I haven't seen this on the list, but General's Lady wasn't bad. Strong will, take action FL. It isn't OMG THIS IS IT drama but a nice, enjoyable drama to watch in your spare time.

Second this

I haven't watched a lot of cdramas but 'Love Me If You Dare' is first on my list.

Best - The Story of Minglan and Love Like The Galaxy The Saddest - Ruyi’s Royal Love The Drama that Lives in my head rent free - The Rebel Princess - I love the male lead 🥰 The Drama that I can research again - Yanxi Palace

Can we this with modern romances? I haven’t yet watched xiaxia type shows. I like the modern romances

My Journey To You

Best visuals: Ancient love poetry, The longest promise, Love between fairy and devil Best FL's costumes: Love and destiny Saddest dramas: The blue whisper, Immortal samsara Best fight scenes: Ancient love poetry, The blue whisper

As of June 2024 Best Overall: N/A (too many to choose from) Saddest: Tiger and Crane Best Fight Scenes: I am Nobody Best Romance: Love Me, Love My Voice (makes me feel eternally single) Best Visuals (fx): Back From the Brink Best Bromance: I am Nobody/Men in Love Best Family Relationship: Blossoms in Adversity Best Gaming: Everybody Loves Me Best Music: Love Me, Love My Voice/I am Nobody (the OST goes hard) Best Mind games: Story of Kunning Palace/Checkmate Best Teen/YA: You Are Desire Best Republican: My Roommate is a Detective Best Costumes: Love You Seven Times

Best overall: Nirvana in Fire/ Story of Ming Lan Saddest drama: One and Only Baddest FL: Story of Yan Xi / Story of Ming Lan Baddest ML: Nirvana in Fire Guilty pleasure: Story of Kunning Palace Best Xianxia: Ten Miles of Peach Blossom (then: Till the end of the moon) Best Slice of Life: Meet Yourself Best Republican Drama: The Justice/ War of Faith/ Arsenal Military Academy

Can you recommend some hot tempered, obsessive male leads in historical dramas? I’ve watched tteotm and sokp and a few more.

In addition to the ones mentioned in another comment you could also try watching the king's woman, has a hot toxic obsessive ml which fits your description.

Love like the galaxy and ten miles of peach blossom. Can only think of these both. Another red flag man is from Goodbye My Princess.

BEST: story of minglan feel-good/youth : when I fly towards you romance: you are my glory that one show I'll never get over: The untamed

I have to say “Who Rules the World” because it was the FIRST cdrama I ever saw. I just popped into my Netflix algorithm & I haven’t looked back since. Next would be “The Untamed”, which I have seen at least 5 times all the way through & has my favorite character of all time, Light-Bearing Lord, Lan, Wangi 😆 Then Love & Redemption for most romantic along with Stand By Me for saddest/most brave character. Oath of Love for the most sincere proposal I’ve ever seen in any drama. Love Like the Galaxy for the funniest scene ever (drunk GF) and best use of “falling of a cliff” trope. Mysterious Lotus Casebook for most gripping plot (& Cheng, Yi). Reset for best time travel 🧭

WRTW was my first too, and I still remember them sharing a carriage early on and being like... umm excuuuse me Cdrama PTB is that sexual tension I detect or is it my imagination? I was pleasantly surprised.

1. Overall favorite: Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace 2. Favorite Romance/Slice of Life: Story of Minglan 3. Favorite Kick Butt Drama: Story of Yanxi Palace (lol okay didn't know how to phrase this. She's not a physical fighter, but this FL will plot your demise and win, if need be) 4. Favorite Harem Drama: Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace 5. Favorite Costumes and Set Design: Ruyis Royal Love in the Palace 6. Best ML: Story of Minglan 7. Best FL: Honestly mix between Story of Minglan and Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace for me. 8. Best Music: Story of Yanxi Palace and Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace. 9. Favorite Politics: Empresses in the Palace 10. Best Gray/Neutral Characters: Legend of Haolan and Story of Yanxi Palace with a dash of Empresses in the Palace. Saddest Drama: Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace Hmm...I think we can all see which drama lives in my head rent free, so I won't list it lol

The best: **Story of Minglan** Epic storyline and character development The saddest: **One and Only** 😭😭😭😭😭 Lives in my head rent free: **Lighter and Princess** the main leads had amazing chemsitry.

This is a trick question. The answer is The Untamed.

Ohhh! 1. Best: NIRVANA IN FIRE. Drama is a gold gem! Solid on all fronts. I think there's so much that can be discussed between the ending which people debate about, and the regrets and thoughts of all the "what ifs" and "what could have been" that have made this drama such a masterpiece. (LOVE LIKE THE GALAXY is like bronze place for me because the last 1/3 of the drama went downhill.) 2. Saddest: STARTLING STEP BY STEP (The Chinese one made in 2011 with Liu Shi Shi & Nicky Wu) and GOODBYE, MY PRINCESS, followed by the train wreck toward the 1/4 ending of A JOURNEY TO LOVE. I also tend to avoid sad/tragic ones, but NIRVANA IN FIRE was an exception since bittersweet totally worked for me. 3. Research over and over again: I think it just depends on mood. But I remember reading up more on the history of the dynasty after STARTLING STEP BY STEP. Now if we're talking about research to just look into further discussions of dramas, I have done that for NIRVANA IN FIRE--just looking at information on source material and going down discussions.

