Your Sensibility, My Destiny (2021) - Final Review

Final review/rating: Your Sensibility, My Destiny (2021) - A sweet and satisfying drama that engages the senses  

This is 7/10 stars ✮✮✮✮✮✮✮ from Pandafan🐼

Overall rating:         7 Stars Plot:                       7 Stars Acting/cast:            7 Stars Couple chemistry:   8 stars Music:                    7 Stars Re-watch value:      6 Stars Enjoyment factor:   7 Stars

Your Sensibility, My Destiny has a bit of everything (romance, comedy, mystery, palace intrigue, revenge etc) and balances sweetness with angst particularly well. Not too heavy, not too light - just right for a 24 episode drama in my view.  

SPOILERS AHEADS

A word on the title and the hero

The title Your Sensibility, My Destiny is somewhat clunky - I can see what they were trying to do, given the obvious link with the plot (for a spoiler free synopsis, see mine 👉 here).  But in short, our hero Mo Qing Chen aka Prince Ji Ding Lan, is senseless in that he is unable to taste, smell, or feel. But with Lin Chi's hand in his, he can sense everything she feels.  Hence it's her senses (or sensibility) that make her his destiny. 

I must confess I much prefer the Chinese title 公子倾城. This literally translates to "A prince who topples cities". The true meaning is lost somewhat in literal translation. In Chinese it works really well because Mo Qing Chen is the young prince that is foretold to destroy the empire (so someone who will cause cities to fall).  But the words for "topples cities" (qing cheng "倾城") are also associated with the phrase 倾国倾城/ qing guo, qing cheng, which describe someone of peerless beauty - someone who is so beautiful that they will cause the fall of countries and cities.  Sort of like Marlowe's Helen of Troy ("was this the face that launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Illium?"). 

Wang Xing Yue's Mo Qing Chen

All this fits our Mo Qing Chen, as played by Wang Xing Yue who is definitely very easy on the eyes.  Praise for Wang Xing Yue is merited - having recently seen him in One and Only (2021) as the despicable villain of the piece, I really needed him to help me fall in love with his Mo Qing Chen instead and he definitely did that here. It's not just his good looks (though that certainly helped).  There's something very endearing about the way he portrayed the transition between pre Lin Chi aloofness and post Lin Chi emotion - a lot of great acting with his expressive eyes.  He can also be comical with a straight face (one memorable scene being his creation of the perfect 'date' complete with flying lanterns and stargazing, coupled with a hilariously clueless declaration of affection to Lin Chi, which unfortunately sounded more like he was wishing an elderly grandfather a long and prosperous life 😆). 

A refreshing, well-executed plot, minimal misunderstandings, and no messy love triangles

No peeking Lin Chi!

The plot is rather refreshing and has plenty of potential for romcom sweetness.  The set up that Mo Qing Chen and Lin Chi have is a historical twist on the contract marriage plot so beloved of modern Chinese romcom dramas and provides plenty of laughs.   Lin Chi even draws a picture to indicate which areas are no touch zones, but of course she is the one to get her hands all over the somewhat bewildered and bemused Mo Qing Chen, who is discovering not only what it means to feel but is getting a crash course on feelings of the romantic, till-death-do-we-part kind. 

Cute 💕

High marks for couple chemistry by the way - Wang Xing Yue's Mo Qing Chen and Bu Guan Jin's Lin Chi are really very cute together. They also sing one of the OSTs together - The Reason(原因). 

There are also minimal annoying misunderstandings - only two really, and they were understandable.  

• The first is when Lin Chi leaves in a huff when she overhears the Queen disparage her to Mo Qing Chen, who is determined to wed her.  With opposition of the imperial kind and feeling inferior, Lin Chi runs, thinking to cut her emotional losses.  But the two quickly reunite, especially when they find out that somehow Lin Chi has lost her senses but gained all of Mo Qing Chen's martial arts prowess, while he has completely regained all his senses but has lost all of his kickass abilities. (The secret is that the switch takes place when the tears of the person with senses falls into the eye of the person without).  

