ShortCircuit

Li Qin has came into her role mostly in these latest few eps. Before it was all HHL this, HHL that. I guess we'll see her TXM to the fullest til the end of the series. But I did notice her voice from the very first, and the character is really strong. I like her.

Okay, that was SO FREAKING CUTE!

XCS (pretending he doesn't care one bit): I'm eager to be with you. (smallest voice) For the rest of my life.
TXM (pretending she didn't hear a thing).
XCS (cheekily now and wanting confirmation): Did you hear what I just said?
TXM (quietly smiling): I heard you.

Hehehe how can they both be so stinking cute together? I just knew he'd be all over her once he saw himself as a man again. And hey, is it me or was this an ep completely free of the dreaded pair? LOL

Re: the part about remembering everything he ever did say (wrong, mostly). I had such a flashback to LZ telling WWX he could never remember what he had said (while LZ was saving it to his HDD memory for all eternity LOL). XCS has the same reaction - ~what, what did I say? Stop remembering it!~ LOL

Not really, no. But it's a pretty good action drama. Don't go in for big character arcs or deep meanings.

They don't usually get easy access to guns, not even illegal ones. And if there were any illegal guns around, people would definitely know and snitch.

But then, I wonder how nobody ever questions where all the freaking metal baseball bats come from and why would certain people need SO MANY of them, LOL. Every drama that has gangs and hooligans shows them stepping out of every orifice already armed with a bat (that they immediately don't use or just wave around waiting for the MC to beat the daylights out of them hahaha). It must be a lucrative business, selling those bats in bad neighbourhoods :D

I came to see the boxing and ended up loving the knife fights. Though I looked away at the most bloody parts, LOL.

I don't know about everybody else, but Choi Si Won (Min-Beom) was the scene-stealer in this one, IMHO.

Oh well, this doesn't satisfy my WDH craving, so I guess I'll have to bite the bullet and watch Joseon Attorney after all (I HATE the kind of clothes and the freaking HATS they used to wear in that period, I usually keep away from anything Joseon-with-the-hats if I can).

An honest 8/10 (not much character development, but good action scenes, well, impossible physics but it's based on a webtoon and they don't mind ignoring it anyway LOL). And WDH and at least two or three support charas that actually kept in character throughout.

If anyone's in doubt yet - watch it for the binge drinking scene LOL. That was amazing. In fact, I'll just go back and rewatch it now :D

PS I have zero idea why the girl / women charas were in it at all. The only one who stood out didn't even have much to say (KMG's trashy/madam girlfriend, she had a certain presence). The other girls... not so much.

They're not actually swindling the foreigners. The foreign people pay in equivalent money bought 1-for-1 in the exchange (just not RMB), and the locals who get those money certificates or whatever they are sell them at a profit for RMB to other locals (just a small increase, not too much anyway). And the profiteers get the certificates and use them in foreign-oriented shops to get imported goods that would be too pricey when bought in regular stores. Basically nobody actually gets swindled, it's just a regular customs-area type exchange economy that always springs up when there's a market for such things.

The only round-about is that foreigners aren't allowed to buy RMB directly so they have to get those certificates, but they are actually paying asking price, not special prices.

I bet we'll see Qi Tian either going into small business soon, or becoming a money changer or something, LOL. He has the instincts :D

Yeah, she'd be the one to want to have the cake but eat it too, she would.

I actually liked the business scenes, LOL. I mean, these are totally inexperienced, mostly uneducated low-class people trying to make sense of venture capital, LOL, and making bank on it. I think it's meant to show that while education is important (see HongJun and Ye Fang) and vocation is also very important (see XCS and TXM), it doesn't mean someone who doesn't have them is bound to be a drudge all their lives, and that where there's a will, there's always a way.

That small-time profiteering phase also happened in my country in the 90s, some people got rich through it but it was frowned upon because a lot of what they were doing was basically illegal, nobody enforced the laws though. What HeiZi and the gang, and now Qi Tian, are doing seems to be legal - they said it was - and thus, as long as they're not actually hurting everybody, good for them!

Ep7. Okay... tee-totaler Gun-Woo drinking everybody under the table on his virgin drinking binge is the most hilarious thing I have seen this whole year. If only for that scene, this is worth it LOL.

She'd have to be shameless to even try it... but then, she's HHL. So the possibility is definitely there.

Did XZ or LQ promise to do something themselves if they reach certain markers for the drama? :D

Too little, too late for YGH. I guess they can recover some of their friendship though, with his gesture. I don't like it that the upperheads gave them both the same merit, when it's all XCS but YGH is a bit right too, he did do his part.

