AleksandraSucur

All alone in a foreign land, I am twice as homesick on this day. / Fear not the lack...

... of friends as you go along! There cannot be a connoisseur not loving your song

These verses are all about the protagonist, Yang Ling, a salesman with great social skills, playful, funny and imperfect, but possessing a deep sense of justice and care for the people around him, projected (via video-game) in the isekai-fantasy Dafeng world, with a new identity: Xu Qi'an, a low constable and nephew of a middle-poor commoner Xu family, destined to progressively become the greatest hero of that empire. He has no time to dwell upon the new environment because he immediately finds himself in danger, imprisoned, facing the task to detect the truth behind the accusation of silver robbery with death sentence pending upon his uncle. A strong start (with excellent camera-work) for a highly engaging plot which will gradully depict the Dafeng, the relevant characters, build up relations (friendship, camaraderie, love and attachments...) and branch out interesting twists and subplots, while keeping you constantly at the edge of your seat or loughing like crazy.

The Dafeng world resembles the parallel universe of Joy of Life: Guardians of GotD and Overwatch Department from JOL have similar tasks and objectives (intelligence, investigation, keeping in check power undercurrents...). Its head Wei Gong develops a strong attachment with XQ, similar to Chen Pingping's towards Fan Xian. Although the genres of two dramas slightly differ (being GoD more isekai, more comedy and less angsty than JoL), Xu Qian and FX both basically "rise up the ranks" through merits/tasks they've accomplished. Heroic vibe is also highly similar (relaxed, not taken too seriously, with a lot of comedy). XQ and FX are both righteous (well, that's why they are heroes) but they also both possess certain "rebel" traits, because of their intollerance towards injustice. Finally, both heroes smartly use Chinese classical poetry, though this use serves also to strongly differentiate one from another: while Fan Xian is a poetry nerd, capable of reciting hundreds of them in just one night, XQ barely remembers two verses of each (as most of the people do, I assume), mixes them up (as he mixed the verses in the title: the melancholic Wang Wei's "Nostalgia for My Brothers on the Double Ninth Day" with encouraging Gao Shi's couplet from “Farewell to Dong Da” - wherever one goes, he/she will always find friends and people able to appreciate his/her value), flows that make this streetsmart, thoughtful, practical, perserverant and competitive character even more relatable.

The scriptwriting is excellent both on plot-development and characters-building side, and it skillfully interweave comic moments, deeper thoughts on human relations, magic and subplots into a (gradually, more) complex tapestry story. There are no dull moments and a viewer feels various pieces of the puzzle dropping at the right moment in the right place, hinting towards the shape of a "bigger picture". It isn't a 10, only because the last third of the drama feels slightly rushed (but this is due to the 40-episodes limit for C-productions) with a few things happening off-screen. Deng Ke's direction is a full 10 and many moments, actions and thoughts ("equivalent exchange", "take it slowly"...) will remain deeply impressed in your memory, inviting you to rewatch them (as well as wishing a S2!). The comprehensive aesthetics and (non invasive) music are also well chosen. All the actors deliver perfectly their characters with a few of them having a chance to stand out brilliantly, not only delivering but becoming the character they were performing.

I invite you also to rate this drama positively after watching it, if not for other reasons... as a (minimum) equivalent exchange for the wonder and lols it provided you. It will make you Dafengers and when you'll hear: "Do no wrong!", you'll be tempted to reply: "And fear no Guardians!"

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Solid original story and characters, butchered by a terrible scriptwriting. Actors did well

If you decide to watch this drama, know it will hook you (as it hooked me) with a dark and serious note of political turmoil, introducing the reasons of a deep clash and hatred between two clans, once united in a common vision and a great project of canal constructions. Unfortunatelly, just after the initial interesting 5-6 eps, it will turn into a fluffy romance & beating around the bush.
C-drama scriptwriters regularly have the following problem: they can't decide a genre in which their story should be set, they can't accept a simple fact that if you open a serious plot, you must keep going with that premise, you can't suddenly turn it into an idol-drama. Personally, I don't disdain a fluffy romance either, if it is true to itself. If I am not in a mood to watch fluffy stuff, I'll pass, if I am, I'll watch it. But what I find unacceptable is the betrayal of the initial expectation the author(s) of the story created. Because it means the author(s) is manipulating me (=the audience) and challenges my intelligence.

