Honestly personally I find the pace pretty slow... I know the last arc is pretty rushed, but I'm currently in…
I wouldn't say the story is not engaging... Just that to me it feels slow and I felt like that since the first episode so my take is if you felt it was slow at the beginning... Well you're probably going to feel the same during the whole series.
This being said as (rudely) expressed above, that might be just me. Others obviously feel differently.
Brother what are you talking about? This is the most fast paced drama(c-drama especially) I have ever watched.…
You know MDL is a site where you can't make your list private, so you can just check out my list and make your own judgement.
You can disagree with my comment but whether you or the person above are both pretty agressive. There are less agressive and better ways to express your disagreement without resorting to personal comments. Just sayin'...
when does it pick pace?? currently at ep 4 and losing interest. send help
Honestly personally I find the pace pretty slow... I know the last arc is pretty rushed, but I'm currently in the 2nd one (episode 23) and the story still feel slow paced. It doesn't bother me... and maybe that's just my personal opinion, but although I don't like this show as much as the majority, I like that they're taking their time to really develop the relationship between the two mains. I'd say it's one of the appeal...
This being said at some point, the plot takes center stage but I can't remember exactly when it happened... Maybe around episode 12... Then it slows down again to focus on the main characters...
But even in the parts where it's more "angst focused" I still feel it's slow... Or maybe that's just me.
Need spoiler. I am starting the second arc : 1. Will the female led recover memory and when?2. How many episodes…
I was just about to ask the same question. Only episode 24 is available on Viki. God knows when we'll finally reach the episode you asked about.
I'm SO ANNOOOOOOOYED. I thought she would be in that state for 1 or 2 episodes but my GOD IT'S LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG.
I feel so much for the ML.
You know there are some shows where you have villains that you love to hate... But in this one, I just HATE all of them.
They're just power greedy and their downfall is of their own making and yet they keep blaming the ML for basically just giving back what he received. So it makes it very difficult to feel anything else for them but DEEP ANNOYANCE.
That's to me of the biggest flaw of the show. I wish they had other VALID motivations for being so evil in the first place... like some form of traumatic past or whatever but nope. They're just selfish b*** driven by their own selfish desire and they don't care about how many people they hurt along the way.
Every single time they appear, I want to break my screen.
There's a couple of major caveats which is they don't tell us what becomes of the original Shen Qin who is now in the body of Shi Qi's older sister.
The girl's been imprisoned literally for over 10 years, her life stolen, can't go back to being the daughter of the Prime Minister, yet the drama doesn't care to explain what happens after she got out apart from showing her throwing tantrums.
The show doesn't explain who is mummy guy either. He's the dude who swaped faces and he thanked the fake Shen Qin so there must be some form of deal there, or he's some sort of special being with some special powers, yet we only see that he's been stabbed without any explanation of who he was in the first place, how he met the fake Shen Qin and so on...
Finally, I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about the older sister. I have absolutely NO empathy for her, given what she's done yet, the show wants us to be happy about Shi Qi's final hallucination of her sister being happily with Prince Ning who NEVER gave a shit about her. Talk about a toxic couple. Can't really understand her character, can't relate, can't empathize.
I had some empathy for her at the beginning in spite of her terrible actions but I ended up having more empathy for the sleazeball of Prince Ning than her. Must be terrible to have some saseng fan clinging to you that way...
Anyway for all these reasons, that's an 8.5 and won't be more.
I think it lacked at least 1 episode of 20 to 30 minutes ( based on Viki's 8 episodes release) to properly explain everything even in a somewhat very rushed way given the format.
I don't know how it fares compared to other WEB dramas though but personally I was pleasantly surprised.
I understand you have your tastes and preferences, and the offerings during these summer months is probably frustrating,…
That's not what she's saying. There's a downhill trend there. Not all are bad, but a lot are.
Among the list you mentioned I watched a couple included Haunted Palace and Head Over Heels and both were mid imho.
Also mentioning "amazing drama" by Disney + is really interesting because it just goes to show, people who have come to K dramas later are not necessarily aware of how much the industry has changed over the past 20 years.
I haven't watched Light Shop but Moving, A Shop for Killers and Judge from Hell all featured amount of graphic violence that was just not part of K dramas before.
