weak story, poor writing, skip the first 15 eps

Early on I got very bad vibes of Love Me, Love My Voice, a show I rated at 5/10. There are parallels in the relationship development but I'll try not to repeat the same review.

The 1st thing I notice is the Canada Goose branded outerwear in the opening scenes in another Chinese-in-a-foreign-land scenario. There's a lot of nice designer winter wear in the first 6 eps, yet how is it possible to have packed 5 different puff down jackets into the single suitcase each character carries. But I digress.

Yin Guo is a 21 y/o pedigreed pool player who arrives in Helsinki, Finland with her cousin to check out a univeristy he's interested in while she herself is signed up for a local 9-ball tournament. They meet 27 y/o Lin Yi Yang, a graduate student & retired champion snooker player. It took 4 episodes just to get this much information. I didn't know when the story was starting, what the characters' backgrounds were, or even what their university majors were (& never will find out by the end). In fact, the first 15 eps could easily have been condensed into 3 eps. A lot (& I mean a LOT) of time was spent with the ML staring silently at the FL while she shifted around awkwardly. They don't talk much, but somehow the ML decides he's madly in love. He admits he doesn't know how to date so all he does is take her out to eat, resulting in 8 eps of food touring all over Helsinki. Everyone else just talks about their relationship status. By Ep13 the 9-ball tourny was only a distraction, there's still no story in sight & I've just watched one of the emptiest 15 eps of a drama ever.

This is the 1st time I've seen Leo Wu so stiff & expressionless, like he doesn't know what to do with his character, trying to portray someone deeply pained but not quite getting it. At least with his last sports drama, Nothing But You, we got a detailed glimpse of the tennis world. In Snowstorm there's very little explanation of world of cue sports. Billiards, snooker, pool, 8/9-ball... it's obviously a varied & highly nuanced game but no insights are offered by the time the show is already half over.

Not until Ep15 does the story finally get off the ground after characters from YiYang's past gradually get introduced as they all start converging into Helsinki for the tournament. Things move along as YiYang makes a career decision, the professional competition circuit begins, and he comes to terms with the events of his past, clearing the way forward to a future he strives for. In the beginning it seemed that Yin Guo would be the central character. However, by the 2nd half, all the story conflicts & developments involved YiYang, making him the central character. The show was more interesting whenever there was less focus on Yin Guo, which leads to the question of how important a character is she really, considering all the screen time she gets. She's left unchallenged, unchanged, & actually does very little for YiYang except sleep with him (& almost carelessly at that). After the conclusion of an exciting pan-Asian cue sport competition, the drama reverts to the conventional wrap-up ending, i.e. waste of time final episode, and without really concluding any of the supporting characters' arcs (who weren't that developed to begin with).

So, a disappointing show given that Leo Wu has been in so many other far more entertaining dramas.

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strong leads, entertaining drama

With the 2 leads from 2 of my favorite shows of 2023, Alchemy of Souls and DP, how could I not watch this one? The premise of Love Next Door is very common these days: two childhood friends ultimately end up together. The strength of this show is in the story & the acting.

What sets this drama apart is that it pays more attention to the secondary story arcs. It gives almost equal weight to the families & friends, as aspirations & hopes intertwine between generations. Parents project their dreams onto their children because they feel they have no control over their own lives. Children are afraid to disappoint their parents. Are happiness & success the same? The cast made their characters captivating to watch.

The leads didn't disappoint as they delivered almost Queen of Tears level performances. However, unlike QoT the families are more down to earth & don't have members who end up in jail. And after all the drama, the story didn't hold any surprises. The final episode is all feel-good vibes & happy happy, which made for a rather boring ending. The show overall was very entertaining based on the performances.

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strong start, boring conventional finish

I think Hu YiTian should stick to costume dramas. I've not seen him put in a decent performance in any modern drama since A Love So Beautiful (& his role in that was not very challenging). However, he seems quite at home in a period piece with an engaging story (Handsome Siblings). Blossoms in Adversity, however, does not expand his limited range.

Zhang JingYi plays Hua Zhi, the eldest daughter in an artistocratic family very reminiscent of the classic Red Chamber Jia's. But rather than studing Lessons for Women, she is a devoted STEM student, spending her time inventing & planning her own business, inspired by her grandfather who took her traveling on sea adventures as a child.

The Hua family's downfall comes when all of their property is seized by the govt in an act of vengence against the outspoken court minister & family patriarch. All male family members over the age of 10 are arrested & exiled to the North, horrifically tearing the family apart. When your whole existance previously revolved on the support of men, Hua Zhi's independent character blasts through her mother's lament that she can't live without her disgraced husband: "Which woman isn't living by herself?" refering to how women have had near total control of managing a household full of staff while neglected by their husbands working outside the home.

