I'm on episode 25 and I'm losing my mind at how the drama is trying to get me to sympathise with Yi Qian??? Bitch gaslit an amnesiac into thinking he was in love with her when he had a child with another woman and I'm supposed to feel sorry for her when he finds out the truth and dumps her? COME ON! Every scene where she cries and justifies herself to Guang Xi to the tune of some dramatic music pushes me deeper into insanity. She stole six years of his life to play pretend with a guy who didn’t like her! I have no patience for any claims that there are two sides to this issue, or that it’s somehow morally complicated.
Also GX's anger is completely justified? I get that we're supposed to be in the off-the-rails-abusive-ML arc of the story, but all of his emotional responses seem completely understandable to me and it's the manipulative crybabies around him who are the real abusers?
Don't get me wrong, I'm loving this crazy ride. Just can't believe the drama is giving YQ (and Mu Cheng!) a pass here.
I like that instead of watering down the main romance with needless love triangle drama, this show has multiple secondary couples/romantic subplots. It's a much nicer way to fill up screentime!
I'm still on episode 16, but I feel like Lu Feng and the new female police officer may cross paths after Xia and Shu Wenbo figure things out between them and put LF's interest in Xia to rest.
I also like Dr Shao and Xing Keyao as the angsty, grown-up couple. Dr Shao is an interesting character in general.
Does anyone (Mandarin speakers who read Chinese news sources perhaps?) know if shooting has resumed and this drama is on track to air in August as scheduled?
I just watched "Hotaru no Hikari". There is also a love triangle there and again the FL does not choose the ML…
Exactly! I hate it when the leads don’t actively choose each other but only fall in together because other people have let them go, and if it takes them until the last ten minutes of the entire drama to get their shit together, well, by that point I just don’t care!
I want to believe, but it does not appear on the TV schedule for Feb 1 (click on the CALENDAR tab on top of the page and set the filter to Chinese dramas only to see for yourself), so I'm afraid the date is wrong.
Is the fl actually strong? Just asking cause I've been betrayed by the 'Strong Female Lead' tag way too many times…
Yes, she's a really unique character by the standards of Chinese romantic dramas. She's not childish or stupid or anything like that, and her characterisation remains consistent throughout the drama instead of starting off strong and devolving over time.
She's not portrayed as a paragon of traditional femininity, modesty and virtue. She has her flaws, and she can be petty and arrogant. She's not passive and she knows what she wants (in love and in life) and goes after it. I actually think it's a pretty subversive characterisation since a lot of her qualities are more typical of a villain in the historical romance genre. But she's vibrant and charismatic and her priorities are so clear and relatable--she cares about her family and her own happiness--that you can't help liking her.
Watching a drama with a main character like Ban Hua has made it even more difficult for me to get into more typical dramas with their cute sassy heroines who constantly misunderstand situations, cause misunderstandings by not speaking their minds, assume things unnecessarily and make bad decisions. I'm so tired of cute and sassy!
I'm getting kinda tired of the two leads trying to dodge endless marriage proposals from people they don't like while liking each other, being aware of each other's feelings & refusing to just get engaged publicly, which would solve all their problems! It's inconsistent behaviour--especially on Ban Hua's part, since she's been engaged like four times already and has never had trouble expressing her feelings before, yet when it comes to Rong Xia she's both reluctant to get engaged and incapable of making herself clear to e.g. Shi Jin and her grandmother--and it's clearly written this way for the sake of dragging out external conflicts. It's getting repetitive.
At least it looks like this stage of the story may be coming to an end soon, with Rong Xia's sudden heel turn/acceptance of the Xie family's alliance proposal. I think RX's internal conflict and the political situation he's entangling himself in are going to be the major obstacles to RX and BH's happiness for the rest of the series.
I prefer the political intrigue stuff to the marriage nonsense/chain of love triangles, but I really just want to see the main characters be cute with each other! That's all I want! I like their dynamic and I especially like Ban Hua as a female lead. She's not the usual childish, "clumsy," "sassy"/stupid female lead you see all too often in Chinese dramas and she doesn't jump to ridiculous conclusions that cause major misunderstandings or deny her feelings for the male lead. (She's just not very good at expressing them right now!) I really like her self-confidence and honesty. I hope she keeps kicking ass throughout the drama.
