Melody Of Golden Age Review

I almost missed Melody Of The Golden Age (长乐曲) as I hardly follow Mango TV due to their bad subtitles especially for historical dramas. So, I have not watched a Mango TV drama for quite some time. Perhaps they have improved on their subtitles for the global market in recent months as this recent title doesn’t seem to have the same bad translations that I have seen in the past. Whatever it is, this is a pretty good production overall and it’s great to catch Ding Yu Xi again in another historical drama. My review of Melody Of Golden Age is as per below.

My rating: 7/10
Episodes: 40
Type: Crime, Historical Romance
Aired: August 2024
Images Credit: Douban Movie

The Cast Of Melody Of Golden Age

• Ryan Ding Yu Xi as Shen Du
• Ancy Deng En Xi as Yan Xing / Yan Liu Niang
• Xiao Yan as Lu Chui Chui
• Mao Zi Jun as Lai Luo Zhi / Vice Minister Lai
• Amber Song Fang Yuan as Yun Que
• Ethan Yao YYi Chen as Xu Xiang Ren
• Xuan Lu as Xu Wan
• Sun Ze Yuan as Pan Chi
• Li Ang as Zhang Xing Wei
• Yuan Min as Wu Tai Ming / Chief Wu
• He Sai Fei as Empress Dowager Zhou
• Liu Min as Elder Princess Ru Ning
• Zhang Tian Yang as Xiao Chong / Prince Xian
• Mao Lin Lin as Princess Yong An / Ying Wang
• Yue Yang as Yan Kuo
• Zhang Kai Ying as Yan Cai Wei
• Jeremy Zuo as Han Shi Yuan
• Zhao Wen Hao as Zhang Bao Huan
• Gao Ji Cai as Jiang Liang Xing
• Han Cheng Yu as Mo Qian Zhi

Main Characters

Shen Du

Shen Du is the Head of Internal Affairs. He is feared by many and is seen as cold and ruthless. His duty is to ensure the security of the capital and he reports directly to Empress Dowager Zhou. Shen Du is assisted by his loyal subordinate, Jing Lin, while Shen Zhong is his butler.

Yan Xing / Yan Liu Niang

Yan Xing is the 6th daughter of the Yan family and Liu Niang is her nickname. She is the daughter of a concubine. Yan Xing works as a low ranking scribe at the Ministry of Justice. She is passionate about solving crimes and has great skills in this field. Yan Xing can be stubborn and persistent when it comes to upholding justice.

Supporting Characters

Lu Chui Chui

Chui Chui is Yan Xing’s best friend. She also works at the Ministry of Justice as a record keeper. Her father is a pawnshop owner.

Lai Luo Zhi / Vice Minister Lai

VIce Minister Lai is the Head of the Imperial Censorate. He is a shrewd man with his own secret agenda and sees Shen Du as a threat.

Yun Que

Yun Que is a witness for an old case that has gone cold but involves prominent people behind the scenes. She is straightforward and direct with an interest in Shen Du.

Xu Xiang Ren

Xu Xiang Ren is Yan Xing’s colleague. He is also a leader of a group called Yi Liang Ren. He is an upright and principled man.

Xu Wan

Xu Wan is Empress Dowager Zhou’s personal attendant. She is also Shen Du’s friend and they have known each other for a long time.

Pan Chi

Pan Chi is Yan Xing’s penpal and friend. He is a smart guy with wide knowledge and an insightful mind. He is a private detective from the Western region.

Zhang Xing Wei / PM Zhang

Zhang Xing Wei is the Prime Minister who is on Prince Xian’s side. He also used to be Prince Xian’s tutor.

Wu Tai Ming / Chief Wu

Chief Wu is Yan Xing’s superior. He is the Chief of Ministry of Justice but has a timid attitude with his fear of offending those with influence and power.

Empress Dowager Zhou

Empress Dowager Zhou holds real power of the state as the Emperor is just her young grandson. She is a responsible ruler who is supportive of having female officials in the government.

Elder Princess Ru Ning

Princess Ru Ning is Empress Dowager Zhou’s sister. She and her husband had been accused of trying to rival Empress Dowager Zhou in the past. Hence, Princess Ru Ning is now living a secluded life in a temple with no interest in palace affairs.

Xiao Chong / Prince Xian

Prince Xian is Empress Dowager Zhou’s son but doesn’t have his mother’s complete trust. Prince Xian appears as being indifferent to any power struggle and tends to keep a low profile. His only passion seems to be his plants.