And manage the household is what Hua Zhi does, taking over from an aunt who was too entrenched in old-school management & selling off the maids for quick cash. Likewise, Gu YanXi (Hu YiTian) takes a new position as chief of the Imperial Security Bureau, & whose uncle, the Emperor, equates job success with body count, encouraging YanXi to kill people merely as a show of authority. Even though YanXi was ordered to physically depose the Hua Family, he tries to mitigate the effects & ensure the safety of the clan.

The story develops with the relationship of Zhi & YanXi as she continues to fight for the livelihood of the Hua family, not only for the women & children remaining in the capital, but also for the banished men. Palace intrigue deepens as YanXi fights to protect the emperor.

Although the drama started well it lost momentum after the half way mark. Zhi & YanXi aren't able to spend much time together but their two storylines frequently intersected each other. They manage to solve a mystery from YanXi's past & battle corruption that threatened the Hua women's newfound success. However, the character developments came to a standstill. We don't get to understand the emperor's motivations much better & the political conflicts remain very superficial. Plus, I didn't think it was possible, but Hua Zhi's character started to annoy me; her self-righteousness was becoming unbelievable & there was no depth to her struggle. And what's with all the hysterical wailing? The crying anguish scenes of secondary characters are nothing but cringey. I'd have to say I was actually becoming disinterested as the story got more & more conventional & predictable, right to the end.

Overall, the drama started off strong & impressive, but unfortunately quickly fizzled to a mediocre end. It had all the elements of a complex storyline but was very superficial with no grit or edge to the storytelling. Performances were average to over-the-top; none were standouts.

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smartly written with excellent performances

The trailer looked smart & interesting so I gave this drama a try, and wow, what a surprisingly good show it turned out to be. It's funny, poignant, and carefully examines human relationships with a sensitivity rarely reached by any show these days.

Shuo Bing & Tang Chen are both workaholics in competing high profile public relations firms in Hangzhou. They're also a couple engaged to each other, until they ask the impossible of each other when it comes time to consider marriage. Then comes a stunning betrayal.

Tang Chen is a 40 year old CEO of a PR firm he built from scratch, and one who desperately wants his world to be perfectly tuned to his own drum beat. His workaholism drives him to neglect his fiancee's needs to his detriment, forcing her to choose between marriage and career. Shuo Bing, in her 30's, is a mid level manager who makes the difficult choice between being ruthless enough to ruin a competing business (ie Tang Chen's) for a massive promotion, or settling for a domestic life she can't support. Later it's revealed that Shuo Bing's calm & cold demeanor hides a crushing & turbulent storm underneath, to which Tang Chen is completely oblivious.

The ensuing aftermath of that decision only serves to showcase Tang Chen's mastery of psychological manipulation in PR as he rebuilds his career. It's a fascinating look at his method: taking the time to find out about a person, where they have been in their lives and thus guiding their trajectory toward the success they seek. And not only does he bring out the best in his clients, he applies the same sensitivity & skills in bringing out the best in each member of his new team. References to Journey to the West are frequent and such that even the founding members of this team are named Tang, Sha, & Zhu, supporting each other and persevering "in spite of the strong wind" bringing more & more powerful demons against them.

Imbedded within this cut-throat competition of the PR world are case studies of 3 couples deeply in conflict. Tang Chen uses his empathic skill to guide his core team members through their personal issues, while taking lessons from his own parents in realizing what success & relationships truly mean to him, & that all of his skills are for naught if he didn't apply them to his own fiancee. The road of examination leaves almost no stone unturned as everyone eventually finds an endpoint they can be satified with.

What a difference mature, experienced, & talented actors make. Jin Dong and Song Jia play their characters with such a deep understanding of two people walking a razor thin line, navigating horrendous forces that turned them into professional rivals, while trying to find a way to hold each other in their hearts. The ensemble cast is excellent. Wang Yu Wen has been in modern lead roles, but here I feel she is in a more suitable role which actually shows her talent better. Oddly, Zhou MaiJie is not credited on MDL for his role, Hou Zhi, a major character. He's credited on IMDB, but there's no info on ZMJ at all.

At any rate, this is a gem of a show: well acted, smartly written, funny, poignant, and which I'm glad to have come across.

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cutting a complex & powerful story in half - remake lacks depth of the original

I watched Go Ahead a year ago & felt it was one of the best modern C-dramas I've seen, with a compelling, human story of the most difficult childhood traumas of abandonment & betrayal & how it affects everyone involved. The strength & power of a "family unit", in which ever way that can be defined, is one that works when the children matter. So it was with much anticipation that I started watching this K remake, knowing that it would require much skill to match the quality & spirit of the C original. The fact that this drama can cross borders to be retold in another country & culture only shows that this is simply an amazing story.