You'd only see that in K movies. When I started to watch them 20 years ago, there were thrillers sure, but even in a scene featuring a guy threatening another with a knife, the knife would be blurred. The only really violent one I can remember was the drama Voice, but that one actually came out on OCN , a now dead channel, absorbed by tvN if I'm not mistaken, which used to specialized in gritty thrillers, WAY later in 2017. They were literally selling the fact that they were making 19+ shows... (which also explained why they tanked on the long run, in my opinion but I digress)
Yet, now we're supposed to swallow the same amount of graphic violence that western shows have when what drove lots of us to K dramas was the fact that there was less sex, nudity and graphic violence than in Western shows.
Aema which features sex scenes is another example of the Americanization of K dramas. There used to be a time when nudity or sex were suggested, good directing and good storytelling let the viewers know what happened without resorting to graphic scenes for shock value.
Resorting to graphic violence, sex or nudity is a stapple of lazy Western slop that literally mentally attack viewers for shock value instead of creating emotions organically through proper storytelling. And that's not talking about how people become just numb and desensitized to violence in general.
That's not to say everything is bad, but LOTS of them have become mid. It's the same slop after slop with the occasional great, just like in Western media. Sometimes you get something that is truly amazing, but then the show takes a nose dive near the end, or they choose to milk the cow until the last drop of milk with additional useless seasons: See Squid Game, Sweet Home, or Hellbound.
Multi seasons shows are increasingly being introduced... First create a great season to get people hooked and then add some additional seasons to keep your audience paying the subscription until they will inevitably drop it because they ultimately are gonna get tired of their characters going round in circles and the plot going nowhere.
Everything looks good, but their stories feel flat. It's not great, not bad, just stuck in the middle... and if the audience doesn't complain about it, well I guess that's what we all deserve. I'm personally just not gonna bother anymore.
Again, that's not to say that there's not some great shows out there, but overall K dramas are going downhill and personally I'm tired of filtering the slop from the great. We all don't have that much free time to accept to waste it on drama slop. When I FINALLY stumble upon a show that looks very interesting, for instance... Moving? WELL What do I get? A guy having his eyeball taken out.
Because OF COURSE this series needed all that violence to be good. They couldn't do without because that's the type of disgusting slop Western audience have been fed for the past 30 years and since South Korea wants to seduce that audience, instead of catering to THEIR audience, that's what they're now selling us.
It's not a shelved drama. It was after his success of A Journey to You. This was filmed not that long ago. There…
I stand corrected. I know neither Liu Yi Jun nor Tong Yao. Surprised that Cheng Lei didn't get a lead role immediately after My Journey to You, but I guess since C drama actors always have 100 upcoming dramas lined up, he must have signed for it before filming MJTY.
Seems to me like this one's been shelved for a while and since Cheng Lei is in it ( CHENG LEIIIIIIIIIIIIII) and he's all the rage now, they've finally decided to release it...
But he's obviously not the ML based on the trailer...
The genre is SO not my jam...
But whatever, Cheng Lei's in it. My Cheng Lei's obsessed self is going to watch it with an open mind.
Mo Li is not coming out any time soon, so gotta watch anything he stars in, waiting for him to grace my eyes with Queen Bai Lu.
So I have no time at present to start Shadow of Love and I needed my Cheng Lei dose.
First time watching a web drama. Honestly since most of them are really short, I never bothered since to me it screams "low budget" and "not worth my time".
BUT What can I do? I've been a sucker for this actor since "My Journey to You" and since everybody was saying good words about that one I started it.
Well, this is... surprisingly VERY GOOD. For such a small series the directing is sleek and the actors are great. Watched the 8 episodes Viki version. The story is really addictive... Would have been interesting to have a longer version of it...
Cheng Lei is smiling a lot... I enjoyed this younger dorky version of him but I do prefer when he's all serious and brooding... Still, as usual he stole the show every time he was onscreen.
It's time travel, which is banned in China. So there's always a last minute "censorship ending", which…
Well err... It's a bit too "above my tolerance level"... I think I'll never be in the right mindset then. Hopefully they'll do another drama together.🙄
I agree with most of your comment but I do disagree regarding the C dramas overall.Basically it depends on what…
I think it has more to do with which dramas you've already watched. I stayed away from them for years because the few I'd tried to watch were either ending in tragedy or just weren't for me... But one day I stumbled upon Love Between Fairy and Devil and for me that was the game changer.