Actually, this or these poor screen adaptor(s) challenged my intelligence even in those initial episodes, when the FL tried to impede the main male antagonist (Liu Yan) to flood the downstream of a canal by... burning the sulfur bags hidden in a granary (!) and destined to blow up a dam on the canal. In real life, by burning sulfur in that granary, a supposedly smart FL, would a) provoke explosive reaction and kill herself and b) intoxicate the whole city to the death with sulfur dioxide (SO2), probably causing a greater damage than the bad guy's flooding. I've thought, ok, it's a C-drama, no big deal...

But later another "granary plot" didn't make any sense and it regarded the main female antagonist, Su E Huang, who was able to take out of the Wei's granary a resistent wheat seed sent from the FL's clan, cook it and send it back, in order to force the ML to choose between his (Qiao) wife and his (Wei) cousin, who was supposed to preside over the granary. At this point, I've decided to check if these things happened in the original novel, just to know who to blame for the nonsense which started to accumulate, the author of the novel or the screenwriter, discovering nothing nonsensical or illogical happened in the novel.

The novel isn't great in its narrative but it is well structured in plots, actions and political intrigues. If the screenwriter sticked to it, she (they) would have done far better job. Instead, she (they) felt smarter, maybe even a better artist, able to re-write a perfectly logical and rational story and turn it into an idol-drama. Unfortunately, in this remake process, logic went to the drain. Differently from the drama, the novel MADE SENSE ALL THE TIME, its characters and their decisions, plots and motivations were realistic, both on the protagonists' and the antagonists' side. It makes sense and doesn't offend your basic knowledge and intelligence. I wonder if this dumb scriptwriter ever attended an elementary school? If she did, she would have heard of communicating vessels principle: you can't raise the level of the marsh by draining the connected river downstream...

Really, the amount of nonsense is not limited to the actions, the screen adaptation totally unnecessary exaggerated and/or twisted practically all original characters, making them nonsensical as well, Manman, the FL is this supersmart and superskilled woman (who would have blowned up herself in reality in the first eps, as I've explained above), Daqiao is a woman comitted just to one man to the point no other relation matters any more for her, and all the male characters are basically dumbed down.

Last but not least, the drama adaptation failed to maintain the atmosphere, the geist of its time, in many episodes. On the positive side, the chemistry between actors is ok, the artistic department also greatly did its job, horrible wigs aside. The direction was also fine until the last 5 eps, incredibly rushed, disorganised and incomplete.

So, unless you are able to completely switch off your brain, I wouldn't recommend you to watch this drama

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A Thought on Guanshan? Maybe "Reflections on Chinese version of GOT's "All men must die"

Unfortunately, I've watched all the episodes, while this entire drama should have been stopped at the episode 34, after which nothing makes sense, and my ratings refer only to that point. And until that point, the investment made by the creators was such to make a very picky (I usually drop 99% of shows of any production or country) and have-no-time person (as myself) to spend her time watching it with great expectations, all deluded by the last 6 eps.

The creators made a huge effort to build up credible characters within a credible story. The Italian saying for fiction: se non è vero, è ben trovato (if it is not true, it's (still) nicely figured out", usually used for the works of fiction) had its application. Further, a huge attention of creators was made to make sense: plots, subplots, all human relations made sense, characters were well explained, had sufficient screentime and particular personal growths that allowed us (the audience) to care properly about each and every of them. And after all that construction effort, what happened next was a complete disaster.