The premise of the drama is complex: 3 broken families coalesce into one, with two dads working together to raise 3 kids. The story spans 20 years of their lives. It's an intricate & emotional exploration of the meaning of family & what constitutes being a parent.

The most significant role, in terms of importance & performance, is the character of the 1st father Yoon Jeong Jae. He is the family glue who has the most compassion & understanding, which enables him to take Hae Jun under his wing, as well as look out for San Ha in addition to raising his daughter. Choi Won Young does a decent job of conveying Yoon's quiet & steady strength in protecting the 3 kids from all the forces aiming to attack & separate them for not being a "real" family.

The influence of growing up in an all male household might be the equivalent of being raised by wolves, which the baby of the family, Ju Won, is perfectly suited to tackle with her fearlessness & spunk. However, as a major milestone in a girl's life, I notice references to menstruation is a line K-dramas don't seem to cross, but C-dramas have no qualms about it whatsoever. In Go Ahead, Jian Jian's femininity is thrown in everyone's faces when she proudly announces the arrival of her 1st period, at the breakfast table, no less. It's a very funny scene. The ensuing awkwardness highlights her father's realization of his limitations in being a father to a daughter, but also shows the complete trust she has in her family. Although older in real life, the baby-faced Tan SongYun played a much more convincing mischievous imp (one who pulls down her brother's pants as a prank) than Jung Chae Yeon in their character's teen years. This character was much livelier in the original version.

This K remake is only half the total length of the C original, so I expected a much more condensed version with fewer characters & secondary arcs. One of the things I liked about GA was the time it took to develop each of the characters & give much depth to all of the background stories. No single character's trajedy is less than another's, but FBC still managed to cover all the major conflicts & plot developments. In the final 1/3 of the series with the kids as adults, however, I felt a separation from the original as FBC took on a more typical K romance vibe. What made GA special was that it was not typical.

There were more differences in storyline detail, perhaps to match specific aspects of the culture in Korea such as compulsory military service, but I think some of the spirit of the original was lost. A big difference between the productions was in Kang Hae Jun's story. His character's falling out with his birth father while abroad was not mentioned in the remake. In GA it was pivotal in his return home & wanting to become independent rather than relying on his father's money. In GA, he is the one setting up his own bakery, while in the remake he seems to drift aimlessly day to day without purpose or determination. This is a huge change in character.

By the last few episodes, each character comes to the point from where they have reconciled with their pasts & are able to move forward to happiness. Along the way, a lot of time is spent on questions of belonging & the pacing slowed in spite of having to condense the original story. The drama lost cohesion, like so much of the original story was cut out & couldn't be filled back in.

The concept of filial piety has only served to make parents treat their biological children as if they owe them, which makes the parent-child bond merely transactional. And yet, we expect the parent-child bond to be unconditional. These two situations cannot co-exist. In the end, the family that is one by choice is the one that's indestructable. This remake can certainly stand on its own as a good show but I prefer the C version for it's depth & heart.

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the life cycle of an affair

Tokyo Tower is based on the novel by Kaori Ekuni. This screen adaptation is not the first but I haven't seen the other productions to compare. And if there was an English translation of this work, I would definitely be interested in giving it a read. This drama is a very short series, 9 eps of 23 mins, which is suitable as it concentrates purely on emotions.

The story is an exploration of age gap relationships. It follows 2 college friends, Toru & Koji, who embark on 2 different affairs with older, married women. Toru is a medical student who falls in love with a well known architect after a random encounter. He then discovers the degree of separation is far too small for comfort, & things get worse when she invites him to events that include people close to them both, such as his mother, as well as her husband.

Koji, who is more experienced, is fascinated by Toru's infatuation, & decides to conduct his own experiment by pursuing the mother of a high school student he's tutoring. Koji's story is an interesting contrast to Toru's. Koji is the one who initiates & thinks he is in control of the whole relationship & can end it anytime. However, he's shocked when he realizes the one on the leash is actually himself.

The story telling is mostly quiet & reflective, which brings into sharp focus the range of emotions that explode when both Toru's & Koji's affairs destroy all the other relationships around them. And in the aftermath, both men decide it's still worth pursuing what they started, after crushing the walls that surrounded and supported the women they came to love.

Ultimately, it comes down to maturity. Toru & Koji end up overestimating their own importance in an older married woman's life, and older married women come to understand that the only thing they can build their future on is themselves. But will the experience leave each of them with regret, or peace? That, too, also depends on maturity.

All in all, this show was an interesting exploration of the life cycle of an age gap extramarital affair, with nice pacing in the story telling & acting from all of the cast. The short episodes made it an easy, but thoughtful, watch.

