Torn Between Two Lovers

半步天涯 ‧ Drama ‧ 2015
Completed
RogerDelt
0 people found this review helpful
29 days ago
36 of 36 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 3.0
Story 1.0
Acting/Cast 3.5
Music 7.5
Rewatch Value 1.0

Incoherent storyline and ridiculous acting

First, the characters of the lead male actors are more feminine than the female characters. Why do Chinese dramas/movies portray all men as cooks at home who come from work and then cook for their wives and families, and all women as masculine?

The fact that this show had no reviews or details anywhere on the internet made it obvious that this was a total flop that no one even bothered to market or subtitle for the overseas Chinese audience.

The plot is set in a corporate drama with characters vying to take over and lead companies. The lead actors who were all less than 30 years old, and just do not have the acting skills to convincingly portray corporate sharks.

The romantic story arcs are highly tedious. The "love" cliché is used as a trump card to make characters behave in ways that are just not relatable. For example, one wife repeatedly cheats on her CEO husband by repeatedly pursuing a rival CEO, takes pictures in bed with the rival, leaks critical information about her husband's business plans to the rival CEO in order to destroy her own husband. And the husband finds out about all these betrayals, repeatedly, and does nothing. Yup, a supposedly ruthless business CEO tolerates his wife's betrayal and attempts to destroy him. But why?????? Answer - "Love" of course. It was utterly revolting to watch supposedly strong men behave like teenage lovesick puppies and mental retards.

Another strong business CEO makes decisions about companies based on "love" even though it was going bankrupt. The plot device of "love" is essentially a trick used by lazy screenwriters/directors so they don't have to do the hard work of writing plausible characters and scenarios. With "LOVE" you will accept murder, theft, betrayal and everything under the sun and hell, even fly like Superman, in CDramas.

The first lead male - Qiao Ren Liang - was badly miscast. He just could not elicit any sympathy for his character and after four episodes it became necessary to skip his story arc. His acting was subpar and he just did not have the gravitas to portray an intelligent business shark who could play the corporate takeover game.

The second male lead - Yuan Wen Kang - had the most interesting story arc and this was what kept me from abandoning the show. However, his acting skills were juvenile. His constant shrill screaming in order to show "anger" made one think he would deliver some consequences to his enemies. But no, he would then walk away and his enemies would continue their bad behavior including his wife.

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  • Score: 7.8 (scored by 10 users)
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  • Popularity: #20573
  • Watchers: 245

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