Oh! My Emperor 哦我的皇帝陛下 opens in a modern day hospital. Luo Fei Fei (Zhao Lu Si) is an intern doctor (the drama says she’s 20 years old – which, honestly seems kind of young to be an intern? Am I the only one who finds that weird?). She just wakes up from a nap, and is startled by her disheveled appearance in the mirror. She checks her phone when a nurse comes in and informs her that she has a new patient.
Fei Fei is exhausted since she just worked a 20 hour shift and asks if someone else can handle it. The nurse advises Fei Fei to sort herself out before going to go see the patient – if she doesn’t, she’ll regret it.
As she heads to her new patient (still looking like a mess), Fei Fei wonders why the hospital is so dark and quiet. She’s a tense bundle of nerves, so when an arm comes over her left shoulder, she grabs it and flips the man over to the ground. Not the best idea, because the man turns out to be Jia Cheng (Gu Jia Cheng), a very popular and award-winning singer.
Fei Fei immediately excuses herself and comes back in a short dark blue dress and black heels. Lol. She even bats her eyes at him a little, so completely starstruck that she trips and falls on her face in front of Jia Cheng (couldn’t he have jumped forward to catch her?).
At least he extends his hand to help her up. Jia Cheng winces as it turns out that his hand is injured – the reason he came to the hospital in the first place. I don’t understand why he reached out his injured hand to her – seemed obvious she would use it to pull herself up? Fei Fei bandages Jia Cheng’s hand and apologizes, offering to call a specialist friend of hers. Jia Cheng says he doesn’t have time – he has an event to attend. Fei Fei is impressed that even though he is injured, he still plans to go to his event. After Fei Fei reveals that she’s a big fan of his, he offers her tickets to his show that night. Fei Fei is absolutely thrilled.
Unfortunately, on her way to the show, Fei Fei’s taxi hits a cyclist. The taxi driver leaves Fei Fei on the side of the road to take the cyclist to the hospital. Left with no choice, Fei Fei gets on the bike instead to rush to Jia Cheng’s event. A meteor shower can be observed in the background. Her bike suddenly hits a bump in the road and Fei Fei flies through the air to land on a road divider container. Yikes.
We next go to Huang Dao Guo, straight to the palace where an ancient version of water polo is being played. The current Emperor, Beitang Yi (Gu Jia Cheng) is one of the participants. He is a Capricorn and he has the power to freeze. Cheering from the sidelines are a group of court ladies, who point out how handsome he is (of course). His two attendants chat about how well the Emperor plays, with one attendant telling the other that the Emperor never smiles or laughs. He has a very stoic and serious personality.
Watching the match are a group of court officials, including Shang Yu (Yan Xu Jia), an Aries with superpower speed, and Su Xun Xian (Chen Ze Xi), a Gemini with the ability to speak to animals. They are soon joined by Bei Tang Mo Ran (Xiao Zhan) who has the ability to see the future. I think he’s very good looking. He also happens to be the Emperor’s uncle.
Xun Xian comments that the Emperor may beat Mo Ran’s water polo record, and that coming to watch this match has been a waste of time. You can tell Xun Xian and Mo Ran are close friends and confidants with how they banter.
As they chat, the ball from the match comes flying over and knocks over Mo Ran’s tea cup. When he goes to pick it up, he sees a meteor fly through the sky, and with it, visions from the future – he sees himself leaning in to kiss and carry an unknown woman (of course we know the woman is Fei Fei), and also sees her beautifully dressed with a gold headpiece and red dress. She is surrounded by people lying on the ground (dead?). His eyes turn purple when he sees visions.
We see a meteor fly through the sky and land in the palace pool, which turns out to be Fei Fei. The Emperor swims over and pulls her up out of the water, and Mo Ran instantly recognizes her from his visions. Fei Fei sees the Emperor, who looks exactly like Jia Cheng from her time, and asks, “Jia Cheng, how are you here?” She hugs the Emperor and tells him she was in a car accident and doesn’t know where she is. She even wraps her legs around his waist. The Emperor is completely shocked by this strange woman’s behavior and flips her over, the same way Fei Fei had flipped Jia Cheng over in the past (future?).
