After watching the first 4 ep, I honestly don’t know how to feel about this drama. The trailers gave off a completely…
I think the progression of the plot was quite well-done, with a few subtitle glitches. The characterizations was also on point--it's about Love's Ambition, a woman who was ambitious and wanting to be successful. She also loved a very successful man, so she decided to use her childhood fantasy of another identity to get to marry him.
The trailer vibes gave exactly the above information. The music was mysterious, showing a couple with secrets, from loving to breaking point. There was some dialogue between them about lying and using each other. We see the breakup and then her fall (without makeup). And then, we see her rising again and him looking from afar. The story plot points are all there for the audience to pick up.
It's probably not your cup of tea. The fashion changes go back and forth--when she was just "enduring," like her MIL mocked her, with her hair up, and when she was scheming, her clothes showed her investment in her relationship. The investment, at that point, was all material--the clothes, the money to buy things to win over people, the need to look the part.
However, if you noticed, when she was actually investing emotional work--the sincerity, the practicing of dance (even though for a scheme), the goodwill--people noticed and responded. She had to learn to balance this in the future (after the downfall). Meanwhile, be prepared for all the fashion glitter as part of the fakeness of her identity. Xu Yan was hiding behind everything, thus the part in the trailer where she wiped off her makeup would probably be a significant moment.
The third episode was 95% other characters and just two short scenes with them together
I think the episode featured quite a bit of her. It's showing her ambition and her innate cleverness at details. She catches things other people don't, like the dancing. The scenes of her practicing the dancing and then the way she manages to get the attention of Mrs. Li (?Can't remember if I got the right surname) made MANY people sit up, including her MIL-to-be.
Granted, there were only two scenes of the two leads together. We're supposed to believe he is just a pleasant, nice guy, always supportive around his gal. Xu Yan loves him because of this. BUT....we shall see ;-).
the ML speaks mandarin fluently but at the same time he doesn’t it feels like some words dont come out very…
It's about keeping secrets and being influential with secrets = danger ahead ;-). Also, William Chan is a Hong Kong actor originally, so his main dialect is Cantonese, so perhaps a few pronunciation differences here and there.
That’s why ML chooses FL’s type of character to be his wife.
Yes, I can tell from the way he looked at her and the few "encouraging" words he gave her that he had plans. Both characters had some deception going on. But this really added a lot of tension to the plot! Hope it keeps building.
The MIL is controlling and the FIL doesn't listen to his ML son. I have a feeling Hao Ming is frustrated with his family too, except he's playing a waiting game.
Episode 2 gave a little more tension between Xu Yan and her MIL-to-be. From the beginning, the older woman didn't want her in the family and Xu Yan, wanting to keep Hao Ming, fabricated the lie she'd always made about her background: that her parents were part of the U of Syracuse's faculty/research staff in the Architecture College.
Xu Yan's days at her TV job also met with a setback. Her promotion request to be the host of the show she had worked three long years to set up was rejected. She just didn't have enough backing. When Hao Ming offered to help, she refused, wanting to be successful on her own.
For me, it looked like a set up to her realizing that she could not continue "enduring" as her MIL-to-be pointedly told her was her weakness.
The other point of interest was Hao Ming's explanation why he loved agave. It was a plant that bloomed once, keeping its vitality for one brilliant show. So, is this an analogy of Xu Yan?
Episode One: WOW Tightly written script. The two protagonists lead double lives. LuSi's acting was very nuanced. You can see how much Xu Yan was trying to make it at her job and then you can start seeing the ideas ticking in her mind.
The opening scene. with her fake parents, was gripping and definitely set the tone of the drama. Obviously, everything was founded on her lies and we, as the viewer, must like the character to be vested in her lies. Xu Yan as the bullied show planner pulled us in to her motives--she obviously wanted to be the host of that show, needed to get the best interviews, had to be top-notch in finding out stuff. Her eye for detail was shown with the way she coached the fake parents.
Her lover, Hao Ming, was no slouch either. He showed he could see through Xu Yan and was a worthy opponent. Yet, something about her kept his interest. What? Maybe we'll find out in Episode 2. He definitely wanted her in his life by actually revealing his Other Identity to her at the end of Episode 1.
I have been having fun the last couple of months watching Douyin short dramas which have been incorporating scenes from The Double! They made me giggle with the beginning scenes of bad husband burying wife before revenge or scholar husband being seduced by Princess. There was even one with a Su Guo Gong in splendid red (but not as beautiful, LOL) walking around with a fan! All done with a cheap budget, of course, but I've been highly amused and entertained. Two months later...I'm still addicted in one way or another to The Double! Hope you're well, my friend.