(And I really want to see a happy ending for our couple!)
A (kinda) MEDICAL ROMANCE drama about GROWNUPS and there's gonna be BETRAYAL and angst and Luo Yunxi's hot ass is the ML? When is this finally coming to an illegal streaming website near me because it's everything I've been waiting for since Surgeons ended??? They better release it in May for real or else!
Bo Ra is supposed to be a main lead ...the only vibe i get from her is ...it's everyone else fault and not my…
What's especially infuriating is that her parents are enabling Bora's behaviour by pretending that her getting her feefees hurt because a guy she wasn't even dating slept with someone else is just as important as Ahri's pregnancy.
When she asked them if they're really going to "allow" Ahri and Junsoo to marry, they should have pointed out the obvious fact that, even if Ahri betrayed her trust by sleeping with the guy Bora liked, a. that guy had already rejected her! he wasn't even cheating on her! they were not in a relationship! her sense of betrayal may be valid, but there's a limit to how far she can take it and how much others have to accommodate it when she had no real claim on Junsoo, and b. A BABY'S LIFE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN HER FEELINGS!!!
Forget the fact she's treating Ahri like a stranger instead of her sister; that Bora hasn't thought about the baby even once in the context of either judging Ahri's actions (she's going to be a mother! she has other priorities now besides Bora's ego!) or fantasising about getting together with Junsoo (he's going to have a baby with her sister! he's said he wants this baby! if Bora forces Ahri to have an abortion, does she really think Junsoo will just shrug it off and skip into her arms???) shows she has the emotional maturity and life experience of a high-school student.
But instead of saying any of this her parents just stood there looking stupid.
The reason I dislike this character so much really is that there's no one around her who is willing to tell her to get a grip.
If Daero had the guts to tell her these things it would have made their romance more interesting by forcing Bora to confront her flaws and hopefully grow as a person, introducing some tension between them and finally changing their unequal dynamic where Bora uses Daero's crush on her as an ego boost and looks down on him. But instead of stepping up and showing some spine/moral clarity, Daero continues to be a useless simp and just validates Bora's temper tantrums.
I'm afraid the writers are going to give Bora a reality check the hard way, by letting her spiral deep into obsessive second female lead territory and having her do something totally unforgivable to Ahri and Junsoo that will finally force her parents to reprimand her, which will in turn trigger a huge emotional crisis. It would have been better to just pick a character, Haeshim or Daero or whoever, and have them be real with Bora from the start.
This Sunae character is already annoying me. Now this is a female character conceived as a helpless child and someone who puts herself in dangerous situations that she needs saving from and who will be used to guilt-trip Yi-gyeom into doubting his feelings for Dain and to introduce misunderstandings/tension to their romantic subplot, which I will hate.
However, I disagree with people's criticisms of Dain's character. I've seen some people saying she's not badass enough or whatever, which is ridiculous. Do you think real damos were all martial arts experts? She has some self-defence training and uses it from time to time but isn't a fighter, which is fine. Her skills lie in spying and extracting information, which she's clearly good at, as episode 7 showed. She has initiative and smarts, so acting like she's a useless character and a burden to SIG is frankly misogynistic given how much more of a burden Chunsam was during their first mission with his idiotic behaviour (which I haven't seen mentioned anywhere).
Except it does say that the main character has to "hide his identity and live in poverty". This kind of makes…
Even if that happens, I assume the majority of the drama will take place outside the palace, which is already a step up from the endless palace intrigues with which other sageuks fill up screentime.
1 
Also GX's anger is completely justified? I get that we're supposed to be in the off-the-rails-abusive-ML arc of the story, but all of his emotional responses seem completely understandable to me and it's the manipulative crybabies around him who are the real abusers?
Don't get me wrong, I'm loving this crazy ride. Just can't believe the drama is giving YQ (and Mu Cheng!) a pass here.
I'm still on episode 16, but I feel like Lu Feng and the new female police officer may cross paths after Xia and Shu Wenbo figure things out between them and put LF's interest in Xia to rest.
