General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

My Sassy Princess (祝卿好)

My Sassy Princess (祝卿好, Zhu Qing Hao) is a 2022 Chinese costume romantic comedy drama in which Liu Ling, the domineering Princess Chang Le, pursues the cold-faced imperial guard commander Shen Yan. It was directed by Zhu Shaojie, stars Yuan Bingyan and Zheng Yecheng, and ran for 22 episodes on iQIYI from April 16 to April 26, 2022.¹ The series adapts the novel My Lord Bodyguard (我的锦衣卫大人) by Yi Ren Kui Kui, published on Jinjiang Literature City.²

Key fact	Detail
Original title	祝卿好 (Zhu Qing Hao); English title My Sassy Princess¹
Source	Novel 《我的锦衣卫大人》 by Yi Ren Kui Kui (Jinjiang Literature City)²
Broadcast	iQIYI, April 16 to April 26, 2022, 22 episodes, nightly at 20:00¹
Leads	Yuan Bingyan as Liu Ling (Princess Chang Le); Zheng Yecheng as Shen Yan¹
Genre	Historical, romance, comedy; a female-pursues-male love story¹^•³
Reception	Douban 6.4 per a producer interview, 6.7 in a mid-2022 press roundup; iQIYI heat peaked at 8247⁴^•⁵
International release	Subtitled in English, Japanese, Spanish, and more on Rakuten Viki; streamed in Japan on Hulu as 祝卿好～永遠の幸せを君に～⁶^•⁷

Spoilers

Plot

The story is set in the reign of a Prince of Guangping. Liu Ling (袁冰妍), the Princess Chang Le, carries the reputation of "Jiangzhou's number one wicked woman," rumored to have killed her mother at five and stabbed her father at seven.⁷ On her birthday she slips out of her own birthday banquet and, in the southern garden, meets Shen Yan (郑业成), the fourteenth thousand-household commander of the Jinyiwei-like Jinlin Guard (金鳞卫), who is known as a "cold Yama" and has been wounded chasing a bandit. She falls for him at first sight, takes the waist tablet he drops, and resolves to win him over.⁷

Shen Yan has come to Jiangzhou on orders from the crown prince to capture Yun Yi, the chief culprit of a treasury silver robbery committed years earlier. The case reaches into the Xu and Lu families of the capital Yejing: Xu Shijin (张月), a female official of the Xu clan, lost both parents when they were blamed for the robbery, and she aims her quest to clear their names at the Lu family.⁸ The drama follows the princess's pursuit of Shen Yan alongside this investigation, and the title itself appears in the story: after the two release river lanterns with wishes, Liu Ling finds that Shen Yan's lantern holds a note reading 祝卿好, annotated "I dare not wish you everything you want, only that what you have gained you will not lose, and that you live free of worry."⁹

Cast

Yuan Bingyan plays Liu Ling (voiced by Qiao Shiyu) and Zheng Yecheng plays Shen Yan (voiced by Wai Wai). Supporting roles include Merxat as Shen Yu, Zhang Yue as Xu Shijin, and Yang Zhiwen as Ling Bi; the wider cast includes Guo Xiaotian, He Minghan, Hai Yitian, Yue Yaoli, and Mao Fangyuan.¹^•²^•⁹

Production

The project was registered in May 2020, began filming at Hengdian on March 11, 2021, and wrapped there on May 30, 2021.³ It was produced by iQIYI's Aisatang studio with Tandang (Shanghai) Investment Management as co-producer, with Shao Wenyi, general manager of the studio, as chief producer.³^•⁴

A deliberately small production. In an interview with the outlet Guduo, Shao Wenyi described the series as an A-grade, small-budget show built for a narrow audience: the novel was not a famous property and the two leads were not top-tier stars, but its pairing of a slightly unhinged princess with a cold-faced guard suited the sweet-romance target audience of young women in second-tier cities. The team cut subplot intrigue to keep the focus on the central love story.⁴

The fight scenes were a planned highlight. Zheng Yecheng is a graduate of Peking opera martial-role (wusheng) training, director Zhu Shaojie had worked as a martial arts choreographer, and the actor joined the production half a month before shooting to train. Zheng told The Beijing News that filming action in the heavy-hemmed feiyu uniform (飞鱼服) of the guard was itself a struggle, and that the choreography aimed for grounded, contact-heavy movement rather than heavy effects.⁴^•¹⁰

Release and reception

A trailer and the premiere date were announced on April 14, 2022, and the series premiered exclusively on iQIYI on April 16, with VIP members receiving two episodes nightly at 20:00 and non-members one episode on Saturday through Wednesday.³ It finished its member run on April 26, eight days after launch.¹^•¹¹

Heat out of proportion to its budget. Within 24 hours of premiere the show's iQIYI heat index passed 7500 and later peaked at 8247, ranking 41st among all series on the platform's all-time heat list; by the finale it had logged more than 275 Weibo hot searches and over 390 hot searches across the web. Guduo reported a Douban score of 6.4, above average for recent Chinese dramas and strong for the sweet-romance category, and the producer reported that viewers aged 18 to 23 made up 27.19 percent of the audience and 24 to 30 made up 33.51 percent.⁴ A mid-2022 newspaper roundup placed its Douban score at 6.7, behind A Dream of Splendor (8.3) and The Wind Blows from Longxi (8.1) among first-half 2022 costume dramas.⁵

Critical opinion divided along the show's two halves. Reviewers credited the leads' chemistry and performances, with Yuan Bingyan's comedic timing and Zheng Yecheng's action work singled out, and Baidu Baike's summary of press coverage noted that although the heroine's original "unhinged" characterization was softened in adaptation, her bratty charm remained.³ Critics pointed the other way at heavy editing: visible cuts disrupted narrative and pacing, emotional buildup was thin, and Phoenix Television's monthly index ranked it the worst-reviewed new drama of April 2022, with two experts giving it 3.5 against a public score of 4.7 on that platform's scale.¹² Douban user reviews likewise noted that the 680,000-character novel was compressed into 22 episodes, leaving some scenes jumpy.¹¹

Internationally, the series streams on Rakuten Viki with subtitles in English, Japanese, Spanish, and more than ten other languages under the title My Sassy Princess, and on Japanese Hulu as 祝卿好～永遠の幸せを君に～ (roughly, "Zhu Qing Hao: Eternal Happiness to You").⁶^•⁷

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › International serial drama and telenovelas › East Asian drama series › East Asian web and streaming serials › Titles Iv to My

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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