Fei Fei is unconscious on the ground as everyone gathers around in a circle around her, except for the Emperor and Mo Ran. They comment on how strange and revealing her clothes are, and suspect whether she could be an assassin sent to kill the Emperor.
The Emperor makes the decision to have her executed. Mo Ran steps in and says that he can’t kill her. He orders that Fei Fei be taken back with them, and the Emperor asks if he asked his permission. Mo Ran tells the Emperor that Fei Fei is not an assassin, she is a dancer from his palace. Fei Fei came with him and accidentally fell into the pool. He asks for the Emperor’s forgiveness and says that he’ll be responsible if Fei Fei causes any more trouble. There is a lot of tension between these two. It turns out that while the Emperor has the position, Mo Ran has control over the military. As Mo Ran turns to leave, the Emperor tells him to be careful in the future.
That evening, the Emperor recalls how Fei Fei wrapped her legs around him in the pool, and he ends up with a nose bleed. Wow. Clearly our love triangle is going to be Fei Fei, the Emperor, and Mo Ran. He waves off his attendants when they express concern and says that he doesn’t believe that Fei Fei is one of Mo Ran’s dancing girls. His attendants also agree, saying that they never heard of Mo Ran being close with any woman. The Emperor decides to send Fang Jian to investigate. It turns out that Feng Jian has a superpower that lets him shield himself from any attacks.
Fei Fei wakes up in her room in Mo Ran’s residence, only to see a maid staring back at her. She starts screaming in shock. I’m interested to see what happens next!
Additional thoughts:
It is pretty obvious from watching the first couple episodes of the drama that these are all very new, inexperienced actors and actresses who haven’t acted in many dramas before. Neither the writing or the acting is the greatest. It makes sense because many of the actors are from a Chinese idol group called X-NINE, and I think this drama is a way their company is promoting them. It really reminds me of how in Korea they push the members of various music groups into acting and dramas. Normally the acting, especially at first, is pretty weak because they are doing something outside their usual experience.
Thanks everyone for reading!
Anonymous
The actress is pretty but I just cannot stand her acting at all. Was she dubbed? Her voice is so terrible that it made things even worse.
I don't understand the fact that she have to be a TIME TRAVELLER when she have not use any important modern ideas or logics so far (maybe a little but was not entertaining btw). I would say the same for Eternal Love (it is a much better drama than this one), the girl did not prove herself to be smart either. Even at BBJX level, over 90% of the time Ruoxi was just so blend into the ancient ways so much that she wasn't really like a modern girl with any modern skills.
Anonymous
I checked out the first episode and dropped it right away. It's so bad and cringeworthy from the storyline to the acting. It's just like some lousy ancient drama who only cast pretty face. All the characters are boring too.
Anonymous
This series remind me of a saying that if an actor or actress has screen presence, they'll pull audiences in even if their acting is just okay or the storyline is just so so. This series is a great showcase of the important of screen presence. I also feel that a lot of C-actor/actresses doesn't have screen presence, they just have the look. Having screen presence is not equal to handsome/pretty.
Anonymous
Screen presence is a combination of the actor's charisma and the production itself. If an actor has charisma but the story and production is lackluster then it won't fully reveal itself. It takes two to tango. Those bid budget productions usually do a way better job in this aspect.
Mark Chao in "Three Lives Three Worlds" is a great example of this. He was already acting beforehand but no one noticed him. His talents were only showcased with a superb production crew. Now look at his fame, it's unreal.
What actors/actresses should be doing is picking better projects to make themselves known.
Anonymous
Having charisma and doing a big or small production doesn’t have any correlation to each other. As for doing big production, if an actor or actress doesn’t have screen presence they’re just going to become a needle in a hay stack.
You have to remember that these are newbie, so they don’t have the luxury to pick the type of production they want to work on. Many actors and actresses put in a lot of efforts just to able to get cast as lead and only until they’re really famous that they get to pick projects they want to work on. Having a screen presence can make the audiences look past the flaw in their acting. But having both can make the audiences to focus on them and no one else but just them. I can boldly say that some people are just born with it.