LOL, Qi Tian is going to become a money exchange banker at this pace :D

I hate, hate, HATE that TXM had to abandon her dream - for now - because XCS'a need is stronger, and he still pushes her away. But people around them have eyes and they're telling him what she's doing for him, so in the end he'll realize, when he allows himself to feel like a man again, that she's the one.

She should become a physiotherapist, IMHO. She's absorbing everything the doctor does to XCS like a sponge, I'll bet once they're back home she'll just continue doing it til he's back on his feet. And I LOVE how she's always positive to him, whenever he gets the downers, she's the one telling him to stop talking bad about himself and concentrate on the good things and on the good future awaiting him. If not a physiotherapist, maybe a psychologist, just sayin'.

This drama has become my daily addiction, I love the pace. We're past the halfway point, but I'll just enjoy the ride til the end :D

At least she didn't defect, LOL.

Also, Xiao Zhan is a hobbit :D

XCS was in a coma for days. YGH was debriefed on that military action long before XCS woke up. He never hinted at anything other than having come back with the info himself. He didn't need XCS to tell him what to do - he was already doing it. XCS just offered him an excuse.

I kind of think he told her because he knows her character. He didn't risk much - he likes her (I won't say either of them knows what love is, any more), he helped her when she needed monetary help, he's always around her. I think he feels she's like-minded. And it's proven again in the end, when she has the impulse to follow XCS but YGH knows just what buttons to push to get her to stay.

Very good drama, indeed. Sadly, cdramas almost never get to the top in ratings in MDL, where kdramas rule.

They did. He point-blank asked her to wait for him, even tried to keep her in place physically, and she said she'll come visit some other time instead of replying (after all that self-reflection on why she should move on with her life, too). So that's done.

And then he made it official with the letter, telling her to reach for her own dream. That ship has sank.

After ep1, I'm lowering my expectations a bit. This will be an action-filled story, mostly, going by what came in ep1, and well, it's webtoon based so I should have expected it. But I quite like it anyway.

I hope they throw in some more character development with the fighting, and if there's romance, it's not contrived.

But hey... boxing just got a lot sexier with WDH throwing his fists around :D

He's not stupid in the sense that he's an idiot, but incompetent, yes. He supposedly taught all of them how to demine a field, but couldn't protect himself when it mattered?

But that aside - yes indeed, XCS is only comfortable being vulnerable and really open around TXM. I hope it's because he feels safe with her, not because he's seeing her as a sounding board with little meaning. Knowing his persona so far, I'd definitely say it's instinctive trust. I loved watching her turn his mind around on why he should continue living when his life's purpose was destroyed, and doing it with a story of her own powerlessness. I really really like this girl.

And he needs her - he needs someone who's quietly steady along with him, and doesn't need him to be the tower of strentgh at all times. Love should be give and take, not just give. (Or in HHL's case, mostly take).

Though I'm still wondering how she got in that train, LOL, did she really defect? (I know she didn't but it would be really funny :D)

Consider this: when their house was on fire, XCS went in blindly and got HHL's mother out, saving her life. When YGH stupidly stepped on a landmine, XCS bit his tongue and took his place, sending him off to glory and placing himself in mortal danger because of friendship.

And this only deserves some self-recrimination where both of them admit they're not good people, and that's justification enough for YGH to stop HHL from following her ONE genuine impulse of getting to XCS, and for HHL for completely blindsiding him in his hour of need, when he wanted and expected her reassurance and love.

It's not selfishness, it's them being shameless and using him for their own needs and means, then throwing him to the side the instant he became too "burdensome" for them to carry.

Were he not XCS, that would be a villain's origin story right there.

The saddest thing is that XCS told him to grab the spotlight because he THINKS YGH is the same as himself - having a dream and working firmly towards it. While at the same time, YGH's motivation is way, way simpler - he LIKES it how it makes him feel to be adulated by his comrades. He likes to be looked up on as a hero of the people. He didn't EARN it dammit. If he wasn't there, XCS would've come back safe and sound and Amao and JingZhu wouldn't have died either! Duan Lei is invalidated out of the army because of his bum leg, he was one of the better soldiers and it's all because of YGH beying overconfident, underprepared and STUPID.

And he takes PRIDE in it?! Why?? Is it only XCS and Duan Lei who rememeber the fallen comrade soldiers?! YGH doesn't have what it takes to be a leader of men, sadly. And XCS kept misunderstanding him over it. It was just ambition and self-promoting, not anything heroic. That will get more people killed in the future. I hope he does something stupid and non-lethal and is booted out of the army, too.

Then again, he and HHL deserve each other, I hope we see the less of them from now on. Unless they're getting what they deserve.

What do we say? Present? *raising hand*

I need some sweet smiles from the leads. Or some scenes of them trying to kill each other, I don't care. Something. This is like a lingering addiction...