I’m so excited for this drama! A story about a female coroner? Hell yeah! Why not BPC though? The first two episodes premiered on the WeTV Youtube today (video embedded below) but more episodes are available on the WeTV site itself.
I also found the novel that the drama is based on in my library and started reading it at the same time.
Live-action Drama
Title: The Imperial Coroner (2021)
Network: WeTV/ Tencent Video
Episodes: 36
Synopsis:
(Translated by me from the Tencent Video site because the WeTV version is… :x)
This drama tells the story of Chu Chu, who comes from a family of coroners. She travels to the capital because her hometown doesn’t allow women to work as coroners, and accidentally joined the Three Judicial Offices.
From there, she met Prince Xiao Jinyu, Vice-Minister Jing Yi of the Court of Judicial Review, the swordswoman Leng Yue, and General Xiao Jinli. The group of them work together to solve one mysterious case after another and in the process tell a tale of love and friendship.
Novel
Title: The Imperial Coroner (Madam Coroner) 御赐小仵作(仵作娘子)
Author: Leisurely Lass 清闲丫头
ISBN: 978-7-5402-2636-7
Publisher: Beijing Yanshan Press (2014) 北京燕山出版社
Synopsis:
(Translated by me)
Everyone says that, as a woman, you can’t have both a husband and career. Chu Chu just refuses to believe that!
The prince lacks a person to investigate cases; Chu Chu lacks a person as a husband.
The prince doesn’t scorn Chu Chu for her naivete, ignorance, and stubbornness; Chu Chu doesn’t scorn the prince for his frail sickly body and his many rules.
Chu Chu has a bright idea: If she married the prince who oversees criminal justice, wouldn’t she have everything she wanted?
First Impression (no spoilers)
The story centers around Chu Chu and Prince Xiao Jinyu. Chu Chu is a rural girl from a family of coroners who had entered the capital for the first time while Prince Xiao is the unpopular young overseer of the Three Judicial Offices, son of the Imperial Princess, and someone with a brillant investigative mind.
I have no comment on the cast as I’m not familiar with any of the leads and only vaguely recognise some of the supporting cast.
The live-action drama seems to follow the novel quite closely, with Ep1 covering ~ Ch1-5. I do actually like this initial characterisation of Chu Chu better in the drama than the novel – in the novel she was so naive and ignorant i was in spasms of 2nd hand embarrassment, while in the drama she is still naive but not effusively and irreverently ignorant.
While there are certainly dead bodies aplenty, the drama does limit the gore rather tastefully, showing most post-mortems as close-ups with diagrammatic overlays on top of (clothed) corpses. So far, at least for these first 2 episodes, it has been a VERY pleasant surprise that the deduction logic MAKES SENSE. AND the medical + herbal info (at least compared to the little I know).
This is such a refreshing change from Bone Painting Coroner where 9/10 times when any medical info comes up, I need to add a translator’s note to say that the drugs and disease descriptions are NOT accurate to real life (BPC is still my precious baby tho).
It’s a bit of a pity that the first coroner test didn’t feature the same case as the novel as it was hilarious but the novel case is… rather too explicit for TV lol. Cough aphrodisiacs cough.
There are comedic moments scattered throughout, obvious pairing of the two main leads and secondary leads, and what looks to be mostly Imperial Court politics (not palace harem!) and treachery, mixed with some wuxia elements.
I definitely look forward to watching the rest of this show (and reading the novel)!I’m also translating the first chapter of the novel for fun, hoping that the ban hammer won’t fall on me.
Ma petite kampung 