This review may contain spoilers
FUN!! Funny!!! A good time for the most part! Well written.....????? IDK abt that
This is one of those shows where I only need to hear the first sentence of the premise and I'm in. Transmigration, meta commentary, parody and politics? The first scene with the three way stabbing fan edit with the GIANT text and the iconic song?? I eat this shit UP!!! But in terms of actually delivering on this premise... did it do it successfully?
Um.. sure.
Ultimately this show is successful in its goals, however, the goals themselves are quite simple and don't go as far as I had hoped. From the beginning it's set up that the show would be playing with tropes, making fun of melodramatic dog blood writing, and criticizing genre conventions such as ML must be beautiful, strong and tragic. And what does it end up doing? Using a bunch of typical tropes, is full of melodramatic dog blood writing, and ML is beautiful, strong and tragic.
I truly like Nan Heng as a character, and especially enjoyed seeing him as Li Shiliu, his opportunity to his true self, rather than play the villain prince that he's expected to be by the world. Seeing the contrast between the two selves was great on the writer's part, everything about him and his mannerisms down to the pitch of his voice was different. NH is great because he is complicated, and though he's been misunderstood to be worse than he actually is, he also has been pretty terrible. He's done bad things, manipulates people constantly, lies all the time, and plays a convincing villain because he's actually good at villainous things. Even in his VERY last scene he's still trying to manipulate SYM. The good thing about this couple is that she can read when he's lying/manipulating and calls him out on it. Honestly the other viewers who are just LYN pilled and have misogynistic ML bias are selling him short. He isn't a perfect woobified baby boy victim who has only been done wrong by the entire world. He's better than that. I much prefer the NH who is manipulative, full of schemes that he hides from his loved ones but is genuinely a good person who tries to make up for his wrongdoings.
My issue with NH is that he was sold to me as an opportunity to critique the ML. Instead of actually critiquing him they just... repeat all of the things they say they're critiquing. ML is held accountable by the plot for his bad deeds for sure, punished by SYM's repeated rejections but in terms of his relationship with FL? He just does all the typical bad cdrama ML things, 'plots behind FL's back to protect her' 'plots to sacrifice himself to protect FL' 'Lies to FL so she doesn't worry instead of facing all troubles together as PARTNERS' bs that we've seen 5000000x in cdrama. He fights on his own entirely with no regard for his own safety and though this is pointed out by the characters and SYM, it feels like he doesn't fully understand that this is wrong, and neither does the show want to truly critique these tropes. Luckily, they win in the finale because they worked together, but imo these annoying ass tropes aren't subverted with intention. How is this meta commentary on cdrama when it just... IS a typical c drama? It's why I gave LBFAD/CLJ such a high rating because they had a very real intention to subvert this (even though then they just repeated it in the finale) and LGIEF/YYXH actually succeeded at this. LIKE.... I'm so fucking sick of cdramas turning out this tired old trope because in reality, you are a bad partner if you can't fucking respect or trust your partner enough to communicate and work together!! And you're lame to hate yourself enough to view yourself as disposable.... this is literally one of those moments that proves 'how the hell can you love someone if you don't love yourself.' Because in hating himself and not treating SYM as his teammate, he is literally a bad partner. In fiction it's just tired and overused and annoying bad writing to force unnecessary emotional melodramatic reveals!!! Unfortunately writers are just not big brained enough!! You don't actually understand what a good relationship or partner is!!!! Sorry bout it!!! If I look at this show as a romance then it's really quite poorly done, ML and FL do not have clear reasons for liking each other, their conflict is not explored deeply with enough empathy towards FL, the way they get together is unsatisfying, and then Nan Heng isn't a great partner and that's never seriously discussed in depth, it's just SYM yelling at him and him being like "Okay, honey." Also don't even get me started on how badly his relationship with his dad is written, they don’t even deserve discussion.
