John Hart

Relentless video game

I'm a RUYI'S ROYAL LOVE IN THE PALACE fan and so Zhou Xun brought me here. I predicted she's be a bait and switch -- and she was -- but it was nice to see another RUYI actor in the lead.

To me this film felt like a video game staged for the big screen. The quest was a video game quest, the actions the stuff of video game players. It didn't feel like real people at all -- which great diminishes a work like this. The story was so busy with plot the characters were nearly irrelevant.

I fear this film is for younger generations who cannot stay awake if two characters speak quietly in a room. That said it is an impressive spectacle. But I had to pause it several times and go take a mental break. If you have a mild headache this piece will turn it into a migraine with 20 minutes.

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SUPERTRASH. (I'll try not to spoil too much)

I only watched this because of Xin Zhi Lei. My wife and I adore her. The producers of SUPERSTAR, unfortunately, seemed blissfully unaware that her best roles are where she plays strong women.

Here, in this train wreck, she plays a lonely hotel owner. A hotel where we never see her do any work. A hotel with no staff. And here's the best part: you'll never see ONE guest. And the writers didn't even bother to have her say, "Business is slow these days." Nope, nothing. You're just supposed to overlook this because LAZY.

The show is rated 13 and over, but a pathetic relentless flaw like this makes it really 10 and under. And that's an insult to many 10 year olds. And it's not just this mistake.

Our lead male -- Zhang Yi -- is treated like garbage by her. Yet this doesn't make her strong in the viewers eyes but instead a complete jerk. So she sits in her 'hotel' hoping this okay guy will fall in love with her, which is ridiculous because Xin Zhi Lei is one of the prettiest actresses on the planet. Her character should be fighting off constant advances from men (and women) but instead sits in her home cooking and sighing... waiting for her white knight.

Meanwhile our lead is presented with a real romantic prospect, a charming young lady who is head over heals for him. The audience loves her but she might as well be invisible to Yi who really remains only interested in Xin Zhi Lei because it says so in the script. And this fine young actor's worst scenes are with Xin Zhi Lei because neither can figure out why their characters would be interested in the other. It's THAT bad, trust me.

In Episode 1 we learn funny aliens from space have decided to rescue our hero and make him live a virtual life re-do. We don't really know why, though. Like if the aliens wanted to study mankind -- why a simulation? Why not just look down and observe with the tech they already have? And why not use alien 'tech' to manipulate the real players in real situations instead of nuking the dramatic tension with a simulation?!?

These aliens insist our hero achieve great fame to escape the simulation, but why do two aliens from across the galaxy care if this suicidal kid becomes famous in a simulation? And these aliens don't quite give us a way to know how close he's getting to his goal AND WORSE disappear from the story almost altogether.

So really, at the end of the day, this giant piece of trash is just an excuse to have some of the cast singing songs. Which could have been achieved with a simpler and far better premise. This isn't just the worst C-dramas I've ever seen -- this is one of the worst TV shows I've ever seen period. And I started seriously watching TV in 1974.

Sure, I could say the lead was doing a great job. Or that most of the cast is pretty good. But what's the point in a story that makes absolutely no sense. I wasn't feeling bad for our hero. I was instead numbed by the idiocy of the story.

Don't get me wrong. I can enjoy and was actually looking forward to light-hearted bubblegum. For that I recommend MAKE A WISH, also on iQiYi.

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ALMOST A MASTERPIECE

Outside of the story, absolutely everything about this production was top shelf stuff. Acting/casting, pacing, cinematography, score, editing, costumes, production design -- all perfect. I'm not going to wax poetic, just see for yourself.

The story was quite interesting. I give it an 8.5 because it only had two shortcomings --

1. In the second half, it started resorting to melodrama as a device. Shock and awe, as like to call it. It could have gone down a notch or so for this otherwise gentle toned film.

2. I'm not sure the ending quite nailed the landing. For a movie this subtle, the ending has to be perfect. It seemed like a happy ending was tacked on, or that they never had a satisfactory ending. The ending isn't bad. It's just not as perfect as the film.

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A Summer Romance Novel -- you will LIKE the story, LOVE the cast

My wife and I really enjoyed this series as a 'happy place' to visit twice a week. The sets and cinematography are gorgeous, the story arcs mostly gentle, and I guess what is the shortcoming of this story is really its strength: SPLENDOR is a place to chill.

The story focuses upon 3 (and eventually 4) (and eventually 5) female leads who light up the screen with their humanity. Although a fantasy depiction of women in historic patriarchy, enough of it rings true today. Female viewers will enjoy how strong ladies can but, but compassionate male viewers will swoon for their beauty as much as their predicaments.

