Final Review - The Sleepless Princess (2020)

Final review/rating: The Sleepless Princess (2020) - Adorable couple chemistry and a Tale of Two Endings 

This is 8.5/10 stars ✮✮✮✮✮✮✮✮ from Pandafan🐼

Overall rating:         8.5 Stars Plot:                       7 Stars Acting/cast:            9 Stars Couple chemistry:   10 stars Music:                    9 Stars Re-watch value:      7 Stars Enjoyment factor:   8 Stars

The Sleepless Princess definitely lived up to the promise of the first few episodes. It's a squeal worthy romcom, which (fair warning) gets increasingly angst filled in the middle to end episodes.  For those who felt shortchanged by the open ending in episode 35, fear not, there is an epilogue episode that ties up the loose ends! 💕  

SPOILERS AHEADS

The Sleepless Princess Chu Yue 

Hu Yi Xuan as Princess Chu Yue

Hu Yi Xuan is perfect as the adorable Xu Chu Yue, the titular sleepless princess.

 

Sweet, but not overly "cutesy" and with a girl next door charm. Not a typical petulant princess, which makes sense since her character is an adopted and unloved daughter of the emperor, who dwells with the other unloved concubines in the "cold palace".  Princess Chu Yue is so adorable her one time arch nemesis Lady Su Nan Nan, who has a one sided crush on General Xue Yao, somehow ends up being her champion and best friend, and even the more sinister Lady Na Xi appears to have some qualms about destroying her happiness.  

Flirting up a storm 💓

Princess Chu Yue is also prepared to flirt up a storm with her man - and who can resist that cheeky grin? She's not afraid to go after what she wants.  It's no wonder that the General (or as she refers to him, her "Big Pillow Xue") falls head over heels for her.  She has a wonderful sense of comic timing too - who can forget the time when she says, in front of Mr Bai, the General's right hand man, that she wants the General to sleep with her tonight?😂 (Operative word being sleep - at that stage, she has just figured out that somehow, he is the antidote to her prophetic dreams, so she wants him to be her pillow). 

Hu Yi Yuan has great acting range as well - when she has tears in those big eyes of hers, I must confess that it makes me a bit weepy too...  

Her General, Xue Yao  

Zheng Ye Cheng as General Xue Yao

Zheng Ye Cheng plays General Xue Yao, the stoic, seemingly aloof and battle hardened general, who has a big soft spot for the princess and a love of gardening.  

And good lord, the man can act! It's no exaggeration to say that his eyes can speak volumes - Zheng Ye Cheng's General Xue Yao brings so much nuance to what is often a stock character in Chinese historical dramas, the outwardly cold but inwardly warm general.  

For example, General Xue Yao's refusal to victim shame is a case in point. In episode 8, when Princess Chu Yue is abducted by an evil Marquis who sends the General an undergarment purporting to be the Princess' to make the General think she has been raped, General Xue Yao changes into plain civilian clothing (so as to not trigger bad memories of the evil Marquis' brocade clothing) and comes to comfort her and to reassure her that not all men are evil, saying he will take responsibility for her.  When the Princess asks if he is only saying this because he feels sorry for her because she has been dishonoured and that he should just divorce her, he tells her that there are 38,000 reasons why he ought to split with her, but this is definitely not one of them.  She indignantly demands that he lists all his reasons and he (swoon-worthily) carries her to her bed, removes her shoes, covers her with a blanket, and gently tells her to sleep as he keeps watch beside her.  Like I said, swoon-worthy:  

Someone to watch over me...💕

I'll take care of you 💕

The angst filled parts of the drama showcase Zheng Ye Cheng's achingly good portrayal of heartbreak and devotion.  For example, the time when Princess Chu Yue is temporarily blinded and he mistakenly believes that she is pregnant with Prince Xhing Xhen's child and that she no longer loves him, he nonetheless disguises himself as a deaf servant so that he can take care of her every need and so that she can sleep dreamlessly. To fulfill an old promise he made her, he arranges a fireworks display for her to "see" and when she recognises him, he pleads with her not to break his heart, just this once... Oh be still my beating heart! 💕

Heartbreak 💔

Don't even get me started on the tenderness and heartbreak in his eyes when Princess Chu Yue goes through her final zodiac transformation, and he fears she will sleep forever... 

