No One Like Me

"You always think you are different, but who doesn’t?"

No Major Spoilers, but I have tagged it as so anyway.

The spin-off doesn’t have a lot to offer as plot — we see a “comic relief” character’s point of view of the same world and characters, as he constantly believes the world owes him more. While ‘No One Like Me’ isn’t especially deep, it isn’t superficial either. I was forced to think, throughout the movie, of the amount of times I have felt the same, the feeling of deserving more and/or better than what I have. This drives the main conflict of the movie, along with asking the question of every “chosen one” fantasy — is fate already written or do we write it?

Surprisingly, this story treats the main character with a lot of respect. (minor spoiler) While we are made to believe the characters did him wrong, Xu Qian becomes the character who doesn’t deserve to “show” his face in this spin-off. The narration ofcourse is not fully reliable, as the main character himself admits near the end, since his worldview is tainted by his own grudges towards the world, (spoiler end) he still is not made out to be a joke. His view is potrayed with respect and care. Hence, you still relate with him, you root for him.

The original GoTD also dealt with the theme of “where does bravery end, and stupidity begin?”. This spin-off makes you question the same even more. It doesn’t debate at either side of the argument though, the takeaway and lesson learnt is fully yours to decide.

Liu Guan Lin fully, and easily, carries the movie on his shoulders. I’d imagine it’s hard to convince an audience to empathasize with you, for till now it has only considered you a joke. Yet he easily does it, from the very first scene. While He Hua didn’t have much to work with, her performance was enough to support the story move along.

Having talked of the things I liked, let me try and point some things that didn’t work for me.

1. The CGI remains mediocre, but that is true for almost all Chinese costume dramas, so I wouldn’t put it against this web movie which I imagine was done in an even smaller budget.
2. The pacing at times felt slow to *me* for a movie, but that could be my own lack of attention span.
3. This too could be a personal issue, but it took me quite a while into the movie to place the timeline for this plot happening in respect to GOTD.

All in all, a good GoTD nicotine patch that stands on its own legs, but I am not sure how memorable it is, or whether I’d ever feel the want to rewatch it.

Read More

Not what I expected

Going into it, I was expecting something similar to Guardians of Dafeng in the sense of humour, pacing, and action. I was met with something different. This is a film that can sit by itself, though it would be hard to follow along if you didn't know the lore of Guardians of Dafeng.
This is a quiet movie about struggle. The ending made the difference of how I viewed it - from a 7 star rating to an 8.5.
There were a few things that I was a bit confused about, namely when it was set. And if I remember Guardians of Dafeng correctly, this film might have created plot holes regarding where characters were and when.
If there ever is a series sequel to Guardians of Dafeng, I will be even more excited to watch it just because of a certain character in this I will be looking forward to seeing.
GREAT acting.
GREAT cast!!!
No Dylan Wang cameo, so don't be disappointed.
A beautiful story. 8.5 stars just because of the ending. I bust into tears.

Read More