(Minor spoilers)

Perhaps it was the fact that my friends, who were watching Rebirth For You (嘉南传) as it aired, were constantly venting their frustrations in our drama chat group, but I went into this show with almost zero expectations: I had not read the story it was based on, I had never seen another Joseph Zeng Shunxi (曾舜晞) drama, and — thanks to my friends — I was already girding myself for over-the-top annoying characters.

With that as my baseline, this drama actually ended up being better than I expected. And unlike other online reviews I’d read, I actually enjoyed the back half to back quarter of the drama much more than the first half to second quarter.

Pros:

The klutzy, brainless, impetuous female trope can be exhausting and frustrating, so I loved how sharp and shrewd Jiang Baoning (played by Ju Jingyi (鞠婧祎)) was and the way the story showcased her talents in engineering and her political savviness.

A fantastic cast of supporting female characters accompanied the main female character: the wonderfully supportive and wise Grand Dowager Empress grandma (played by Cao Cuifen (曹翠芬)), the male lead’s sister Li Dongzhi (Wang Yiting (王奕婷)), and Dong Shanhu (Lu Tingyu (陆婷玉)), the businesswoman friend.

I don’t always love secondary couples since they can feel a bit dull, tiresome, and annoying, but I loved every secondary couple in this drama: The sister and the second prince, and the two pairings involving the main couple’s respective BFFs.

While there were small moments of “noble idiocy”, overall, they were resolved fairly quickly. And despite a key conflict in the final quarter between our romantic leads, I loved that all four couples generally had really healthy, non-toxic relationships based on love, respect, and trust. (Some may disagree with that take given the fallout between the leads for several episodes in the final quarter, but I was sympathetic to their inner struggle and conflict over what happened. Plus, their relationship had been pretty angst-free and untested, so I didn’t mind a bit of drama, trusting a happy ending still lay in their future.)

I also rather relished the way the scheming and plotting unfolded and were smartly foiled by our heroes. It was at this point where I felt like the show’s pacing was at its best. And unlike many other dramas I’ve watched, I actually thought the ending was fairly satisfying. With many of the episodes unusually long for a C-drama (they were more K-drama length), the ending also didn’t feel rushed. Pretty much all the story lines wrapped up nicely, and while some might argue that a few of the antagonists deserved a less kind ending, I thought they were fair. Even though one of the villains did get an undeserved “redemption arc”, it felt much more organic compared to some of the more forced redemption trope treatments I’ve seen in other dramas.

Cons:

While the depiction of a smart female lead during the first few episodes was entertaining, I reall struggled during a good portion of the first half/middle two quarters of the drama. I spammed my chat group incessantly over my frustrations with the cast of incredibly annoying (and overwhelmingly female) antagonists and supporting characters: Catty mother-and-daughter guests, the mother-in-law, a scheming Dowager Empress, a cunning and duplicitous ward, and a thwarted love interest. The latter two characters were also exceedingly over-the-top delusional. A friend noted that perhaps these insufferable personalities were balanced out by the strong group of female supports that surrounded our heroine. I don’t know if it was balance, but I did not gain inner peace until much later when most of the vexing characters finally faded into the background or disappeared altogether. (I’ve discovered that watching “good” characters do or say really idiotic and delusional things is far more maddening than watching villains nefariously plot and scheme against their targets.)

Acting:

With the exception of Marius Wang Zhuocheng (汪卓成) (many C-drama fans will recognize him from The Untamed (陈情令)) and Ju Jingyi (I previously saw her in A Class of Her Own (漂亮书生)), most of the cast was completely new to me. I liked Ju Jingyi in Class, but found her a little lacking somehow for this -- arguably meatier -- role. As for Wang Zhuocheng, he plays yet another prideful character in Rebirth who can not accept his own inadequacies against someone he views as inferior, somewhat like his character Jiang Cheng in The Untamed. Unlike Jiang Cheng, however, who believed he was being righteous, Zhao Xiao’s delusional pride takes him down much darker path. Relative newcomers, Wang Yiting, who played Li Dongzhi, and Li Yunrui, who played Qing An, especially stood out in their roles.

Finally, despite the title, there is no “Rebirth” of any kind (symbolic or otherwise) for the main or secondary protagonists…