ShortCircuit

Lu Di wasn't there from the very beginning - when LSQ first realized she was looping, everybody, XHY included, was on the bus. Lu Di was the one who got on last, and it was AFTER the time she and the bus looped back to.

So, to be more clear - she got XHY out and he remembered because he was on board when the bomb went on, and before the start time of the loop. Lu Di wasn't, so despite being taken off that time, he couldn't loop back to the beginning with them and had to go through again and again with no memory of it.

RE what happened after, no, they didn't just go back to their regular lives LOL. I mean, obviously that was a terror threat, but the bomb didn't get off, so most of them never experienced more than confusion and fear for the bit they were aware of, except for LSQ and XHY who got to remember it all. After a while, though, they'd also start wondering if they didn't imagine it all, because our minds are resilient, inquisitive and usually find a way to cope with the extraordinary. But LSQ and XHY are now in a relationship, and the experience is also affecting the game (originally too bloody, remember?), Lu Di got the courage to come out to his parents about the cats, LOL, the culprits got some closure (at least the truth came out and the molester was also arrested), basically everybody in the bus got their lives changed.

So nope, not business as usual.

I still haven't read the novel, too many danmei in the way LOL, but the time'll come :D

Sometimes, the one who understands you best is the one who you cannot allow to live, even if they will probably be the only one of a similar mind you might ever meet in your life.

Sacrifice is necessary, even if you will end up alone - for the greater good, or greater idea, people are unimportant, as long as it succeeds.

The Qin Emperor understands that Nameless (actually Broken Sword, but he had already sacrificed at that time and has managed to make Nameless understand) is his soulmate in his great endeavour, and that he has to die, so that everything under heaven would know law and order.

That ending is beyond words.

From time to time I come here and look at the comments (sadly they're not increasing in numbers). This is one of the best wuxia movies I've ever watched (there might be other movies that are better liked by other people, but this one - I like best).

I loved everything about it - first, the story (loosely based on the later life of the first Qin Emperor, he of the first unified China, ruler of everything UNDER HEAVEN (Tianxia) and buried in the mausoleum guarded by the famous Terracotta Army, after he managed to kill himself with mercury potions in a vain try to become immortal, and having already survived numerous assassination attempts).

Second, the cinematography. The colour scheme, the flow of the scenes, the tragedy painted out in beautiful scenery - it's amazing.

Third, the music. I've tried adding Tan Dun's OST to the page of the drama and found no info for Tan Dun; I've tried adding a page for Tan Dun (among many classical works and compositions, he also wrote the soundtracks for a few really well receiced movies, like this one, or like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). I might've made some mistakes, so it was rejected.

Give it a listen, if you're in the mood. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gL3daHF26V4&list=PLF3831010615C80A5

Fourth, the acting - a star-studded cast, an amazing portrayal of hope, understanding, redemption, and self-sacrifice. All of them shine.

And fifth, but not the least - the message.

She is dead. The death is offscreen because (as in the novel) it's horrifying - they killed her, burned her body (and officially also WN's, though obviously he was instead given over to XY for some nail-control experiments) and then they threw away the ashes. It didn't need shown, and it would have been too much drama added to an already drama-filled arc.

For that reason, I guess, the scriptwriters also twitched some of the Wen Clan people's fate, having them hanged so that WWX could come see their bodies and lose it, instead of following the much bloodier plot of the novel.

My main favourite chara in the final eps? The mobster sidekick. At least HE was interested in doing his own business. Though seriously, you have the knife at her throat... and you go looking for MPC? What for? You're a killer, dontcha know how to kill all of the sudden?!

Let's not talk about the gas tank Chen Mo was supposed to "kill himself" with LOL. A hanging or drowning would have solved that way faster. But drama reasons...

EVERYBODY forgot about poor ZY while they were going to the hospital. Even the cleaning lady got to ride the ambulance... but nobody mentioned ZY. LOL. WTH, did all their schedules got mixed up out of the blue?!

And the open ending... I mean, if TJC makes another season of it, why not? The kid is also cute. But I'd rather have another Under the Skin season, if we're open for business.

Overall, at least it made me giggle from time to time. I'd have wanted to see ZY as a lady... one... more... time... :D

PS the over-reaching plot points never got solved. The guy who swindled the mom is who, exactly? The "General's" mob team, or somebody else? The Grey Heron guy is still crazy, why is his GF going crazy too?

MPC gets a lighter sentence because he loves his daughter. And HuPo guy humiliated QH in public, went after him in public... then apologized in private (nobody around AT ALL). OK then, I guess it's water under the bridge...