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story takes center stage

I don't quite have time or mindset for a detailed review, but I'll just say this drama was a pleasant surprise. In Blossom is a show that lets the story take center stage. It's a complex murder mystery intertwined with an almost equally complex romantic tale of two friends from noble families, betrothed by royal assent since childhood, working together to uncover a deep political conspiracy involving the imperial court. The writing was very good & the show kept me guessing right until the very last episode with a cliffhanger ending highly suggestive of a sequel. There's comedy as well as tragedy. Highly enjoyable.

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Psychology lesson disguised as an average trope filled light romance

Lin Yi seems to be on a mission to raise awareness of disabilities through his choices of drama projects, like ALS with Angels Fall Sometimes, and now alexithymia (emotional blindness) with Smile Code. Unfortunately it's difficult to blend public awareness messaging into a drama & not turn it into a 34 ep long instructional video. Angels Fall Sometimes worked because of the storytelling & perfomances of Landi Li & Lin Yi.

Lin Yi plays Liang Daiwen, a successful accessibility designer who is unable to recognize emotions & unable to laugh at jokes. Early episodes suggest a childhood trauma resulting in a deep suppression, for which he is receiving treatment & counseling, & is recommended to go watch stand-up comedy. He navigates his relationships only through the visual/verbal cues of others, as he's unable to access his long suppressed feelings.

Guan XingXin, a long time friend of Daiwen, is a secondary role, but acts as stark contrast to Daiwen in that she is one who fully lives for her emotions. In the beginning, more energy is put into her story arc than the FL, Gu Yi.

I've seen sparks of Shen Yue's comic talent in her previous dramas, enough to see that she does have good timing & can be very funny. However, Gu Yi, who is supposed to be a popular comedian at her local comedy club, delivers pretty sedate G-rated jokes. Her face doesn't even change expression on stage. In fact, Shen Yue seemed to be downright uncomfortable in the role & didn't really settle into it until much later. Not until halfway did some of her comic spark come through with a funny dental accident. (Incidentally, Shen Yue seems to have gotten her teeth straightened; she is quite beautiful regardless.) I didn't really expect a Jimmy O Yang or Ronny Chieng level performance, but the character of Gu Yi had neither edge nor depth & Shen Yue also couldn't pull much out of her. And perhaps there's not too much you can make fun of in China due to the censors ("satire without malice") so maybe I'm missing the point completely if it's too subtle. Lin Yi should've had the least challenge by keeping a straight face, but he also was not able to convey any subtle notes of expression when Daiwen's emotions start to surface, which would've required a master level performance.

The leads' characters largely remained a blank slate as they simply went through the motions of the usual line up of tropes: living together, a lot of drunk piggy-back rides, bandaging scrapes & nursing fevers. The relationship develops rather inexplicably for the first 10 episodes. Why does the FL fall for someone who gives no emotional feedback? The dialogue is simplistic & turned into a mechanical Q&A, like an infomercial, whenever addressing alexithymia. The psychology always felt like a completely separate storyline, rather than integrated.

By the 11th episode there's a slight shift in tone with the arrival of Gu Yi's mother, who is an unexpectedly calming & insightful presence. Gu Yi seems to take Daiwen as her charity project as it's not quite believeable that she truly loves him, but nonetheless she slowly breaks through Daiwen's shell to help him feel once more. However, after trying so hard to understand him, she decides to stop trying after he makes a breakthrough with therapy. What follows is the formulaic parade of romance tropes as Daiwen pursues Gu Yi, which seemed to be the only consistent element of this show.

The show is visually surreal at times, with dream-like soft focus shots & dark, cramped interiors. It was difficult to see how these shots added to the story, except to illustrate that the story itself was also blurry & cluttered. Is it about alexithymia? Is Gu Yi the central character or Daiwen? The arcs just didn't seem to balance. The show overall was unappealing to look at, and the story didn't develop any cohesion until the final 1/3 when it just simply focused on the romance.

For a show about emotions, it doesn't delve too deeply into any character's mindset, while offering very dry psychology lectures. If it was about disabilities, that topic was given only light treatment as well. All in all, it just ended up being an average romance.

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way too long & this relationship gives me indigestion

Sheng Sheng Man is a senior college student who composes Chinoiserie music & participates in a chat group with celebrity voice actor Qiang Qing Ci. They connect through chatting about food & cooking, but don't formally meet face to face. QQC also happens to be a doctor working in a hospital across the street from SSM's family convenience store where she works part time. QQC & SSM are attracted to each other's voices, & QQC begins obvious pursuit online. When they finally meet, they discover that they'd actually run across each other many times.

