There’s no better way to kick off the first week of summer than with an abundance of new drama series to get lost in. Popular shows like Tencent’s The Legend of Heroes and iQIYI’s Follow Your Heart are ending to make room for new ones, and on June 26, 2024, The Princess Royal (度协年), starring Angel Zhao Jinmai and Zhang Linghe, will debut. Expectations are high because this is Youku’s next historical romance after the triumph of The Double.
Enemies Are Given Another Chance at Romance
For political considerations, Prime Minister Pei Wenxuan (Zhang Linghe) and Crown Princess Li Rong (Zhao Jinmai) of Xia were married. Who knew that they would regret being married in the end? Similarly, their convenient marriage ends in disaster for them both as they become victims of other people’s schemes. Unexpectedly, Li Rong and Pei Wenxuan are granted a second chance and are allowed to “travel” back in time to the year before their marriage in order to redo everything.
Li Rong is eighteen again, not thirty-eight. Li Rong’s initial desire to wed the graceful Su Rongqing, while Wen Xuan watches on in jealousy, seems to have the potential to develop into much more. Amidst the high-stakes political gamesmanship in court, love eventually blossoms between rivals from their “previous” life and endearingly bickering besties.
The Princess Royal is a dramatization of Zhang Gong Zhu (长公主), a novel by Mo Shubai. Given that this is a romance in the “rebirth/reincarnation” genre, it will be interesting to watch how the drama gets past the censors, even though the plot suggests the two “dream back” to their younger selves. With a special appearance by Yi Daqian as Su Ronghua, it stars Chen Heyi as the second male protagonist Su Rongqing, Liu Xuwei as Li Chuan, Cheng Guo as Shangguan Ya, and actress He Qiu as Qin Zhenzhen.