Oh well...

Things I've learned through this drama:

- don't catch a tiger by the tail / also don't let a tiger go back to its mountain.
- two nerds will NEVER succeed in a bossfight. Actually the boss will sweep the floor with both of them at once. Without a pencil, LOL.
- internet security? What internet security? Pei!!
- plot, what plot? Particularly when you're in your last few eps and the ML never appears in one of them AT ALL (minus the security message LOL). What was that, LOL?
- Zhou You on a mini-scooter coming to save the day. I should use that as a wallpaper but I wouldn't be able to do anything productive, I'd be LOLing every time I'd see it.

1. The focus is on the time loop, not the romance, but there is some romance.
2. They're not annoying in any way :)

It's not romance, it's mutual healing. She's too young for him, and he's too old for her (not just in years, but in experience and wisdom), and for once, that was respected by the writers. But that doesn't mean they can't support each other and help each other - then separate, if that's the way their respective lives go.

Thinking back on it, this makes me remember that saying - it takes a village to raise a child. It took DongHoon's whole family and circle of friends to rescue JiAhn and set her on the right path. So if anything, the relationship between them is nowhere near romantic, though at one time she seemed to be infatuated. They're more like father-figure and daughter.

But it works.

I felt it tries hard to be Mouse, rather, and it keeps missing the right note. The only question that seems to be important now it which number was RSH, and if he was 13, which number was RSJ. But as time passes and there's all this brainless action, I find less and less interest in waiting for a denouement.

I like it a lot (FoE) and definitely not because of the romance.

When the switch happened, they were both sporting blond hair, were of similar built, and none were familiar to any of the family's friends yet they had spent time around each other so anyone who had seen them together could believe he had them wrong or remembered them wrong. The son was away in school (and obviously around DHS's father) a lot, he got replaced pretty fast in the family portrait, AND DHS himself never went there much, particularly after he had a family. Also, the kid who played young DHS was very similar to LJG and at the same time, similar to KJH, so it wasn't impossible to accept.

But this comes from someone who likes FoE, so... Well.

That bloody nail is smarter than him. All he has is a powerful family, I guess that's how he managed to become a detective and not kept back year after year until he's retired.

Not to mention how the writer conveniently forgot his bouts of exact re-enactment of killing methods or whatnot, as soon as it was more shocky to see him go into dizzy spells each time he "remembers" things.

So it's definitely RSH, with some help from the two younger guys, I guess.

The first ep of the week had me completely disconnected, I kept finding other, better things to do with the ep in the background. The police team is still dumber than a rock, with the inclusion of the teen delinquent the RSJ team is also getting way dumber than it should be, and come ON! Doesn't anyone need to get to work?! How long can RSH go offline and his office not ask about it?! The police also has no other cases of any kind at all but lolling around waiting for yet ANOTHER murder to blame on RSJ, etc.

I TOLD RSJ not go on opening doors, he's going to get more people murdered, he can't help it LOL. As usual, RSH (aka the killer) is extremely right telling him he's no kind of a cop, he (RSJ) doesn't have the brains, the patience and the ability to ever investigate anything. How on Earth did he make detective?! I'm siding with Det. Kang on this.

I feel like the drama went the way of - less brain power needed, more shock factor. The skeleton where they find ATH's phone is probably No. 24's. How did RSH know where it was?

So far, RSH/RSJ (for the diverting of expectation angle) killed the first girl, then Choi the driver killed Coco-Mom, RSH finished ATH's job with Choi the driver and set up ATH's hanging, IMHO, but it sure looks like that's the way. Also RSH (with some tiny help from cute young juror what's his name) settled the Kang family, too.

Is it me or does it look like he's avenging RSJ as a kid, or their sister? He's got all those self-cuts on his arms, it looks like he's been tortured by it for a long time, and then he goes and points the finger ar No. 13 aka his lil' bro.

Those EXTREMELY SPECIFIC shoes will come back to bite him in the a**. For an intelligent serial killer, he's been pretty stupid with those, and with not observing YuNa following him.

I had higher hopes for the series... but there's still time to fix it all.

I dun geddit, where did the blood on his palms (both of them, too) come from?!

IMHO it could only work for him - he already lost his childhood memories through some kind of trauma (that is never quite cleared up), then he gets MORE traumatic exorcising sessions, then he's attacked by his roommate (the cook who later dies) and while still in shock over it, BHS runs him over with his car. Add to that the constant pressure of adapting to a normal people's appearance, never off the scene in some 20 years, the drowning (in the pool) and the actual physical gunshot to the head he finally takes.