Princess Yong An / Ying Wang

Princess Yong An is Empress Dowager Zhou’s daughter. She has her own agenda and is constantly scheming behind the scenes to achieve her aims.

Yan Kuo

Yan Kuo is Yan Xing’s father. He is a scholar and a state professor under PM Zhang. Yan Kuo is a good man but a little timid. He has an official wife and Concubine Jin who is Yan Xing’s mother. Apart from Yan Xing, he has 2 other daughters and a son.

Yan Cai Wei

Cai Wei is Yan Xing’s 3rd sister. She has a good relationship with Yan Xing although the latter is only a concubine’s daughter. Cai Wei has a lover who is a scholar.

Han Shi Yuan

Han Shi Yuan is a scholar and Cai Wei’s lover. He has an obscure background with connections to the palace.

Zhang Bao Huan

Zhang Bao Huan is a trusted attendant to Empress Dowager Zhou.

Jiang Liang Xing

Jiang Liang Xing is an investigative officer in the Ministry of Justice. He has known Chui Chui since young and is interested in her.

Mo Qian Zhi / Governor Mo

Governor Mo governs Yingzhou which is a county near the Western border. He was a disciple of Shen Du’s father.

Synopsis

Yan Xing is a lowly scribe in the Ministry of Justice but has great investigation skills. She is good in solving crimes and is passionate about upholding justice. When her sister is decreed to marry Shen Du who is the Head of the Imperial Guards, she runs away to escape the marriage. This compels Yan Xing to take her sister’s place in order to ensure her family’s safety.

At the same time, Shen Du has no interest in the marriage. He tries to scare Yan Xing away but is unsuccessful. The 2 of them end up having to project themselves as a happily married couple although they don’t have a good impression of each other in the beginning. However, as Shen Du and Yan Xing work together to investigate some cases, they begin to develop real feelings for one another.

Shen Du is also hiding a secret aim to clear his late father’s name. His father was accused of being a traitor and executed in the past. This is amidst a plot to stir up trouble in the capital and a power struggle behind the scenes. This leads to a few murder cases that are seemingly unrelated to each other which Shen Du and Yan Xing have to solve.

Melody Of Golden Age Ending & Recap (Spoilers Alert!)

Melody Of Golden Age has a happy ending. Vice Minister Lai dies after his rebellion fails. Shen Du manages to clear his father’s name. Empress Dowager Zhou ensures justice for the Shen family. PM Zhang admits to the crime of framing Shen Du’s father in Episode 39. He did it to cover up his own disciple’s smuggling activities and even Empress Dowager Zhou’s nephew was an accomplice.

PM Zhang is given poisoned wine to die for his crime. Prince Xian volunteers to guard the border and vows not to return to the capital for the next 10 years to make up for his leniency towards PM Zhang who was his tutor. Princess Yong An realizes her mistake and repents. She did no harm towards her country but learns loyalty cannot be bought with money.

Empress Dowager Zhou also punishes all the officials and relatives involved in the case related to Shen Du’s father. Her relatives are sent back to their hometowns and not allowed to set foot in the capital again. Chui Chui and Jiang Liang Xing are together and her father is happy to have him as his son-in-law. Yan Xing is promoted to be Master of the Ministry of Justice and given the title of Divine Investigator. She remarries Shen Du at her family’s urging after snubbing him numerous times when he tried to propose to her. The drama ends with Shen Du at the Yan residence to remarry his wife and get her back.

When Did The Leads Get Together?

Yan Xing is truly worried about Shen Du after he almost died to save her from Chen Huo E in Episode 18. He is seriously injured and she takes care of him while he is unconscious in Episode 19. Shen Du learns that Yan Xing is the girl from his past when he hears her talking to herself while pretending to be still unconscious. But Yan Xing mistakenly thought that Shen Du has someone else in his heart. Hence, she remains resistant towards him and insists that she will leave when their agreed time to be a pretend couple is up. This is despite her growing feelings for him after he had saved her and also her sister’s life in Episode 21.

Shen Du clears Yan Xing’s misconception that he is in love with someone else after overhearing her conversation with Pan Chi in Episode 25. He tells her that he already knew she is the girl from his past and the only one in his heart. They become a real couple after his confession and consummated their marriage in Episode 30.

Is There A Breakup?

Shen Du wants a divorce at the end of Episode 36 after Vice Minister Lai has consolidated his power in order to keep Yan Xing safe. He claims that Yan Xing is not an ideal wife which angers her. She agrees to the divorce in Episode 37. Yan Xing seems disappointed with Shen Du who is now working together with the tyrannical Vice Minister Lai. But she knows Shen Du is just putting on an act and this is revealed in Episode 38.

