The Wedding
The season finale of Yanxi Palace: Princess Adventures begins with the demon taking control of Zhaohua once again and stalking Fuk’anngan, kicking him in the ribs while Siwan screams for someone to save her. Siwan, as it turns out, sits tied up to a chair where she admits to growing up alongside Zhaohua and finally accepts that she’s the real princess and Siwan has just been begging for attention. Teasing her, the possessed Zhaohua stalks the Princess with her knife, going on to tell her she’s been tolerating her all this time, while in the room opposite Fuca breaks free from his binds and prepares to leave. Only, as he pushes open the door to escape, Zhaohua returns and knocks him back down to the ground. As they talk, he pleads with her not to let the demon control her and come to her senses. Clutching her head, she seemingly begins internally wrestling with the spirit for control of the body. Just before she knocks the knife into Fuk’anngan, allowing the demon to control her, he admits to being wrong all this time and simply wanted revenge. While Zhaohua pleads with her to kill him but let the others go, night turns to day and a distraught Siwan is brought back to the temple where she recites the words of the demon – drip drop. Siwan, it seems, has completely fallen off the deep-end and as we learn, Fuk’anngan was injured but is currently recovering while Zhaohua appears to have suffered a terrible fright but is actually okay. Sighing after admitting that everyone seems to have lost their sanity, discussing ghosts and possessions, the Emperor decides that Zhaohua’s marriage needs to go ahead now. As the scene fades out, we cut back in to find Zhaohua readying herself for her big day. Fuk’anngan arrives and tells her he won’t allow her to marry as he loves her. She scoffs at the notion though, asking just why he’s waited until now to tell her – despite telling her several episodes ago but under slightly different circumstances. He begs her to give him another chance but she reminds him of his ancestry and tells him he needs to let go of his anger as it won’t serve him well in the future. It’s a unique bite of dialogue and one that actually ties back in to her own issues across this whole first season. As she walks away, Lhawang reveals the truth that her demon-possession was all an elaborate ploy to get a one-up over both Fuk’anngan and Siwan. It finally brings into perspective what we’ve seen in the last episode and with these two characters finally humbled for now, things are brought into focus and our two characters are wed while Fuk’naggan watches on. Zhaohua places the red robe over her head and the scene fades to black. In terms of a season finale, the plot reveal at the end was certainly a nice touch, especially given the sudden tone shift from horror back into period drama toward the latter end of this episode. If I’m honest, I’m not sure if this tonal shift actually works that well but it certainly serves its purpose quite well in terms of both Siwan and Fuk’anngan’s character developments. Having said that, the series has been a pretty good introduction into the world of Chinese dramas and it’s one that enticed me to actually go back and check out the original series, especially given there’s a potential sequel in the works too. Aside from the aforementioned shift across to horror. Yanxi Palace: Princess Adventures has been an enjoyable watch and although its narrative does suffer at times, for the most part the show does well to keep things consistent and dramatic across the season. It’s not perfect, but it is an enjoyable show and one that fans of the original, I’m sure, will enjoy.
