This review may contain spoilers
huanzhu gege self insert OCxOC transmigration fanfiction at its BEST!!!
i honest to god never thought i would see this premise- huanzhu gege, my beloved, childhood favorite, my first ever c-drama, getting a transmigration au self insert fanfiction, as a C DRAMA??? smth made for web w 15 min episodes sure, but still... WHAT?? and more than that, it's.... watchable????? does justice to the original source material??? is sweet and funny and nostalgic while imbuing the story w smth fresh and new??? bruh hzgg 3 wasn't even watchable for all the gouxie (dogblood) and knowing they added a white guy to the 2011 remake i didn't even bother. despite how short it is and tacky and silly, it is genuinely full of love and care for hzgg and its characters and that's more than i could ask for. like it's ofc clunky and there's plenty of plot holes and the amnesia plotline sent me into psychosis and the jinsuo parts were clunky as hell BUT it fulfilled so many rare minimums i have to give it some credit.
the love story isn't the most compelling ive seen but the writing is at least generally stable. jing yuan annoyed me at times, but he's consistent- i think i'm just sick of ml's w trauma backstories leading them to be assholes, but he really wasn't that bad comparably. and lin sui sui!!!!! thank GOD the writers gave a shit about her!!!!!!! kind of insane that out of the transmigration dramas that have come out recently, lin sui sui is the MOST developed omg. i guess it's easiest to compare this to 'a dream within a dream/shujuan yimeng' since they have somewhat similar set ups w an actress fl transmigrator. it is insane to me that w all of the money, time, resources, and general big production that sjym has- they never gave even a shred of the care and development that lin suisui has to their fl. lin suisui actually has a character, and isn't some kind of self insert stand in despite literally inserting herself into the story. she's flawed and she learns and she experiences real, true character growth in the hzgg world. we come to understand how being an actress has had a profound impact on her, and why she would love the hzgg world, how hzgg inspired her to act in the very first place like!! it's honestly so little and she only has a couple scenes that explore this further but!! it was enough for me!!!! one of her last scenes w jing yuan, when she's talking about how she doesn't feel real in her world, but she feels real in the hzgg one, and how he encourages her to go back, and to only make genuine relationships made me cry so hard. that's the other thing i appreciate abt them as a couple, is that jing yuan only ever supports her going back to her world, and when asked what he'll do without her, he describes having a full life outside of her. obvi there's still a fair amt of i only wanna be w u! willing to die for u! typical shit in this show, but the fact that they still want to live a life even without each other, while still holding their love for each other so strongly, is realistic and special.
also aaaaa the hzgg of it all! tbh they are maybe really just getting me w the nostalgia but lwk tears well in my eyes just hearing the theme song. it's made w so much love for hzgg, and so much understanding for why it was as popular as it was. in that way, lin suisui is all of us- sharing the joy this show gave us as children, how xiao yanzi and ziwei feel like your very best friends, and the love that exists between the girls, with their huang ahma, with their love interests, feels so big and beautiful. lin suisui got to live the dream, getting to be best friends w xiao yanzi and ziwei, the kind of friendship that only exists in dramas like hzgg, so pure and simple and innocent. and while no one, absolutely NO ONE can ever fully capture zhao wei's xiao yanzi and lin xinru's ziwei, the actresses in this show gave me faint glimmers of their spirit occasionally. so, good enough! it's an impossibility anyway, and i wouldn't want them to just be perfect imitations. im glad they had their own interpretations of the characters, while staying true to the original. every scene they had together, i couldn't help but think, "my girls, my sweet girls!"
all in all, this was stupid and it was good. and maybe for someone who never watched hzgg, this would be entirely meaningless and it would just be bad. but i'll never know what that's like, bc hzgg will always be special to me, so maybe it's relying purely on nostalgia factor, and maybe it isn't. either way, i loved this.
the love story isn't the most compelling ive seen but the writing is at least generally stable. jing yuan annoyed me at times, but he's consistent- i think i'm just sick of ml's w trauma backstories leading them to be assholes, but he really wasn't that bad comparably. and lin sui sui!!!!! thank GOD the writers gave a shit about her!!!!!!! kind of insane that out of the transmigration dramas that have come out recently, lin sui sui is the MOST developed omg. i guess it's easiest to compare this to 'a dream within a dream/shujuan yimeng' since they have somewhat similar set ups w an actress fl transmigrator. it is insane to me that w all of the money, time, resources, and general big production that sjym has- they never gave even a shred of the care and development that lin suisui has to their fl. lin suisui actually has a character, and isn't some kind of self insert stand in despite literally inserting herself into the story. she's flawed and she learns and she experiences real, true character growth in the hzgg world. we come to understand how being an actress has had a profound impact on her, and why she would love the hzgg world, how hzgg inspired her to act in the very first place like!! it's honestly so little and she only has a couple scenes that explore this further but!! it was enough for me!!!! one of her last scenes w jing yuan, when she's talking about how she doesn't feel real in her world, but she feels real in the hzgg one, and how he encourages her to go back, and to only make genuine relationships made me cry so hard. that's the other thing i appreciate abt them as a couple, is that jing yuan only ever supports her going back to her world, and when asked what he'll do without her, he describes having a full life outside of her. obvi there's still a fair amt of i only wanna be w u! willing to die for u! typical shit in this show, but the fact that they still want to live a life even without each other, while still holding their love for each other so strongly, is realistic and special.
also aaaaa the hzgg of it all! tbh they are maybe really just getting me w the nostalgia but lwk tears well in my eyes just hearing the theme song. it's made w so much love for hzgg, and so much understanding for why it was as popular as it was. in that way, lin suisui is all of us- sharing the joy this show gave us as children, how xiao yanzi and ziwei feel like your very best friends, and the love that exists between the girls, with their huang ahma, with their love interests, feels so big and beautiful. lin suisui got to live the dream, getting to be best friends w xiao yanzi and ziwei, the kind of friendship that only exists in dramas like hzgg, so pure and simple and innocent. and while no one, absolutely NO ONE can ever fully capture zhao wei's xiao yanzi and lin xinru's ziwei, the actresses in this show gave me faint glimmers of their spirit occasionally. so, good enough! it's an impossibility anyway, and i wouldn't want them to just be perfect imitations. im glad they had their own interpretations of the characters, while staying true to the original. every scene they had together, i couldn't help but think, "my girls, my sweet girls!"
all in all, this was stupid and it was good. and maybe for someone who never watched hzgg, this would be entirely meaningless and it would just be bad. but i'll never know what that's like, bc hzgg will always be special to me, so maybe it's relying purely on nostalgia factor, and maybe it isn't. either way, i loved this.
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