It was great to see Zhou Ye get a grown up lead role in the highly enjoyable Back From the Brink, so it's disheartening to see her take on this rather brainless role. In too many scenes she is either hyperventilating or looking stunned, or both. Likewise Tan Jian Ci, who was absolutely electric in Lost You Forever, has now wasted his time in this vacuum of a show. The writing ("What do you want to do? I don't know, what do you want to do? How is this dish? Mmm, it's tasty!") is excruciatingly mundane throughout the entire show, & ZY's & TJC's talents can't make it any better.

The show feels like an infomercial, where all everyone talks about is voice acting & Chinoiserie music, with a sprinkling of recipes & food shots. SSM & her college friends seem to talk only about QQC & nothing else. Where the heck is the story? As the episodes drag along, it becomes apparent that the only thing anyone talks about is shipping SSM + QQC. The dialogue is juvenile & only serves as a bridge between music or food scenes. The leads don't know what to do when they're together, and other characters exist only to enthusiastically cheer them on. When SSM's mother meets QQC for the first time, within minutes she's giggling while highlighting SSM's talents to him like she's trying to sell a cow. Their relationship status is discussed almost every single scene. This one dimension barely lasts 2 eps, nevermind a mind-numbing 33.

There's a certain creepiness in a man who's almost 30 years old, never been in a relationship, suddenly developing an obession with a young college student just by hearing her baby voice online. What's even creepier is how everyone around them encourages it, inspite of QQC's own warnings about falling in love with a random voice on the internet. SSM repeatedly points out the fact they don't know one another that well, but is thrilled when he unexpectedly shows up at her classroom because he "knows her schedule". Is this not stalker vibes? QQC ends up driving the relationship every step of the way, including buying a house for them & planning a wedding without her knowledge or consent. She only follows along brainless & submissive. Even when the 2nd couple arc starts, it involves QQC's colleague, who's even older, pursuing SSM's schoolmate. What is wrong with this show?

Not until around Ep24-26 does the focus finally change, with QQC making a big career decision. He asks SSM if she loves him only for his voice. She denies it, but acts like his voice actually is the only thing that matters, "as a fan". She isn't mature enough to separate being a fan vs being a girlfriend. Tell me again how this relationship is supposed to work?

When the age gap is with an older female, there are scenes of the female being ridiculed for her age by the younger male's group of friends (Nothing But You, Find Yourself). However in LMLMV, the older males are idolized by the younger group as heros. This double standard is frustrating.

Is it really a college girl's fantasy to be pursued by an older man with her family's blind support? This drama is so unrealistic that not even the gourmet food shots can make it digestible. This show might have worked if it actually left out the romance arc & just focused on the performing arts scene, which did start to get interesting, & the show should've ended with the big music festival. The final 6 eps are a complete waste of time. So unless you just enjoy watching music videos sprinkled with too much mindless PDA this show will not offer anything else.

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just enjoy the scenery, if only for a short while

I had to drop this show after Ep26. There are so many good shows to watch right now. This is not one of them. Watch it only if you want to see Cheng Yi and Zhang YuXi pose in designer clothes. I usually have hope that a show based on a novel should have a higher quality story but this drama likely didn't do it justice. It's my first time seeing Cheng Yi in a modern drama, but I'm afraid his talent couldn't fix this mess of a script. I started to believe his tears were real: not because of his character experiencing a life-altering event, but because he was stuck doing this show. Zhang YuXi has had better roles, but her talent is where it is.

Tropes fly off the shelf within the first 4 eps: bad 1st meeting, stuck together on assignment, suddenly falling in love while having a bandaid applied, staying up all night to nurse a fever. I wondered how will this show make it to 39 eps when the tropes run out. Our heroes do dangerous humanitarian work, braving guerilla militia without scuffing their shoes, while the poor villagers they serve act as props to line up smiling and waving gratefully as they leave. The scenery shots of the Southeast Asian water villages they visit are gorgeous. Wait, is this a travelog or a serious medical/war drama or a fashion show? I tried to just enjoy the scenery.

I've read mention that this show combines 2 novels. If so, it sure wastes a lot of time. An entire episode is spent on the leads trapped in a rock crevasse doing nothing more than just sitting there. The FL's traumatic past is revealed but it's treated like a side note. Sloppy editing abounds. The story gets a bit more interesting by Ep8 with post-trauma recovery, family succession struggles, love triangles and evil mothers in law. Many long shots of ML's angst without really telling us what's actually going on in his head. 39 eps should've been plenty to develop all the characters and their arcs but we just get long silent shots instead. So the only thing you can do is just enjoy the scenery.

Another thing that bothers me is how few actors are able to accurately portray medical/academic people. Not to mention the set details: a high end hospital's rehabilitation unit has no grab bars in the bathroom, zero wheelchair accessibility, and staff that let you fall down on your face repeatedly while taking you for a walk. But who needs details.

