My Fair Princess

The heroine "little swallow" is a character that has never been seen before in Chinese ancient costume drama in the 1990s. Although she didn't know Chinese characters, she was smart and had good qualities. There are not only sister friendship, but also sincere love in huanzhu gege. At the same time, it is mixed with comic plot. It is quite understandable that this TV series has been popular in the mainland, Taiwan and other places as well as overseas in the 1990s.

It tells an interesting story of Emperor Qianlong's illegitimate daughter entering the palace to recognize her father. At that time, the story was refreshing, the characters had their own characteristics, and the love story was very moving

Once again, Qiong Yao captures many people's hearts with Huan Zhu Ge Ge 2. HZGG 2 is the sequel to the popular Huan Zhu Ge Ge that hit across Asia. Little Swallow and Zi Wei are back, this time, they meet new friends, Two princesses are added. One is a beautiful Turkeish princess from the Hui Tribe named Han Xiang. At the beginning, Han Xiang travels with her father to Beijing and gets attacked by a few masked men, one was Han Xiang's lover, Meng Dan. Meng Dan tries to take Han Xiang away, but soon is injured and escapes. Han Xiang continues on and makes it to Beijing and is given to the Empreror Qian Long. Another thing about Han Xiang, she has a sweet flower scent on her body that attracts butterflies. Han Xiang's beauty has soon won over the heart of Qian Long and makes her one of his concubines. Han Xiang is given her own room in the palace, The Precious Moon Tower. The second princess is a princess named Qing Er that accompanies the Empress Dowager(Qian Long's mother). The Empress Dowager does not like Zi Wei and Xiao Yan Zi and soon The Empress and Rong Muo Muo are causing them more trouble. But Qing Er helps Little Swallow( Xiao Yan Zi) and Zi Wei every time. Qing Er is a lot like Zi Wei. Watch the four princesses struggle with many situations in the palace in Huan Zhu Ge Ge 2!

It was a struggle for me to finish this mostly because of the too melodramatic female lead who delivers her lines like one of those coquettish concubines in other cdramas who slither (to make themselves look graceful and gentle?) and are always tearful (to invite sympathy?)

The other female lead, Xiao Yanzi (Zhao Wei), was the one who kept me going. Though her voice was rather too strident for me at first, once I got used to it, she won me over with her exuberance, sincerity and comedic talent.

The story is engaging enough. It's fun and succeeds in making the viewer interested to know how the leads and their friends would resolve their dilemma. The romance of Xiao Yanzi and Prince Yong Qi (Alec Su) is cute, and I wish it got more screen time. The romance of the other main couple is spoiled by the overly affected performance of the other female lead as previously mentioned.

I saw this about 10 years ago and I still love it! Quite a long series, but you go through just about every emotion while watching this. There are 4 main characters, and the series itself is family friendly for the most part. The plot is pretty solid, with plenty of twists and turns in each of its episodes.

One of the 4 Dan Actresses is in this film- "Vicky" Zhao Wei (the other more famous one is Zhang Ziyi of House of FLying Daggers fame), and this is the series that boosted her to that position.

This is definitely worth watching, and took China by a storm. Households everywhere have watched this and loved it.

(The series was so popular that it garnered Huan Zhu Ge Ge II and III, but it loses a few of the original actors and the plot becomes more and more filler-like, so don't bother too much)