps death. There is a lot of people getting assassinated or seriously hurt (and usually Li Weiyoung is blamed or framed for it) and I guess it does get a bit repetitive.

Still, Tiffany Tang is pretty good as the main character, the series has fairly good production, and the story holds together well enough to be entertaining. Did enjoy the series though fairly average I guess. Average enough that I'm not interested in watching the sort of sequel The Song of Glory (2020) which is based on the same source material but different characters.