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great but still lacking...
this drama has a great premise and strong start you just get drawn in and keep wanting to find the truth .all actors did a solid job which made the whole drama great to watch, yet the plot was dragged in the middle and left alot of things weren't explained well or left to chance .
like Feng and feifei meeting for the first it didn't clarify it that much yet she called him bestie , like when did it happen , we got no solid background just some fast flashbacks, maybe the plot made them know each other just to make it more dramatic in the end .
wu guohao is a monster , the ultimate manipulator , the actor did a great job , couldn't keep myself from wanting to slap him , yet the ending was very unsatisfying after all the evil deeds he has done he got the easy way out, he deserved to suffer .
the thing that alot of people may hate about this drama is it slow storytelling and some nonsense at some points like how can you hide a very important confession letter in a old sneaker , I mean what he had thrown it away .
nonetheless this was truly great .
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Secrets, Secrets, Secrets, Masterfully unearthed layer by layer
What a masterpiece! It will have you sitting at the edge of your seat with every reveal until the very end! Like an onion, the dark truth about what happened in the 1990s has layers upon layers, and just when you think you are getting to the core, there are several more layers hidden underneath.The actors did a phenomenal job, especially the two main leads. I started this show for Ma Si Chun, who delivered yet another outstanding performance here. Every beat, every emotion, is always perfectly captured in her expressions, she fully embodies every character she plays, and Wu FeiFei is no exception. And Zhang Ruo Yun was excellent here as well. in the first few episodes, I did not understand why his character was so recklessly obsessed with uncovering the truth behind his birth mother, but by the end he delivered a performance that pieced together Gao Feng's character very nicely.
If you really like to be surprised and constantly caught off guard by how creative a screenwriter can get with their plot twists and big reveals, then this is the drama for you. Not a single character has the full picture (even the mastermind behind it all), and each episode you are encounter a new revelation alongside them.
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Strong start messy middle infuriating ending
This is one of the rare dramas that triggered me to even write a review. A scam that made me so invested at first and left me angry. I had such high expectations up to episode 9. and then it just crashed and burned and the ride was so wild. The plot holes were everywhere. logic went out the window, and “evidence” kept magically appearing out of nowhere. And the final twist was downright disgusting.The only parts worth praising are Gao Feng and his adoptive parents’ complicated relationship and sisterhood between Qu Meng and Hong Yue.I really like these parts and I am genuinely so angry that it was ruined by the nonsense “suspense” and disgusting plot twists that make me never want to rewatch this drama.
Director has some obsession with this one song he made the ML’s mom sing over and over again. It was a nice listen at first but it got really annoying and cringe after hearing it the nth time in one episode.
Honestly, the real mystery is why so many big name actors signed on to this script and still acted their hearts out. I even felt sorry for actor who played Wu Gaohao who worked so hard at his old age to make such a rubbish character alive in this rubbish script
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Stellar Performances & Dynamic Storytelling
This was truly a wonderful watch for me. The performances were consistently strong. Both the leads and the supporting cast delivered a full range of difficult emotions and scenes, making it hard to distinguish between major and minor roles. And I found the entire narrative and the performances incredibly dynamic, with a variety of filming techniques that elevated how the story translated onscreen. That’s largely what made this drama work so well.Notably, its gripping storytelling kept me on the edge of my seat and fully immersed. The color palette was equally compelling, shaping the overall experience and how deeply I connected to the scenes. And the cinematography complemented the narrative, with a stepwise progression to the truth that follows a non-linear structure, moving back and forth in time in a way that kept the story from ever feeling sluggish.n
Overall, I found this drama haunting and frustrating in the best way, stirring a wide range of emotions as I watched. I often found myself sympathizing with characters who were, at different times, both villains and victims. By the end, it felt like I had experienced an epic journey, despite the drama being only 18 episodes long.
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Starts off intriguingly, but...
