The show 《仁医》 (”Dr Jin“) reminded me of another time travel TV drama which I watched in 2011, titled 《步步惊心》 (Scarlet Heart). This was a china production and the story was based on the popular online novel of the same title. I was glad to find that Nicky Wu and Damian Lau were one of the main actors.
"Scarlet Heart" was about a girl named Zhang Xiao (played by Cecilia Liu) who met with a car accident. When she woke up, she realized she had travelled back in time to the Qing Dynasty (China) and was in the body of Ma Er Tai Ruoxi, the sister of the eigth Prince's wife. There she began the process of adapting to palace life after being chosen to be a palace maid to serve the emperor snacks and tea. She learnt not to take sides and not be involved in politics. She also learnt to accept the fact that she won't be the only women or wife of the man she loved in the Qing Dynasty.
She managed to gain the emperor's trust and fatherly love. She was also on good terms with many of the Princes and were in love with 2 of them (at different point in time). While she tried so hard to be with the man she loved, eventually she chose not to marry the man whom she loved when she could. The irony.
There was always a question in Ruoxi's mind. She did not know what her ending would be but she knew what would happen to the people around her from the Qing Dynasty.
One of the quotes that I like from the show were “既来之， 则安之”, which means "take things as they come". This was the advice given by the 4th Prince (played by Nicky Wu) to Ruoxi. If you can't change anything, take things as they come.
Another phrase which always came out in the show was “立场不同”, which means different standpoint. There was no right or wrong, bad or good, just that they happened to be in a different position, so they handle the matter in that way which will usually hurt the other party in order to survive in the power struggle. I thought that was an interesting point, because most show will portray one party as the ultimate villian and the other party as the "good guy". This was also a point made by Jingzhuo in the show 《仁医》(“Dr Jin”) .
This drama was very exciting. It was a great show and many people had been anticipating a sequel to it. I was very happy to learn that they are currently filming the sequel. Scarlet Heart 2 will wrap up filming in June and is expected to broadcast at year end. Hope MediaCorp will telecast it here in Singapore too!
The songs broadcast in 《步步惊心》 (“Scarlet Heart”) were all very nice too. Will discuss this in another post.