Run Ling Yan - he's a creep!

• The second misunderstanding is more substantial and quite understandable.  Lin Chi's long lost sister Ling Yan shows up and accuses Mo Qing Chen of being the murderer of their parents.  If true, that is obviously a deal breaker in Chinese historical drama land - hence angst and heartbreak until the truth comes out.  Predictably it's Mo Qing Chen's scheming half-brother Ji Ding Yue, who has done it out of a misplaced sense of vengeance and who, rather creepily, actually takes Ling Yan into his household and basically grooms her to fall in love with him and to exact his revenge. 

The last few episodes are more angst filled and melodramatic (think attempted palace coups, fake deaths, and dramatic 'resurrections'). There was also a logical explanation for the mystery of Mo Qing Chen's lack of senses - it transpires that the prophecy was actually a rumour started by Ji Ding Yue's mother to bring down the Empress and that she had, via the unwitting Emperor, given the Empress drugs to disable her baby. The Emperor finds out but keeps everyone in the dark, leading to Ji Ding Yue's misplaced obsession for vengeance, and pain for everyone involved.  I suppose if the Emperor had dealt with the matters transparently in the first place we wouldn't have the drama, but that doesn't stop me from questioning his judgment.   

Baby!

Incidentally, the way our lead couple take down the villain is fittingly linked to their ability to switch senses (yay team work!) and there is of course, a very satisfying happy ending after the angst and a new baby to add to the happy family 😊 

Also, yay for there being no messy love triangles!  Though there are others interested in both of the leads, the plot does not centre on this angle at all (more on this later, with discussion on second male lead Constable Du Ruo, whom I absolutely loved 💓)

Commendable innovations 

I rather liked the fact that the scriptwriter added some innovation to Your Sensibility, My Destiny.  For example, each episode begins with a short monologue from Mo Qing Chen in which he breaks the fourth wall to speak directly to the audience (which I don't recall ever seeing in this genre).  It's a bit odd to have Mo Qing Chen staring straight into your eyes as he gives you his (sometimes corny) take on that episode's theme, but I grew to like his little chat - it's a very self-aware nod and wink to the audience.   

Wedded bliss

Also, rather than waiting till the very last episode to give the audience a happily-ever-after like most dramas in this genre, our main leads tie the knot in episode 18.  So there's life after the wedding, and plenty of twists and turns in the plot in the remaining 6 episodes.     

Interesting side characters 

There are also some loveable side characters, such as 

😁Four in a closet!

Mo Qing Chen's clueless younger brother Ji Deng Luan and Lin Chi's feisty shijie 师姐 Qiu Wan, who fall for each other.  At one rather hilarious point, the four of them end up in a closet together because each of them was trying to hide from one of the others, in a comedy of errors😆   

Du Ruo

Speaking of loveable side characters, special mention must be made of second male lead Constable Du Ruo, (played by Li Jiu Lin) who is Lin Chi's shixiong 师兄.  Although he does not get much screen time, he is pretty perfect whenever he is on screen.  He is in love with Lin Chi, having grown up with her, but leaves it too late to express his feelings... 

When Du Ruo, realises Lin Chi is in love with Mo Qing Chen, he does not burden her with the knowledge of his love but instead tells Mo Qing Chen all of the things he might need to know to best protect and love her (eg her fear of thunderstorms and how she reacts when afraid etc).  He also nobly stands in the breach to save Mo Qing Chen, knowing the consequences of letting an imperial prisoner escape on his watch might be fatal, and without telling either Mo Qing Chen or Lin Chi of his sacrifice.  So he's the commendable complete opposite of the usual toxic love adversary. And quite dreamy to boot!    

Final thoughts 

🐼: All in all, an enjoyable watch! Your Sensibility, My Destiny wasn't overly ambitious, but there was a little bit of everything and some attempts to innovate in a refreshing take for this genre.  Also some great eye candy and cute chemistry.     

A solid 7 stars ✮✮✮✮✮✮✮