Plot
The story takes place during the chaotic times of Northern Wei, where innocent citizens are often kidnapped and subjected to a bloody struggle for power. Chu Qiao, a slave with a mysterious past, is thrown into a forest along with other slaves and becomes the next hunting target of the rich lords. She is saved by Prince Yan Xun, the prince of the Northern Yan. After that experience, Chu Qiao swears to flee from that place with her younger sisters, however when her skills catch the attention of the Master Yuwen Yue, Chu Qiao begins a strict training to become a sacrificial agent for Yuwen's family. She often comes across Yan Xun who always saves her from troubles and begins to build a sense of camaraderie with him, indicating that she resembles him in terms of her personality and behavior. Along the way Chu Qiao meets the cheerful Prince Wei, Yuan Song and the rebellious Prince Liang, Xiao Ce falls in love with Chu Qiao, which she ignores. Her trusted best friend is Xiao Ce and a spy princess named Xiao Yu, but she meets other princes like Yuwen Huai, Zhao Xifeng and Wei Shu You, who hate her. Yuwen Yue is the one who protects her the most, being her great love of Chu Qiao. Yan Xun, the noble Prince Yan, has Yuan Chun, his best friend. They both have a nice friendship, share love, kindness and laughter; he cares for and trusts her since childhood, they get along well and understand each other, showing mutual loyalty. The nobles of Western Wei create intrigues and falsely accuse the Northern Yan family of stealing the military map and reveal to the Emperor of Wei when everything was really planned by Yuwen Huai and Wei Shu You. The emperor sends the princes of Yuwen Manor to kill every relative of Yan Xun's family and they are marked as traitors. After the incident, Yan Xun and Chu Qiao are imprisoned. Yan Xun's attitude changed and he becomes an ambitious, cold and cruel person and swore to take revenge, killing each of the Western Wei and Yuwen Manor for his family with the support of Chu Qiao, Zhong Yu and his army, but the emperor spares Yan Xun. On the other hand, Yan Xun still has esteem for Yuan Chun. She is hurt by what happened, so Yan Xun does not blame her until the emperor sees them together, decides to marry them and both return to the North Yan without realizing that everything was an armed plan to end Yan Xun. He agrees to marry Yuan Chun, but when his wedding day came, the emperor sent one of his armies to kill him. Yan Xun, after realizing it， reveals himself and decided to flee with his army. Yuan Chun, upon learning what happened, begs the emperor, refusing to marry to let Yan Xun go. On the way Yan Xun meets Yuan Chun begging him and humiliating himself in front of him. He wants her to live, to which Yan Xun affected seeing her suffering and pain tells her that he is not worthy of her because he is an enemy of the emperor, he flees, thus cutting off their friendship. Yan Xun becomes king and begins to doubt Chu Qiao's loyalty and disappoints her on different occasions by putting aside their close friendship while making too many sacrifices to achieve the power of his ambition. Chu Qiao walks away and secretly meets with Yuwen Yue, becoming closer to both and their love growing. Yan Xun suspects Chu Qiao so he expels his army and uses him to finish off Yuwen Yue at the last Yuwen Manor. Chu Qiao, disappointed in the man she once trusted, breaks off her friendship with Yan Xun and decides to fight alongside Yuwen Yue to destroy Yan Xun's plans for revenge.Cast
Main
Supporting
Yuwen Manor
Western Wei
Northern Yan
Southern Liang
Han Shan alliance
Xian Yang
Chu Qiao's family
Xiu Li Army
Bahatu
Production
The series is directed by Wu Jinyuan (''Soundtrack
Reception
On June 26, the drama reached a rating of 2.01% with an audience share of 14.88% according to National Average ratings. This broke the record for a drama airing on a non-primetime timeslot on a non-holiday weekday. The series is also the first Chinese drama to break 40 billion views while still airing. It is also popular in overseas countries, ''Princess Agents'' received praise for its unique storyline and stellar performance of the actors, as well as the complex twist and picturesque landscapes. Despite its success and initial positive reviews, the series was later criticized for various issues in regards to its production quality – such as its inappropriate use of photoshop/green screen, excessively bright palette and the inconsistent dubbing of actors. The writing was lambasted for several reasons – such as making the female character another "Ratings
A week before the drama finished airing, Hunan changed its airing schedule to Sunday-Tuesday at 23:00 CST to promote their upcoming drama during Princess Agents' timeslot. This greatly impacted ratings due to audience not knowing of the new time slot and the drama airing an hour later than usual.Awards and nominations
Plagiarism allegations
The source novel ''11 Chu Te Gong Huang Fei'' (11处特工皇妃) was alleged to be plagiarized from several novels including '' Novoland: Pearl Eclipse'' (斛珠夫人) by Xiao Ruqin, '' Novoland: Eagle Flag'' (九州缥缈录) by Jiang Nan and ''Kun Lun'' (昆仑) by Feng Ge etc. In August 2015, the author Xia Xiang Dong'er admitted the allegations of plagiarism. In her announcement, she promised to provide a "clean" version in which all the plagiarized parts would be deleted so that the adapted TV series would not infringe the copyrights of the original authors. When the TV series was first released in June 2017, the original authors still alleged that the TV series contained plots and lines plagiarized from their works. Xiao Ruqin, the author of ''Novoland:Pearl Eclipse'' (斛珠夫人), posted on Weibo that she would be taking legal actions to protect their copyrighted works.International broadcast
References
External links
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