Off the charts couple chemistry 

Needless to say, all of that makes for some off the charts, addictively good couple chemistry. Princess Chu Yue and General Xue Yao are perfect together! I can't get over how right this pairing is - great casting choices. Pictures really speak a thousand words here, so without further ado, enjoy some of their cute scenes below 💕:

Second male lead - Prince Xing Xhen 

Princess Chu Yue and "brother" Prince Xing Xhen, played by Yang Lin

With the incredible chemistry between the main leads, it really means that the second male lead, Prince Xing Xhen (played by Yang Lin) doesn't stand a chance as serious competition for Princess Chu Yue's affections.  

She loves him, but only as her younger imperial brother.  Unfortunately for Prince Xing Xhen, he realises that his love for her is not of a brotherly variety.  

Lullabies from the second male lead

While he could be rather immature, on the whole, I rather liked Prince Xing Xhen. His love for Princess Chu Yue is not the destructive, possess at all costs kind, but the wistful, protective kind. There is a scene in which he rescues her after she turns into a pig and holds her in his arms, singing lullabies to her to quiet her, which is particularly touching. It almost had me considering rooting for this pairing, but being brother zoned by the heroine is as fatal as being friend zoned in the romance stakes, so there's never any hope for Prince Xing Xhen.  But kudos to him - unlike many other annoying second male leads, Prince Xing Xhen knows when to let go and he even tells Princess Chu Yue the truth when he finds out what her devoted General has done to save her behind the scenes, thereby facilitating their loving reconciliation.       

Plot 

The plot is fairly simple, and if you want a largely spoiler free short synopsis, I have previously done one here.  It's a typical marriage of strangers, who then fall in love plot, with General Xue Yao being forced by royal decree to marry Princess Chu Yue (much to both of their initial dismay).  

He is suspicious of her, thinking that she is a spy from the emperor, whom he suspects had a hand in his older brother's death. With some justification, as the emperor does ask her to spy on him and only decreed the marriage as a means to curb the General's military powers. Their first meeting (in which he saves her from assassins in the palace) also leaves him suspicious of her because she was aware that the assassination would happen. The true explanation is of course that she has prophetic dreams and foresees the assassination... 

She in turn, doesn't want to be married to an aloof stranger (however hot) and schemes constantly and hilariously to escape, not knowing that her General is the masked stranger who saved her from the assassins.  

Anyway, romcom light frothy romance ensues as the pair warm to each other, helped by the fact that so long as the General is around, the Princess can sleep soundly without prophetic dreams. So she innocently and single mindedly pursues him for his company at night, while the poor bashful man doesn't quite know how to deal with his beautiful, persistent bride.

Su Nan Nan played by Huang Can Can

Cute side plot/couple

 

More hilarity ensues when Lady Su Nan Nan (played by Huang Can Can) who studied martial arts under the same master as the General, comes on to the scene in determined pursuit of the uninterested General.  Nan Nan is actually rather nice though (as well as having some laugh out loud funny scenes) and after she becomes incensed about the General's shabby treatment of Princess Chu Yue (in using her in a plot to lure out the baddies), Nan Nan becomes her good friend and staunch defender. 

Luo Ji played by Zhou Dai Wei

Incidentally, there is a very cute side plot in which Nan Nan and the handsome but clueless Assistant General of the Imperial Guards Luo Ji, played by Zhou Da Wei, clumsily and cutely fall for each other, which provides some great comic relief.  

Angst and drama

But what's a Chinese historical drama without angst and drama? The Sleepless Princess provides this in spades from episode 20 onwards, cranking up the tension in increasing amounts until a cliffhanger of a "final" episode 35. 

In summary, Princess Chu Yue discovers that General Xue Yao suspects that the emperor is behind his older brother's death. Meanwhile, the emperor finds out that Princess Chu Yue is the divining stone, having absorbed it into her body in childhood. He decrees that Princess Chu Yue and General Xue Yao divorce and once the Princess is back in the palace, forces her to drink sleeping potions so that she can divine the future. General Xue Yao sneaks into the palace nightly, to keep watch over his Princess' sleep and so prevent her from the last zodiac transformation.   