Wasted potential. Good production quality, strong visuals, and a solid musical score (although the main theme is overused). The series explores a rather unique topic - starts off intriguingly, but after that it only gets worse.The acting is, for the most part, genuinely good (above the average for many cdramas), but when it comes to the main leads, I’m not sure whether the problem lies with the script, the performances, the director’s guidance, or a mix of all three. Either way, I find the characters unlikable: they don’t inspire empathy or make me care about their fate, and instead most of the time simply get on my nerves. This is, in my opinion, the show’s one of biggest flaws.
The other is that the script is full of plot holes and absurdities, and toward the end it tries to tie up its storylines in a very far-fetched way. Moreover, from almost the very beginning, it was easy for me to be able to guess who the main villain is, as well as the secret of the main leads’ origins, which, in my view, makes this a rather weak recommendation for a suspense drama.
The most touching was the story of Qu Meng and Hong Yue – their characters were well-written and actresses gave great performances – it was very easy to care for and empathize with their characters. That is why I gave such a score despite the series’ flaws.
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Enlightening secret desires in love-hate relationships
Dawn , the period between the darkness of the night disappearing into the brightness of the morning light. The darkness that hide secret desires of people in the drama.Drama started with a female driver crashing onto a lion statue of a big company, which fell down and revealed a skeleton. The driver died on the spot. As police investigated and discovered it was a desperate angry act of revenge of a scorned woman as her lover was going to be the future son-in-law of the Chairman of the big company. A love hate-relationship, that she rather died to revenge against her ex lover.
While police was investigating who instigated and who knew a corpse was buried there they discovered a man was waiting for hours before the crash at the statue. That man committed suicide that night. That man was the ML's .GF, adopted father. Another love hate-relationship, for GF never called his adopted father as "father" for he was beaten every time he wanted to know about his biological parents but otherwise his adopted parents were loving and caring. They in turn thought he hated them for he never called his parents as father and mother and were cold and unloving, leaving home as soon as possible. Hints of secret longings when he knelt down and cried acknowledging him as father. From then his relationship with his adopted mother gradually improved till he even came every day for lunch just to make sure she was fine and not harmed as he tried to find his biological parents amid harassment of the Chairman, WGH, as the daughter, FF, was his contact because the buried corpse was his mother OM, and she was an ex- employee of the company.
Drama dropped lots of hints, as another love hate-relationship and secret desires was GF relationship with his ex girl friend. They had broken up, but her inner longings in the depth of her feelings was still deep that she gave him a job in her bar, free food and lodgings, Plus support with encouragement in his quest to find who killed his mother. That love was so deep that she even risked her life to rescue him single handedly in a house fire set by the villain's attempt to kill him.
So it should come as no surprise that the villain WGH, had a secret desire for his mother, OM, a singer and hostess of WGH's night club. Again drama dropped many clues, the lady in red painting hanging in his room, was OM, when in 1 scene, drama directly panned from the painting to her singing dressed in red at the nightclub. Clear hint .Clues dropped, almost all conversations between HY, WGH's wife, the madam of the nightclub and WGH, there were mentions of OM. Odd thing also , was OM was never beaten unlike his wife, HY, who was beaten blue and black for going against him and even when OM was forced to acquiesce to return to nightclub while other gangster dramas she would likely be beaten along with her lover, YWY. When YWY was killed , she was offered lots of compensated money which she would have used to escape . Meanwhile WGH was subtly hinting she would be better off with him but she rejected and flee by saying a client was waiting, that scene showed he lusted after her. She was only killed when she fled with incriminating evidence of his crimes .She was buried beneath a lion statue like some sacred and precious object beneath a Sphinx, where he can see her daily when he went to work. Twisted unrequited love.
The ending was that he was finally destroyed by his fruits of unrequited love, the twins, for the brother was ,GF and sister was FF. During 1 scene showing he forced himself on the unconscious and heavily drugged OM. Karmic ironic twist. FF would probably be stuck in love-hate feelings for him for gaslighting her for so many years but not GF, who hated him. WGH must have hated it when his flesh and blood, just like OM, had a hand to destroy him ,destiny and karma had the last laugh at him.
Re-watch for it's about courage with efforts of persistence and perseverance to change the odds even for the oppressed and the suppressed to walk towards the light of a new dawn.
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