After just six episodes, the period drama A Splendid Match (良陈美锦) has already sparked intense discussion. It tells the story of Gu Jinzhao (顾锦朝), a noble daughter who suffers a tragic death in her first life—betrayed by her half-sister and stepmother, ignored by her father. She returns from the dead with memories intact, determined to change her fate. Along the way, she catches the eye of Chen Yanyun (陈彦允), a powerful and ruthless minister.
The show’s first batch of reviews praises its sharp writing and fresh take on familiar tropes. No damsels in distress. No endless catfights. Just a clever, angry young woman who refuses to let her father—or anyone else—get away with cruelty. Here’s what makes those first six episodes so compelling.
A Father Who Pays the Price
Gu Jinzhao is the eldest legitimate daughter of the Gu family. But a fortune-teller once declared that her birth chart would ruin her father Gu Dezhao’s (顾德昭) official career. So as an infant, she was sent away to live with her grandmother, the Ji family. For over a decade, her father never visited or wrote. At age six, she missed her parents so much that she ran home on her own. Her father wouldn’t even let her through the gate. He ordered servants to knock her out and send her back to the Ji household.
Now she is about to turn fifteen—the age of “ji ji” (及笄), when a young lady’s coming-of-age ceremony marks her entry into adulthood. Her father refuses to attend. It takes her grandmother swallowing her pride and offering silver to make him show up. Gu Jinzhao does not forgive. At the ceremony, she publicly embarrasses him, twisting his words so he has no comeback. Later, when she returns to the capital, she uses the name of the Ye heir to force her father to kneel and greet her. At a banquet hosted by the Lin family, she humiliates him again—so badly that he storms off early.
It feels incredibly satisfying. Not just because the heroine is bold and clever, but because the show finally does something rare: it refuses to let a terrible father hide behind the usual drama clichés. In so many other series, the abusive or neglectful patriarch simply disappears into the background while women fight each other. A Splendid Match chooses a different path. It brings the real villain—the man who abandoned his child—into the spotlight and makes him face consequences.
A Minister Who Watches in the Dark
Chen Yanyun, played by Cisha (此沙), is a member of the Grand Secretariat. He is known for his ruthlessness. When we first meet him, he is lying low at the Ji family’s estate. His new land policy—designed to help ordinary farmers—has made him enemies. Assassins keep coming. Gu Jinzhao, furious over her father’s behavior, sees him holding a lantern and snatches it from his hand. That is their first encounter.
The second is far darker. Chen Yanyun has just killed the heir of Ruichang (睿昌). He is standing over the body when Gu Jinzhao, drunk and stumbling, falls into a nearby river. He pulls her out but gives the credit to his nephew, Chen Xuanqing (陈玄青). After that, he protects her from the shadows. He sends his own mother—a woman from a powerful clan—to be the honored guest at Gu Jinzhao’s coming-of-age ceremony, giving her social standing she desperately needs. At the Lin family banquet, he waits until the Gu family has left before he moves in to destroy the Lin household. When Gu Jinzhao writes to the Ye heir for help avoiding an arranged marriage, Chen Yanyun hits that same heir thirty times on the palms—just enough to give him an excuse to leave the palace early and assist her.
Is this love at first sight? No. He saves her from the river because he needs the Ji family’s political support. He keeps helping her because he watches her fight, scheme, and survive—and he begins to respect her intelligence. That is the real hook. She does not wait to be rescued. She uses every resource around her, even people she barely knows, to solve her own problems. Later in the story—as the original novel shows—after she marries Chen Yanyun, her concerns will expand from the walls of their private courtyard to the welfare of the entire country, as she helps him push forward his new policies.
What the First Six Episodes Prove
The show has already aired six episodes, and viewers have been staying up late to binge them. What keeps people watching? It is not the romance—at least not yet. It is the sight of a heroine who makes her own moves. Gu Jinzhao does not stumble into lucky coincidences. She calculates. She lies. She manipulates. And she is not ashamed of any of it. When she humiliates her father at the banquet, she knows exactly what she is doing. There is no moralizing voice telling her to be the better person. The drama simply lets her win—and the audience cheers.
Another refreshing choice: the show drops the tired formula of women tearing each other down. The real antagonist in Gu Jinzhao’s first life was not just her half-sister or stepmother. It was her father’s cold neglect. That neglect is what made her vulnerable to betrayal in the first place. By making him a visible target, the story shifts the blame where it belongs. And Chen Yanyun, for all his brutality, never tries to cage or control her. He watches. He admires. He steps in only when absolutely necessary. That is a far cry from the possessive, jealous male leads that populate so many period dramas.
Six episodes in, A Splendid Match has proven itself willing to break the rules. It gives us a heroine who is sharp, vengeful, and unapologetic. It gives us a male lead who respects her precisely because she does not need him. And it gives us a father who finally cannot hide. If the remaining episodes maintain this energy, this is a drama worth staying up for.