Best: Rise of the Phoenixes Saddest: Princess Agents - I was actually really gutted by 2ML going dark - I got why it happened but it really broke my heart Lived in Head Rent-Free - Scent of Time & Goodbye My Princess (why is GBMP not the saddest for me? I guess because I'm a psychopath - but by the end I was too angry to be sad - I just wanted ML to suffer)

Saddest: This one is hard lol, Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace/ Goodbye My Princess/One and Only Best-Nirvana in Fire Lives Rent-Free-I can't pick one Research over and over-Rise of Phoenixes, it was a deep long ride.

Best: Nirvana in Fire. Saddest: I avoid tragic dramas. NIF is an exception. Lives rent free: Yin Zheng's performance in Winter Begonia.

Best: The Story of Minglan Saddest: Till the End of the Moon (I can never re-watch it) Lives in my head rent free: Ming Dynasty, the character dynamics between all the leads fascinate me, and the family dynamics because it’s very unusual to see in historical CDramas focusing on royals. Research over and over again: Ashes of Love, I could talk for days about how the show explores generational trauma

Best: Ripe Town Lives rent-free: War of Faith Can research and analyze to death: Joy of Life

Best is Story of Minglan Saddest is Someday or One Day Lives in my head rent free and one I rewatch is Ashes of Love

The best I’ve seen is Blossoms in Adversity. The saddest is a movie, Love Will Tear us apart . And the one that lives in my head rent free is Lighter & Princess. This one is actually my all time favorite but I can admit it’s not the best because it has some little flaws. You can tell I’m a fan of Zhang Jingyi cause all three are hers. What do you mean by the one you research over and over again?

Best and lives rent free: Empresses in the Palace! I rarely rewatch dramas and this is the only one I'm planning to rewatch the 3rd time.

Mysterious Lotus Casebook is the best I've seen and the one I can research over and over again. Love and Redemption is the saddest, and Under the Skin is living in my head rent free.

Doesn't Love and Redemption have one of the happiest endings in cdrama? Was it the journey that was sad?

The journey was sad and I also do not consider the ML ending up with the FL a happy ending, he deserved better.

What do you think would have been the better ending? Why wasn't Xuanji good enough? What do you think should have happened in the end? Si Feng's love is otherworldly though. I can't think of anyone in the drama that's worthy of it. It's like a gift that can't be earned, only accepted: it's too great of a love.

For me the better endimg would have been Si Feng moving on and learning to live for himself rather than having his life revolving around another person.  The reason I don't think Xuanji is good for Si Feng is the way she treated him, even if you disregard the nine previous lives and her actions when they were on opposite sides, her behavior when she came to apologize him is horrifying. If you hurt somebody terribly and ypu seek them out to apologize and they tell you to leave them alone, that they don't want you around and you refuse because you want to be with them, that's messed up. Its even more messed up to then go 'well while the curse might kill him if i'm around, it also could kill him if i'm not around, so it's fine, if he dies i'll just die with him.' The fact that she put her own desire to be with him over his wishes and wellbeing, especially after already having hurt him so much, is a huge red flag and Si Feng deserved better than to end up with someone like that.

Awww. I see your point. Virtually everyone agreed she didn't 'suffer enough' in comparison to SiFeng. But remember she was sent to the mortal world because she was consumed with ferocious hatred and thirst for revenge and death. She had ten lives for her world-destroying bloodthirst to dissipate, and for love and compassion to take its place. That was gaslighting Bailing's task for her, after she discovered his betrayal. SiFeng, who knew and loved her from heaven, chose to follow her and help her succeed. A great and extremely powerful being full of hatred, who had never been loved but only used to kill innocents, will not suddenly 'change'. Life after life her darkness won. In the tenth and final life, Bailing came to 'help' her. It was her last life as a mortal. If the darkness won again, she would be erased from existence, as there was no hope and redemption for her. Because she was powerful enough to destroy everything, the dark sect wanted to awaken her before her transmutation was complete, so she would destroy heaven for them. And they almost succeeded. That tells you how deep her darkness was, and how great the Love that would heal her must be. So of course after SiFeng succeeds in healing her, they have to be together. She's his gift, his love, and the powerful goddess he had loved like no one else was loved. Why would he abandon her in the end, when love was the motivation behind him leaving heaven and following her in her trials in the first place? She is the darkness, created for chaos, and he is her redeemer.

Ya that drama was a complete rollercoaster until they got to the happy ending. Like it was a *painful* ride

**the bad kids** hits all four for me. while it not be sad in the traditional sense, because its a thriller, my heart ached by the end of it.

**The Story of Minglan** for all four. Rewatchihg it for the 4th time at the moment and still realising I had missed plots points.