In the last 6 episodes the creators decided to massacre everybody and destroy every sense in the story they've built up so nicely. As in Italian saying, "everything was figured out nicely". Holly crap, can someone tell me what's the purpose of such a thing? To tell us "wars are sensless"? Well, we know that without investing so much time and feelings. Or to tell "all men must die"? We know that, too. But such a huge sacrifice happened without principle of justice being properly served. Ending such a great story with CY's dream of unprobable "10 years after" not only doesn't render justice to its protagonists (btw, some of them dissappeared without trace, minister Du, where are you?), but makes their (and our emotional) sacrifice senseless, too.
Or the message was "there's no tomorrow"? Indeed, there's no tomorrow expecting our heroes' & heroines' next move. Hello, authors, what was your final message? From the original Chinese poetry, I deduce Guanshan is a place or time or circumstance where a person can reflect on their "wordly" attachments and loyalties. The Chinese title did not serve the purpose, while the English title is missed, too, ie., it served untill the episode 34 - after that episode nothing makes sense.

Special "Guanshan thoughts" for the scriptwriter:
1) It's impossible to move such a huge military forces in a presided area without being noticed.
2) you did fine with LTG's Oedipus complex, but once they drop it, no way any marriage or relapse will occur.
3) what kind of message you've exactly wanted to launch?

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inconsistent patchwork of trendy/cheap plotlines, motifs and tropes, fails all genres it mixed

Introduced as a family-intrigue drama, the story is supposed to (r)evolve around FL, (Yi)Ning, legitimate daughter of Luo family 2nd House, punished as a child to grow up in countryside, returning to the main mansion from which she was dettached for many years but somehow (it isn't explained) well acquainted with things going on in the family. Her relations with Luo family members are set: father, influenced by his concubine, distrusts her, grandmother adores her, half sister plots against her etc., all motifs already and more credibly used in several other dramas. In this drama, not even one side character is properly introduced or later properly deepened in order to hint to the audience their psychological characteristics, as it was done in The Story of Minglan, drama to which TRON frequently makes references (FL is motherless, her mother's name is an obvious homage to Minglan, father preferring a concubine to a legitimate wife etc.). Eg., not one scene explains the (important) bond between Yi Ning and her grandmother and why they should be so fond of each other.

The only relationship in which the authors put some effort is with her illegitimate and outcasted half brother, ie., with the ML. The first arc, in which FL investigates her mother's death and her real identity, covers more than two thirds of the drama. FL's former love interest (from the times she lived in countryside), powerful Lu Jia Xue, is shown early on in this arc, as a villain of the story, a person she believes ordered her murder (typically, she was thrown down from a cliff when living in the countryside). Being blinded at the time, he is not sure she is the person he desperatly searched for and surprisingly, such a powerful person could not even later discover the identity of the person living in the neighboring courtyard (this plothole will be repeated with her biological father, who despite his powers could not find out the real identity of her mother). FL is shown as perspicacious and wilful, in investigation of her mother's death she even uses herself as a bait, but strangely has zero interest in her own attempted murder and in front LJX she is just a terrorized victim of a psycho-thriller. Numerous lacks of elementary logics in the plotline regarding the FL, as well as huge inconsistencies (the other important one is her different treatment of the ML when he hurts her in comparison to LJX) in how her character was written, makes her unrelatable, unless we are inclined to relate to double-personality-disordered characters (which was certainly not the intention of the authors). It is not the fault of the actress or her voice many people complains about, Ren Min just delievered what she was told to.

The "best father in the world" (her biological father), appearing later on, just added another flat, superficially written and over-simplified character in a row. At that point, I've thought I'd drop it, but was still curious (my curiousity arouse more from the talks on this aspect, here on MDL than from the thrill of the drama) how will end the psycho-triller between FL and LJX. That's the only reason I've endured till the very end and haven't missed the arc covering the ML's investigation and revenge of his teacher. The political plot pending throughout the drama and solved in its last quarter, was more decently written, and despite not being original, it offered a sort of closure, especially for the ML, who is the only "rising" character in this story, from an outcast to a powerful minister, always placing first in the exams, good at problem-solving, skillful fighter, smart and deceitful (for the last trait, not much relatable either). The inconsistency between such a character and his masochistic attitude towards the FL (continuously helping her out, backing her unconditionally) was overshadowed by the actor's perfomance, who played this role totally in his comfort zone, having mastered this type of characters in other dramas. Ci Sha's performance was also very good.

