(Asian) Dramas Watched In 2025

Granted, her strengths and weaknesses of her characters over her last three projects are similar, but their characters have marked differences and Liu Yifei pulls them off without just self-defaulting, always convincing even in challenging scenes, of which there were definitely a few in The Tale of Rose which were noteworthy and beyond anything she had to pull off in Meet Yourself or A Dream of Splendor.

The common notion that Liu Yifei is a talentless actress is absolute nonsense. Was her performance in Chinese Paladin rather wooden and underwhelming? — Yes. But it's now 2025, not 2005. Now in her prime, Liu Yifei only knows how to land herself in some seriously good shows with layered roles, displaying some pretty fine acting chops. There was a stark difference in watching her performance here after watching Bai Lu's in Northward, which I had watched immediately prior.

...

Very stark.

circa eps 20-30 among highest peaks in drama... now let's see how they can seal the deal in the home stretch.

Great writing, great dialogue — on a level with The Story of Minglan in that department. A shame that production seemed to nosedive in the final episodes.

The performances from both Zhang Yi and Zhang Songwen were outstanding. The best I've seen this year.

It kills me that they don't make sageuks like this anymore.

Bai Lu's limitations are exposed the moment she has to act as anything other than herself.

The drama succeeds in spite of her (or maybe it's fairer to say the drama is unaffected by her) and does a great job of bringing importance and meaning to multiple families.

Mmm delicious justice. An eye for an eye; savagery for savagery. If only the final episode really went the full 9 yards.

Love the first 4 episodes.

Absolute cringefest, but it is interesting. ML makes me want to tear my hair out, but he's a good guy.

The plot is simply unbelievable and the ML is too creepy and controlling. There's a lot to like about this but the writing is simply too incredulous and, quite frankly, cheap and lazy.

(Oh and the women in this show are absolutely and utterly dreadful. It's borderline misogyny, I'd say — that and it has the most golden dad of all-time.)

Solid plots — unusually bad dubbing. And that does matter. Not syncing audio and video is a problem, especially when it causes incongruences in the acting. It's pure uncanny valley — but isn't it the case for so many Cdramas........

I already can't remember it.  Was very watchable tho.

((REWATCH))  — second viewing