The Glamorous Imperial Concubine (倾世皇妃, Qīng Shì Huáng Fēi, also called Introduction of the Princess and Princess Dumping World) is a 2011 Chinese series starring Ruby Lin, Yan Yi Kuan and Wallace Huo. It's based on the novel of the same name by Murong Yin Er.
During the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, Ma Fu Ya is a princess of Chu who's exiled after her uncle seizes the throne and kills the rest of her family. She becomes embroiled in battles and succession struggles when she meets Meng Qi You, prince of Shu, and Liu Lian Cheng, prince of Northern Han, and both of them fall in love with her.
The series can be watched on Viki
with English subtitles.
Contains examples of:
- Universally Beloved Leader: Everyone in Chu (except her uncle and cousin) loves Fu Ya.
- Abusive Parents: Fei Hong beats her son Qi You.
- All Love Is Unrequited:
- Xiang Yun loves Lian Cheng, who marries her even though he doesn't love her.
- Jing Ruo and Lian Si love Qi You, who marries Lian Si but doesn't love her.
- Alpha Bitch: Xiang Yun takes this to psychopathic levels and has a servant beheaded for seeing her fall.
- Altar Diplomacy: Fu Ya's father arranges a marriage between her and Lian Cheng to get Northern Han's support. After the usurpation Lian Cheng marries Xiang Yun instead.
- Annoying Arrows: Qi You survives being shot in the chest, even though in real life an injury like that would probably be fatal.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Qi Xing in his brattier moments is this for Qi You.
- Arranged Marriage: Almost all of the marriages are arranged, which is Truth in Television for Imperial China.
- Awesome Moment of Crowning: Lian Cheng gets one in episode twenty-two.
- Awful Wedded Life: Lian Cheng and Xiang Yun's marriage. They only married for diplomatic reasons, and he's in love with her cousin and resents her for coming between them.
- Big Little Brother: Qi Yun is noticeably taller than his older brother Qi You.
- Blood from the Mouth: Shows up frequently when characters are injured.
- Cain and Abel:
- Qi Xing imprisons and tries to kill his brother Qi You.
- A rare brother-and-sister example: Du Yun poisons Qi You and kills Qi You's son, so his sister Fu Ya kills him.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Du Wan has Pan Zhong and his wife tortured.
- Cool Mask: Fu Ya wears an ornate golden mask◊ when she goes to see Lian Cheng.
- Cry Laughing: Lian Cheng bursts out laughing then starts crying when he thinks Fu Ya is pregnant.
- Death Faked for You: Qi You drinks what he thinks is poison. It's actually a sleeping drug, and while he's unconscious Fu Ya arranges to get him out of the palace.
- Death of a Child: Qi You and Lian Si's son dies in infancy.
- Decadent Court: Inevitable in a series set in Imperial China.
- Decapitation Presentation: Fu Ya's uncle puts her father's head on display after murdering him.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: A man can rape his wife without anyone caring, as shown by Lian Cheng raping Xiang Yun.
- Died in Your Arms Tonight: Lian Cheng dies in Fu Ya's arms.
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Du Wan sleeps with Qi Xing while he's drunk so he'll be forced to marry her. This is treated as manipulative, but not as rape even though Qi Xing was unable to consent.
- Downer Ending: Lian Cheng and Qi You are definitely dead by the series' end. In the final episode Fu Ya stabs her brother as revenge for him poisoning Qi You. Then she either imagines she's reunited with Qi You or she kills herself and they really are reunited.
- Dramatic Drop: A servant drops everything he's holding when he hears Fu Ya is going to be executed.
- Driven to Suicide:
- Xiang Yun kills herself after accidentally killing Lian Cheng.
- Fu Ya... maybe. It's left ambiguous if the final scene is an Imagine Spot while she's still alive or her reuniting with Qi You in the afterlife.
- Evil Uncle: Fu Ya's uncle usurps the throne and murders most of his family.
- Exact Words: Lian Cheng refused to Northern Ma because he wanted to locate the missing Fu Ya so his mother told him a princess of Chu had arrived in Northern Ma and a wedding to be arranged, causing him to rush back home. He is shocked to find out it was Xiang Yun on the night of his wedding and confronts his mother. She tells him she did not lie as Xiang Yun is also a princess of Chu.