I'm at HSK-1/2 level Chinese and I could understand most of the dialogue, which tells you something about the level of writing. This meant seeing adults talk (and act) like 12 year olds, or older parents talking to their adult children as if they were 12. This is too much. Ep26 is as far as I'm going to make it on this drama, and it's already further than I wanted.

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Like an exhausting staircase that leads nowhere

The Double is a story of Xue FangFei, a noblewoman whose husband attempts to murder her & leaves her for dead, buried on a remote mountainside. She, however, survives & is rescued by Jiang Li, an inhabitant of a nearby womens refuge. FengFei discovers Li is also a noblewoman of similar age & similarly betrayed by her family, banished for 10 long years. Li suffers horrendous abuse at the refuge & unfortunately dies from a brutal beating ordered by the refuge director. Fangfei takes advantage of a coverup of the death & manages to escape the refuge, returning to society by assuming the identity of Li & infiltrating the Jiang family.

Thus begins a very very complex tale of XFF embarking on dual missions of uncovering corruption & wrongdoings to exact justice not only for herself & the Xue family, but also Jiang Li & her family. Watching her actions closely is Duke Su, a close advisor to the Emperor, and one who is charged with rooting out corrupt officials. He sees through her ruse but uses her in his own pursuit of justice in the imperial court, & picks up a revenge mission of his own.

As the show progresses, layer after layer of crimes committed are uncovered, & XFF/JL picks up new people to avenge as the body count rises. In fact, she's so bent on avenging the dead, I started wondering if she really cared about anyone living. Her bitterness wouldn't be a surprise, but there wasn't much hint of a love of life that would've been necessary for her to hold a relationship. Thus I felt her relationship with Duke Su wasn't really believeable. They actually don't spend that much time together. It was a bit of a stretch to see how their relationship manages to develop when they worked in parallel, not together, & cross paths so briefly. They hardly get to know each other at all.

Fangfei picks up many enemies along the way but so many of the female antagonists end up being annoyingly hysterical. By the final episode, she doesn't wind up much different than when she started, so what, then, was the point of all that she went through?

The revenge theme has such a dark basis & yet the earlier episodes managed to infuse silly comic moments. Along with the Tang dynasty styled costuming, I was suddenly reminded of the show Court Lady. Sure enough, one of the directors of the Double was also the director for Court Lady. I described Court Lady as also starting light & silly, but then turning into "a dark & sordid speeding train with a full buffet of back stabbing politics, debauchery & revenge... only to run over the cliff with half the characters being killed off". My view of the Double isn't far off from this. The cast is huge but the multiple story arcs are more depressing than hopeful.

This show started off with such a great hook but unfortunately the plot got very complicated & heavy. With so much trajedy happening you'd hope for a better outcome, but instead the ending was rather unsatisfactory.

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when a bright sun becomes a black hole; Yang Zi's most challenging role yet

This is a story of 6 childhood friends, growing up together until university & career scatters them all for the next decade. An impending marriage prompts a reunion, setting the stage for the rest of the drama. The story centres around Huang YingZi, played by Yang Zi, who is tasked with finding and bringing everyone back to their home town for the wedding of one who is marrying outside of the group. Frequent flashbacks gradually tie past & present together as each member of the group tries to come to terms with the problems in their lives, where they've been & where they need to go. Which is putting it lightly. The themes of domestic/sexual violence & familial neglect eventually bring the story down to the darkest depths of depression, culminating in an horrific trauma rocking the entire group at a time when most teens experience their highest hopes. The primary arc involves YingZi & her relationship with her closest friend & unrealized long love JiangYi. A significant secondary arc is the friendship between adult YingZi & her literary idol, Ding Ye, a once famous but now struggling author who shares a similar past trauma.

Somewhere between Ashes of Love and Immortal Samsara, YZ's acting matured very impressively and I was looking forward to seeing her in this drama. In a recent news article YZ is said to have had reservations about playing an 18 yr old & didn't want to be seen as "overacting" the part. Unfortunately, "overacting" is exactly the first word that jumped into my mind early on. Teenage YingZi is not only the centre of the story, she acts like the centre of the group: loud, in-your-face, commanding all the attention & telling everyone what to do. When switching to 30 y/o YingZi, YZ plays her much more subdued even though the character maintains the central status, & YZ appears more comfortable in the older role.

