Rampie

LLTG FL is not strong at all or very bright, more like annoying and naive. Too trusting even until the end, always causing problem and needs ML to save her from distress multiple times during the whole story. She's selfish and immature too. The best female character in that drama is actually Consort Yue...

It's just 10 years real age gap; it's actually pretty common if it's just 10 years age gap, I've known some couples irl. Not every girls like young pretty boys, some are into older men.

I dropped My sassy princess I couldn't stand the FL she's really annoying.

This thing is so hilarious lol. Fun and relaxing to watch.

MDL ratings is biased against the more light-hearted shows with simpler plot; sitcoms, slapstick comedies, satire, and those where comedy is the main tag will have lower average rating. In fact I would argue that the only "genre" that hurts rating more here than those tags is "modern political drama" because the pro-CPC messaging there offends most foreign viewers.

The viewers here favors dramatic heavy plot ones with a lot of emotional ups and downs. Things like good romance scenes, chemistry, and ML played by popular male actors are the main driver for high rating here... as for tags, the tags that increase rating the most are steamy kiss and feminism, those dramas with those tags are always rated higher than they should be.

Exactly. I love these dramas with few stress factors, also watched uncanny destiny. Is there any other dramas like these? I feel like most of them are too stressful with annoying misunderstandings, depressions/tragedy, and/or very evil villains coupled with helpless protags.

SoML is soo boring it's very hard not to drop. Has romance tag and all that but it expect me to watch boring a dozen or so of episodes where the ML and FL are literally toddlers lmao. Luckily other dramas have ML and FL starting as adults in episode 1 rather than little kids.

Dramas where every couple naturally only ever get drawn to their partner without any sort of love triangle/love rivals are the best imo. Love triangles are annoying, even more so if one of them is scheming/plotting things.

I mean age gap should not be an issue if both parties are serious about their monogamous "real love" relationship.

It's much much better than no age gap but keeping mistresses or cheating, or worse, players who are just playing around tasting everything and never being serious. Healthy relationship is always better than anything that is less healthy.

In the drama "Crush," ML's stepmom is his friend (same age), and he resented her only because she married ML's dad, but she is actually a good character so it's pretty unreasonable for him to do that imo.

Yeah he is nondescript that's the thing! He's probably too big name to play as eunuch.

Well, Meng Dehai only got suspended from the party for a year I think? Not even jail time, it's not bad. Yang Jian is a great in-law though, he even massaged his paralyzed mother in law, and the way he felt insecure was relatable imo.

The thing was that Yang Jian was poor, he was a good cop who's not going anywhere because he didn't have the right guanxi (connection), then Gao tempted him with a wad of cash and ofc he got tempted. Like I mean the Meng family is not rich either because Dehai is clean, you can see that he needed the money to raise their living standard. He can't even afford to buy a house and still live with his in-law in that small cramped house lol. Not to mention he needed to support his elderly mom as well.

Their situation is a real problem that actually needs to be addressed. We have clean officials not going anywhere and living at middle class level. Meanwhile the businessmen and private sectors are wealthy and can afford luxuries that they can't.

Society is unfair, Gao Qiqiang felt it too, he was bullied when he was powerless and poor. Harmless law-abiding people (such as Gao when he was still a fishmonger) should be protected, but instead he got screwed by the dirty system, so it's not really a surprise when he stand up and play the dirty game himself. But actually he was a good-natured man, the way he treat his siblings was the peak ideal older brother role. Heck, he even play house with an old widow who come with a kid and a daughter from a man he killed basically, and still go crazy over them.

In most other dramas, I usually hate the villains and glad when they got punished in the end. But this drama make me sympathize a lot with the villains, some of the moments were really emotional; the last farewell scene between Yang Jian and Meng Yu was so touching, while Gao and Huang Yao final moments was peak tragedy I can't help but shed tears. Huang Yao is basically the most tragic character, since she participated in the dirty accounting as an intern she won't get away completely, and she is left with no one at all in the end (in China where guanxi and criminal record is everything, she's basically screwed). All the money/assets she has would be seized as well because it's all dirty money from Gao, and she is left with no career unlike Meng Yu or Qilan who have a job.

> really should have called the "scheming matriarchs' - man all those mothers, concubines and their maidservants were the worst!
Dont get me wrong - this is one of the better period romance dramas - but man you can just feel the misogyny and internalized misogyny from that time and its hard to watch sometimes.

This is quite common in period dramas. Meanwhile I just came from watching a modern drama (The Knockout) where all the females are "good" and all the male villains (hardcore criminals) treat their daughter, wife, sister, mum, mother in law, etc like queen. It's so funny watching all the male members of families going to jail/get executed/die while the females survive unscathed, even though obviously they also benefited from the misdeeds/crimes committed by the males around them.

Mysogyny and polygamy might be rampant in ancient times, daughters treated like goods to make alliances, etc, but in modern "political" drama, the cliche goes the other way around with men being afraid of their wives, willing to die/do anything for daughter, etc.

His face looks like a generic ordinary police in China... maybe it's why the Chinese audience find it relatable.

The thing is what other roles do you expect him to play? He definitely does not fit the ML role in romance dramas which are played by pretty boys, and he also doesn't have a badass face to play villains. Also by this point it's hard to imagine that the character he plays isn't a detective or a policeman, lol.

