This is the very first Chinese Idol/ Reality show that I’ve watched. I didn’t intend to watch it at the first place because I had this very bad habit of not following anything that is on trendy. At the time the show was attracting numerous of viewers, I actually felt quite annoyed whenever I saw news relating to it, partially because most of them were negative ones. It was not until the show had finished and my sister still kept talking about it that I decided to give Chuang 2021 a try. It was totally worth it!
Below are the reasons why you should really watch the show:

* VISUAL (aka Handsome boys/ men of all varieties and many different nationalities)
If you are a girl and your life, unfortunately, lacks of good-looking males (like mine), this is the place for you.

** TALENTS
There were real talents in the show. Some could dance really well, others could sing really beautifully that they made your heart ached when you saw them on stage.

*** “CPs” and “FAMILIES”
There’s no arguing that this is a “reality” show and what’s on the screen might only be for the sakes of fandoms. Still, I’ve followed these guys (on social media) for a while and from what’ve seen so far, their relationships seem genuine. I do hope they stay good friends for many years to come, despite the darkness of the industry.

**** EXTRA MATERIALS.
I’m not sure if this is a positive or negative point. For me, it is a plus, because it means there were many things to watch besides the main episodes. Also, the personality of the trainees could be expressed more accurately through the way they interacted with their roommates, the games they played, the activities they participated in.
Still, I admit there were tons of flaws and they might put people off from watching it.

* SILLY FORMAT
There were so many strange things about the rules in this show which made me really mad.
First of all, I don’t get the whole point of dividing the students into different classes (A-F) if in the end the ones with a lot of fan votes would still end up in the top classes and didn’t get eliminated. It’s all about popularity level not actual talent or effort.
Also, the judges were completely useless in this show. They didn’t have any saying in the trainee’s ranking and didn’t get to give the trainees any extra points/ votes if they tried exceptionally hard or performed well. Most of their comments weren’t even constructive.
Finally, I didn’t like the Final round. It’s just messy and draggy. Instead of giving the finalists more time on their solo performances, they just ran through them like fast and furious!!! And why did they wait until the very very last moment to give the trainees the chance to do a live show?? It could have changed the result had people known how their picks really were on stage without the help of the producing teams.

** UNEQUAL SCREEN TIME
There were 90 trainees but only a dozen of them were featured. The rest totally disappeared and the viewers could hardly remember their names or face. If your “picks” got to be focused then lucky for you, yet if the ones you supported were on the “invisible list” (like me, sometimes), you would feel really sad for them.

*** STRANGE SONGS
There were good songs in the show but … about 70% of them were meeeee~ Or maybe it’s just me. I could hardly like the music in this show.

**** FILTER
I could forgive the other problems but I could not let this pass. The filter they used for this show was so terrible! It made all the trainees looked over-exposed with unnatural white skin and pink/ red/ orange lips. They actually looked much much better after they left the show. In fact, some of them look really nice without any make-ups or filters.
I could rant about the weird things in Chuang 2021 all day but ...

ANYWAYS
For me, Chuang 2021 would forever have a special place in my heart. It gave me a lot of joy during the time I had to stay home because of my injury, which is why I couldn’t judge as partially as one should. Despite its (soooo) many flaws, it didn’t stop me from watching the show and loving the idols coming from Chuang 2021.
With all the turbulent things going on, I wish all the best for the ones who got to debut and those who weren’t.

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HIGH-QUALITY BOY BAND SELECTION SHOW

I came to Super band 4 because of THE GALAXY. After finishing Chuang – 2021, I really wanted to spend more time with some of the trainees and Super band 4 happened to have 3 of them.

I would say I enjoyed Chuang – 2021 more (aka there were more trainees that I enjoyed watching), but I highly appreciated the musical quality of Super band 4.

*WELL-ORGANIZED SHOW
This is a well-structured show/ competition, though of course, at the end of the day, the one with more fans would be the winner. Still, sometimes the journey is more beautiful than the destination and this was true with this show.

I like the idea of forming the band from 2 people to 3, 4 and then 5. The process of grouping, disbanding and then regrouping reflects the reality of bands. In any musical gathering, you have to try to see whether you can fit with the others and no matter how difficult and heart-broken it is, if any of the members doesn’t feel like they could go on with the show, they have the right to quit and start all over. Thanks to this format, the viewers could see a wide variety of combination. Some of them worked miraculously, some of them didn’t, and that’s the attraction of the show.

I’m also particularly impressed by the expertise of the coaches. There were small tests and after each of them, they gave the bands the scores and actual helpful feedbacks. The coaches devoted their time and effort into guiding the trainees so that they could put on the best performances. They provided the trainees with harsh, to-the-point comments, yet at the same time still showed them enormous respect, even if the styles of music weren’t to their liking or the trainees didn’t really want to change. Hardly do I see such dedication coming from the coaches. The relationships between the coaches – trainees were more like teachers – students and I think the “MUSICAL HIGH SCHOOL” concept worked wonderfully!

Lastly, there was a quite equal of screen time among the bands. Besides those who had to leave the show very early, the ones that stayed did get enough chances to shine. No particular groups got too much attention are were especially focused all the time.

**MUSIC
I was in no way an expert in music. I learn a couple of musical instruments but only superficially. Therefore, I’m ill-equipped to give in-depth comments about the skill of the trainees and the coaches. The best that I could say is that the trainees in the show could just randomly pick up an instrument and performed a super complicated piece of music. There are some instruments I have never even heard of the names in my life and their sounds were just incredible.