I mean, he's basically suffering from every possible reason that might induce a loss of memory known to drama. Probably a Truck of Doom (TM) could have also hit him, if the writers could get away with it, LOL. Or BHS's car is an acceptable replacement for it :D

Whereas, JiWon is never in actual danger - the one time she's in active danger, DHS heroically destroys some wiring bindings that he couldn't before destroy, not even in order to save his own life from a horrific death, and comes to her rescue. Both spouses suffering from amnesia wouldn't make sense in that case. HE is the one who needs to come true to her, and rebuild in honest. She will just have to find out who he really is.

I think the idea is that, for her... it is a new start, but the basics remain. She's in love with a shadow, a man he never was, keeps looking for the shadow in the actual man - and she will continue to do so even if she starts knowing the new/or old DHS. She'll build his image in her own mind, and still love a shadow of him, just this time it won't be the kind stranger with the artistic touch and supporting husband, but the formerly abused child, formerly considered a murderer, formerly known as a psychopatic son of a serial killer, etc - maybe kind, definitely artistic, probably loving and supporting man. The point is, she now has a chance to make an image of him that is closer to the truth.

That's why the raw (and cold) honesty from DHS's character in the final episode is on point. I think what the story tried to convey was that the only way together for the both of them is through truth. DHS would show it - he doesn't care or doesn't know why he should care if she sees the bad parts - and JiWon would have to learn to love it again or leave it. (That's also about the only part that would make sense in a real world. In dramaland, we're allowed wishful thinking LOL).

So to sum it up - this was always going to end up in tragedy, but this way, even with the use of amnesia, at least he's still alive. Well, his body and most of his original personality still are.

(I might get a bit philosophical about people's perception of reality from time to time, LOL).

Do you know how many times I wondered if such a place existed, LOL? I was ready to swear all interior scenes were done in separate places :D Thanks for mentioning the location :)

Yup, those are all big questions, and sadly, some of them are impossible to answer. He's neurodivergent, even if someone with the same psychopathy even understood the question, how would a "normal" person even begin to understand their world? It's like trying to explain an elephant to a blind man (I didn't invent this one, LOL, it's a famous parable). We can go with analogies, but since each of us understands the analogy differently, it's bound to end up in a half-measure explanation.

For me, that dychotomy makes the drama's ending better, though. Particularly since this is a MELO-action thriller. It's amazing how they worked the melodramatic bits through a main character who cannot feel (or better said, recognize) emotions. If you pay attention to most interactions in the story, when DHS is present, you can SEE him calculating each response. I praise LJG for that. (Though there are a few moments when even he slips and comes through as normal, IMHO).

There are some things that - while still unexplained - let the watcher decide the unspoken truth. I keep mentioning this when commenting (I do comment here from time to time, this is one of my favourite dramas) - but the number of trophy fingernails are "correct" EVEN if MiSook hadn't died. Which begs the question... where did the extra fingernail come from? I think it's DHS's mother's and that she was the first victim. And it might be that DHS was involved by his father in keeping her before she was killed. Maybe the tune was recorded in that dank dungeon and DHS associates the song with his childhood repressed memories and that's why it gives him such a strong response each time.

Now that he doesn't have to hide any more, he probably will try to get professional help - or if he stays with JiWon, she would probably try to argue in favour of it. His daughter isn't at much risk. She's an outspoken and direct kid who definitely feels emotional (she even recognized how unfair it was when she had to apologize to the other kindergarten kid though she wasn't at fault). DHS was never like that - even as a child, he was perceived as strange, and his only friends were actually friends of his (normal) sister. I think EunHa is safe.

For a fictional character, DHS sure left a lot of emotions on the drama watchers, didn't he? So I call it a success for the writer and the actors. (I was a fan of LJG from his early works, but he sure can't pick his dramas, LOL. This time he picked a good one, here's hoping he gets good luck in scripts and casts in the future too :D)

If you want to invest heavy emotions in another drama, and haven't watched The Devil Judge yet, that's a good one to watch another master at his craft in - Ji Sung is also an amazing actor. TDJ is a lot more expansive (and also looks very expensive, LOL), but there's a lot of chemistry again, pretty good plot and amazing acting.

The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty - because it's historical (costumes) and lots of fun. Also a lot of innuendoes rather than in the open moments like in WoH.

Guardian (I haven't watched it myself yet, just a few tidbits and FMVs, but the soundtrack is solid, can't forget about it :D). What I have seen looks interesting.

A few half-attempts: Advance Bravely (with Gong Jun so, so young LOL), and Addicted Heroin (this one got removed mid-airing, so be warned there won't be any kind of conclusion to the story, There's a novel though).