Most of this cast were new to me. Only Jenny Lin & Guan Yun Peng were familiar, because we knew them from the director's next project, the must see and incredible IMPERFECT VICTIM. I had heard that people felt Jenny was weak in this piece, but I thought she was fine... especially since her character was weak anyway.

The lead couple were interesting. I've left the series a Crystal Liu fan for lead performance as Pan'er. This is an actress of gentle nuance, and the more you watch her the more you want to watch her. They paired her with new to me Chen Xiao, who was good but perhaps not as riveting as a Wallace Huo or Huang Xuan type which I feel the roll demanded. The roll was nicknamed The Living Devil, so really a more macho offering (like Yuan Hong, the General from REBEL PRINCESS who stole the Princess from her Kingdom). As AvenueX points out on YouTube, though, the leads chemistry was quite real.

On this issue of 'gentle'men, this female written/directed production did a lot of that. We had three men who were constantly swooning over the ladies. Chi the Whiny Child, Du Chang Feng the 'substitute' teacher terrified by bullying boys, and Chen Lian who simply melts at each moment of romance. Normally I'd kinda frown at this Wimp Squadron but it was crazy charming. And Chi was hilarious. So funny I suspect they started giving him extra scenes towards the end.

Our lead ladies? Sigh. They were all terrific. San'Niang definitely grows on you as we roll along, all the imperial supporting actresses were solid, but I must confess our ZhaoDi (Daisy Li) was fantastic and eventually under-used.

Don't overthink this series. Go in and relax and it wraps up like a lovely summer sunset.

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A Pile of China Can Do Stories INSTEAD OF One Compelling Feature

I was tricked by the description of this film. On this site it says, "It tells about the Chinese people's blood connection and spiritual inheritance." I knew it was four short films and presumed it was a generational story, meaning a character that was, say, a boy in the first film would be a man in the second one... and... perhaps that man's daughter would be a woman in the next film. A 'blood connection' that would have made these four films a coherent whole.

Instead what we get is a 'pile' of 4 stories, moving forward in time but really with no relation to each other. No, there's no 'spiritual inheritance' to speak of. It's simply 4 stories about what China CAN DO when they set their minds to things, and in this way is like a cultural victory walk.

I'd say the first two segments (war, space research) were excellent dramatic pieces. But the second two segments change to comedy and sort of silly sci-fi, which is a little jarring. It leaves the viewer with the feeling these four films were part of some contest and were never intended to be shown together.

I gave the overall story rating a 6 out of 10 for this reason. Please understand each individual story was better than that, say about an 8 on average. But the feeling these were all originally different projects just stapled together really hurts this otherwise well made, well acted and well intended film.

By the way -- Zhang Zi Yi stars in another film just like this, RUN FOR LOVE, except the theme tying it all together is love. It feels even more disjointed than this and I'm convinced it's simply some short films by graduate school students. Zhang's "So Long My Love" is rather excellent. Better than her segment 'Poem' in this film that is also rather amazing. I must confess I'd love Zhang to create another short or two and tie them all together as a Zhang Zi Yi collection of stories.

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THREE ERAS, ONE ERROR

Since this journey travels across time and is divided into three books, I'm going to review each 'book' as a I go.

REPUBLICAN ERA

I've seen a handful of these types of stories, and I can report with relief this isn't a bloody massacre of slayings and endless torture porn. Yes, there are some violent moments, but they're not exploited for cheap sensationalism.

This is really one of the best love stories I've seen in over 25 C-Dramas. I believe it's not as good as Crystal Liu and Wallace Huo in THE TALE OF ROSE, but it may be better than the leads of REBEL PRINCESS, and that was a killer love story.

The thing is the chemistry felt so real here between Jelly Lin and Ryan Cheng I wonder if... maybe... it was real for a reason. In fact it was so good I now understand why so many viewers were displeased by BOOKS 2 & 3 of this series. When you have this good a romance, you can't believe it ended in 11 episodes!

By the way, Jelly Lin is WHY I'm watching this series. Her roles in A DREAM OF SPLENDOR and IMPERFECT VICTIM made trying this show mandatory. She is TERRIFIC and has a very long long career in front of her, and I'm convinced she will be the heiress to Li Qin's roles when the time comes.

Liu Yijun turned in a quality performance as mob boss Zang. Instead of being a mean ruthless bastard (stereotype), he's actually remarkably understated and human. Sure, when push comes to shove, he erupts == but ironically he seems to be a man of peace.

I've seen the transition from this story the next now. I really wasn't ready to leave this story, but the times -- they are a changin'.

COMMUNISM ERA

In one sense I understand why viewer were disappointed with this era. Communism just ain't as sexy and stylish as the Republican era. But the real appeal of part one is the same appeal here: a truly great romance.

