Si Jin (2025) 似锦
Summary: Jiang Si ft Jing Tian is the 4th daughter of the Jiang family, which has a rank of Earl. After surprisingly being killed by her lover Yu Qi, ft Zhang Wan Yi, she relives her life and decides to take her destiny in her own hands. This time, she bravely refuses a marriage she didn’t want and meets the young general Yu Jin aka Yu Qi, her lover in her first life. They fall in love again and the two together change themselves, their family’s fate and then their hearts.
Platform: Tencent
Episodes: 40
Airing Date: March 1
Initial Rating 6.7/10 [20 episodes] – A perfectly adequate drama that follows similar tropes of many other historical romance dramas but with minor deviations. It does not wow like Blossom (Jiu Chong Zi) but is serviceable enough. Chemistry between Jing Tian and Zhang Wan Yi is decent and better than some of his other recent dramas.
Jiang Si 姜似 Jing Tian 景甜
4th daughter of the Jiang Family. Reborn after being killed by her lover
Yu Qi 余七 Zhang Wan Yi 张晚意
Official in the Justice Department. In reality, 7th son of the Emperor
JIng Ming Emperor 景明帝 Guo Tao 郭涛
Emperor
Jiang Zhan 姜湛 Zhang Chi
Doting older brother to Jiang Si
Cui Ming Yue 崔明月 Xu Hao 徐好
Spoiled ruthless princess
Lu Chu Chu 卢楚楚 bai bing ke 白冰可
Close friend of Yu Qi
Princess Royal 长公主 Huang Yi 黄奕
Powerful Princess Royal
Madame Xiao 肖氏 ma su 马苏
Jiang Si's aunt and primary foil at home
Plot Summary
Jiang Si ft Jing Tian confronts the Princess Royal ft Huang Yi in the burning Zhou Kingdom palace for destroying her entire family. She strikes the Princess Royal down but then is subsequently shot and killed by Yu Qi ft Zhang Wan Yi, her love. Absolutely heartbroken she falls to the ground.
Oddly, Jiang Si wakes up in bed, seemingly awake from falling into water. When she wakes, she sees that it was Yu Qi who rescued her. Somehow, she traveled back 10 years in time, to just before she was set to marry a man she didn’t love and a man who would eventually abuse her.
Recognizing that she has a second chance at life to save her father, her brother, her sister and herself from horrible tragedy in the future Jiang Si opts to turn on the offensive, instead of only stepping back. She insists and eliminating her betrothal, exposes her brother-in-law as a killer and rapist and saves her sister’s life, among others.
But due to her traveling back in time, she has the sacred sign of the saintess of the Southern Wu Kingdom. She lived with them in her first life and raises the suspicions of Yu Qi who tries to figure out whether or not she is a threat while developing feelings for Jiang Si.
Initial Thoughts
Zhang Wan Yi is just pumping out the dramas in the last 12 months. This is his 4th historical romance in 12 months. To be honest, I actually think this is his best turn (outside of Lost You Forever). He is much more natural in this drama with Jing Tian than in the Rise of Ning or Are You The One.
Jing Tian has also continued to play in these romance dramas that are standard fair. She hasn’t met a role that tailored her as well as Si Teng or Rattan which just means she will continue with the scripts and productions for dramas available to her. The commentary online has been focused on her facial features which is not as young as she once was, which…yes, she is older now. But after a few episodes, that has completely not made an impact from enjoying the show.
This drama has just been middling popularity wise on Tencent, breaching just 26,000 on Tencent’s popularity index, 20 episodes in. The buzz matches the drama in my view. Lots of similar beats from other dramas this year. While there are differentiating features, I can see viewers preferring Blossom which is similarly a rebirth story. The chemistry and cinematography unfortunately does not match that of Blossom. Overall, this is perfectly fine to watch, but not life changing.
What I'm Enjoying
Jiang Si’s kindness in the face of adversity: After traveling back in time, Jiang Si takes every effort to change her destiny. She refuses to marry her betrothed who betrayed her and fell in love with another. But, rather than turn her anger on the other woman, she heard her plight and agreed to help. Same thing with Jiang Si’s sister. Jiang Si’s sister trapped Jiang Si in her original life to be assaulted by her husband (Jiang Si’s brother-in-law). Except, Jiang Si’s sister was physically abused if she didn’t allow this to happen. Jiang Si helped save herself and many other women who were attacked by this brother-in-law and tried to be understanding of her sister. In my view, she understands that the culprits are societal shackles on women, and how immense power causes mistreatment of others.
Own Voice Dubs! Credit is given where it’s due. It seems like for much of the drama, the audio was captured live on set. We hear Jing Tian and Zhang Wan Yi use their own voice dubs for this drama and their enunciation and pronunciation are clean and crisp. Zhang Wan Yi has a tendency to cut some of his words short and there’s still a hint of that, but it’s not as noticeable as other dramas.
Zhang Wan Yi’s more sunshine character – His roles in Are you the One and The Rise of Ning didn’t hit the mark for me. Maybe due to the character he was playing but in his role as Yu Qi, he seems much more natural. It’s nice to see his more comedic side come through in this role and his body language is even more natural. His gaze, which I often noted could look wooden, has softened significantly such that I think his chemistry with Jing Tian is pretty decent. For Jing Tian though, her chemistry with Zhang Bin Bin in Rattan and Xu Kai in Wonderland of Love probably beat out her chemistry here with Zhang Wan Yi.
Unwavering judge! I gotta say, after watching many dramas where power inevitably forces the righteous judge to back off, it’s a breath of fresh air to see Zheng Heng so willing to do the right thing as a judge. He is not afraid of the powerful and connected. If he feels it’s right, he will make a decision based off of that.
What's Not Working
Similar beats: Look, it’s another drama where the main female lead relives her life after she is killed. And with the knowledge of the pain she suffered in her first life, she takes this opportunity to change her destiny. We saw this in Blossom and The Princess Royal, at minimum. Because of that, there isn’t a “wow” factor and inevitably, there’s comparison of which drama did what better.
Confusing flashbacks: The weakest part of the drama for me has been all the flashbacks to Jiang Si’s initial life. Especially how Yu Qi fit into her life after her family died is still not entirely clear to me. Because of that, I cannot tell if Jiang Si’s current attraction to Yu Qi is entirely based off her memories of him in their prior life or if she’s slowly rebuilding that trust and attraction. In all honesty, if she didn’t have memories of Yu Qi, would she have picked Zheng Heng as a partner instead? That’s my key question
Weaker antagonists: The Princess Royal played by Huang Yi is deliciously powerful but we don’t really see why. What’s driving her to be so power hungry? We get glimpses of it but 20 episodes in, it’s really just she wants power. She spoils her daughter and disrespects her husband who likely was in love with Jiang Si’s mother.
Her daughter, Princess Ming Yue, is also not as interesting a foil. When I compare Princess Ming Yue, to the Princess Royal Li Yun Rue from Joy of Life, for example, Princess Ming Yue is just a petulant and spoiled child. Li Yun Rui is crazy but has interesting depth. Ming Yue is shown to completely disregard human life and plays everyone like a fiddle. Li Yun Rui largely does the same thing, but her pain of not achieving her love and fake serene manner makes her more multifaceted. I wish there was more coming from both the Princess Royal and Princess Ming Yue.