***STRONG PERSONALITIES
The trainees in this show were really artists. They expressed their emotions freely. Some even ran away and lashed out during filming, which makes the show feel closer to reality. It may not be much but in Asian culture, showing such strong characteristics in front of the camera is not something you see every day.

****FILTER
I’m so happy with this filter. It looked really pleasant to the eyes. Even though the trainees did have some make-ups, they looked natural and at the right age. They looked the way they were supposed to be. Many of them were only 18-19 years old!
If I had to pick at the show, I would say there were a couple of things that prevented me from giving the show a higher rating

*COLLABORATION
I didn’t like the collaboration at all. I wouldn’t point at any specific ones but some of them were pretty … weird. Moreover, I always felt the stage was too crammed whenever there was a collab. Most importantly, nearly all of the trainees failed to on a par with the guests, which was not difficult to understand, judging their experience. In many ways, it did them more harm than good.

**EXTRA MATERIALS
This is my own problem. I couldn’t find the After party episodes with Subtitle to watch!!! Why weren’t they available on the official platform. I felt like I couldn’t know enough about the trainees to decide whether I should like them or not.
…
I cracked my brain to find any other problems with Super band 4 but so far I couldn’t think of anything more serious. I think this show is really worth watching, especially if you have some basic knowledge of music. Honestly speaking, I often found myself clueless whenever the coaches gave the comments. Still, It was very fun to watch and I could say the organizers wanted to promote more meaningful things (like team spirit, traditional music, family pride) than simply just make money for the show owners.

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RARE FAST-MOVING ANCIENT DETECTIVE C-DRAMAS

This is one of the rare Chinese dramas that I completed without fast-forwarding (much) during these past years. It really deserves its high rating in all platforms.

* PLOT
I think the best thing about this drama is its plot. It’s really fast-paced, which managed to keep the viewers’ attention till the very end. The cases were not exceptionally difficult to solve but they were well-written and well-linked. All the out-smarting-each-other moves were convincing and everyone in this drama was smart in their own ways. Even the King, whom I thought was completely useless, wasn’t as clueless as he acted. No character was created only for the sake of plot-moving.

** CHARACTERS
The set-up of the characters wasn’t anything new but it didn’t feel forced. The four main characters’ chemistry worked really well together. I think supported both the main couple and the supporting couple equally.

*** RECAPS
I think the recaps were very interesting modifications because they were not merely re-showing all the things the viewers had already known. They were told by one of the main characters from their point of view, and I actually enjoyed watching these short summaries.

**** ILLUSTRATIONS
Whenever the female lead explained her autopsy, there would be drawings and animations on the screen. I didn’t know how scientifically or medical correct they were but they definitely help the viewers to imagine things more easily. They also made the whole explanation more informative without being lengthy and boring.

***** NATURAL FILTER
Any series without the skin-smoothing filter would automatically receive pluses by me.

This series was without its flaws, as far as I’ve heard it’s because of its low budget.

*PROPS
Not surprisingly, the props, despite the crew’s effort, still looked very unrealistic. I could even see the line between the wig and the male actors. In addition, I especially hated the costumes with its unnaturally vibrant colors.

**EDITING
The edit was choppy at places, many scenes were deleted, which sometimes left me confused. There were a couple of times I actually had to go back and see whether I had skipped anything important because I couldn’t understand why the characters were suddenly there doing whatever that they were doing.

*** ENDING
I’m sure most people who followed this drama to the end would be mad about the two final episodes. The big ending was too rushed. Everything was solved tooooo fast. The bad guy got such an easy way out. Most importantly there were absolutely no extra scenes between the couples. I remembered myself asking “That’s it????”. I had to resort to watching some behind-the-scene takes to quench my desire for more episodes.

**** ACTING
The acting was more than average but there were definitely rooms for development. The male leads were the strongest actor too me. The female lead was ok for her role but she still appeared plain to me.

To sum up, I could forgive most of the problems of the film because of its plot and its pacing. It’s worth checking out this drama.

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I think this series is suitable for those who are interested in C-biz. There are a lot slangs and dramas relating to the industry such as buying Hot search, Fandom, shipping couples, etc. It’s also very pleasant to the eyes because the female lead and male lead are very good-looking. What’s more, it has a very intriguing beginning with some mysteries waiting to be unfolded.

However, I couldn’t keep watching the show because of the following reasons.

* DRAGGY PLOT
It’s so dragging. I had to fast-forward so many irrelevant conversations.

** TROPY SCENES
I was so fed up with all the staring-to-each-other-for-uncomfortably-long-time and falling-into-each-other-arms scenes!

*** ILLOGICAL SET-UP
I could only list a couple of things that got on my nerves:
The female lead always appeared with perfectly make-ups and hairs every time she fainted, woke up, went to bed, etc. Wouldn’t it be harmful to the skin?
It only took the female lead 1 extra course to get decent acting skill. Was it just me or acting is that easy to learn?
The male lead was a normal paparazzi but somehow he’s much more handsome than the super idol supporting male lead. How come he hasn’t been head-hunted by the star-manager?

**** SKIN-SMOOTHING FILTER
I don’t think I need to talk more about this problem.

***** ACTING
So the acting was not super terrible. The female lead was OK as the bad-ass big sister but she couldn’t pull off the soft little sister role – aka the main role. The male lead doesn’t leave me any impression except for his look.

In short, it’s not the worst Web drama I’ve seen but I don’t have enough patience to continue with it while there are soo many things else to follow.

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