- Fake Pregnancy: A by-proxy example. Xiang Yun decides to pretend Fu Ya is pregnant and convinces a doctor to go along with her story. Lian Cheng doesn't believe it at first and kills the doctor for lying to him, but then he decides it's true without asking Fu Ya.
- Faking Amnesia: Xiang Yun pretends she has amnesia when she meets Fu Ya in Lian Cheng's palace. Fu Ya isn't fooled.
- Gilded Cage: Lampshaded.Fu Ya: No matter how free a royal palace is, it's still a bird cage.
- Harmful to Minors: When they were children Lian Cheng and Lian Xi were forced to watch as Lian Cheng's mother had Lian Xi's mother killed, and then ordered her guards to find and kill Lian Xi.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Xin Gan volunteers to be executed in Fu Ya's place.
- Historical Domain Character: Several characters are based on real people, including Ma Yin and Meng Zhi Xiang.
- Human Shield: A rare heroic version. When she's cornered Fu Ya pretends she's going to kill Lian Cheng unless the soldiers let her go. Since he's a foreign royal and letting him be harmed would cause chaos, the soldiers stand back and let both of them escape.
- Identical Stranger: Fu Ya looks exactly like Consort Mei.
- I Have Many Names: At different points of the series our heroine is called Ma Fu Ya, Pan Yu, and Mei Jing.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Qi Xing tries to stab Qi You, but instead he accidentally impales himself on Qi You's sword.
- Imperiled in Pregnancy: Du Wan is executed while pregnant.
- Inadequate Inheritor: Of Meng Zhi Xiang's sons, Qi Xing is too immature to be Crown Prince and Qi You doesn't want the title, while Qi Yun is mostly overlooked.
- Interrupted Suicide: Su Yao attempts suicide after being revealed as a spy. Mo Chou grabs the knife before she can stab herself.
- It's All About Me: Lian Cheng. When Fu Ya — who's been kidnapped, forced to marry him, and seen the man she loves is being held prisoner — says she wishes he'd let her die, Lian Cheng complains that if she died she'd leave him all alone.
- Kissing Cousins: Wan and Qi Xing are cousins. That doesn't stop Wan wanting to marry Qi Xing, though she doesn't actually love him and only wants to marry him for his title. And when it looks like he'll marry Fu Ya instead, Wan sleeps with him while he's drunk and makes sure his mother walks in on them the next morning to force the marriage.
- Love Dodecahedron: Qi You and Lian Cheng both love Fu Ya, while Qi Xing has a crush on her too. Xiang Yun loves Lian Cheng, who marries her even though he doesn't love her. Jing Ruo and Lian Si love Qi You, who marries Lian Si but doesn't love her. And Du Wan wants to marry Qi Xing, though she doesn't actually love him and only cares about his title.
- Love Father, Love Son: Fu Ya is an unwilling example. She falls in love with Qi You, then gets betrothed against her will to his father.
- Love Makes You Evil: Lian Cheng's love for Fu Ya leads to him becoming more and more villainous as he tries to make her love him.
- Love Ruins the Realm: Lian Cheng's obsession with Fu Ya leads to him declaring war on Shu to capture her.
- Marital Rape License: Lian Cheng rapes Xiang Yun and no one thinks there's anything wrong with this.
- Mystical White Hair: Mo Chou's hair is completely white even though she's much too young to have white hair naturally.
- No One Could Survive That!:
- Everyone assumes Fu Ya died after Xiang Yun pushed her off a cliff. Actually she survived.
- Fu Ya assumed her mother died when she was trapped in a burning room, and is delighted to learn her mother survived.
- Not Blood Siblings: Han Ming and Han Zhao Yi are adopted siblings. Fu Ya only learns this after she walks in on them in bed.
- An Offer You Can't Refuse: Zhao Yi poisons Fu Ya's mother and will only give her the antidote if Fu Ya helps kill Fei Hong.
- Oh, Crap!: Qi You's reaction when he realises his father wants to marry Fu Ya.
- Ordered to Die: Qi You is ordered to commit suicide. Fu Ya and Official Xiang save him by switching the poison with a sleeping drug.
- Outliving One's Offspring:
- Fei Hong outlives her son Qi Xing.
- Qi You and Lian Si outlive their son, who dies as a baby.
- Poisoned Weapons: Xiang Yun and her accomplices put poison on their arrows when they try to kill Fu Ya and Qi You.