Other wasted opportunities include... uhh... just making him cool??? All the fucking time?? Did they not say in the very first episode how shitty it was the cdramas were billed entirely around ML needing to steal every scene, needing to be the savior, the cool guy, the strongest all the time so that the idol's fanbase would be satisfied??? THEN WHY DID THEY DO THAT??? Why criticize cool epic shots of Nan Heng, then literally cram the drama full of them??? For LYN fans?? THE EXACT SAME THING THEY WERE CRITCIZING??? and I understand delivering some because it is an industry standard, but like, isn't there a way to like, show the cool fan edit esq scene, then subvert it immediately with SYM's commentary in some way? Like, let us know that you're still in on the joke. Or the cool scenes are only in cuts to his old script self. IDK I'm just throwing ideas out, I'm not a writer, I'm just saying, there's way to incorporate cool scenes AND maintain that critique at the same time. Instead ML just looks cool as hell and SYM is tossed to the side in terms of love and importance, just like every other cdrama. The other issue was also brought up multiple times IN the drama, which is that MLs must be beautiful, strong and tragic. Oh my god did they torture him... honestly cartoonishly and excessively. It was a degree that far surpassed what was needed for him to take accountability for his actions and went into the narrative just dog piling on him to make audiences love him more. Overly, unreasonably abusing the ML does not make me love him more.... it just makes me lose even more respect for script writers.
Song Yimeng as a character is truly underwritten in every sense. She does not have a shred of complexity, or even love from the writers- something they so seriously criticized in other dramas. She is a blank slate of a self insert character who just reacts and does things the way that anyone might if they transmigrate and face a tragic ending. I will argue that I do think her internal logic is reasonable, unlike most of the criticisms of her character. From her perspective, Nan Heng was a predetermined bad guy, and even if he isn't as bad as she thought, he still lied to her about his identity, KISSED HER under that identity which is technically SA, manipulated her constantly, even if he never physically harmed her, he did not show her respect. That's enough reason to not trust him, especially when you know that bad things will happen if you get together with him. I thought it was reasonable for her to continuously reject him and call him out, I even think it's okay for her to be a little cruel to him. It just would've been better if the writers loved and respected her enough to pay attention to her character and her actions and give us empathy for her. I think the lack of empathy towards her from viewers is half misogyny and half fueled by the bad writing of her character. Like.... there is actually no shortage of total bitch, flawed female characters in fiction who are beloved. SYM is not well written, and the careful attention given to NH is not given to her.... it's worse than a lot of other c-dramas actually that they are supposedly criticizing. They mention that her parents died in a fire... okay so... how did this actually affect her beyond wanting to save her fictional family?? What if they just included more scenes about how the trauma of losing her family lead her to believe in fate? Or even that her unsuccessful career lead her to believe that no matter how hard she worked, she would never make it? That her career was in the hands of others, just like her parents lives? And that she may as well just not try and lay flat and try to be comfortable until her doom??? NH is supposed to show her that fate CAN be changed and she has the power to direct her own life?? Which is a lesson she did get to eventually but SOOO clunkily because they did not care to establish the base of her character. But if they better explored her trauma and her failures in her career, and also showed genuine growth and emotional scenes with the Song family, she would be so much more believable as a person.
As for the other characters... Song Yiting is just. I don't even really know what to say. SA'ing the man you proclaim to love to make it look like y'all are fucking in order to ruin your reputation is just... wtf. Like someone who can even think of a plot like this, even if you have no actual SA intention, is still a pretty awful person. The scene is really upsetting, and it's really not dealt with well, and for some reason, SYT is the one angry at SGH and NH afterwards and blames them for what happened??? When SHE came up w this plot and assaulted NH and it WOULD'VE been her boo SGH if he hadn't gotten arrested???? It's honestly just a mess. Not the worst dealing of SA I've seen in a cdrama but still pretty awful and not handled well. SYT was never held accountable for her actions, I guess because she's a pretty girl, so ?? Then it was never talked about again and if I completely ignore all of it, then SYT becomes a character I can't help but find adorable. But because it happened I feel really weird about her character?? Like other than this, SYT is more well written than SYM to me, and is very cute and enjoyable, and her dynamic with SGH is also endearing to me to an extent. At times it's definitely a bit uncomfortable how domineering she is and how much she attempts to wield her money and power over him to get him to do what she wants while simultaneously berating him for being a 'shitty guy' for not committing to her. IDK... like if you switch the genders it would have felt seriously uncomfortable. I have very mixed feelings on them.
