This review may contain spoilers
This drama needs a content warning. Trashy, violent melodrama should have been a 2 hour vertical
I love mess. I'm the first to watch a trashy melodrama. Sadly, this drama is too long at 10 hours for what it is and how thin (and illogical) the plot is.
Let me warn you right now: this isn't just a "red flag ML". This drama leads with sexual assault and choking/strangling. I know a lot of people think choking is sexy, but unfortunately it's really dangerous, so even though I was fully prepared to take this drama as a trash drama, the repeated attempted stranglings really annoyed and bothered me. The ML also sexually assaults the FL repeatedly. This is framed as dramatic and sexy, so please know what you're stepping into.
The setup, even the camera angles, colors, editing, are very much like a vertical melodrama. In a 2-2.5 hour drama, the plot does not need to be fully sketched out, since the point is to "jump to the point". The point being the dramatic fighting, crying, arguing, face-slapping, torture, and love scenes. Unfortunately, this drama is a little over 10 hours long, which is too long for its plot holes and repetitiveness. Instead of jumping to the point, it's ambling in circles.
One example of the plot holes is that the mother in law character is supposed to be terrifyingly capable, with spies and connections all through the government. Yet she can't seem to do simple math and figure out that her daughter in law's child is not her son's child. Furthermore, this daughter in law, the FL, does not seem to calculate that her son is in danger from the mother in law. Why would the mother in law willingly raise a cuckoo chick? When you have secrets and revelations this obvious, and a story with such big holes, it's hard to concentrate on the drama and suspend your disbelief.
What the drama tries to do is have the ML and FL work seemingly at cross purposes to each other but secretly help each other. This would have worked much better in a very short drama where you don't have time to logically think through how little the mini conflicts in each episode make sense. Plus, a vertical watcher will forgive the plot being sketched out in shorthand. An example would be when the ML is deliberately poisoned to "draw out the moles" in the army. This is like a story pitch, and in a vertical, with limited time, you would simply accept this at face value. We know this trope. However, in a 10 hour drama, we expect some sort of explanation for why ML needs to do this and why this would draw the moles out. We do not get it.
The ending: I am not sure why there is confusion about the ending--this is a pure trash drama and a revenge story and the ML and 2ML both had bad karma. If anything the creators self-indulgently drag out that death scene longer than a Shakespeare play. But whatever, it's fine.
The acting: Zhou Jun-Wei played a supporting role in Love & Redemption and it's nice to see him be the lead, but I will say his acting is a bit wobbly. He doesn't have the subtlety of a Liu Xiu-Yi to play a violent, controlling scumbag who still has some gears turning upstairs and more complicated emotions. Instead, he veers between playing "sincere" and "psycho". It doesn't really work. Given that the script is bad, and the director wants you to go back and forth with his character at first, I get it, but it is about the quality you would expect for a forgettable vertical. Daisy Li was really great in this, and I wish the writing was better so that her many melodramatic mental torture scenes would have been more moving. For me, usually, the story needs to set it up for me to care. She went through a huge range of emotions in this drama and I hope she will go on to do great things. I looked at her filmography and she does have good ratings on MDL for a lot of her main roles, I just haven't seen them. The support roles are well cast, although the emperor lacked presence. Most of them aren't given justice, either by the director and editor, or by the script.
Let me warn you right now: this isn't just a "red flag ML". This drama leads with sexual assault and choking/strangling. I know a lot of people think choking is sexy, but unfortunately it's really dangerous, so even though I was fully prepared to take this drama as a trash drama, the repeated attempted stranglings really annoyed and bothered me. The ML also sexually assaults the FL repeatedly. This is framed as dramatic and sexy, so please know what you're stepping into.
The setup, even the camera angles, colors, editing, are very much like a vertical melodrama. In a 2-2.5 hour drama, the plot does not need to be fully sketched out, since the point is to "jump to the point". The point being the dramatic fighting, crying, arguing, face-slapping, torture, and love scenes. Unfortunately, this drama is a little over 10 hours long, which is too long for its plot holes and repetitiveness. Instead of jumping to the point, it's ambling in circles.
One example of the plot holes is that the mother in law character is supposed to be terrifyingly capable, with spies and connections all through the government. Yet she can't seem to do simple math and figure out that her daughter in law's child is not her son's child. Furthermore, this daughter in law, the FL, does not seem to calculate that her son is in danger from the mother in law. Why would the mother in law willingly raise a cuckoo chick? When you have secrets and revelations this obvious, and a story with such big holes, it's hard to concentrate on the drama and suspend your disbelief.
What the drama tries to do is have the ML and FL work seemingly at cross purposes to each other but secretly help each other. This would have worked much better in a very short drama where you don't have time to logically think through how little the mini conflicts in each episode make sense. Plus, a vertical watcher will forgive the plot being sketched out in shorthand. An example would be when the ML is deliberately poisoned to "draw out the moles" in the army. This is like a story pitch, and in a vertical, with limited time, you would simply accept this at face value. We know this trope. However, in a 10 hour drama, we expect some sort of explanation for why ML needs to do this and why this would draw the moles out. We do not get it.
The ending: I am not sure why there is confusion about the ending--this is a pure trash drama and a revenge story and the ML and 2ML both had bad karma. If anything the creators self-indulgently drag out that death scene longer than a Shakespeare play. But whatever, it's fine.
The acting: Zhou Jun-Wei played a supporting role in Love & Redemption and it's nice to see him be the lead, but I will say his acting is a bit wobbly. He doesn't have the subtlety of a Liu Xiu-Yi to play a violent, controlling scumbag who still has some gears turning upstairs and more complicated emotions. Instead, he veers between playing "sincere" and "psycho". It doesn't really work. Given that the script is bad, and the director wants you to go back and forth with his character at first, I get it, but it is about the quality you would expect for a forgettable vertical. Daisy Li was really great in this, and I wish the writing was better so that her many melodramatic mental torture scenes would have been more moving. For me, usually, the story needs to set it up for me to care. She went through a huge range of emotions in this drama and I hope she will go on to do great things. I looked at her filmography and she does have good ratings on MDL for a lot of her main roles, I just haven't seen them. The support roles are well cast, although the emperor lacked presence. Most of them aren't given justice, either by the director and editor, or by the script.
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