Actually, most of these dramas are adapted from novels. Still un-aired, though some are already filmed (so be on the lookout for them just in case):

- Immortality (based on The Dumb Husky and his White Cat Shizun)
- Seizing Dreams (based on Seizing Dreams)
- A League of Noblemen (based on Mystery of Zhang Guo)

The GOOD news is that there are plenty of donghua (anime) danmei adaptations, including a 3-season Mo Dao Zu Shi (that The Untamed is based on :D) Highly recommended:

- Heaven Official's Blessing (TGCF, based on the same-titled novel, by the author of MDZS)
- A Thousand Autumns (this one is pretty good)
- Scumbag System (based on Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - also written by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, author of MDZS)
- Epic of Divinity Light (based on Dinghai Fusheng Records, a pretty good story).

Here's a trap, err, I mean a teaser :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px4kG4bYSKQ

And then there are the amazing bromances that never step over the line, but you can see it ALMOST happening. It would help for future rec's if you populated your list of watched dramas, LOL, so that we don't repeat the same rec's over and over again :D

He has a psycho-neurological problem and it's not an act (obviously I mean the character Do HyunSoo, not Lee Joon Gi, LOL). When he lost his memories, he didn't get to magically keep the precious moments alive or feel any kind of emotions (that he couldn't recognize anyway) for the sake of the drama's romance plot. I personally found that part extremely well done.

The love he felt for his wife and for his daughter were STILL unrecognized while he had the memory intact, either - when he told his sister he doesn't love his wife, he wasn't lying. He didn't know what love should feel like. The fact he does seem to feel things, but can't label them, is part of the character's painful life.

But the bit that was important (for me anyway) was that everything they had together was built on a lie - he never let JiWon know the real him. Not the painful background, not the possible psychopathy, not the real struggle it was just to keep appearances daily. I mean, seriously, how many people go through life watching videos on how to SMILE?! He has serious issues, and if anything, the drama downplayed them. She was in love with an image of a person he INVENTED, and he calls it out in front of her in that last episode. I mean, we each lie to ourselves on a daily basis, but we should recognize that fact, at least to ourselves. I liked that honesty about the character. And it was always true she had been in love with a phantasm.

So if he had to lose his memory and all the precious moments with his wife and kid just for a chance to start over again, in a direct and clean, overboard manner... then (in dramaland) that makes sense. In real life, it would be impossible to come back from such a seachange in their relationship, but it's fiction so anything is possible.

Yes, it's a good adaptation. The book includes more flashbacks spread through the story, but the drama united them all into a huge flashback (eps 3-33) and it makes more sense watched in that order (plus, it builds up for the second part, which starts in 1-2 and continues from 33 to the end.)

Some of the support charas are more (and beautifully) fleshed out, and you feel their pains better because of that. There's a bit of a change from the initial book setup in order to work the magic weapons/metal in, but their/its functions are the same as in the novel.

The chemistry between the leads is insane - and it's a romance played on glances and small touches only. There are no (obvious) PDAs, but if you notice details, you see it in their every interaction. Despite the danmei being censored... you can tell these people are desperately in love (particularly when Cpt Oblivious himself realizes it, LOL, because his partner was always suffering in silence).

The music is also great and I keep listening to it even now, almost 4 years later. The cinematography is top notch. The FX suffer a bit (particularly the CGI beast) but this doesn't take much from the overall value.

The donghua includes a bit more relationship (WangXian) and they used the fragmented flashback almost as in the book, but changed the order of the final events in the story. They could do better (more grandiose) effects, but the story (and the voice actors LOL) are the same. The music is also superb, but I prefer the drama OST.

The audio drama is another treat, LOL. They did all the "special scenes" voice effects so if you want to hear them at it, LOL, you CAN. The audio drama is the only one - novel aside - where you get to hear to the famous EVERYDAY MEANS EVERYDAY quote. If you like the drama and eventually read the novel... that quote is immensely important :D

So to sum it up - this is a good adaptation, the plot is amazing, Xiao Zhan as Wei WuXian is unforgettable, Wang YiBo as Lan WangJi is great, the music is beautiful, every character is important, and there's a HEA. Don't wait any more :D

It is danmei (Chinese BL) but no PDAs because they censor such adaptations. Read the novel for the spicy scenes, there's plenty of them. Or watch the donghua for more WangXian good bits :) (also, the audio drama has sound effects and they're not for the shy - NSFW too LOL).

Otherwise, the drama is pure romance.

(some spoilers) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWbvpnRaELU