A wholesome and fun YA drama with some refreshing originality
I was intrigued by the premise of The Underclass: a school where everything hinges on academic rankings. I had no idea what BNK48 even was until I'd finished the the series and read the other reviews here so that connection wasn't a factor for me.For me, the appeal was how the drama depicted the joy and struggle of teens figuring themselves out while simultaneously combatting unfair demands and expectations. It did so without being overtly didactic or condescending.
Although there were very recognisable clichés underpinning the entire series, there were also moments of refreshing originality in certain character dynamics and plot points. Most of the characters felt real (with the exception of the more artificial 'bad guys') and, despite the clichés, the school ranking system was actually only a slight exaggeration of my own school experience. I found a lot of my teenage-self in the characters.
That said, at times the ensemble cast felt a little unwieldy – there were perhaps one or two supporting actors too many – but the acting quality itself was of okay quality among the cast. Some of the production quality was patchy every now and then.
Overall, this is a fun Young Adult drama with a good mix of originality and reliable tropes to make it an easy watch.
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Don't take it too seriously – it's a fun mixed genre Young Adult drama
The Ghost Bride has its faults but what drew me in was the rich world-building. I've never watched anything set in historical Malaysia before nor had I ever encountered the idea of 'ghost brides' before reading the YA novel this series derives from. Those two elements plus the Underworld setting meant that I wasn't too fussed about the characters because the variety of settings became fascinating characters in their own right.I think other reviews have assessed the actual characters well. Special mention goes to Chris Wu just because of his range: I've now seen him perform beautifully in huge different roles in Ghost Bride, Autumn's Concerto, and Shards of Her. Boy, can he act!
I think it is important to remember that this is meant for a younger audience. I was more forgiving than I would normally be about the lack of depth for some of the characters because of the 'Young Adult' genre. There tends to be a certain naîve sheen that comes with that. Normally, I'd be critiquing the class politics too – notice how Amah and Lao Wong are uncritically loyal to the Pan family – but, again, it's a YA audience in mind so I can understand how it could've complicated the story too much.
Overall, this is a fun mystery/fantasy drama with a touch of romance that strays just far enough away from usual YA tropes to stand on its own two legs.
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Super problematic but still rewatched it like 6 times
I'm pretty sure this was the first non-English language drama I ever watched – I was 12 yo when Summer's Desire came out and a friend at school was watching it. I've rewatched it a handful of times since. But I think just because it was the first ever Taiwanese drama I'd watched, not because it was particularly good. I can't deny this is my most re-watched drama, hence the generous star number there.Look, be warned, this drama has heaps of problematic elements to it. Ok, I'm understating that a lot. I've given this a low rating because this drama has nothing to do with love and everything to do with coercive control. so **big content warning** there. There's no rape scenes thankfully, but it's clear that consent is not a big priority.
Also, as other reviews have noted, this drama is brimming with clichés. Turns out, it was a great drama to begin with because it introduced me to almost all the tropes of Taiwanese and C-Dramas in one go. I also think it took at least three re-watches for me to fully understand the plotline. But, let's be real, you're not watching Summer's Desire for the plot.
The chemistry between the three lead actors is really well done (somewhat despite a sub-par performance from Barbie Hsu who doesn't match her Meteor Garden efforts). The actors do pretty darn well in spite of the cliché characters and dialogue. The support actors also do well to provide emotional depth to the storyline.
The OST is great and makes up for the fact the overall audio quality is a bit patchy (this seemed to be a common thing among Taiwanese dramas of this era, I've now noticed). Just weird audio levels around dialogue and general atmosphere.
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Gallows humour gives this some shine
Honestly, Gezhi Town is pretty stock-standard fare when it comes to Chinese war films. Or perhaps it's harder to stand out at the moment, given the impressive number of Chinese-produced WWII blockbusters to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan's defeat.Obviously, from a commercial perspective, the creators have played their cards well by casting Xiao Zhan as our long-suffering protagonist, Mo Dexian. He delivers a solid performance, though nothing overly remarkable. The same can be said for the rest of the cast.
For me, the highlight of Gezhi Town is the use of gallows humour. There's a little sprinkled at the beginning, but it doesn't really come into play until halfway through when the action is at full swing. This is what gives the film a bit of sparkle. Otherwise, it's the usual fight-against-the-odds playbook – which is all well and good – just nothing particularly special.
This film also gets some brownie points for having very believable characters. It's easy for war films to reduce people to cardboard cutouts, but Gezhi Town employs humour to show the clumsy human-ness of goodies and baddies alike.
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Graphic war film with a focus on photography
Dead to Rights is a traditional war film. War movies are not my usual cup of tea, but as a photographer myself, I was interested in the photographic element of the story.Honestly, there’s a lot I could say about this film but won’t, because that critique is more of war films as a genre rather than anything special about Dead to Rights. The only thing I will note here before talking about the photography element of the storyline, is that I believe accusations of propaganda against this film are a bit redundant. All war films are propaganda. It doesn’t matter whether you’re watching Dead to Rights or Gallipoli, you can’t expect the genre to have no political motive.*
The initial drawcard for me was how Dead to Rights depicted the use of photography in war and atrocities. A lot of films I’ve watched that feature photographer characters normally position them as a truth-teller. One example that comes to mind given its narrative similarities is The Photographer of Mauthausen (Spanish, 2018) which tells the story of real-life Spanish concentration camp prisoner, Francois Boix, who took photographs at the camp, the negatives of which he hid until liberation and were ultimately used to prosecute the Nazis.
