Ta Xue Xun Xiong (2025)

Thinly veiled "TOURIST BROCHURE" Watch it for villain character's OTT ham acting.

LOL what is this even! This is a barely disguised tourist brochure for Hezhe/Fuuyaan, China

tldr; skip - watch only for the villain's antics in the first 10-12 eps in 1.5x speed. skip both titles to gain time.

This show was popping up in recommendations everywhere. Ended up watching it in .5-2x speed. The excuse of a plot is that our ML is a photographer on a mission to capture all the albino variants of wildlife across China to hold a celebratory exhibition. He's missing the last one, albino brown brear reportedly sighted by FL, known online as "hezhe's treasure". They get off on the wrong foot. ML mistakes "villain" character's harassment of the FL as some viral "proposal" moment and shares it on social media. Hijinks ensue. ML and FL pair up over several adventures. ML dutifully "supports" our "awesome" FL on all her achievements. Villain changes heart and helps our hero get the girl in the end.
PS: There is no plot.

Luckily, each 15 min episode is less than 7 mins of content. Long start &end title scenes make for the remainder. The "albino bear" plot comes and goes as it pleases while the hero spends all his time solving heroine's home town problems. The first half is mostly fending off the advances of the "villain" - the richest man in the province who is set on marrying our heroine against her will. Plucky girl isn't going down without a fight. Fair hero plays his part in rescuing the damsel.

The real MVP of this drama is the villain character Mao Kuan Ren who lights up the scene with his OTT antics, self-aware villainy and is the most amusing character on screen throughout. This 24 ep tedium is made bearable mostly through him. The actor went above and beyond what he was paid for our entertainment's sake. My acting rating is high only for him.

There is a funny side plot where our hero dresses up as a woman to help heroine's brother avenge the villain's russian femme fatale planted in their team to cause havoc. He strongly resembled Aamir Khan's cross dress appearance in Baazi. They played the whole thing straight for laughs.

The plot device serves to showcase the monuments and scenery of the province/area and is a thinly veiled tourism brochure.

No one in the cast stand out. Heroine (Hezhe's treasure) plays cute, pout, tough, etc as demanded in script. Once the villain is "defanged" this meandering mess becomes a chore to watch.

Meh!

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