Coroner's Diary

My Rating: ★★★★★

Coroner’s Diary [朝雪录] is a Chinese costume drama mystery television show that aired between 13th to 27th July 2025.

About

Shen Wan, the daughter of Shen Yi, a high-ranking official of the Supreme Court, whose entire family is massacred after being implicated in the Prince of Jin case. Shen Wan escapes to Jingzhou by disguising herself as Qin Wan, the Ninth Lady of the Qin family; where she learns all about medicine and how to perform autopsies.
– via iQiyi

Cast

Landy Li [李兰迪] as Shen Wan/Qin Wan
We’ve not seen her in any other shows, she seems to be very much on demand though.

Ao Rui Peng [敖瑞鹏] as Yan Chi
Not seem him in any other shows, can’t see he has any movies to his name. I see that iQiyi have him in another costume drama as well as this one.

Shen Yu Jie [沈羽洁] as Yue Ning / Princess Yongning
Like the other actors they all have more TV shows they have been signed up to appear on. Not seen her in anything else.

Yu Cheng En [余承恩] as Yan Li
Trained in ballet and appeared in numerous Dramas and TV Shows.

Review

This was a very well produced drama, I would say in the top 10 of Chinese shows we’ve seen.

This show had one overarching story and numerous story arcs, each were exciting in their own right. It was very well written.

There were quite a few wuxia-style fight scenes even though I don’t see that category on the show listed anywhere.

A good portion of the show was a romance but not over the top. There was one serious romance and the other two were more humorous.

Like other Chinese dramas some of the female characters had very high pitch childish voices. The show did have the main characters as female and leaders, however, there were some that were clearly annoying.

One of the most humorous moments was when those watching the autopsy kept rushing out to lose their lunch in the street.

Some of the special effects were well done, however, you can always tell when an actor is riding a plastic horse.

There was some mistranslation that we thought was quite humorous even though they weren’t meant to be. Maybe the translations should be scrutinised by someone who is British for embarrassing sentences (I’m not volunteering for that job though).

The last two episodes were the cliffhanger end and they were very well put together.

Not sure if there could be a season 2, that was probably it, very much worth it though.

Oh, there are some “making of” and a 4 episode “variety show” connected with the program. It was good to see the actors as they are normally, including Yu Cheng En with his cute blonde hair. If you can’t access these specials I wouldn’t worry about it too much.