I haven't watched that many pure historicals ( I watch costume dramas but my favorite genre is fantasy) so far so my only recommendation would "Love like the Galaxy" as of now. I've watched others lots of people loved but which didn't resonate with me as much. Honestly this discussion is reminiscent of another... I must have answered you on the same topic a while ago.
I'm also currently watching "The Double"... I'm watching many series at the same time at present so it's been a while I haven't been back to it but this is the most amazing drama I've seen in like forever. Very intense. Which is why I can't binge it... But it's not a light comedy.
I've heard lots of good word regarding The Long Balad which will probably be my next stop.
Anyway I'm sure you can easily find a costume drama you'd like because they really tackle all genres with beautiful cinematography and costumes on top.
It's time travel, which is banned in China. So there's always a last minute "censorship ending", which…
Well as I've spoiled myself the end...
SPOILER:
It's not that they don't get together. Basically Xue Jiao wakes up in the hospital, goes to the company she quit and see Zhi Hua. She learns that he just basically quit his job and she catches up to him in the elevator which shakes. By the power of C drama, she catches his hand in order to not fall but just as she is about to let go, he squeezes her hand and holds firm, and they look at each other.
So he remembers the dream and she remembers as well. SO I guess the show is telling us that ok, it was all a dream BUT now that they both remember it, they're gonna be able to make smarter choices for the next 10 years and turn things around.
The only issue is that, they haven't lived through 2024 to 2034 so I guess turning everything around is impossible, but they're sure going to try. Also the ex is a good for nothing and is probably not gonna change his ways, which is probably the only satisfying thing in this mess given the ML's best friend is not magically revived. He's 6ft under. Fortunately we didn't spend that much time with him to get too attached.
Still a shitty ending. Basically it's relatively OK-ish on the romance front but both main characters have lost their status, company, and all of their achievements of the past 10 years which is REALLY frustrating especially since the drama is all about how they basically made something of themselves.
I still argue the show is cute (though the kisses suck) and worth your time. Just forget the last 10 minutes.
If you're prepared mentally, I think it's an easier pill to swallow... At least that's how I see it. I still have 3 episodes left given how slow Viki has been with this show, but since I already know what to expect, I'm not too angry about it... contrary to people who got "pleasantly surprised" 2 weeks ago.
anythng that disney touches turns into total bs trash meaningless soapy thing So many of us escaped from the western…
I agree with most of your comment but I do disagree regarding the C dramas overall.
Basically it depends on what you're watching.
If you're watching a Historical or anything Fantasy related, the Chinese are the best. There's just no competition with SK. Never was.
The biggest issue is when we deal with Modern dramas which tackle real Societal problems. Chinese censorship just prevents any form of deep societal criticism. It's not in China that you're gonna have a movie like Silenced, which literally led to changing laws.
That also explains in my opinion, why China produces so many Romance, which are basically mostly safe, censorship wise, and way less dramas set in Modern times. Of course there's also the very strong anti-Japanese propaganda that is honestly very jarring.
Hopefully, SK realizes their industry is going down the drain before it's too late.
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It's only been 3 years I've been really into C dramas and I still watch shows from other countries, so my list of C dramas is still pretty short.
This being said as (rudely) expressed above, that might be just me. Others obviously feel differently.
You can disagree with my comment but whether you or the person above are both pretty agressive. There are less agressive and better ways to express your disagreement without resorting to personal comments. Just sayin'...
It doesn't bother me... and maybe that's just my personal opinion, but although I don't like this show as much as the majority, I like that they're taking their time to really develop the relationship between the two mains.
I'd say it's one of the appeal...
This being said at some point, the plot takes center stage but I can't remember exactly when it happened... Maybe around episode 12... Then it slows down again to focus on the main characters...
But even in the parts where it's more "angst focused" I still feel it's slow... Or maybe that's just me.
I'm SO ANNOOOOOOOYED. I thought she would be in that state for 1 or 2 episodes but my GOD IT'S LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG.
I feel so much for the ML.
You know there are some shows where you have villains that you love to hate... But in this one, I just HATE all of them.
They're just power greedy and their downfall is of their own making and yet they keep blaming the ML for basically just giving back what he received. So it makes it very difficult to feel anything else for them but DEEP ANNOYANCE.
That's to me of the biggest flaw of the show. I wish they had other VALID motivations for being so evil in the first place... like some form of traumatic past or whatever but nope. They're just selfish b*** driven by their own selfish desire and they don't care about how many people they hurt along the way.