Chu Guihong has the makings of a good villain, but is extremely under delivered. He goes from 1 -> 50 ->1000 WAYYYY too quickly. I liked what he said about SYM's pressure on him to be a good person being a jokerfying factor. I wish they pushed this further, and we could see just how much she negatively affected him.They made him too crazy like half way through the show, and only should've jokerfied him when he learns he's fictional..
Other than the characters the plot is quite fun! I think it's very fast paced, easily bingeable candy. The sense of humor, the large cast of loveable characters like Fugui, the Nightwalkers, even Nan Rui were all very fun to watch. It made the show really fun despite all its flaws. I also have to praise them on the finale, which I think was excellent. In bringing back the reincarnation element from the beginning, it tied the entire story together, gave the audience the typical melodramatic self sacrifice scenes, an ending to multiple relationship and character arcs (such as Nan Heng and dad, SYT and SGH, SYM and CGH, etc.) AND also could slam dunk their themes because they had enough time to do so! Despite the mid writing for most of the show, as well as their very low ambitions, they did communicate their theme very well: each and every person is important and is in control of their own destiny. Who cares if they are fictional, if they feel real then they are real. The problems with cdramas today is that they are made by writers that have no love for their own characters. SJYM said that writers must cherish their characters and respect them as you would real human beings! Hypocritically I do not think they actually were able to extend this respect to their very own FL, but the theme was communicated well. But I do have to criticize the sheer amount of flashbacks for EVERY significant moment!!! I IMMEDIATELY understood what SYM swinging the cloak around Nan Heng meant and actually felt a swell of emotion until they showed me the flashback of him doing that for her when they met. Respect your audience!!! They know what you meant!!! You're killing the moment with the flashback!!! Leave that work to the fan edits!!
All in all, the show suffers from the exact trappings of tropes it set out to criticize. There is so much more you can do with the nesting doll of fictional worlds, tropes and iconic scenes, more to subvert and more to play with. They didn't live up to this expectation, but it wasn't bad either, and I had a lot of fun along the way. Ultimately, in my eyes, if you just want to be entertained and don't have too high expectations or too much ML LYN idol bias then you'll have a good time with this show.
Um.. sure.
Ultimately this show is successful in its goals, however, the goals themselves are quite simple and don't go as far as I had hoped. From the beginning it's set up that the show would be playing with tropes, making fun of melodramatic dog blood writing, and criticizing genre conventions such as ML must be beautiful, strong and tragic. And what does it end up doing? Using a bunch of typical tropes, is full of melodramatic dog blood writing, and ML is beautiful, strong and tragic.
I truly like Nan Heng as a character, and especially enjoyed seeing him as Li Shiliu, his opportunity to his true self, rather than play the villain prince that he's expected to be by the world. Seeing the contrast between the two selves was great on the writer's part, everything about him and his mannerisms down to the pitch of his voice was different. NH is great because he is complicated, and though he's been misunderstood to be worse than he actually is, he also has been pretty terrible. He's done bad things, manipulates people constantly, lies all the time, and plays a convincing villain because he's actually good at villainous things. Even in his VERY last scene he's still trying to manipulate SYM. The good thing about this couple is that she can read when he's lying/manipulating and calls him out on it. Honestly the other viewers who are just LYN pilled and have misogynistic ML bias are selling him short. He isn't a perfect woobified baby boy victim who has only been done wrong by the entire world. He's better than that. I much prefer the NH who is manipulative, full of schemes that he hides from his loved ones but is genuinely a good person who tries to make up for his wrongdoings.
