John Hart

In Chinese Drama Land, I've concluded their are obvious social media campaigns to promote shows to make them 'hits'. This is painfully apparent in Idol Dramas. "Oh Gosh! He's so cute! So is she!" yaaaawwwnnn

I've been duped by campaigns to promote MEET YOURSELF and especially JOY OF LIFE. I don't fall for them any longer and -- as a critic -- warn people to save them the confusion.

Instead of asking me to define terms, read my review and tell me where I was wrong.

If I was 45 and saw this girl being 'jailed' by her Mom, and the girl liked me, I'd say 'forget me and let me help you get out of jail' in a paternal way. In reality, that would be it. In fiction, a love might form... providing she helped him get out of (whatever his dilemma is).

But I get that you're feeling... irked.

My wife and I are at the halfway point and both agree with you but also disagree.

I don't cringe at a 20something and a 40something finding love instead of lust. Two consenting adults. Back in the day I was a huge fan of Woody Allen's MANHATTAN but only wished she was of age, so that the story would have better realized its intentions instead of causing much cringe then.

What's strange about this show is that he looks young enough to erase this issue, which kind of confuses the entire premise. I'm not cringing at their slow burn love. I'm cringing that the show actively hides its premise.

In a Western show he'd open by saying, "I'm WAAAAY too old for you." Just those words would make us go, oh, I see. I didn't read the show description until today and I'm frankly surprised. Yeah, I noticed the "I'm your child thing" but that's about all we understood.

Meaning I wish it had been more blatant.

Correct. I wish MEET YOURSELF was half as good as some of its songs.

Turned out to be a RECOMMEND despite a big flaw and a few mini flaws. See my review above if interested.

Regina Wan as THE Lead Role? Perfect!

This show is over-rated and I can't recommend. Full review here -- https://kisskh.at/profile/JohnHart/review/453214

My review got so long I decided to post this here. The writing in this series is as good as it is also bad. It's like eating dumplings but every fourth one is spoiled. The other three are great, but that fourth one keeps spoiling the experience.

As to not spoil, let's talk of ROMEO AND JULIET. One reason that story works is because our lovers die in the final pages. If, instead, Juliet died 9 minutes into the story, that would really ruin it, right? The writers of MEET do not understand the simple concept that it takes time to develop an actual effective tragedy. The event I'm referring to is a cheap trick that has almost nothing to do with the tone of the series.

At the end of the story, this cheap HOSPITAL SCENE TROPE is deployed again. When all seems to be going well, an older woman has a heart attack and rests in the hospital. The problem is that the cast of this show is so unnecessarily large both my wife and I had no idea who this woman was. Why oh why did these writers not instead pick one of the many Grannies -- who we at least had emotional connections to? Pure amateur hour.

And worse, with continued sloppiness, this woman who appears to be dying immediately appears on a sunny afternoon in the next scene. In the blink of an eye. My wife and I thought, oh, this is a flashback. A minute or two later we're like, wait, no -- this is later where she's already recovering. The writers/directors failed to properly transition from (death?) to (all is well.)

I have a review coming (it's pre-posted but I still have 3 episodes left.)

As to not spoil much, what I will share is this series treats all characters as supporting characters. The FL and ML aren't really the thrust of the show, or at least not in a major way. This choice makes the series feel really long... because it's almost like looking out a window and watching real life. There's no real plot.

Now, many around here seem to love this. Me? I love an ensemble show, but I need it to have some discernible direction. THE YOUTH MEMORIES is a show like this show that has a great ensemble. It's slice of life too but there's more ups and downs, twists and turns, and so many things that are not predictable.

This show seems to be developed for people who are going thru so much personal stress that they cannot handle any fictional stress as well. Like a show someone in a hospital might like to watch. I love CDramas precisely because many of this very relaxing quality that makes for calmer entertainment before bed, but is overlong series is too calming for my tastes and I'd predict most tastes.

I'd watch A TALE OF ROSE. I has the same female lead but isn't boring.

When I watched A TALE OF ROSE (which I recommend, and here comes a mild spoiler about that show) it seems the female leads of these shows have something in common: men can't resist them.

(Including me, but don't tell my wife.)

It was my first CDrama and almost nothing has touched it for quality. Zhou Xun in IMPERFECT VICTIM comes close. TO THE WONDER is technically better, but it's not really a fair comparison because it's so short.

ROSE has a better pace, tells more story during the story, and is a more emotive and 'complicated' love story. I agree with your recommendation, but I believe these should be seen in your order. MEET, then ROSE. I'm doing it backwards and regretting it. (But no skimming or fast forwarding. I have 11 episodes left!)

Is Gia Ge dubbed?