Let's look at this scene again. Beginning of Episode 17. At first, the conversation appeared to be their usual sparring--> "Have you ever told the truth?" "Well, have you?"
But.
One must look at what happened just before that. The Third Uncle basically just revealed a hidden truth--he confessed his love to a wooden post/his love, Jiang Li's mother. Thus someone told the truth while drunk.
So then our couple is left alone and Xue Fang Fei whirled around, drunk and happy about her success in finding the buyer's name. Duke Su looked on, realizing this was the real XFF being shown to him (drunk = truth) and was our boy in love with XFF. That. LOOK.
"You're drunk," he told her.
XFF came to him and threw off his umbrella. CUE MUSIC. Listen to the lyrics. If you'd read a previous post of mine, I wrote about the Chinese title and the OST--Inky Rain Amidst The Clouds (the post is up there in the Other Topics) and that the inky rain could be seen as SYR's ink/stain on her reputation. Throughout the drama, there's use of the umbrella by Jiang Li as if to protect herself from that rain. SYR was also seen walking in that inky rain without an umbrella.
In this moment, though, XFF threw away Duke Su's umbrella and declared, "I'm not drunk!" The rain was a different kind of rain here, cleansing (re: none of that odd opera makeup ala acting on XFF's face).
"You're so drunk you don't know what you're doing," said the Duke.
THE LYRICS: Remove my clothes and I won't regret.... (sex, also revelation....)
XFF said, "Xiao Heng." You know they communicated on another level when she called him Xiao Heng like that. LOL.
"A'Li," he countered.
"You're handsome," she whispered. LYRICS: Some obsessions turn to ashes, there is only one remedy....
XFF confessed (dai biao, C-Drama style)/echoing her Uncle's drunken confession. Here, her "are you drunk" takes on special meaning. Xiao Heng was tempted, sooooo tempted.
But he told her, "I'm not drunk." LYRICS: Do you know what it is to be drunk (with love)?
XFF pushed him away, "You're not a man! You can't even get drunk!" (He jiu to he bu chui! is a play of the usual Chinese idiomatic expression of che fan/eating rice and che bao je pao lah/finished eating and now you're running off for sex and sexual intimacy) She went on, "Have you ever told the truth?"
Now, here I'll admit to extrapolating through character analysis. We know A'Li is the more sexually experienced one between the two of them. She might be a tad frustrated here, I don't know, LOL:
Xiao Heng reverted back to Duke Su persona, "What about you? After drinking so much, aren't you also not telling the truth?"
That was such a weak counter that XFF immediately mocked him (even while drunk). "Thank you, DUKE SU! Thank YOU, DUKE SU! THANK YOU, DUKE SU!" Notice the sexy music has stopped and she'd also stopped calling him Xiao Heng. He was just Duke Su, interrogating her again.
CUE MUSIC. Now it's the pear song and XFF reverted back to XFF/JiangLi.
I'm not saying Duke Su didn't know what XFF wanted (he did call her shameless when they almost kissed) but I do believe he didn't know at that moment how to handle the real XFF vs XFFasJiangLi. The confession took him aback. So what did he do? He gave her another piece of his clothing to wear, Bwahahahahahaha. These two kids; they are too much.
I hope the above gave you something to think about when you rewatch the scene. It's really very well done.
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The trailer vibes gave exactly the above information. The music was mysterious, showing a couple with secrets, from loving to breaking point. There was some dialogue between them about lying and using each other. We see the breakup and then her fall (without makeup). And then, we see her rising again and him looking from afar. The story plot points are all there for the audience to pick up.
It's probably not your cup of tea. The fashion changes go back and forth--when she was just "enduring," like her MIL mocked her, with her hair up, and when she was scheming, her clothes showed her investment in her relationship. The investment, at that point, was all material--the clothes, the money to buy things to win over people, the need to look the part.
However, if you noticed, when she was actually investing emotional work--the sincerity, the practicing of dance (even though for a scheme), the goodwill--people noticed and responded. She had to learn to balance this in the future (after the downfall). Meanwhile, be prepared for all the fashion glitter as part of the fakeness of her identity. Xu Yan was hiding behind everything, thus the part in the trailer where she wiped off her makeup would probably be a significant moment.
Cheers.
Granted, there were only two scenes of the two leads together. We're supposed to believe he is just a pleasant, nice guy, always supportive around his gal. Xu Yan loves him because of this. BUT....we shall see ;-).
Xu Yan's days at her TV job also met with a setback. Her promotion request to be the host of the show she had worked three long years to set up was rejected. She just didn't have enough backing. When Hao Ming offered to help, she refused, wanting to be successful on her own.