Another thing I want to say about An Xin is, he literally abandon his love/romance, which I presume for her safety and because he thinks she deserve a better man/life that he can give her. It's pretty ridiculous and unrealistic... who the hell does that.

Actually there are a lot of good guys in the show, like all those unnamed extras in the background roaming the street. Just like irl most of these middle class people are generally good. But the named character are either those in the bureaucracy, or wealthy and powerful, or the hooligans/thugs/criminals, of course most of those type of people are "bad," just like irl powerful people in the politics/business world are mostly corrupt. It's realistic, if most rich/powerful people are good, they would never be rich/powerful in the first place, truly good natured people are stuck in the bottom of the social ladder because human society reward selfish acts.

There is a lot of people like Zhang Biao. If they are in different situation they would be a normal law abiding citizen, but when put in his situation what he did is the most logical one that 9 out of 10 people would do the same. In the end it's all about protecting yourself and your family, most people don't have the guts to go against the flow.

Watched it already, you can check my list :)

Yeah, Gao Qi Qiang is a much more realistic and interesting character. But even when it comes to the cops, An Xin's colleagues are all way more realistic, most people would find Li Xiang more relatable for example. Either way irl, stubborn and inflexible people like An Xin is a huge pain in the ass tbh, like they would make a terrible person to be around with regardless of his "virtue." Like imagine having a dad or husband like him, it would be a misfortune, even supervillain like Xu Jiang would be a better dad because at least he would do anything for his son.

An Xin also does straight up idiotic things, that are not even related to administering justice or doing the right thing, like for example when he jump down without rope during the exercise to risk his life for what reason? Ended up shooting the hostage it was so dumb. It's like he's way too arrogant and want to show off as a hero or something, it's really annoying af.

An Xin character is so unrealistic. Way too suicidal and lack self-interest. Dude's basically had a silver spoon handed to him on a platter from early on, he could've easily just cruise through life, backed by his powerful dad and father in law, date and marry his pretty gf, and have a genius mob boss in the underworld as connection. Could've just play it safe and make money easily with his connection and enjoy an easy life at the top of Jinghai food chain pyramid really from early on. But nooo, dude's an idiot and is only alive for so long due to plot armor, irl he would've died an early tragic death without ever achieving anything.

Also Meng Yu would've been dead if the "bad guys" didn't save her. So An Xin is not only useless but also an ingrate. I sympathize more with the family-oriented villains like Gao Qiqiang, Yang Jian, Chen Jinmo, etc. All they wanted is to give the best things for their family. Yang Jian is especially relatable, he was good cop who risk his life to protect the people, but what did he get? Then he look at all those crooked bureaucrats who sit safely behind their desk while accumulating wealth, it's so unfair, how do you expect him to refuse taking bribes, man got his mom and wife and kid to take care of.

But the biggest moral of the story is how gentlemanly Chinese men are depicted in the drama. All the women (Meng Yu, Gao Qilan, Huang Yao, all the unnamed wives of Jiang Tian and all the convicted CPC members) basically end up unscathed because they were protected/purposely kept in the dark, while at the same time benefiting from the dirty money and perks that men around them accumulate. And all these men are seemingly willing to die for their wives and daughters, damn, even An Xin wanna give his savings to former gf who marry another man. Main villain Gao Qiqiang, the top dog in the city, plays house with an old widow who came with a spoilt brat and the daughter of a man he killed, yet still goes crazy over them, like I mean, it's hard not to pity this man.

An Xin is just the usual unrealistic protagonist character. He's one of those unrealistic fictional character created for the sake of propaganda, someone who put the interest of the "party"/country above everything else. His behavior choices just goes against common sense and human nature, which should logically prioritize more important things like personal safety, personal benefit/money, love, etc. Then again if fictional characters act rationally there would really be no drama: imagine if he does the logical thing eg. accepted Meng Yu's invitation to move to Beijing with her from the beginning, live a normal safe stable life and settle down like everyone else, there would be no story to tell.

But yeah, I really hate his character, terrible boyfriend, terrible husband. He would make a good conscript for the front line or a good bodyguard, but I would not want a family member like that.

From the first episode I notice it has a lot of same actors with my favorite cdrama "in the name of the people" so I know it's gonna be good.

It's super weird that people don't age in 21 years of time skip though. The kids age, make sense. The old men are understandable if they look the same. However, Gao Qilan and Meng Yu not aging in 21 years is disturbing. The bigger issue is that these women during the 2000 arc are supposed to be under 20, yet somehow look like 30 yrs old, while in the 2021 arc, they're supposed to be nearing 40, yet still look like 30 yrs old and not aged one bit, it's unrealistic. 20+ years time skip is too much, writers should stop doing too big gap of time skip for live action dramas.

> For the you g once I guess they like him because its like having an idol that has loyalty to one woman is like having him for them selves.

Really good point and idk why others prefer these other "idols" who would kiss every random women. Would they prefer to marry all these players and fkboys who are the best kissers who have kissed hundreds of women (and most likely go further than that) as well irl?

Those like Allen are way more likely to be a more respectable person irl.

Well, a lot of viewers are hating on these no kisses dramas and actors but for me I thought these actors who stop kissing everyone on the set once they got married are pretty cool and respectable. It's also nice to know that the company/industry are still willing to hire these people so they don't lose their job opportunity just because they don't wanna kiss every random people.