However, Shen Du still insists on putting a distance between them even after the villain has been put down in Episode 39. This is because he wants to clear his father’s name which involves a big risk of antagonizing Empress Dowager Zhou. Yan Xing is angry with his decision which is why she snubs him after the case is over and his father’s name has been cleared. Shen Du has to pursue her back as a result.

Is There A Love Triangle?

Pan Chi is a close friend of Yan Xing and is also interested in her. But she doesn’t know that he is her penpal until Episode 23 when they meet again in Yingzhou while on a case. He reveals that they are penpals then and purposely provokes Shen Du into making him jealous. Pan Chi knows Yan Xing loves Shen Du though and overhears her telling Shen Du that she misses him after Shen Du finally woke up from a bout of poisoning in Episode 29. Although Pan Chi and Shen Du are antagonistic towards each other, there is no toxicity between them. Yan Xing only sees Pan Chi as a friend and fellow detective.

Chui Chui & The Masked Man

Chui Chui learns that the person behind the mask is Vice Minister Lai in Episode 19. He allows her to take his mask off after her sincerity towards him moved him to do so and he begins to fall for her. Chui Chui has no prejudice towards him and sees him as a friend when others fear him and regard him as a villain. However, he wants her to keep his identity as a masked man a secret. He also asks Chui Chui to continue to treat him as the man behind the mask that she first got acquainted with and a friend in Episode 20.

However, Chui Chui becomes afraid of Vice Minster Lai and is wary of being his friend in Episode 31 with all the bad deeds that he has done. She falls for Jiang Liang Xing in Episode 33 after learning he was the beggar she had helped when they were kids. They become a couple which makes Vice Minister Lai angry and jealous. So, Vice Minster Lai abducts Chui Chui and confines her in Episode 34. She is rescued by Xu Xiang Ren in Episode 35 and tells Yan Xing and Shen Du what she knows about Vice Minister Lai to help their investigation into the villain’s background.

Vice Minister Lai’s Background

Vice Minister Lai is revealed to be part of the Fireflies Sect in Episode 19 after Shen Du killed Chen Huo E while saving Yan Xing. Chen Huo E is Vice Minister Lai’s sister. In Episode 31, an elder of the Jinwu Tribe relates that Vice Minster Lai was the envoy from Cang Kingdom who seduced and deceived their Saintess to obtain their secret spells and poison concoctions. Vice Minster Lai also causes the death of Yan Xing’s uncle in Episode 35 after accusing him of composing a rhyme that has rebellious elements. In actual fact, he is targeting Yan Xing and Shen Du through her uncle who then chooses to kill himself.

Vice Minister Lai is given wide powers in Episode 36 after Empress Dowager Zhou falls ill. He arrests Shen Du and convinces him to cooperate with him to rebel. He also kills Xu Xiang Ren who doesn’t want to obey him. Yun Que dies along with Xu Xiang Ren as they are lovers with a plan to marry soon. With Empress Dowager Zhou getting sicker by the day, Vice Minister Lai shows his rebelliousness as he thought he can now grab the throne. He reveals that he was the late Consort Shu’s son in Episode 38.

Consort Shu was supposedly harmed by Empress Dowager Zhou’s family in a power struggle. She died in a fire together with Vice Minister Lai’s nanny’s son. His nanny had traded the life of her own son to keep Vice Minister Lai alive. The nanny also has twin daughters which became his sisters which is how he deceived the people with a “resurrection” when one of the sisters should have been killed.

The Truth To His Background

Unfortunately for Vice Minister Lai, his mother had actually lied to him. Yan Xing’s investigation shows that Consort Shu was Princess Bi Luo from Nanlang Kingdom who was sent to marry the Cang Kingdom Emperor for a political alliance. She had fallen in love with a general then and refused to comply. Her father killed the general to force her to become the Cang Kingdom Emperor’s concubine. But she was already carrying her lover’s child by then. Hence, Vice Minister Lai’s claim that he was the late Emperor’s son is repudiated with evidence in Episode 39.

With his rebellion being put down by Shen Du’s own preemptive moves, Vice MInister Lai is defeated. Shen Du and Empress Dowager Zhou have colluded to put on an act to lure Vice Minister Lai out by giving him false confidence that he could successfully rebel and grab the throne. With the defeat and his sister being killed during the power grab, Vice Minister Lai ends his own life after learning that everything is one big lie perpetuated by his own mother.

