The Princess Royal
度华年
A 40-episode Youku costume drama in which an estranged princess regent and her chief minister are returned to their younger years and try to rebuild their marriage and their fortunes.
Save- Premiere
- Jun 26, 2024
- Episodes
- 40
- Where to watch
- Youku
- Also known as
- Princesa Real · شاهدخت سلطنتی · شاهزاده خانم سلطنتی · องค์หญิงใหญ่ · 度華年 · The Grand Princess · Độ Hoa Niên
About the drama
Second-chance stories usually ask one person to put right what went wrong. The Princess Royal (度华年, Du Hua Nian) gives the job to two people who ended their first lives as enemies. Li Rong (李蓉), the regent princess of the Great Xia (大夏) court, and Pei Wenxuan (裴文宣), its chief minister, are bound by a marriage that turned bitter. Then both are sent back to their younger years, with every memory intact and a chance to choose differently.
What makes it easy to settle into is the tone. A report from China Youth Daily, carried by Xinhua, called it a light period comedy and the sweetest costume drama of that summer. The leads, Zhao Jinmai (赵今麦) as Li Rong and Zhang Linghe (张凌赫) as Pei Wenxuan, are meant to read as people learning to be partners rather than rivals. The ideal they reach for is a marriage in which neither stands ahead of the other nor behind, but beside.
more
In their first lives, Li Rong and Pei Wenxuan fell in love, then became enemies through misunderstanding. Returned to youth, they carry that history with them and decide to change how it plays out. Each is guarded, each knows the other's weak points, and the early drama comes from turning old enemies into allies, then into something warmer, while the court intrigue that shaped their first lives is still waiting.
The series premiered on Youku on June 26, 2024, and runs 40 episodes. It took over the platform's slot from The Double (墨雨云间), the revenge drama that had been Youku's big summer hit.
The story is set at the court of the Great Xia, and the production describes its look as built on the spirit of the Wei-Jin period (魏晋), the third to sixth centuries, remembered for a refined, unfussy scholarly manner. Gao Yijun (高翊浚) directed, and Yuan Yumei (袁玉梅) was chief producer.
The series is adapted from the novel Zhang Gongzhu (长公主, "the eldest princess") by Mo Shu Bai (墨书白). Yuan described the show as an ensemble portrait of youth: growing up, marriage and romance, choice and effort, trust and betrayal.
Youku said the drama had passed 3.78 million reservations by June 25, 2024, the day before launch, according to the Xinhua-carried report. That figure measures anticipation, not viewing, but it shows how much the platform expected of it. The same report notes that Youku had recently released a run of period dramas that viewers dubbed the "three greats of 2024."
Cast and crew
Trailers
Our coverage
No articles yet.
Where to watch
Want to talk about this? Join the conversation on our Discord →