So anyone who trashes this segment still has a crush on the prior couple and neglected to move on AND/OR they have a bias against older actors and communism.

I'm here to assure you Segment Two is NOT a reason to drop this series.

The male lead Liu Yi Jun is as amazing as he is unrecognizable from his role in IMPERFECT VICTIM. People may have hated him so much in that role he begged for this one.

Tong Yao was hard to recognize from her role in RUYI'S ROYAL LOVE IN THE PALACE, because that series was a showcase of China's best female talent at that point. She's no mean girl here, and along with Liu Yi -- delivers a graceful understated performance. Their littlest looks will send romantic chills up and down your spine.

Great supporting actors here as well. Yang Yu Ting as the old bitch party leader, Zhang Ye Zi as our female lead's sister in law and childish watchdog, Zhang Rui Han as an apparently bi-polar troublemaker, and Hou Yan Song as the best friend who struggles to change with the communist times. His last moments on screen were a masterclass in nuance.

I must say there's some SERIOUS social commentary about how cruel and judgmental the Communist party can be. It's presented as a cult where party members can harshly judge you for even the mildest semblance of individuality. What really sucks is that young party types can tear into older citizens like they're filth, profoundly disrespecting their elders.

The series implies that when the working class was given the keys to rule the rich and educated, they lacked the proper skills to do so. Like making a 3rd grade student 'educate' their teacher.

I found it confusing how this series got by the censors, but have since learned as bad as they're showing things -- it's only the tip of the iceberg. Therefore, despite this series appearing to be objective, it's sugarcoating the real history and therefore is propaganda. It's like showing Nazis arguing with themselves in pubs but never mentioning the Death Camps.

I bluntly disagree with any reviewer that this segment is in any way a let down. The show clearly warns you it's about 3 different eras, not one, and this second story -- as different as it is from the first -- deserves just as much praise.

ROARING 90s

Of the three era's depicted, this was the error. Despite good intentions, I believe it was poorly conceived.

Like the last two segments, we have a romantic couple, which helps tie these three stories together. That and the fact FL Wang He Run is a relation to the families in these three stories. This is my first exposure to this actress, even though MDL claims I already know her from RUYI'S ROYAL LOVE IN THE PALACE, but it pains me to recall which character she played.

Anyway, she's quite good, and she reminds me of Crystal Lui but 8 years younger. I recently saw the ML Eric Le Yang in IN SPITE OF THE STRONG WIND, where he was rather quirky but entertaining. Here he's more geeky but just as much fun.

Both do a great job and offer a new coupling twist. Where the prior couples had cultural barriers preventing them from them from quickly becoming couples, here the problem is the couple themselves. They're not an obvious match of chemistry. These two strain the expression of opposites attracting.

But there's a message here about capitalism, one that resonated the same in THE YOUTH MEMORIES: big money makes good people do evil things. I know Westerners might scream 'Commie Propaganda!' but just one glance at America's President.

What goes wrong here is hard to pinpoint. My gut tells me that the fashion industry was the wrong industry choice. Or that using a tiny little company instead of a big one wasn't wise.

My other complaint is what I like to call WRITERS WRITING ABOUT WRITING. I've been a creative writer my entire life and observed other creative writers. The insecure writers insert a character into the story who is, themselves, a writer. They do this so that at the end of the story the struggling writer becomes famous and beloved. Like I said: INSECURE.

Our male lead is a teacher struggling with romance and career. That's fine. But towards the end of this segment it's revealed he's a writer, and not just a writer but a 'great' writer -- and the cemented this segment as a misfire and disappointment. Dear Wang Wan Ping -- the writing in your first two segments was extraordinary, never make this mistake again!!!

Apart from the actors and writing, this segment was clearly rushed and rather sloppy.

-- In Episode 25 at the 4:25 mark, PUSH PLAY and you'll see a woman in glasses leave the scene and TOTALLY bump into something offscreen and then stumble back into view. This was a flubbed take. Did they run out of time and money to re-shoot? It would be sad if that's a yup.

-- In Episode 26, around the 8:40 mark -- a fly circles the dinner table and our female lead swats at it from offscreen, another failed take. She wasn't supposed to do that because she wasn't on camera.

-- There was a moment where our ML lead leaves something by a door on the floor, he knocks on that door, and runs off. Our FL opens the door and is already looking down instead of out. Normal people first look out at who might have knocked, not down at what possible package was left. My name for this is a CHARACTER READ THE SCRIPT violation. A failed take.