I also like Dr Shao and Xing Keyao as the angsty, grown-up couple. Dr Shao is an interesting character in general.
I wish dramas wouldn’t use these tropes.
She's not portrayed as a paragon of traditional femininity, modesty and virtue. She has her flaws, and she can be petty and arrogant. She's not passive and she knows what she wants (in love and in life) and goes after it. I actually think it's a pretty subversive characterisation since a lot of her qualities are more typical of a villain in the historical romance genre. But she's vibrant and charismatic and her priorities are so clear and relatable--she cares about her family and her own happiness--that you can't help liking her.
Watching a drama with a main character like Ban Hua has made it even more difficult for me to get into more typical dramas with their cute sassy heroines who constantly misunderstand situations, cause misunderstandings by not speaking their minds, assume things unnecessarily and make bad decisions. I'm so tired of cute and sassy!
At least it looks like this stage of the story may be coming to an end soon, with Rong Xia's sudden heel turn/acceptance of the Xie family's alliance proposal. I think RX's internal conflict and the political situation he's entangling himself in are going to be the major obstacles to RX and BH's happiness for the rest of the series.
I prefer the political intrigue stuff to the marriage nonsense/chain of love triangles, but I really just want to see the main characters be cute with each other! That's all I want! I like their dynamic and I especially like Ban Hua as a female lead. She's not the usual childish, "clumsy," "sassy"/stupid female lead you see all too often in Chinese dramas and she doesn't jump to ridiculous conclusions that cause major misunderstandings or deny her feelings for the male lead. (She's just not very good at expressing them right now!) I really like her self-confidence and honesty. I hope she keeps kicking ass throughout the drama.
(And I really want to see a happy ending for our couple!)
When she asked them if they're really going to "allow" Ahri and Junsoo to marry, they should have pointed out the obvious fact that, even if Ahri betrayed her trust by sleeping with the guy Bora liked, a. that guy had already rejected her! he wasn't even cheating on her! they were not in a relationship! her sense of betrayal may be valid, but there's a limit to how far she can take it and how much others have to accommodate it when she had no real claim on Junsoo, and b. A BABY'S LIFE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN HER FEELINGS!!!
Forget the fact she's treating Ahri like a stranger instead of her sister; that Bora hasn't thought about the baby even once in the context of either judging Ahri's actions (she's going to be a mother! she has other priorities now besides Bora's ego!) or fantasising about getting together with Junsoo (he's going to have a baby with her sister! he's said he wants this baby! if Bora forces Ahri to have an abortion, does she really think Junsoo will just shrug it off and skip into her arms???) shows she has the emotional maturity and life experience of a high-school student.
But instead of saying any of this her parents just stood there looking stupid.
The reason I dislike this character so much really is that there's no one around her who is willing to tell her to get a grip.
If Daero had the guts to tell her these things it would have made their romance more interesting by forcing Bora to confront her flaws and hopefully grow as a person, introducing some tension between them and finally changing their unequal dynamic where Bora uses Daero's crush on her as an ego boost and looks down on him. But instead of stepping up and showing some spine/moral clarity, Daero continues to be a useless simp and just validates Bora's temper tantrums.
I'm afraid the writers are going to give Bora a reality check the hard way, by letting her spiral deep into obsessive second female lead territory and having her do something totally unforgivable to Ahri and Junsoo that will finally force her parents to reprimand her, which will in turn trigger a huge emotional crisis. It would have been better to just pick a character, Haeshim or Daero or whoever, and have them be real with Bora from the start.
However, I disagree with people's criticisms of Dain's character. I've seen some people saying she's not badass enough or whatever, which is ridiculous. Do you think real damos were all martial arts experts? She has some self-defence training and uses it from time to time but isn't a fighter, which is fine. Her skills lie in spying and extracting information, which she's clearly good at, as episode 7 showed. She has initiative and smarts, so acting like she's a useless character and a burden to SIG is frankly misogynistic given how much more of a burden Chunsam was during their first mission with his idiotic behaviour (which I haven't seen mentioned anywhere).