For me, it looked like a set up to her realizing that she could not continue "enduring" as her MIL-to-be pointedly told her was her weakness.
The other point of interest was Hao Ming's explanation why he loved agave. It was a plant that bloomed once, keeping its vitality for one brilliant show. So, is this an analogy of Xu Yan?
Tightly written script. The two protagonists lead double lives. LuSi's acting was very nuanced. You can see how much Xu Yan was trying to make it at her job and then you can start seeing the ideas ticking in her mind.
The opening scene. with her fake parents, was gripping and definitely set the tone of the drama. Obviously, everything was founded on her lies and we, as the viewer, must like the character to be vested in her lies. Xu Yan as the bullied show planner pulled us in to her motives--she obviously wanted to be the host of that show, needed to get the best interviews, had to be top-notch in finding out stuff. Her eye for detail was shown with the way she coached the fake parents.
Her lover, Hao Ming, was no slouch either. He showed he could see through Xu Yan and was a worthy opponent. Yet, something about her kept his interest. What? Maybe we'll find out in Episode 2. He definitely wanted her in his life by actually revealing his Other Identity to her at the end of Episode 1.
I'm IN for Episode 2! Are you?
Dooooooomed to rewatch The Double. Why can’t we rate it 11? 😂
Let's look at this scene again. Beginning of Episode 17. At first, the conversation appeared to be their usual sparring--> "Have you ever told the truth?" "Well, have you?"
But.
One must look at what happened just before that. The Third Uncle basically just revealed a hidden truth--he confessed his love to a wooden post/his love, Jiang Li's mother. Thus someone told the truth while drunk.
So then our couple is left alone and Xue Fang Fei whirled around, drunk and happy about her success in finding the buyer's name. Duke Su looked on, realizing this was the real XFF being shown to him (drunk = truth) and was our boy in love with XFF. That. LOOK.
"You're drunk," he told her.
XFF came to him and threw off his umbrella. CUE MUSIC. Listen to the lyrics. If you'd read a previous post of mine, I wrote about the Chinese title and the OST--Inky Rain Amidst The Clouds (the post is up there in the Other Topics) and that the inky rain could be seen as SYR's ink/stain on her reputation. Throughout the drama, there's use of the umbrella by Jiang Li as if to protect herself from that rain. SYR was also seen walking in that inky rain without an umbrella.
In this moment, though, XFF threw away Duke Su's umbrella and declared, "I'm not drunk!" The rain was a different kind of rain here, cleansing (re: none of that odd opera makeup ala acting on XFF's face).
"You're so drunk you don't know what you're doing," said the Duke.
THE LYRICS: Remove my clothes and I won't regret.... (sex, also revelation....)
XFF said, "Xiao Heng." You know they communicated on another level when she called him Xiao Heng like that. LOL.
"A'Li," he countered.
"You're handsome," she whispered.
LYRICS: Some obsessions turn to ashes, there is only one remedy....
XFF confessed (dai biao, C-Drama style)/echoing her Uncle's drunken confession. Here, her "are you drunk" takes on special meaning. Xiao Heng was tempted, sooooo tempted.
But he told her, "I'm not drunk."
LYRICS: Do you know what it is to be drunk (with love)?
XFF pushed him away, "You're not a man! You can't even get drunk!" (He jiu to he bu chui! is a play of the usual Chinese idiomatic expression of che fan/eating rice and che bao je pao lah/finished eating and now you're running off for sex and sexual intimacy) She went on, "Have you ever told the truth?"
Now, here I'll admit to extrapolating through character analysis. We know A'Li is the more sexually experienced one between the two of them. She might be a tad frustrated here, I don't know, LOL:
Xiao Heng reverted back to Duke Su persona, "What about you? After drinking so much, aren't you also not telling the truth?"
That was such a weak counter that XFF immediately mocked him (even while drunk). "Thank you, DUKE SU! Thank YOU, DUKE SU! THANK YOU, DUKE SU!" Notice the sexy music has stopped and she'd also stopped calling him Xiao Heng. He was just Duke Su, interrogating her again.
CUE MUSIC. Now it's the pear song and XFF reverted back to XFF/JiangLi.
I'm not saying Duke Su didn't know what XFF wanted (he did call her shameless when they almost kissed) but I do believe he didn't know at that moment how to handle the real XFF vs XFFasJiangLi. The confession took him aback. So what did he do? He gave her another piece of his clothing to wear, Bwahahahahahaha. These two kids; they are too much.
I hope the above gave you something to think about when you rewatch the scene. It's really very well done.