Every single time they appear, I want to break my screen.
Worst haircut EVER. If it was just for a couple of episodes... Ok sure, but the whole drama?
Makes my eyes bleed.
The girl's been imprisoned literally for over 10 years, her life stolen, can't go back to being the daughter of the Prime Minister, yet the drama doesn't care to explain what happens after she got out apart from showing her throwing tantrums.
The show doesn't explain who is mummy guy either. He's the dude who swaped faces and he thanked the fake Shen Qin so there must be some form of deal there, or he's some sort of special being with some special powers, yet we only see that he's been stabbed without any explanation of who he was in the first place, how he met the fake Shen Qin and so on...
Finally, I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about the older sister. I have absolutely NO empathy for her, given what she's done yet, the show wants us to be happy about Shi Qi's final hallucination of her sister being happily with Prince Ning who NEVER gave a shit about her. Talk about a toxic couple. Can't really understand her character, can't relate, can't empathize.
I had some empathy for her at the beginning in spite of her terrible actions but I ended up having more empathy for the sleazeball of Prince Ning than her.
Must be terrible to have some saseng fan clinging to you that way...
Anyway for all these reasons, that's an 8.5 and won't be more.
I think it lacked at least 1 episode of 20 to 30 minutes ( based on Viki's 8 episodes release) to properly explain everything even in a somewhat very rushed way given the format.
I don't know how it fares compared to other WEB dramas though but personally I was pleasantly surprised.
Among the list you mentioned I watched a couple included Haunted Palace and Head Over Heels and both were mid imho.
Also mentioning "amazing drama" by Disney + is really interesting because it just goes to show, people who have come to K dramas later are not necessarily aware of how much the industry has changed over the past 20 years.
I haven't watched Light Shop but Moving, A Shop for Killers and Judge from Hell all featured amount of graphic violence that was just not part of K dramas before.
You'd only see that in K movies. When I started to watch them 20 years ago, there were thrillers sure, but even in a scene featuring a guy threatening another with a knife, the knife would be blurred. The only really violent one I can remember was the drama Voice, but that one actually came out on OCN , a now dead channel, absorbed by tvN if I'm not mistaken, which used to specialized in gritty thrillers, WAY later in 2017. They were literally selling the fact that they were making 19+ shows... (which also explained why they tanked on the long run, in my opinion but I digress)
Yet, now we're supposed to swallow the same amount of graphic violence that western shows have when what drove lots of us to K dramas was the fact that there was less sex, nudity and graphic violence than in Western shows.
Aema which features sex scenes is another example of the Americanization of K dramas. There used to be a time when nudity or sex were suggested, good directing and good storytelling let the viewers know what happened without resorting to graphic scenes for shock value.
Resorting to graphic violence, sex or nudity is a stapple of lazy Western slop that literally mentally attack viewers for shock value instead of creating emotions organically through proper storytelling.
And that's not talking about how people become just numb and desensitized to violence in general.
That's not to say everything is bad, but LOTS of them have become mid. It's the same slop after slop with the occasional great, just like in Western media. Sometimes you get something that is truly amazing, but then the show takes a nose dive near the end, or they choose to milk the cow until the last drop of milk with additional useless seasons: See Squid Game, Sweet Home, or Hellbound.
Multi seasons shows are increasingly being introduced... First create a great season to get people hooked and then add some additional seasons to keep your audience paying the subscription until they will inevitably drop it because they ultimately are gonna get tired of their characters going round in circles and the plot going nowhere.
Everything looks good, but their stories feel flat. It's not great, not bad, just stuck in the middle... and if the audience doesn't complain about it, well I guess that's what we all deserve. I'm personally just not gonna bother anymore.
Again, that's not to say that there's not some great shows out there, but overall K dramas are going downhill and personally I'm tired of filtering the slop from the great. We all don't have that much free time to accept to waste it on drama slop. When I FINALLY stumble upon a show that looks very interesting, for instance... Moving? WELL What do I get? A guy having his eyeball taken out.
Because OF COURSE this series needed all that violence to be good. They couldn't do without because that's the type of disgusting slop Western audience have been fed for the past 30 years and since South Korea wants to seduce that audience, instead of catering to THEIR audience, that's what they're now selling us.
Surprised that Cheng Lei didn't get a lead role immediately after My Journey to You, but I guess since C drama actors always have 100 upcoming dramas lined up, he must have signed for it before filming MJTY.