I'm a Ma Yi Li man myself

Here's a sideways answer: watch the classic film LOCAL HERO. The music is lovely, the scenery is just beautiful, the story is simple, the villagers charming -- and you, like the ML, consider moving to this village as the story wraps up. I've seen this film around 20 times and love it.

Now if you get 20 or so minutes in and consider it really slow and boring, MEET YOURSELF is way way longer... and... the music isn't as good, the scenery/photography isn't as pretty, the story is too simple, the villagers are almost as charming... but... I feel it simply doesn't have the same alluring effect on me, that of moving into this village maybe.

I'm more than halfway thru and wish I could walk, but I'm interested to see how it ends and I don't believe in fast-forwarding or skipping ahead. Sigh.

I agree with your story notes. I fear that these competing channels are too desperate for hours of content instead of shows worthy of 40 episodes.

So I recently saw a 'murder mystery' show that wasn't that long and squeezed two episodes in. I wasn't expecting so much until my wife and I got HOOKED, but the hook is funny. It's not the mystery as much as the relationships in the story. You got the feeling the producers really wanted to do a straight drama but couldn't inspire interest, so instead they weaved in two murders to get it produced. I kinda miss it.

https://kisskh.at/744977-interlaced-scenes

Ignore the MEH title and the MDL rating. It's only 15 episodes but does so much in that time, yet doesn't feel rushed or crammed. I gave it a 9. I want a Season Two.

Thanks. That was adapted from an original analogy I feared might not cross from West to East successfully -- a Christmas tree.

The tree can be real or synthetic. Big or small. It can have lights and decorations of any color. Why I recently saw one upside even, which I thought was a form of protest but actually is a thing.

But a piano in a large bathroom wrapped with strings of yellow zucchinis is NOT a Christmas tree. Even if you spray the words "Christmas Tree" on it.

Christmas trees must be recognizable as such and offer areas of creativity. For instance, you could string together brooms and mops and dusters into a Christmas tree shape, spray paint it purple, cover it with golf balls... if it looked enough like an Xmas tree.

"there's no rules in what you call "screenplay", art is limitless and boundless"

My bad. I shouldn't have said 'rules'. That's shorthand for a term I had o invent 20 years ago whenever stuck in this debate: best practices.

Using your idea, art is achieved with that best combination of invention slamming into best practices. New twists on older practices.

ANALOGY-- A dining room table. There's a million ways to build one. Wood, glass, metal -- some combination of such. Paint, stains, etchings, you name it.

But at the end of the day, it still has to be a dining room table, which means it will follow 'best practices' that make tables 'good'.

It can't be crooked, causing plates to fall off. It cannot have more holes in it than swiss cheese, making it difficult to place utensils down. It cannot be too hot to lean your elbows on.

What you're arguing is "If you can eat dinner off it, it's a perfectly fine table." I'm arguing, yes, sure, but if you need a tall ladder to get to the table and eat your dumplings -- perhaps the table should follow a 'best practice' and be lower to the ground, in fact at a common height for common seats.

Crystal is the lead character. Whether you like hearing this or not, the lead character is more compelling when they're doing something... more compelling than just watching people.

"Oh my friend died and now I'm depressed!" isn't doing anything. In fact, the author was attempting to follow a best practice known as 'make the protagonist sympathetic'. This wasn't the writer being 'limitless and boundless' but instead someone trying to follow a 'rule' -- and they fumbled it.

Of course we feel bad if our lead loses her best friend, but that friend wasn't around long enough for me to care much about her. That's what made it cheap. Many a poorly written drama shows friends driving after some drinking and BOOM a car slams into them, almost killing them both. Not compelling. Just cheap melodrama.

Oh, and I'm sorry, but the very idea that ROSHOMAN killed traditional story writing is nonsense. There have only been thousands of good stories since utilizing the same best practices.

I just saw FLOW. Many people it was an 'entire new experience' in cinema, and in a sense that's partially true. But did it follow a list of best practices? ABSOLUTELY.

1. The story begins and ends with an almost identical image, but it has evolved.
2. The story features a lead character who actively tries to survive a calamity. This character doesn't just sit around and watch others try to survive.
3. The lead character has a form of a character act, learning precisely what to do when it sees deer running.
4. The lead has a near death experience but survives it before the story's end.
5. The story avoided flashbacks
6. The story took place in a time frame of a few weeks (different rules for TV here)
7. The story chose the correct lead

It goes on and on. All good stories follow as many best practices as they can, but then try twists on a few of them to make things interesting.

For anyone who is waiting for this show to happen: the two leads had two great supporting roles in THE TALE OF ROSE. Big recommend.

I see what you mean. You're saying let the flavor of 'strawberry' be 'strawberry'. That's fair. But I still believe there's something off about Crystal's character, or lack thereof. But again I respect her enough to cut her some slack.

The character I really like -- though she's done almost nothing yet -- is the shy writer girl who always seems distracted. Talk about real, lol