First Episode Recap: Crazy Queen

Crazy Queen 疯狂天后 is like a Go Princess Go knockoff except for the fact that it’s a poor imitation. Instead of applauding the show for its audacity and saying, “woah, they went there?!” I am thinking along the lines of, “seriously, what am I watching?”

Crazy Queen episode 1 recap

Episode 1 begins with a silhouette of a woman (Huang Shi Qi) shrouded in blue as though having an out of body experience. After being rescued, she begins to have flashbacks of the events leading up to the accident.

She is a crew member running from a mob at the set of a historical drama and she plunges into deep waters upon leaping from a bridge.

Crazy Queen episode 1 recap Crazy Queen episode 1 recap

She finally gains consciousness yet she wakes to a completely unfamiliar setting surrounded by strangers bowing at her feet. Her clothes are not her own and she exclaims to herself that she must have been saved by a different crew.

The people address her as Heavenly Empress and she replies much to their bewilderment, “I am Dong Yi, not the empress.”

Crazy Queen episode 1 recap
Crazy Queen episode 1 recap Crazy Queen episode 1 recap

After a change of clothes, a plentiful meal and several bouts of second-guessing whether or not she is in a dream, Dong Yi makes a break for it and she lays eyes on the man of her dreams (Li Jia Wen), literally.

Feeling immediately drawn towards him, she tries to approach but her subjects drag her away. As it turns out, the Empress Dowager has forbidden the Heavenly Empress from meeting her lover because he is guilty of seducing her to interfere with the affairs of the nation, a crime often used against women, I might add.

Crazy Queen episode 1 recap

 

Back in her chambers, Dong Yi starts asking relevant questions to figure out her identity. At the same moment, two men walk in and they turn out to be her husbands, prompting her to wonder how many husbands she has. And the answer is.. thirty. 
Crazy Queen episode 1 recap




First Impressions: Crazy Queen has taken bits and pieces from other c-dramas. A crew member time travels to a historical era, that’s Naughty Princess. Body-swap, time travel and slapstick humor rolled into one, that’s definitely Go Princess Go, and even the heavenly queen’s bed looks like a replica as well. 
 
Nonetheless, the extent of the similarities ends there. I initially thought the role reversal to be quite a clever concept but it languishes due to bad taste. I made it up to episode 3 since it’s only twenty minutes per episode but that’s it for me. 
 

Rate your favorite Chinese historical dramas in 2016.

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