The Trust (2023) - Final Review

Final review/rating:  The Trust (2023) - A delightfully funny body-switching drama on the importance of love and mutual trust 

This is 8/10 stars ✮✮✮✮✮✮✮✮ from Pandafan🐼

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

The Trust (2023) is a delightful gem of a drama. I have always thought that the body-swapping premise can be hilarious if done right, and I am happy to report that this drama does just that 😆  

As well as providing laughs aplenty, this second-chance romance explores the importance of love and mutual trust.  It posits that to love is to trust (as aptly put by the poem from which the drama's Chinese title takes its name). 

But not to worry, this drama is not preachy or didactic in tone - everything is handled with a light touch and a nod to the whimsy of a modern imagination.  Highly recommend! 

SPOILERS AHEADS

The title as theme and plot

The Chinese title of the drama, 恩愛兩不疑 ("Love and Mutual Trust"), comes from the first lines of an old poem called 留別妻 ("To my Parting Wife") by Su Wu 苏武, written circa 100BC.  The poem is written from the perspective of a soldier about to leave for battle, and the first line famously reads 結發為夫妻，恩愛兩不疑 ("Having become husband and wife, our love is mutual and undoubted").  

Not surprisingly, the central theme of the drama is that where there is mutual love between husband and wife, there will also be mutual trust and the absence of doubts between them.  An ideal state obviously.  But how often can couples, even loving couples, achieve this?  

The drama explores this theme with a couple in a twofold manner.  As I explained in my spoiler-free 👉synopsis, the drama initially opens in the present day, with the premise that Xu Yu (a manhua artist) and Xiao Jin Yun (an editor) are an unhappily married couple contemplating a divorce. Xu Yu starts drawing a manhua called "Love and Mutual Trust 恩爱两不疑".  It turns into writing therapy of sorts, as her manhua stars Xu Yu as Empress and Xiao Jin Yu as Emperor, in a body-switching / soul-swapping second-chance romance.  It's all rather meta really, though the drama is predominantly set in the historic context.      

Sing Yan Fei as Xu Yu

In that setting, Empress Xu Yu is the daughter of a great and loyal general.  She is highly skilled in martial arts, and brave and forthright in nature. But she is also fairly clueless about realpolitik (eg the implications that arise from her family's military prowess and the Emperor's understandable wariness about this) and has no patience with harem in-fighting antics.  

Empress Xu Yu was (and is) in love with Emperor Xiao Jin Yu, and he with her. But between their marked differences in temperament, and the politics of the inner palace, they find themselves estranged from one another.  

Zhang Hao Wei as Xiao Jin Yun or Xu Yu?

Things change on a fateful day when they fall into a pond together and a bizarre chain of events involving magic beads, a solar eclipse, and water as medium results in them waking to find that they have switched bodies.  Empress Xu Yu is horrified to discover that she is trapped in Emperor Xiao Jin Yun's body and he is equally horrified that he is trapped in hers. (Their mutual horror is hilarious, especially when they check out their new bits and go ...what the !?!😆). 

With no way of reversing the soul swap, each must play the other's part.  Before long, both realise that literally standing in each other's shoes leads to greater mutual understanding, trust, and the rekindling of their dormant love for each other. Because what better way to understand someone else? 

Funny and thoughtful execution

I absolutely love how the drama takes the logic (and humour) of the body switch to its natural conclusions. 

The body-switched CP, hearts as one💕

Emperor Xiao Jin Yun (in the Empress' body), suddenly (and hilariously) has to deal with period pains, the mother-in-law from hell (yes, his own loving mother who is now treating him as the daughter-in-law from hell😅) and the machinations of the backstabbing harem who are out to get Xu Yu...  

It's all eye-opening, to say the least, and makes him appreciate his straight-shooting Empress. Well, maybe aside from the moment when Xu Yu (in the Emperor's body) suggests that he might as well give birth to their children while he is in her body😆 

As for Xu Yu (in the Emperor's body), she learns that she can get a certain biological reaction as a guy when she kisses Xiao Jin Yun😅, that dealing with unruly chipmunk-voiced court ministers and would-be insurrectionists is no easy feat, and that off the cuff decisions can have unintended consequences. She also comes to understand why the Emperor was wary of her family's power when she has to ride to war to protect the borders and witnesses her family's power first hand on the battlefield.  Conversely, Emperor Xiao Jin Yun (in the Empress' body) comes to understand that there is no cause to doubt the loyal Xu family or his Empress, who may be the one woman in his harem who truly loves him.      

There are other pros to the body-switch because Xu Yu's unconventional style of leadership gets results from a usually slow moving court whilst Xiao Jin Yun's velvet glove approach restores his Empress' status in the harem pecking order and also vastly improves the mother-in-law v daughter-in-law relationship.  

Bravo to the acting and comic timing of Song Yan Fei and Zhang Hao Wei! They are so, so good. Song Yan Fei acting as the Emperor in the Empress' body really channeled a caged lion while milking the comedic (assisted by occasional lion roaring sound effects🦁). And Zhang Hao Wei as the Empress in the Emperor's body is absolutely comedy gold (assisted by the occasional lamb's bleating sound effects 🐑).  There's something really funny about a tall handsome guy like Zhang Hao Wei referring to himself as "this concubine", rolling his eyes, bashfully flirting, and giggling like a tomboyish schoolgirl to the manner born😆

For those wondering, the body-switch back does not take place until ep 23, so the leads spend quite a bit of time in each other's shoes.    

A whimsical touch

Moustache twirling villain

While the drama also throws internal and external threats that endanger the kingdom into the mix (including rebellion by malcontent Royal Uncle Xiao Qi and war on the northern borders), everything is dealt with using a light touch and the drama does not take itself too seriously.  

Royal Uncle Xiao Qi, the main baddy of the piece, is literally a moustache twirling villain and his downfall is a foregone conclusion.  

Concubine Pei: mild green tea

Even the usual inner palace nastiness is tempered by the fact that none of the harem are truly evil and the Dowager Empress is actually a big softie. As for 'green-tea' Concubine Pei, she is more vain than evil, and there is never any danger that she will win Emperor Xiao Jin Yun from Xu Yu.  Besides, during the body-switch first half of the drama, Concubine Pei's disastrous attempts to seduce the person whom she thinks is the Emperor are pretty damn funny. And during the switched-back second half of the drama, Concubine Pei is even funnier because she mistakenly thinks that the body-switch is still in place and that Xu Yu is still the Emperor, and vamps her accordingly😆

There is also touching loyalty and love between the Emperor and his younger brother, the leads and their loyal servants and close friends, which rounds out a well executed and touching drama.   

Final thoughts

🐼: The Trust (2023) is really fun! 

Watch it for a hilarious take on body-switching
and the feel-good vibes of a well deserved happily-ever-after for an endearing couple. 

It's all one big happy (if historically improbable) ending as the harem celebrates their close friendships and disband to follow their entrepreneurial dreams and Royal Uncle Xiao Qi is banished rather than killed.  

But I suppose any fallacies can be placed at the feet of Xu Yu's modern whimsy, and I love how her manhua helps the modern day her and Xiao Jin Yun find their way back to each other for a new beginning.  While I am not usually a fan of modern inserts into a historical drama, for this one, I rather liked the occasional insights into the modern versions of Xu Yu and Xiao Jin Yun.

I also LOVED the twist in the tale - just as Empress Xu Yu is ready to give birth, guess which two people fall into the pond wearing magic beads while an eclipse is about to happen? Too good! 😆

A well deserved 8/10 stars ✮✮✮✮✮✮✮✮