The Story of Pearl Girl

Not since "Word of Honor" have I been so wowed by a historical C-drama. Beautiful sets, an exotic yet universal story of survival and best of all, some of the most spot-on casting I've ever seen. As many reviewers have described, all of the leads are excellent, from the lithe pearl diving slave DuanWu to the dandy of a schemer "Master" Yan Zijing. Plus the supporting characters, like DuWaan's "little brother" Shrimp and Yan's mysterious brooding first mate, are all perfect too. It helps that the subtitles for this series are never clumsy and like Word of Honor was, quite poetic sometimes. But Confucian moments aside, this is also a cool ACTION film. (That's clear as day by the time they hit "Despairing Cove".) So along with all the devious back-stabbing, cunning plots and Yan's seductive half-smiles, there's plenty of furious chase scenes and take-no-prisoners fight-to-the-deaths. At this point, I'm at Ep. 10 with 30 more to go. But no matter how it turns out in the end, I can already tell this Pearl Girl story is going to a magnificent ride. I'm taking one star off for making the otherwise clever DuanWu so clueless about wielding her sex appeal for some extra leverage against that Yan dude. Looking like an angel is nice, but mostly it gets boring after a while. Disclaimer: At this point I'm waiting for weekly episodes to drop and will edit my review if things go south.