Since we’re talking Mark Chao as an example, most China audiences doesn’t know him because he’s a movie actor and not a TV actor when he was cast in “Three Lives Three Worlds”. When I watched his first TV series Black and White with Vic Chou, he managed to take the limelight away from Vic and made me to focus on him every time he was on screen. Mind you, his acting was very raw at the time and Vic was more famous than him at the time. When he was cast for the role of Ying Xiong, many people said he got that role because of nepotism, but no one even cares after that.
Take Sandra Ma and Zhou Dong Yu as another example. When I watched Soul Mate, my focus shifted to Sandra Ma every time she was on screen, eventhough the movie dictate that I should focusing more on Zhou Dong Yu.
Melodysweetmusic177
woaw am i the only one who actually likes this series? its definitely a low budget drama and not to be taken seriously, its light and funny and i like how sassy and carefree the female lead is, i like her acting in here so much more than in Feng Qiu Huang. I like how relatable it is and isn't that over the top, it can get annoying sometiems but its to be enjoyed without much thinking unlike other transmigration dramas that are just too serious
Anonymous
Big budget productions usually have better, more experienced production crews. Directors, scriptwriters, choreographers and cinematographers do a lot to enhance the quality of the production. If you got the best crew working on your project, the actors would have an better stage to perform. Of course, not every big budget production is a success but it's more likely to be successful due to having more money to spend and getting the best screw to work on it.
A charismatic actor signed onto a bad production would never get noticed because no one is watching it. Whereas if he/she was signed onto a big production that becomes successful, people do take note.
Also, it depends on how you define screen presence. If we're talking about acting skills, then it can be acquired and improved on. But natural charisma where an actor/actress walks in the room and everyone shifts their attention to him/her, that is much more difficult to learn and usually only a few people naturally have it.
Anonymous
To anonymous 3.b, I'm curious who else do you think has screen presence? Imo, Zhang Ziyi, Liu Tao and Liu Yifei has pretty strong aura and screen presence. but not sure with the actors. Wangkai and Huang Xuan maybe. They're charismatic in most of of their role. And they have good acting skill too.
Anonymous
I don’t believe big production is equal to better script, etc. I watched a few c-dramas where I felt the big budget production was there to mask the flaw in the storyline/plot. They don’t have much to talk about so they used the beautiful cinematography to distract the audiences.
And yes, I’m talking about natural charisma. And I’m not talking about just their look, the way they delivered the lines, their facial expression, little nuance that they display on screen, etc. At the end of the day, everyone find a certain quality in the actor/actress that they love and fall for them. I don’t follow the popular crowd so I attract to actors/actresses that are usually unconventional.
Anonymous
These are my first impression of actors/actresses that I came across or I saw their series for the first time.
Both Sandra Ma and NiNi command my attention and it’s only from their pictorial for magazines. They both have this very fierce look and pose that made me focus on them.
Huang Xuan and Wan Qian made me forgets Shawn Dou in Tribes and Empires and I felt Shawn put on “I’m acting” kind of vibes.
Since I only know Liu Tao and Wang Kai from NIF 1. I don’t have much opinion about Liu Tao since her role was there because of a female role. While Wang Kai was good but he couldn’t take my focus away from Hu Ge.
I’ve no opinion on Liu YiFei, she just look pretty to me. Zhang ZiYi looks very bitchy to me so I can’t get over that fact; therefore she made it hard for me to see her works. I like Tang Wei more and I only see a few of her movies.
Li Yi Feng takes my focus away from Mike He when I watched their series Sunny Happiness.
My opinion on Yang Mi, Angela, and Zhao Li Ying are “how are they famous?” and “oh, because of popularity?” I’ll be checking out Angela series with Huang Xuan because of Huang Xuan. It’ll be the first Angela series that I watch. Both Yang Mi and Zhao LiYing have yet to impress me.
There are 2 guys from Here to Heart that I focus on when they’re on screen, one is Chao Jing (2nd male lead) and the other is Xiao Bing Ji (Gao Fang). Lastly, Liu Ye for the Old Boy series, every gesture that he displayed, his eyes acting, facial expressions, he’s the only reason why I re-watch the series.
Park Hyung Shik from Korean remake of Suits, Sugisaki Hana and Hirano Sho from Hana Nochi Hare for the little gestures and facial expressions.
Anonymous
Please see my response to your question in #6.