My issue with NH is that he was sold to me as an opportunity to critique the ML. Instead of actually critiquing him they just... repeat all of the things they say they're critiquing. ML is held accountable by the plot for his bad deeds for sure, punished by SYM's repeated rejections but in terms of his relationship with FL? He just does all the typical bad cdrama ML things, 'plots behind FL's back to protect her' 'plots to sacrifice himself to protect FL' 'Lies to FL so she doesn't worry instead of facing all troubles together as PARTNERS' bs that we've seen 5000000x in cdrama. He fights on his own entirely with no regard for his own safety and though this is pointed out by the characters and SYM, it feels like he doesn't fully understand that this is wrong, and neither does the show want to truly critique these tropes. Luckily, they win in the finale because they worked together, but imo these annoying ass tropes aren't subverted with intention. How is this meta commentary on cdrama when it just... IS a typical c drama? It's why I gave LBFAD/CLJ such a high rating because they had a very real intention to subvert this (even though then they just repeated it in the finale) and LGIEF/YYXH actually succeeded at this. LIKE.... I'm so fucking sick of cdramas turning out this tired old trope because in reality, you are a bad partner if you can't fucking respect or trust your partner enough to communicate and work together!! And you're lame to hate yourself enough to view yourself as disposable.... this is literally one of those moments that proves 'how the hell can you love someone if you don't love yourself.' Because in hating himself and not treating SYM as his teammate, he is literally a bad partner. In fiction it's just tired and overused and annoying bad writing to force unnecessary emotional melodramatic reveals!!! Unfortunately writers are just not big brained enough!! You don't actually understand what a good relationship or partner is!!!! Sorry bout it!!! If I look at this show as a romance then it's really quite poorly done, ML and FL do not have clear reasons for liking each other, their conflict is not explored deeply with enough empathy towards FL, the way they get together is unsatisfying, and then Nan Heng isn't a great partner and that's never seriously discussed in depth, it's just SYM yelling at him and him being like "Okay, honey." Also don't even get me started on how badly his relationship with his dad is written, they don’t even deserve discussion.
Other wasted opportunities include... uhh... just making him cool??? All the fucking time?? Did they not say in the very first episode how shitty it was the cdramas were billed entirely around ML needing to steal every scene, needing to be the savior, the cool guy, the strongest all the time so that the idol's fanbase would be satisfied??? THEN WHY DID THEY DO THAT??? Why criticize cool epic shots of Nan Heng, then literally cram the drama full of them??? For LYN fans?? THE EXACT SAME THING THEY WERE CRITCIZING??? and I understand delivering some because it is an industry standard, but like, isn't there a way to like, show the cool fan edit esq scene, then subvert it immediately with SYM's commentary in some way? Like, let us know that you're still in on the joke. Or the cool scenes are only in cuts to his old script self. IDK I'm just throwing ideas out, I'm not a writer, I'm just saying, there's way to incorporate cool scenes AND maintain that critique at the same time. Instead ML just looks cool as hell and SYM is tossed to the side in terms of love and importance, just like every other cdrama. The other issue was also brought up multiple times IN the drama, which is that MLs must be beautiful, strong and tragic. Oh my god did they torture him... honestly cartoonishly and excessively. It was a degree that far surpassed what was needed for him to take accountability for his actions and went into the narrative just dog piling on him to make audiences love him more. Overly, unreasonably abusing the ML does not make me love him more.... it just makes me lose even more respect for script writers.
Song Yimeng as a character is truly underwritten in every sense. She does not have a shred of complexity, or even love from the writers- something they so seriously criticized in other dramas. She is a blank slate of a self insert character who just reacts and does things the way that anyone might if they transmigrate and face a tragic ending. I will argue that I do think her internal logic is reasonable, unlike most of the criticisms of her character. From her perspective, Nan Heng was a predetermined bad guy, and even if he isn't as bad as she thought, he still lied to her about his identity, KISSED HER under that identity which is technically SA, manipulated her constantly, even if he never physically harmed her, he did not show her respect. That's enough reason to not trust him, especially when you know that bad things will happen if you get together with him. I thought it was reasonable for her to continuously reject him and call him out, I even think it's okay for her to be a little cruel to him. It just would've been better if the writers loved and respected her enough to pay attention to her character and her actions and give us empathy for her. I think the lack of empathy towards her from viewers is half misogyny and half fueled by the bad writing of her character. Like.... there is actually no shortage of total bitch, flawed female characters in fiction who are beloved. SYM is not well written, and the careful attention given to NH is not given to her.... it's worse than a lot of other c-dramas actually that they are supposedly criticizing. They mention that her parents died in a fire... okay so... how did this actually affect her beyond wanting to save her fictional family?? What if they just included more scenes about how the trauma of losing her family lead her to believe in fate? Or even that her unsuccessful career lead her to believe that no matter how hard she worked, she would never make it? That her career was in the hands of others, just like her parents lives? And that she may as well just not try and lay flat and try to be comfortable until her doom??? NH is supposed to show her that fate CAN be changed and she has the power to direct her own life?? Which is a lesson she did get to eventually but SOOO clunkily because they did not care to establish the base of her character. But if they better explored her trauma and her failures in her career, and also showed genuine growth and emotional scenes with the Song family, she would be so much more believable as a person.
