lilmeh

Filmed yes, but release dates are defo a marketing exercise.. that a room full of people scratching their heads across a pick of filmed projects.

Annoyingly NOT actually on Youku..

15mins in and no way this is going to pass censors to Youku... 😅

I gotta commend TXW's management on this one - after the fame if PoJ, it must've been a massive headache for them on "what next", but this is the perfect pick. Low key, good acting, not too many expectations but also nothing that can erase what's been achieved.

I have been in relationships like this before so tbh I do understand them 100%. It's because the one who thinks murder solves problems will do it anyways, whatever the excuse - in this case, the excuse is to protect them. That includes not telling them as much as they can, to protect them. Then you got the other tango side, who doesnt want to make things worse.
I had the luck (or bad luck) to recognise this behaviour early and just managed to remove myself before murder may or may not have happened. Not everyone is strong enough to do this when theyre invested in a relationship. It is much harder to walk away from a "friend" "in need" irl than keyboard warriors make it.

Finished it properly - ultimately, I think the rating will go higher when everyone gets the ending drop.
It was a good ride, probably the only drama this year where i sat down and watched it as it's meant to, experience the process without skipping.
It's as if the whole show was a huge experiment on What If We Let Everyone Replay Scenes Over and Over. Not the transmigrating type (that's when they change plot), thank goodness, but just add details and flesh it out as you go. Every actor got to show their chops.
It's also refreshing to see a show where literally no one was immune by plot armor.
Writers really shone here- good stories like this should be told more often.
10/10 for me.
(And now im out of murder stories to contemplate with my breakfast. 😂🥞)

What was messy about it?
I thought they wrapped everything well, er maybe too well. I mean we dont really need to hear the ultimate exposition twice.

The tiny teeny flash-and-you'd-miss-it smile made ME smile. Mwahahaha.

Real life isn't that black and white either.. although I thought the ending was pretty black and white. No idea what everyone else is on about, but their stories matched.

I dont know what anyone here is talking about, that's through and through murder for QSQ - no "accessory", nothing. Premeditated cold intentional murder.

"Haha, idiot idiot! Haha idiot idiot!"
ROFL sorry couldnt help it. 😂😂

I wish they would give DX meatier roles already.. whatever is wrong with his management, he does not deserve to still be second grade at this age.

I have seen men twice as old as our MLs, in those positions, that act like that AT work.

And just like that, one single line in the script brought me back.
I think with all the plot twists, we all forgot the crux of the story - in how hard it must've been for HYH to have to tell people one by one what happened to everyone's beloved RFX.
Ive been in his shoes, but I didnt have to do it as many times as he must've had to, and to have to do it repeatedly like he did, it's no wonder his mental health took a turn.

Im not a hater, it just went downhill as it went on and defo not an 8 for me. It was fine when it started.
My rating is 100% due to script and frankly, plot in general. It just wasnt a great story in the end, and i can go on for pages how it deliberately stole from half the chinese drama industry, but it was obvious all of it was in jest.
We just ultimately got, in the end, what not to do in chinese drama.

Agreed. Poor Joseph, he should go back to shooting random things. Preferably with Nick Cheung. Or at NC. Hehe.

Yeh nah. I properly finished it. I really liked FoF. I really like Joseph, he's actually really good at being villains in non-Chinese dramas (read: characters with wide range).
But both are way out of their depth here- never felt this with HMH, and if anyone asked me a year ago who to star the sequel, I'd say 💯 Joseph. I have no idea what happened.

Funny how no one mentions they came for the first Chilam show in 3 years.. which was what I remembered about this show, and only really watched the eps with him in it. (Ironically, that pretty much covered enough for the main plot.)
The only other thing I remembered about it, was that I dropped it mostly because I liked the non-protagonist Chengyi more than the one the creators wanted me to like, which made me feel ridiculous.
Anyways, back here to pick it up, because after about 45+ hours of XZX a la Time Raiders, I'm hoping it'll shed a different light on this show.
P. S. I think people who keeps criticising LSF as a character is forgetting XZX is 24 folks.. no idea if it's originally miscast or if that's how the novel was. But honestly, im so impressed by this guy's bio - like I dont think anyone even correlated that he's Ying Lei from FoF trying to be an evil mastermind here. 😅

I finished the canto version finally for anyone wondering. It's a much much better edit than the latest scourge of editted canto versions - still logical despite the edits, didnt affect my original mando rating.
I'll never understand why the canto versions always have to be cut in half (not every HKer around the world have the World's Shortest Attention Spans😂), but this one at least, didn't run like they turned it full short drama version.
Also they eased off on the swearing towards the second half, although there was still the occasional 7 bomb, I guess people just cant help themselves around Francis lol.

@sunmoonstar If you get to ep20, you'd have roughly watched this show.. 7+ times? I mean, I'm not really counting but maybe we should by now.
But every ep except maybe ep18, has more questions than answers. At this point, I'd be genuinely impressed if they manage to wrap everything else nicely by the last ep.