Light (2021)

Perchè la recensione abbia un senso, va detto che stavo cercando una serie sulla linea di "Fall in love".
Drama, anche questo cinese, anche questo ambientato nella Shanghai degli anni '30.
Durata - in termini di episodi - però doppia, e meno incentrata sul romance, o meglio, un minor equilibrio nell'intreccio tra la storia d'amore e gli intrighi.
Dal punto di vista dei personaggi, ho apprezzato esteticamente la protagonista, meno invece il personaggio maschile principale. Dubbi anche sulla caratterizzazione: lei spesso prende decisioni discutibili, lo spettatore difficilmente riesce a immedesimarsi. Lui, poco incisivo: come il superbo Tan Xuanlin di "Fall in love" è sicuramente molto intelligente e intuitivo, anche un pochino strategico nelle sue pianificazioni (mai come l'altro), ma manca di fascino, di quell'aura che incute un reverenziale timore che caratterizzava invece comandante Xuanlin. Certo, il contesto può influire, qui abbiamo un banchiere con un passato da povero garzone alle spalle, dall'altra parte il capo di un armata militare (l'austerità fa pendant con la divisa, dopotutto). In una commedia di intrighi e strategie, non mancano certo segreti e sospetti. In questa serie però il sospetto s'insinua spesso tra i due protagonisti, che si nascondono tanto a vicenda. Nell'altra - il paragone è più forte di me - la coppia non vacillava quasi mai: lei a volte non capiva subito gli intenti o le mosse strategiche di lui, ma c'era una fiducia incondizionata di base che è stato un vero valore aggiunto alla storia, valore che in questa serie è mancato. Al contrario, qui la coppia protagonista è ben poco salda, tant'è che non solo viene messa alle prove più volte, ma spesso crolla proprio, con conseguenze anche irreparabili. Complessivamente direi che si tratta di un drama abbastanza buono, discreto, ma nulla di più. Temo proprio di aver già visto la serie migliore di questo filone e la ricerca di qualcosa che sia allo stesso livello continua a portarmi a paragoni un po' deludenti o critici. Forse, per apprezzare al meglio questa serie, il giusto consiglio è di guardarla PRIMA di vedere "Fall in love".

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The Dark Side of the Moon.

This drama is about how a power couple that is well matched in terms of cunning, ambition and capability scale the upper echelons of banking and finance during 1930s Shanghai. The narrative vividly captures the wild, morally ambiguous, highly speculative, wheeling and dealing nature of the mafia dominated banking and finance industries during that early period of industrialisation.

Cheng Yizhi is a scrappy, enterprising, self educated young orphan with a knack for numbers and finance who is raised by a kindly shopkeeper. He starts out in a lowly position at a bank but his talent propels his rapid advancement to become the protege of banking magnate Huang Ruhong. Wu Lizi is the pampered daughter of a distinguished banker whose world falls apart when her father is framed and commits suicide. Hell bent on revenge, she marries Yizhi and ruthlessly uses his access to banking circles to investigate her father's downfall. Mutual lack of communication and a terrible, irreversible decision by Lizi ruins their marriage but leads to a very rewarding business partnership where they build a bank together.

Wu Lizi is one of the most selfish, devious, manipulative, ruthless and utterly charming female protagonists I have come across. It is such a treat to get complex and fascinating female characters like Lizi. That is why I kept watching this even though at one point I was enraged and disappointed to the point of almost dropping. I still don't like how they wrote Lizi to lash out so viciously and vindictively with such heavy consequences but I am glad I kept going because she really moved me with her stoic remorse and acceptance later on. Even though there were some rough edges to Cai Weijing's performance, overall she is tough, willful, curiously vulnerable and so charismatic that I could literally see how she tied Yizhi, Charlie and Xu Du up into knots emotionally.

Zhang Xincheng delivered a most excellent performance in this drama as Cheng Yizhi, a cynical character that well understands the dark side of the moon due to his upbringing on the rough side of town. So he is the ultimate nemesis of dark characters like Huang Ruhong because he can get into their heads and narrowly manages to stay one step head of them. In sharp contrast, he seeks the light in all of his dealings and finances some of the most promising industrialists of the day. At the onset Yizhi goes toe to toe with crooked businessmen and corrupt politicians with equally scheming and wily tactics. But as the story advances and his dark secrets are revealed, the character is whitewashed and becomes too perfect, so understanding with such shiny plated plot armor that I had to roll my eyes. I needed more flaws or to see him be a little bit petty or selfish and to play dirty sometimes. Instead Charlie, a far more interesting and lovable character rises to the occasion to do all the slightly shady things that need to be done in order to stymie their unscrupulous rivals. Nonetheless the lead couple has superb chemistry and the way their relationship blossoms from mistrust and suspicion into an incredible partnership on multiple levels is one of the drama's strengths.

The business subplots are quite interesting, well written and the financial concepts are kept at a simple enough level for laymen. The characters however are less well written and notably Lizi, is not consistently written. For such a smart character she does some retarded things that can only be put down to sloppy writing. Huang Ruhong's somewhat creepy and unfathomable hard on for Yizhe is also unconvincing and not in character for the leader of the criminal underworld. Indeed the true love triangle in this drama is the one between Ruhong, Yizhe and Lizi. This was such a promising antagonist at the start but gets sidelined as the ending arc digresses into yet another patriotic fight the Japanese invaders plot. I would have preferred to see a more satisfying cat and mouse takedown of this smart antagonist play out properly. Towards the later episodes, many key characters are gratuitously killed off to squeeze out the obligatory tears expected of a Republican period drama. This backfires as I only felt very sad for two of the deaths which only highlights that the other characters were two dimensional ones that I never got invested in.

There are many enjoyable and unique aspects to this drama that make it worth watching even though it falls down on messy plot, sloppy character writing and a lame ending arc. Charlie was my favorite character and his wit, style and wisdom saved the show. Overall this is just a 7.5 for me despite strong acting by the leads. And MVP Charlie (Wang Zijian).

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