The second couple seemed to belong to another (fluffier) drama, but they are related to the only "character" I've empathised with or more precisely feared for: a goose named Fugui, poor real goose pecking an annoying blue scarf around its neck while performing a goose who may finish in the pot very soon. Their joint purpose was probably to offer some comic relief (and they've jointly failed to achieve the purpose). While the second couple received an (expected) closure, the audience was left with no clue what happened to the goose. Its missing is the ultimate proof of the sloppiness of the creators or better, collectors of pieces of plots frankesteinly glued together into a drama.

P.s. Persons who've read the novel told me the script was an improvement compared to how badly the story was written in the novel. Why on earth would anybody choose to put on screen a badly written novel, trying to improve smth bad from the start?

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An extraordinary story "dedicated to ordinary me and you" (cit. ending quote)

Filter will engage and entertain you since the very beginning, leaving a mellow aftertaste long time after you're done watching it, independently of your personal genre-preferences and expectations. Its fresh, original plot and well-crafted dialogues smoothly range from modern fantasy to comedy and then to a romance. Because of its uniqueness, this is a rare (if not the only) story I've ever rated with full marks.

PLOT: the protagonists (main couple) greatly differ from each other, FL can be described as a "force of nature", she is (at least, physically) stronger, she is a straightforward, positive and somewhat immature girl liking a guy who percieves her as a bully since they were in the school. She makes him shiver, out of fright, even disgust... and being the ML a rational, "scientific" but also a romantic person who awaits his "one and only" in life, they are apparently "not meant to be", unless... certain "filters" help them in clearing misconceptions, in understanding their reciprocal fragilities (like FL's insecurity about her looks) and flows (ML's tetrachromacy with higher-intensity light receptors) and, finally, in combining their very different (read: opposite) point of views. Because love is "a deep desire to see the life and the world around us throught the eyes of Another". This deep desire is so palpable in Filter and both FL and ML will radically (and positively) influence each other in the way how they see the world around them.

But love is also a magic, and the FL comes early into a possession of a powerful magical tool: a super-tech bracelet which can shape-shift her appearence into... well, almost anything else, but which is also very "experimental" and needs frequent updates which create even more misunderstandings, tensions and twists.

There are also "additional tools" which help to create the right atmosphere and rythm/pace of the drama: eg. well chosen bgm, the 2 opening osts, Du Qing 渡情 from the '90s xianxia drama New Legends of Madame White Snake, the constant reference/homage to "Something Like an Autobiography" which immediately creates a connection with one of the greatest movie directors/visual storytellers ever, Kurosawa, and alludes to his most famous movie, Rashomon, dealing with how various people who have witnessed a murder of a samurai in a forest differently describe the events relating to the murder. They are all telling the truth, but the truth greatly varies according to their own point of view. Last but not least, the references to LYF also contribute to the fun.

CAST: One word - perfect. After The Starry Love, I've never doubted Li Landi could perform such a strong (yet profoundly fragile) character in a romcom, but Tan Janci in the role of Tang Qi will be a revelation, he may not be good in tennis, but his microexpressions are always so much on point, what a talented actor! All side characters are well-casted and well-written, as well.

All in all, although I'm not into a "romance" at all, I'm very glad I've seen this brilliant drama and I warmly recommend its vision: it is good and it will highly boost your serotonine level

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Nothing special, no memorable quotes and yet... enjoyable and refreshing

If you skip this drama, you won't lose anything in your life. But if you need something to watch to relax, something that won't irritate you, something still sufficiently interesting that won't make you drop it, well, this drama is perfect for you.