Dead to Rights was a little different because, while it had a photography-as-truth protagonist, it also used the Japanese military photographer as a foil. Although not delicately handled, I at least appreciated that the film attempted to go beyond the usual narrative of photography-as-truth. Even the Chinese characters seemed less interested in journalistic style documentation**, and more so in using the photographs as an act of resistance.
But all in all, I think the film did ultimately fall back on the simplistic photography-as-truth trope. It was made clear that scenes in the film were derived from the photographic archive of the Nanjing massacre. This also meant that that the film ended up trapped, I suspect willingly, in a paradox that Susan Sontag describes of war photography:
“The photograph gives mixed signals. Stop this, it urges. But it also exclaims, What a spectacle!”
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*Of course, propaganda films aren’t just limited to war films, although this genre is one of the more blatant forms.
**I should mention that, citing Sontag again, war photography as critical documentation – rather than as morale-boosting PR – didn’t really come into the fore until the Vietnam War.
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This review may contain spoilers
Ok but i need u to understand that construction bosses are the Real Villains
School kids gang up on a classmate and torture her to the brink of death. Not because of any personal hatred but rather as the because they are the rich elite exploiting their power over others. We not only despite these teens for their cruelty but also their flippancy; their indifferent disregard for another person's life.So riddle me this: Why is Ha Do Young spared?
Sure, he at no point is involved in the violence and bullying. You might argue that he innocent, just like his daughter. I would argue otherwise. In fact, I would argue that this is the central contradiction and disappointment of The Glory.
His daughter is a child. But Ha Do Young is a construction boss*. Let that sink in. A. Construction. Boss. You ever heard of one of those who *hasn't* indirectly committed industrial manslaughter? Who hasn't used the poor, working class as fodder for profits? You think how he achieved immense wealth is *innocent*?
Construction bosses like Ha Do Young are far more scary a villain than a bunch of rich teens. He does not need to hold a heated rod himself in order to inflict lifelong scars. But that's ok I guess! The FL decides to take revenge *personally*, even if the motivation of her torturers wasn't personal at all.
And honestly, that approach from the writers makes sense. The Glory is escapism (torture porn aside). In the world of The Glory, injustice *can* be righted. Of course, this is only achievable when the violence is boiled down to the individual level rather than as a result of social structures. To suspend that disbelief, Ha Do Young remains unblemished and unscathed.
All this to say: my itch was not scratched! Either you provide a) individual motivations for the rich kids to have bullied the FL or b) pure class warfare. It's that easy :P
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*The construction industry is one of the worst for workplace deaths. It is the employer's responsibility to ensure a safe working environment for workers. Just last week, half a dozen Korean construction workers died in a fire likely originating from materials on site: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/14/at-least-6-killed-in-fire-at-south-korean-hotel-construction-site
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Took me FIVE YEARS to slog through this drama
In the time it has taken me to scrape and crawl through this drama I have:– Lived through 5 Covid lockdowns
– Changed jobs 4 times
– Moved house 3 times
– Learnt 2 semesters of Mandarin, and
– Breathed the 1 biggest sigh of relief when I reached the credits of the final episode.
Class dynamics, who even is she? I'm a hard agree with Graeme Smith who describes this version of Meteor Garden as "unwatchable". In his article for The Interpreter, he says, "A drama about class divisions set in present-day China – where class divisions aren’t up for discussion – was never going to work."
It's true. Everyone in the series looks like they're acting in a laundry commercial. The sets are sparkly clean, all the actors have amazing teeth, and there is no way Shancai would be able to survive off the occasional shift she does at the bubble tea store.
By removing the class tensions that drove the Taiwanese version (and that was still relatively sanitised – it is a soap opera, after all), the creators gutted the life out of the drama.
It's also just hella boring. I felt no chemistry in any of the romantic relationships. I didn't particularly care about anyone's fate. And I say this as someone who *loves* championing an underdog. But because the class divisions "aren't up for discussion", Shancai isn't really an underdog. And so I found it hard to care much about her so-called struggles.
It got to the point where I was using diversions to keep myself watching. One fun game was tracking the disappearances and re-appearances of Daoming Si's earring/s. It was like playing Spotto with continuity errors.
For the sake of pushing through the last dozen episodes, I put the playback on 1.5x speed (as fast as Netflix would let me), which added an unintended comedic element. It also demonstrated how much screen time went to waste.
However, I'm going to be reeeeeally nice and end on a couple of (backhanded) positives. I did appreciate the music covers and the cameos from the Taiwanese version (but this is nostalgia and should be attributed to the 2001 series). I did also enjoy bits of Darren Chen's performance as Huaze Lei. He made the character seem almost complex, particularly in comparison to the cardboard cutouts that accompanied him on screen.
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And that, kids, is how you unionise!
From that start, the plot didn't feel right. Why would a domestic servant have any real romantic feelings for their master? So needless to say the final episode was a big 'ah now that makes sense' moment.That said, as much as I enjoy lower class insurgency and rooting for underdogs, the plotline was terribly executed. Because it spent more time delving into the backstories of the Evil Masters Of The House more than the servants, you had very little sense of who the servants were as human beings.
I understand why the storyline worked that way. It would've been very hard to explore Khaimook's character in-depth, for example, without giving away the big plot twist. However, it does mean the ending feels shallow. Sure – I want these people to land on top. But only on principle. Not because I feel any sentimental attachment to the individuals themselves.
Also, just as a heads up, this series does stray into torture porn territory at times. You can skip those scenes: it's lazy writing and doesn't really contribute much overall.
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