The Apothecary Diaries

 

Alright, this review will focus just on the setting and its tone. If you wonder whether the show is good other than that, the short answer is yes. Crafted with near perfection, a mix between case of the week detective stories and overarching drama/romance, stellar characters, good comedy and more complex structure than its tone and digestibility might suggest. Apothecary diary is just that good, that I can see potentially anyone enjoying it. That was the reason, while I stayed and reconsidered the show despite the initial stomach ache that I often felt while being shocked because of the clash between the cruelty of the world and its tone.

 

The Apothecary Diaries is mainly set in a medieval china inspired palace of its empire. This palace is basically the emperor's brothel and we follow a minor girl that was kidnapped and sold as a servant to this palace, because of her pharmacological knowledge she quickly gets promoted to the role of a medical adviser and then solves health related mysteries in that palace.

So huge topics here are forced prostitution, hierarchies that can feel like slavery and deadly medical emergencies caused by negligence or lack of knowledge. This is horrifying and at times affected me to my core. Obviously I was confused that these feelings clashed with the comedy, the sarcasm and confidence of Maomao (the protagonist) and the at times feelgood and romantic plotlines of The Apothecary Diaries.

 

I was really baffled by this, so I asked myself, what else could I compare this to. I was thinking about other segregated forced labour communities that I have learned about, between the slave labour in the USA and the camps of the Nazis I could not see, this story being told with that kind of tone. Yes there is Django unchained and Life is Beautifull, bringing a comedic touch, but they never shied away from sincerely contrasting the comedy with the horrors of their time. Gone with the Wind on the other hand is an example where I can not praise the film without criticising the white washing of its historic setting. 

Is The Apothecary Diaries just as vicious as Gone with the Wind or am I overseeing a crucial difference, between the slave labour of the Southern States and the forced prostitution of Medieval China.

I was. 

The crucial difference was ideology. Both the white settlers and the Nazis had an Ideology of Superiority. There were the pseudo scientific race ideas that explained why they were more human than the ones they oppressed. If anything an Emperor is less human than their citizens. Despite the emperor being but one man in a society of fairly equals. Sexism is an issue of course, however gender dynamics work way different in the palace than outside: The Concubines are reserved for the emperor and the emperor alone (except for some special dynamics) and every man working in the palace has to be an eunuch who would not dare to touch any woman within the walls. 

I’m sure the real medieval China had many horrible rulebreakings and were dependent on the good will of an emperor when it came to its living conditions, however now I can see why it would have been preferable to some women to rather live inside of the Walls than outside: Wealth, security and even power can be gained way easier inside those walls if you happen to be born as a woman.

Maomao is a prime example for this, all she wants is to experiment with medicine and drugs while being left  alone by men. Ones the staff learned to value her Skills, the palace basically became a paradise to her (compared to the outside world). There still would be room for and value in a darker portrait of the timeline, but to me The Apothecary Diaries shows, that there still can be value in taking a dark world, just to tell a lighthearted story.

 

Short: The Apothecary Diaries pushes boundaries when it comes to clashing tonality with the horrors of its premise. It challenged me to reconsider how I look at people from other times and places.