The series ending was rushed as well. We needed the Aunt from the previous story to ties things together better. To speak to our FL and share the perspective of generations. Although a family heirloom re-appears again, it failed at tying everything together in a powerful way. This writer needs to see THE LAST EMPEROR and learn how to plant and pay off a prop more dramatically at story's end. This story had that chance and completely blew it.

Also, I think it would have been very cool if some of the dialog in this home was echoed over the three different generations. Suppose each female lead asked each male lead, "What do you think of this dress?" and she spun around -- IN THE EXACT SAME SPOT as all the other female leads? What if each male lead walked up to the same window and made the exact same statement like, "There must be a better way."

Such moments would have tied these stories tightly together and whispered to us, "The more things change, the more they remain the same." I think THAT message is what this series meant to say, but if it did -- it was barely a whisper.

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I knew DREAM was garbage but had to be fair and give it a try...

So I noticed here and on Reddit this series was so RAVED about I could smell the social media campaign from a mile away. I knew it was yet another one of those shows that's mostly hype and little else.

I've only watched the pilot. Episode One. But before you roll your eyes and tell me "it starts slow" or "that's not a fair way to judge a show" you have to remember what a pilot of a TV show is supposed to do: make you watch the next episode at least, and consider watching the entire series at best. The pilot failed on both fronts.

By the way, I recognize no one in this cast, and so I'm not bringing 'Idol' worship to this series. Seeing it objectively. The lead lady is definitely cute, the male lead is little pointy looking.

1. I'm getting up in years and I find these days that when something is childish and suspect, the trick to make it 'okay' is to simply give it a name.

Halloween is supposed to end around puberty. But now it's okay for adults to show up as Pokemon at Comic-Con because it's 'cosplay'. See? Just giving it a name erases the childishness of it all. "I'm giving my inner child a night out!"

Maybe. Or maybe you need to grow up a little more.

I know, I know, I sound like some grumpy old man telling kids to get off my lawn. I hear you. I don't mind childish fun. I fully enjoyed MAKE A WISH which was basically a feline rewrite of I DREAM OF JEANNIE. It wasn't perfect, but so much fun.

Anyway --

A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM is about an actress who falls into her TV show screenplay and becomes her character in a sense. That is she's aware she doesn't belong in the story she's in. And this one fact ruins all dramatic tension. Not an opinion, but fact.

WIZARD OF OZ wouldn't have worked if Dorothy was aware she was dreaming. GROUNDHOG'S DAY wouldn't have worked if we knew his character was in a screenplay.

So how can DREAM WITHIN A DREAM exist and be so popular? Because this kind of series has a name, don't you know? TRANSMIGRATION. See, that makes everything better, doesn't it?

No. It doesn't. Sorry. The real name for this genre is BAD WRITING.

2. Thanks to suffering thru JOY OF LIFE and MEET YOURSELF, I now give every series a litmus test now before I proceed past episode one. This series left a sourer taste in every way.

a. Are the opening titles and songs engaging or generic? Both the animation and the song were nothing special, leaving me disinterested. That's fair, right? If I see care and love put into such a sequence, it tells me the show has been carefully crafted.

b. Does the show deploy CRASH ZOOMS with 'wooshing' sounds or feel like a video game? Yup.

c. Do we have cutey cartoon sound effects to indicate humor, like a laugh track? Yup.

OZ had a great opening, followed by a song soon after the opening that is one of the best songs on the planet. OZ had no CRASH ZOOMS, no cartoon sound effects.

3. I appreciate that this series wants to be funny. I'm not opposed to the idea. But better writing suggests the following. Keep our lead in her world, make the world real, and have her fight for what she wants.

Suppose she had a Mom or a Grandmother giving her advice on how to deal with the male lead. 'Modern' advice, right? Kinda like a hyper feminist in ancient times. And the girl struggles to do what she says because it sounds like sage advice. But the girl ends up worse for following the advice, but then the world resets itself each day and only the girl remembers this, a la GROUNDHOGS DAY.

No screenplay. No present. No stupid TRANSMIGRATION excuse. Make it real, and that of course means a lovely opening song instead of pop drivel, no Crash Zooms, and no cartoon sound effects.

To overlook all this is YOUR choice.

But why this harsh review is here is that I don't think the young even understand what TV is any longer. I think they've spent so much time gaming or watching sped up TikTok super short vids that the very idea of actually watching a show with proper pacing is completely foreign. That attention spans aren't just shorter but outright GONE.

Don't believe me? There's a review one or two above mine about how someone felt the show started great but then got bland and they dropped it. That's my definition of 'crap' -- so bad you can't keep watching it. But then they skipped a bunch of episodes, came back -- and really liked it. If you can skip ten episodes of a show, it should have never been offered that way.

Real criticism is recognizing crap when you see it and telling others -- it's crap!

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