I didn't realize Yang Zi is already 31 years old. And I don't know why, but age & representation are becoming a big issue with me these days. Because the story jumps back & forth between past & present so frequently, & due to the large cast, using the same actors for both time periods makes sense. But the problem here is there's a 10 year age span between the oldest & youngest actor portraying this cohort. YZ is finally in an age appropriate role, but has to act opposite people who weren't even born yet when this fictional group first formed at age 6, & there's an 8 yr gap between her & her ML. Lack of maturity results in lack of depth. With the exception of YingZi, the group all experience severe abandonment & emotional abuse throughout their lives & portraying how that affects someone at age 30 is not something actors in their early 20's can pull off. Adult YingZi has matured to being better able to understand the issues her friends struggle with, & works to bring her friends together to help each other resolve them. However, some of the younger cast succeed only at giving downcast looks & being helpless. This just sets up YingZi to the rescue because, of course, she's the centre.

While the drama starts with the awkward overacting, it then follows a conventional line with the main leads dancing around each other, dodging possible love triangles along the way. YingZi became more sympathetic as YZ's handling of the transition of the leads' relationship was funny & spot on. And her character's in-your-face-edness is actually brought back to her as a criticism. The rest of the group go through workplace & marital/relationship problems of their own. The strength of the writing came through as I became more interested in the outcomes of all of the group member's challenges by the 2/3 mark of the show.

Unfortunately, not until the final 1/4 of the show comes a shocking twist, catalyzed by the character of Ding Ye. Instead of being the bright sun which all around her orbited, it becomes clear YingZi had actually been a black hole for 10 yrs, sucking up all of her friends' & family's energies into her own problem. I then realized the drama all along has been as focused on YingZi as she is on herself. Only her birthday is shown being celebrated with a big show of her receiving gifts from the others. They all bend to her whims. She's the only one with 2 stable & caring parents. She's done very little for her friends in comparison to what her friends have been doing to preserve her fragile psyche in her own fantasy world, in the aftermath of the severe trauma that affected them all. It's narcissism in the extreme. However, YingZi does come to realize her behavior with the help of ever patient & all forgiving JiangYi, & all her self-centredness comes crashing down on her. Nevermind whether this situation is even realistic or not, I'm not qualified to say, but this rollercoaster was exhausting to watch.

So... not knowing anything about the story beforehand, I found this drama very compelling & surprising that it tackled such heavy themes. What I found wanting was a deeper exploration of each member of the group, more of their own perspective & individual response. Whether the narcissistic focus on YingZi was intentional or not, it's too much to have viewers also get sucked into that black hole. The character of JiangYi could've served as an anchor & should've been given much more weight. Finally, I wonder about the overly aggressive product placement of Stefanie Sun at the end. This caters to a specific audience & only serves as a time waster. At any rate, it was nice to see YZ playing her age. This role is very challenging & I give her credit for being brave enough to try. I hope she continues to challenge herself in this way & I'll continue to watch her shows with interest.

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predictable story with average delivery

The premise seemed very intriguing so I had higher expectations coming into this show. It's a shorter run at 12 episodes. Yeo Hwa is a Joseon woman in the Qing era, grieving widow by day & vigilante masked crusader by night. Her crime-fighting stints soon clash with the newly hired captain of the local garrison, Park Su Ho. They then discover they both seek answers to dark pasts, with clues leading them all the way to the imperial court.

On comes a dizzying line up of characters, a total of 5 different families, all connected to the same trajedy of 15 years prior & shrouded in mystery until Yeo Hwa & Su Ho team up to uncover the truth. The storyline is just as dizzying with many characters harbouring secrets & layers of suspects are peeled away until the mastermind is revealed at the core. It's a lot to pack into only 12 eps & the story doesn't actually offer much new. Murderous backstabbings, cover ups, shadow ops & attempts to depose the sitting royalty are all familiar backdrops, but the show doesn't go very far below the surface. There are attempts at portraying hard hitting violent events but they don't draw any sympathy. The political drama outweighed the romance, likely because the sheer number of characters & complex interactions didn't allow for enough development of the relationships. The action scenes were well done but they just got lost in the mash up of everything else happening.

The details in the half life-time of deceptions & sufferings of the widow are a bit overplayed by the end. Her suffering is balanced by her plucky nature, yet somehow Yeo Hwa's character came off more as slapstick & with no edge. Lee Ha Nee was unable to portray the depth of strength such a character would've had to have cultivated by that time in her life. I found very few truly LOL moments; in fact, the writing was quite bland. There's also an 11 year age gap between the lead actors, & as Yeo Hwa has lived as a widow for 15 yrs prior to meeting the young & unmarried Su Ho, it's plausible the characters also have a similar age gap, although it's never acknowledged. I was left wondering if LHN was trying to play someone 10 yrs younger as it would've made more sense that Yeo Hwa was 30 yrs old. Thus there's an awkwardness in the leads' chemistry & it wasn't convincing. So awkward, actually, that they couldn't even muster up the courage for a kiss scene which only serves to downplay an already weakened relationship arc. None of the other characters seemed especially compelling.

