What a view | With Yanxi Palace: Princess Adventures, Netflix hopes to capitalise on the runaway success of Story of Yanxi Palace
- The sequel to the original 70-part series is as bright, bold and beautiful to behold as its predecessor
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Whatever it is – nostalgia, soft power, an outlet for national pride – the quasi-historical costume drama with Chinese characteristics is a mighty tool. Maybe the secret is in the headdresses and hairdos.
Thus are we dazzled by a vision of an 18th-century China in which the order of the day – particularly in the minefield of love – is chicanery. All imperial court notables have ulterior motives, everyone is working an angle, scheming, conspiring, making and breaking allegiances and visiting casual brutality on their servants … all tactics in the game that makes Yanxi Palace: Princess Adventures, now streaming on Netflix an absorbing romp.
Wang Yuwei plays Prince Chaoyong of Mongolia, a fledgling Prince Charming betrothed to the petulant, capricious teenaged Zhaohua but hopelessly outclassed in the connivance-as-chivalry stakes by Forbidden City guard and snake in the grass Fuk’anggan (Wang Yizhe). Trying to do the honourable thing while regularly outflanked is Nie Yuan, as the Qianlong Emperor.
But for all the gripping complexities of Qing dynasty devotion and treachery, it’s the forgotten set designers, hairdressers and costumiers who here make the fabric of history such a sight to behold – bright, bold and far more salubrious than it really was.