Melody Of Golden Age Review – It’s A Drag

Personally, I find that the Melody Of Golden Age is a bit too long at 40 episodes. It is an investigation drama at its core with palace politics among the different factions being the backdrop to give viewers a bit of guessing game as to who is the real villain. The problem with this drama is that there are no boundaries to the cases unlike Strange Tales Of Tang Dynasty 2 whereby each case is a standalone mini story. All the cases in Melody Of Golden Age are related to bring us closer and closer to the villain behind the scenes. This is well and good except for the fact that the script fails to string the cases up in a solid way so that you will have a keen interest to keep going.

As one case ends and another begins, the thread running through them is rather thin especially if you don’t tune in to the dialogues. At times, the story seems a little messy as well. It starts off being similar to Love Of Nirvana as the male lead has a secret aim to clear his late father from being unjustly accused of being a traitor. But the similarity ends there because that mission fades out after a few episodes and the criminal cases come in. It is relegated to a mere subplot which then reappears towards the end to close off the story.

Perhaps the cases themselves are not that interesting which is why the drama becomes rather boring. There is also no longer any mystery as to who is the villain by the time you reach the halfway mark which takes away a fair bit of excitement. So, the strong factor that would compel you to keep watching would most probably be the leads’ chemistry.

Romance And Chemistry

For those who go into Melody Of Golden Age and expecting a romance drama, do take note that the romance just takes up about 20% of the screen time. Most of the time is spent on the criminal cases and the villain. But there are a lot of interactions between the leads as they work together to solve the cases and they also live together under one roof since they are married in the eyes of the public.

The chemistry between them is pretty good despite the 10-year age gap between Ryan Ding and Ancy Deng as the leads. They make a compatible couple and it is enjoyable watching them together. There are some sparks there which I think help to make the drama more pleasing to watch.

However, don’t expect too much when it comes to the kissing scenes. Ancy Deng is a very young actress and there may be good reasons why the kisses are kept short and non-steamy. In fact, you may think she needs lots of practice in this department. The kisses are reduced to pecks although done in a sweet and touching way. But her impulsive character in the story may be another point of contention among viewers.

Needing To Be Saved

The female protagonist is a talented investigator and is passionate about solving crimes. She is also daring and stubborn. This puts her in danger as she dives headlong into investigations without considering the risks to her safety. There are also times when she refuses to listen to the male lead not to push the envelope but she refuses to listen. As a result, you will see her having to be rescued a few times throughout the drama just like the female lead in Fateful Love.

However, the saving grace is she is smart and good at what she does. I guess this neutralizes her not so flattering qualities and overall, she doesn’t appear annoying to me. But you might have a different view if you don’t like the pattern of having to be saved by the hero. Add in an irritating best friend and a third party who likes to needle the male lead to provoke his jealousy, some parts of the drama can indeed be annoying to watch.

Cliches (Spoilers Alert!)

Once we are near the end, the male lead asks for a breakup. It is that cliche excuse of doing it for her safety. The problem is it is unconvincing because they are such a loving couple by then. Basically, you know what he is up to without having to make it blatant through the script and she also knows what he is thinking. The same thing goes with the simple way of how the villain is defeated. The male lead plays pretend to cooperate with him but pre-arranged everything behind the scenes.

In other words, there are no surprises and originality in the script to give viewers a more exciting climax. It relies on cliches and if you have watched your fair share of Chinese historical dramas, you can literally guess what the hero is planning and how it will end. There is no in-depth strategizing to outwit the villain but a rush of cliche steps to close off the story. Hence, the pacing quickens considerably towards the end which is rather inconsistent with the overall production.

My Verdict – Temper Your Expectations

Melody Of Golden Age isn’t a great nor an awful drama. A great extent of its watchability comes from the lead actor who really carried the show to me. So, if you are a big fan of Ryan Ding, this may be worth your time because he looks really good as the lead character in this drama. His partnership with Ancy Deng is also watchable and the main weakness of the whole production is basically the script.

There are murder cases to solve but there is a lack of intrigue and excitement in the way the story is written. So, they end up being pretty boring at times. The cases are largely independent of the overarching aim of righting a past wrong done to the male lead’s father. So, they don’t tie up very convincingly towards the end. It is like a footnote after the villain is dispensed with. This is despite the fact that the story begins with the mission of clearing his father’s name which somehow got lost along the way and reappears when it is time to end the story.

So, for this review of Melody Of Golden Age, I would give it a score of 7/10. It is a bit of a drag to me although Ryan Ding manages to make me stay till the end. But there is little rewatch value for this drama. It is neither a great detective nor romance drama but If you temper your expectations, it is still watchable overall.