Overall, this was a rather soft & mediocre drama, but watchable because of it's shorter length.

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flat-lined performances & writing ruin a potentially good story

Another medical/research drama, with the leads meeting in a fictional French speaking, developing country run by warlords. Su Wei'An is a young woman from China, ekking out a living by buying & selling goods, with the country's military leader as one of her primary customers. When she runs into a visiting Chinese neurosurgeon, Gu YunZheng, at the largest local hospital, their shared past, & her dark secret, is revealed. On return to China, the setting changes from humanitarian work to the cut-throat world of medical research & a race for the cure of a rare disease.

There's a lot of French dialogue in the beginning & the dubbing is absolutely terrible. I can't tell if the actors are mouthing the actual French words or not as many scenes are so obviously out of sync. And as with so many C-dramas involving medical people & hospitals, I learn to ignore bascially all of the details. Just pretend that the single looped surgery scene represents all of the surgeries performed.

Given Luo YunXi's impressive string of hit shows, both modern & costume, this drama is far below the standard he's set for himself (and did he actually lose weight during the filming? he's skeletal thin). Zhang RuoNan is no newcomer but this is my first time seeing her & her performance can't match the strength of Su Wei'An. ZRN's portrayal of a young person facing a life threatening illness is stiff & expressionless, not at all reflective of a character who is passionate about protecting others while personally in despair.

The romance arcs are formulaic, trope heavy, & the story takes a long time to get off the ground. It does pick up by the halfway mark when the leads return to China, but quickly descends into a toxic hell-bucket of backstabbing, cheating, & relentless bullying. Are seasoned medical researchers all stuck at the maturity level of middle schoolers? Maybe some are but who wants to watch that? ZRN's wooden expressions get very annoying & the chemistry of the leads is weak. The 2nd couple's arc is actually more lively but unfortunately gets neglected as the show progresses. I watched to the end only because I was actually curious about the outcome of the character's race to cure her own fatal disease. Thus the story itself was interesting & could have been a deeper exploration of what it means to live in the face of death. But it never got beyond the playground politics to properly prepare for the conclusion. The acting, production, & writing couldn't raise this story to the level it deserved.

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Engaging story, solid but boxed performance from Xu Kai

From the director of The Untamed and The Legends, no less! My expectations suddenly skyrocket, especially after last seeing Xu Kai in the rather disappointing She and Her Perfect Husband.

The Chinese title, LeYouYuan, is also the title of a Tang dynasty poem envisioning a beautiful but fleeting world (my rough interpretation). Translated as Wonderland Plains in the show, it represents both a physical and mental refuge and happy place. WoL is a tale of erupting power struggles in the wake of a coup. Li Ni (XK) is one of the last surviving members of a royal lineage in a kingdom usurped by a rebel traitor. Three major parties then vie for control of the land and resources: Li Ni's ShenXi army (loyal to his murdered grandfather, the former emperor), the independent and very powerful Cui Family army, and the self-declared new Commander-in-Chief Sun Jing. However, Sun's brutal reign forces an uneasy alliance between the ShenXi and Cui armies. Li Ni meets the sharp and cunning Cui Captain He (Jing Tian), and begins negotiating not only joint trade and conquest, but also love.

I've been following XK's work since Ancient Love Poetry. I saw hints in ALP (as well as The Legends) that he could be a very good dramatic actor but, so far that I've seen, he seemed to be playing the same type of character in most of his shows: ie. the boyish, cocky but likeable hero type, always cool, understated, and at the top of his game. I keep watching him to see if he can break out of this box, and unfortunately WoL doesn't stretch his range.

WoL starts off as a light formula romance, against a big backdrop of war and politics. By Ep20 the drama turns more serious as Li Ni learns Capt He's true identity and factors it into his political strategy. In fact, they both don't hesitate to use each other. Things then get far more interesting as he tries to balance his goals for the country against those for himself, which triggers direct conflict with Capt He's own vision for country, self, and themselves as a couple. The course of their relationship through treacherous terrain makes their characters more sympathetic as their belief systems start to clash. Circumstances push them to the brink in an horrific (and excruciatingly long) battle scene. Will either of them sacrifice their core tenets for the other? At this point the strengths of XK's and JT's performances come further through a crushingly sad wedding scene. Toward what seems will be a tragic ending, XK pushes to his best performance (but doesn't break the box), before the story winds down with a conventional ending.

The story is strictly wuxia and what makes it dense are the fluid shifts of alliances between the 3 groups as they manage not only dealings with each other but also challenges from within their own ranks. The most dangerous foes come from your own family. This results in a fairly large cast of characters, and the ensemble cast is competent, with many familiar faces.

All in all, this was a very enjoyable drama with decent performances and an engaging storyline. XK fans will be pleased with this work.

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