Seems to me like this one's been shelved for a while and since Cheng Lei is in it ( CHENG LEIIIIIIIIIIIIII) and he's all the rage now, they've finally decided to release it...
But he's obviously not the ML based on the trailer...
The genre is SO not my jam...
But whatever, Cheng Lei's in it. My Cheng Lei's obsessed self is going to watch it with an open mind.
Mo Li is not coming out any time soon, so gotta watch anything he stars in, waiting for him to grace my eyes with Queen Bai Lu.
First time watching a web drama. Honestly since most of them are really short, I never bothered since to me it screams "low budget" and "not worth my time".
BUT What can I do? I've been a sucker for this actor since "My Journey to You" and since everybody was saying good words about that one I started it.
Well, this is... surprisingly VERY GOOD. For such a small series the directing is sleek and the actors are great. Watched the 8 episodes Viki version.
The story is really addictive... Would have been interesting to have a longer version of it...
Cheng Lei is smiling a lot... I enjoyed this younger dorky version of him but I do prefer when he's all serious and brooding... Still, as usual he stole the show every time he was onscreen.
Yeah I'm biased but who wouldn't be?
Hopefully they'll do another drama together.🙄
I haven't watched that many pure historicals ( I watch costume dramas but my favorite genre is fantasy) so far so my only recommendation would "Love like the Galaxy" as of now. I've watched others lots of people loved but which didn't resonate with me as much. Honestly this discussion is reminiscent of another... I must have answered you on the same topic a while ago.
I'm also currently watching "The Double"... I'm watching many series at the same time at present so it's been a while I haven't been back to it but this is the most amazing drama I've seen in like forever. Very intense. Which is why I can't binge it... But it's not a light comedy.
I've heard lots of good word regarding The Long Balad which will probably be my next stop.
Anyway I'm sure you can easily find a costume drama you'd like because they really tackle all genres with beautiful cinematography and costumes on top.
Just check that list: https://kisskh.at/list/3EEVm9b3
and check out whichever C dramas are at the top of the list. MDL is also made for that.
I did ask about a detailed answer on the show's page 2 days ago but nobody has answered yet...
If you could tell me in details what this terrible ending is about, I'll be really grateful ^^
Thank you in advance!
SPOILER:
It's not that they don't get together. Basically Xue Jiao wakes up in the hospital, goes to the company she quit and see Zhi Hua. She learns that he just basically quit his job and she catches up to him in the elevator which shakes. By the power of C drama, she catches his hand in order to not fall but just as she is about to let go, he squeezes her hand and holds firm, and they look at each other.
So he remembers the dream and she remembers as well. SO I guess the show is telling us that ok, it was all a dream BUT now that they both remember it, they're gonna be able to make smarter choices for the next 10 years and turn things around.
The only issue is that, they haven't lived through 2024 to 2034 so I guess turning everything around is impossible, but they're sure going to try. Also the ex is a good for nothing and is probably not gonna change his ways, which is probably the only satisfying thing in this mess given the ML's best friend is not magically revived. He's 6ft under. Fortunately we didn't spend that much time with him to get too attached.
Still a shitty ending. Basically it's relatively OK-ish on the romance front but both main characters have lost their status, company, and all of their achievements of the past 10 years which is REALLY frustrating especially since the drama is all about how they basically made something of themselves.
I still argue the show is cute (though the kisses suck) and worth your time. Just forget the last 10 minutes.
If you're prepared mentally, I think it's an easier pill to swallow... At least that's how I see it. I still have 3 episodes left given how slow Viki has been with this show, but since I already know what to expect, I'm not too angry about it... contrary to people who got "pleasantly surprised" 2 weeks ago.
Basically it depends on what you're watching.
If you're watching a Historical or anything Fantasy related, the Chinese are the best. There's just no competition with SK. Never was.
The biggest issue is when we deal with Modern dramas which tackle real Societal problems. Chinese censorship just prevents any form of deep societal criticism. It's not in China that you're gonna have a movie like Silenced, which literally led to changing laws.
That also explains in my opinion, why China produces so many Romance, which are basically mostly safe, censorship wise, and way less dramas set in Modern times. Of course there's also the very strong anti-Japanese propaganda that is honestly very jarring.
Hopefully, SK realizes their industry is going down the drain before it's too late.