- Pretty in Mink: A male example. Lian Cheng is rarely seen without a fur-trimmed coat.
- Princeling Rivalry: Played with.
- Qi You, Qi Yun and Qi Xing are on relatively good terms with each other; instead the rivalry is between their mothers on their behalf. Later this trope is played straight when Qi Xing becomes emperor and turns against Qi You.
- Similarly Lian Cheng and Lian Xi are close, in spite of Lian Cheng's mother and her attempts to turn him against Lian Xi.
- Rebellious Princess: Fu Ya starts out as one, doing things like risking her life to save a prisoner and taking a foreign prince hostage.
- Romantic False Lead: Fu Ya meets and befriends Lian Cheng first and initially she doesn't like Qi You at all. Later she falls in love with Qi You, while Lian Cheng becomes increasingly villainous.
- Royal Brat: Qi Xing, some of the time. In his first appearance he uses a slingshot to throw things at people unlucky enough to be nearby.
- Royally Screwed Up:
- Fu Ya's uncle usurps the throne, murders most of his relatives, and is about to have Fu Ya executed for the terrible crime of rescuing a boy from prison. Fu Ya's cousin Xiang Yun has a servant beheaded just because the poor girl happened to see Xiang Yun stumble and fall while dancing.
- Du Fei Hong hates her son Qi You and thinks he's trying to assassinate her. And the reason she hates him? When he was a baby Meng Zhi Xiang forcibly took him away from her and told Consort Mei to raise him instead, ignoring Fei Hong when she begged him to let her raise Qi You herself.
- Meng Zhi Xiang insists on marrying Zhao Yi against her wishes, and has her parents killed when they object.
- Du Wan is determined to marry her cousin Qi Xing. He doesn't want to marry her, so she waits until he gets drunk then gets in bed with him so he'll have to marry her.
- Lian Cheng's mother threatens to kill Fu Ya. Lian Cheng makes her change her mind by threatening to commit suicide if she harms Fu Ya.
- Lian Cheng rapes Xiang Yun and kills a doctor for lying to him.
- Qi Xing becomes convinced Qi You is a threat to him so he has Fu Ya and Qi You locked up and forbids their friends from seeing them.
- Ma Du Yun poisons Qi You and kills his son, then seizes the throne for himself and promptly gets killed by his sister.
- Sadistic Choice: Zhao Yi gives Fu Ya one. Either she helps Zhao Yi kill Fei Hong, or she has to watch as her mother dies. Fu Ya takes a third option: she agrees to help Zhao Yi, then tells Qi You the whole story.
- Sibling Murder:
- Fu Ya's uncle murders his brother for the throne.
- A rare heroic version: Fu Ya kills Du Yun after he poisons Qi You.
- Sibling Triangle: Qi Xing has a crush on Fu Ya and wants to marry her, while she and his brother Qi You eventually fall in love.
- Sweet Polly Oliver:
- Downplayed. Mo Chou wears male clothes but makes no other attempt to pass as a man, leaving it ambiguous if she's actually pretending to be male.
- Lian Si dresses as a man to join Lian Cheng's army.
- Taking the Bullet: Lian Cheng jumps in front of Fu Ya and gets hit with a poisoned arrow.
- Together in Death: Qi You attempts to invoke this when he drinks poison after being told Fu Ya is being executed. Unknown to him Fu Ya escaped, and the "poison" is actually a sleeping drug. Later this trope is possibly played straight, depending on whether or not you think Fu Ya killed herself in the final episode.
- Unwanted Spouse: Xiang Yun for Lian Cheng and Du Wan for Qi Xing.
- Villainous Breakdown: Lian Cheng goes through one when he thinks Fu Ya is pregnant with someone else's baby. He laughs then lashes out at Lian Xi, and ends up Cry Laughing when he's alone.
- Wedding Smashers: Events at Zhi Xiang and Fu Ya's wedding include Qi You barging in and fighting the guards who try to make him leave, and Zhi Xiang realising that two of his other wives are plotting to kill him.
- What Did I Do Last Night?: Qi Xing gets drunk. The next morning he gets a nasty shock when he wakes up next to Du Wan.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Xiang Yun poisons herself and pretends Fu Ya is trying to kill her.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: Fu Ya and Qi You escape Northern Han and reach Shu safely... only to get locked up on Qi Xing's orders.