The writer of the synopsis didn't make justice to introduce us to the plot, so, I'll repair it. This is a (not particularly defined) period ensemble drama which rotates around a young couple with their own struggles. FL is struggling to keep what remained of her family afloat, after the seizure of assets and exile of male members from the capital. Her struggle is a struggle of female empowerment. ML is a side member of the imperial family who struggles to figure out complicated relations in his own family. Favoured by his uncle, a wicked emperor who can't stand anyone who contradicts him, he is appointed the Commander of the Secret Bureau, a ruthless Agency that responds only to him with the power to take down any other force (including nobles, royals etc) aspiring to the power. The struggles of these two persons entagle in interesting way and they fall for each other.

Although it lacks in memorable quotes and has many elements of unlikeliness, the plot is solidly based on a well-written dialogues, a rarity in C-dramaworld. Tbh, they are not brilliant, but they abound in details, double meanings, premonitions/hints that make the story logical in cause-effect sequence. What enhance to make the story believable is a genuine romance between the main leads, displayed originally for this type of drama: calm discussions to overcome misunderstandings, no screeming or scheming, no knives, poisons or bloodspitting. If you can pass over the fact that the ML is a super-fighter and the FL a business genius, for the rest, the two are totally normal people. The scenes engaging other people, and they are many, are also well developed, at least in the 4/5 of episodes. These are the reason I've highly rated "the story" - I'd like to encourage the two scriptwriters to follow this path in the future (and to forget completely the mess they've combined with TTEOM). But I also couldn't rate more, because they've also comitted huge mistakes (due to the original novel, I suppose), such as... introducing a new villain in last 5 eps. The audience "likes" villains, too: we want to know what made them villains, we like to grow up some (negative) affection to the villains, too.

Generally speaking, all the actors delievered the story, but not on the same level. Who delievered better were support characters: Hai Yi Tian as that sick-in-his-head emperor, Lu Yu Xiao as a traumatised PTSP girl (this actress really knows her job!) in process of healing, Myolie Wu as Madam Xia. The leads were good in delivering their main traits (described above: fighter-businesswoman), but nothing more than that.

Direction: How did Chu Yui Bun restrain himself from all his "weird experiments" with lights, filters, camera spinning... is a mystery. I suppose, his assistants constantly kept an eye on him. Untill the last minute in post-production. They've thought they've wrapped it all and left him alone. Being unwatched, he simply decided to add some CGI dolphins in that sort of homage to the Titanic. Both dolphins and Titanic-homage were wrong ideas, assistants, please,, don't leave him unchecked ever more.

Music was nothing special, the reason of high rating is: it's fine because it wasn't invasive.

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HQ cinematography impeccably conveys the core of the "Wild East" imagery and aesthetics

- Tarantino will definitely love this drama -
Both the movie and the drama are a refreshing adaptation of a manga created following apparently simple treasure hunt plotline. The drama is better than the movie: there's more time to depict a series of odd, cruel characters and all their weird side-stories. The time is essential to tell this entertaining and action-packed story because -as the title suggests - the "hunt" is more about men-hunt, the story is basically after 24 evaded prisoners whose collective body tattoos design a treasure map. In the first two episodes, we are still in winter-time on Hokaiddo covered with snow, so the actions last longer due to the slower body moves, but already in the beginning of ep 3 the snow disappears, the audience is introduced to an Ainu kotan (=village) and their costumes, and the pace of actions starts to accelerate.
The dangers come from everywhere and there's no character to be trifled with. The opening scene of ep 4, with two old swordsman dealing with a bunch of yakuza gangsters, is not only testifying how dangerous and skillful in fight the ex prisoners could be despite their age, but it also conveys a particular aesthetics of "Wild East", it's a western of the "Far East", a mix of epic Kurosawa's shots and the ice-cool vibe of Clint Eastwood's characters in Sergio Leone's movies. The audience is frequently reminded of the time-setting of the drama with costumes, environment, even with old (and/or artificially aged) photos and shots. The cinematography, the direction and the costume department deserve a full 10 mark (it's a pity we can't separately rate them on MDL), because the value provided is far beyond the genre and for these reasons, I recommend it even to persons who are not into this genre or are completely disinterested in manga-adaptations.

Lets' hope we won't wait long for S3.

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