IllusionQueen

Can't believe the rating for this show is so high. It was kinda promising at the start, but the ending was very disappointing. I couldn't get invested in Lee Si Jan and Mou Yung's relationship at all, because the show spent 20 episodes... 20 episodes! leading the viewers on, making them think that Si Jan might somehow divorce Mou Yung and end up with Dong Ching. I really didn't like the twist at the end. The sudden change in direction really threw me off. The main plot was also resolved off-screen, which was very anti-climactic and also a dumb decision. The villains also never got their comeuppance, so the ending was just very unsatisfying all around. Feels like I wasted my time. At least the opening theme is good. The music is the best part of the show, really.

And don't even get me started on how the show claims that Cheung Tin Hung's dad loved him all along despite how poorly he treated him throughout the show. He literally gave his son's part of the inheritance to a dog and kicks him down whenever he doesn't do good enough, even though his son just wants to please him. Imagine how his wife would feel about the way he's been treating their son. When he finds out what his son did, he criticizes him but never himself, never trying to understand why his son did something so extreme in the first place.
Then there's also Lai Sin Yue's dad who went against the very thing he advocates, that everyone is equal and that no one is more noble or lowly than someone else (you can't tell me that he believes this about dogs but not people :| ), and Chow Ka Man's dad who tried to get his daughter r****. The dads in this show all suck.
Many of the major characters become so out-of-character by the end, it's ridiculous.

Finally finished this drama after 10+ years. I watched the first several episodes back then and thought it looked good, but never got to finishing it. So I put it on my list and finally finished it this morning. I almost felt like I wasted my time. I'm so tired of adult children in modern dramas letting their parents decide things for them. You're grown-ass adults! Stop letting your parents tell you how to live!! The domestic violence between one of the couples was also infuriating to watch. The villagers didn't do much about it when the wife chased her husband down with a knife. Like, that's a huge red flag, you need to get her husband away from her! That's not comedic, it's sickening. But nope, everyone only cares about who's paying for the damaged tree. When they finally divorce, the husband's co-dependency (can't even pick out his own clothes omg) is never addressed, and then they get back together because she secretly picks out his clothes for him and cooks for him?? Because she does that (like she's always done), it's suddenly okay for her to beat him again?? In the end it never gets addressed. It's disgusting how an abusive wife can be played for laughs, yet never an abusive husband.
And then there was all that drama near the end of the show where FL gets mad at ML over something that happened more than 10 years ago, long before she ever met him. She isn't willing to forgive him, saying that he has a rotten nature and will never improve. Yet SHE was probably the one who first witnessed his change in the way he treats animals. She KNEW for a fact that he risked his life to save a few dogs from a fire. And yet, because he slapped a bitch for threatening to cause bodily harm to his girlfriend, suddenly he is irredeemable and cruel to animals?? How does that make any sense?? Are we just supposed to forget that the fire episode ever happened?? Ugh, this gets a 4/10 for me. At least the music was good and the animals were cute. The acting was...good, which only made it worse because of how nonsensical the situations and characters were.