As for the other characters... Song Yiting is just. I don't even really know what to say. SA'ing the man you proclaim to love to make it look like y'all are fucking in order to ruin your reputation is just... wtf. Like someone who can even think of a plot like this, even if you have no actual SA intention, is still a pretty awful person. The scene is really upsetting, and it's really not dealt with well, and for some reason, SYT is the one angry at SGH and NH afterwards and blames them for what happened??? When SHE came up w this plot and assaulted NH and it WOULD'VE been her boo SGH if he hadn't gotten arrested???? It's honestly just a mess. Not the worst dealing of SA I've seen in a cdrama but still pretty awful and not handled well. SYT was never held accountable for her actions, I guess because she's a pretty girl, so ?? Then it was never talked about again and if I completely ignore all of it, then SYT becomes a character I can't help but find adorable. But because it happened I feel really weird about her character?? Like other than this, SYT is more well written than SYM to me, and is very cute and enjoyable, and her dynamic with SGH is also endearing to me to an extent. At times it's definitely a bit uncomfortable how domineering she is and how much she attempts to wield her money and power over him to get him to do what she wants while simultaneously berating him for being a 'shitty guy' for not committing to her. IDK... like if you switch the genders it would have felt seriously uncomfortable. I have very mixed feelings on them.
Chu Guihong has the makings of a good villain, but is extremely under delivered. He goes from 1 -> 50 ->1000 WAYYYY too quickly. I liked what he said about SYM's pressure on him to be a good person being a jokerfying factor. I wish they pushed this further, and we could see just how much she negatively affected him.They made him too crazy like half way through the show, and only should've jokerfied him when he learns he's fictional..
Other than the characters the plot is quite fun! I think it's very fast paced, easily bingeable candy. The sense of humor, the large cast of loveable characters like Fugui, the Nightwalkers, even Nan Rui were all very fun to watch. It made the show really fun despite all its flaws. I also have to praise them on the finale, which I think was excellent. In bringing back the reincarnation element from the beginning, it tied the entire story together, gave the audience the typical melodramatic self sacrifice scenes, an ending to multiple relationship and character arcs (such as Nan Heng and dad, SYT and SGH, SYM and CGH, etc.) AND also could slam dunk their themes because they had enough time to do so! Despite the mid writing for most of the show, as well as their very low ambitions, they did communicate their theme very well: each and every person is important and is in control of their own destiny. Who cares if they are fictional, if they feel real then they are real. The problems with cdramas today is that they are made by writers that have no love for their own characters. SJYM said that writers must cherish their characters and respect them as you would real human beings! Hypocritically I do not think they actually were able to extend this respect to their very own FL, but the theme was communicated well. But I do have to criticize the sheer amount of flashbacks for EVERY significant moment!!! I IMMEDIATELY understood what SYM swinging the cloak around Nan Heng meant and actually felt a swell of emotion until they showed me the flashback of him doing that for her when they met. Respect your audience!!! They know what you meant!!! You're killing the moment with the flashback!!! Leave that work to the fan edits!!
All in all, the show suffers from the exact trappings of tropes it set out to criticize. There is so much more you can do with the nesting doll of fictional worlds, tropes and iconic scenes, more to subvert and more to play with. They didn't live up to this expectation, but it wasn't bad either, and I had a lot of fun along the way. Ultimately, in my eyes, if you just want to be entertained and don't have too high expectations or too much ML LYN idol bias then you'll have a good time with this show.
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