Heartbreak 💔

Enter the villainess of the piece, Lady Na Xi, a fierce princess from another tribe who is deviously determined to get General Xue Yao, and who engineers a royal decree from the emperor for her and the General to be wed.  Our lovelorn lovers mutually decide to defy the emperor's edict by eloping, only for General Xue Yao to find out on the day of the wedding that his older brother died because of Princess Chu Yue. (It turns out General Xue Yao's brother was also in love with the Princess even though she had no idea of his existence and he tragically died in a palace fire while trying to protect her when she was undergoing one of her zodiac transformations).  Cue more angst and a wedding ceremony that doesn't happen because the prospective groom is wrought with guilt and pain and the bride is equally distraught.     

More heartbreak...💔

Lady Na Xi throws another spanner into the works by becoming poisoned by Princess Chu Yue's medicine, it having been tampered with by Dongshi, an apprentice of the Princess' deceased father, who wants control of the divining stone.  

The Princess is imprisoned.  Lady Na Xi is cured but refuses to exonerate the Princess unless General Xue Yao marries her.  She also sticks the knife in by asking the emperor to make Princess Chu Yue the officiating maid of honour at the wedding. There's a heart wrenching scene in which Princess Chu Yue is forced to watch the love of her life marry another... 

Lady, no means no

Even at knife point General Xue Yao is unwilling to truly marry another - he finds evidence of Lady Na Xi's conspiracy and makes her agree to part ways so that he can be free again.  

The emperor then ramps up the evil by again trying to force Princess Chu Yue to divine the future. To save her, Prince Xing Xhen, claims that she is pregnant with his child.  More angst and misunderstanding ensues, followed by a tender reconciliation between our Princess and General.  But everyone Princess Chu Yue holds dear dies when Dongshi traps them underground and poisons them after explaining that it was actually he who killed the General's older brother by fire and that he wants the divining stone to revive his dead lover. Using her last prophetic ability to change the course of events, Princess Chu Yue reverses time to save her General and the others.   

More heartbreak...💔

However, when evening comes, Princess Chu Yue falls into a deep, endless sleep.  General Xue Yao spends countless months caring for her, reading to her, hoping she will wake.  

The "final" episode 35 ends with a literal cliffhanger as he stands with her in his arms on a cliff... 

Ep 35: A literal cliffhanger ending...?!

A tale of two endings...

Breakfast for two and "I love you"💕

MangoTV probably broke the hearts of too many fans and subsequently issued an "epilogue" to the series, providing a more concrete answer to those who want to know what happened and whether we get a happy ending.  

In the epilogue, we find out that Princess Chu Yue wakes up in the nick of time.  The lovers share a loving meal together and decide to marry, without further ado and to be with each other in this life and the next. 

Cute Xue Meng

Fast forward some years, Prince Xing Xhen is now the emperor and is babysitting an adorable scamp of a boy called Xue Meng, who literally runs rings around his emperor uncle.  

Happily ever after 💕

His parents are off having fun in boats, riding horses, and writing a novel together 💕  A letter from the emperor arrives, stating that he is minded to send their son to the army as he is too naughty and General Xue Yao freaks out and decides they need to return immediately. But not before they get started on making a baby sister for Xue Meng 😂

And the clueless Luo Ji finally gets his act together and proposes to Nan Nan so it's a happy ending for all!

Music 

Special mention for the soundtrack to The Sleepless Princess which is quite lovely and fits the drama.  The main opening theme song is a duet called 眠眠 ("Sleep");there's also a lovely sub-theme duet called 離人花 ("Departing Person's Flower").  

My favourite song is the ending theme called 小尾巴 ("Little Tail"). This is really playful, sung from the perspective of General Xue Yao: the Princess is his sleepless "little tail" that cutely follows him around, he doesn't always know what has made her angry, but wants to know the right words to coax her to return home, wants to take her to meet his parents, is completely helpless when she smiles, and is willing to cast off his armour for her... 💕     

Final thoughts 

The Sleepless Princess is a delightful watch - an addictively swoon worthy romcom with great leads that share fantastic chemistry, a decent (if somewhat unnecessarily angsty plot), and a gorgeous soundtrack that will have you humming the tunes long after you finish the drama.  

I'm glad that we were given an epilogue episode to wrap up the loose ends. I think of it as a "choose your own ending" adventure.  For those who prefer the cliffhanger at episode 35, they can stop watching at that point.  For those who want closure and a happy ever after, the epilogue delivers this in spades.  Personally, thank goodness for the epilogue episode.  It's very much in keeping with the adorable romance between the Princess and her General.  Hope to see these two together again in the future!  

A solid 8.5/10 stars ✮✮✮✮✮✮✮✮