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So far, the Chinese mini-series I've given the highest score

I binge-watched 8 Chinese mini-series over the past couple of days, and this one stood out as the best among them all. The only other one I found passable was "Confess Your Love," which I rated 1 points lower than this one. I also watched two other mini-series featuring either one or both of the main leads from this show, and they were both very disappointing.

The biggest issue I found with these mini-series is their lack of logical coherence, which greatly disturbed and hindered my ability to appreciate their work. It's quite frustrating when you're forced to pay attention to characters, who behave stupidly and irrationally, that aren't worth investing your energy in, don't you think?

Regarding this mini-series, it's the most logically structured among the 8 I watched. However, it veered into illogical territory towards the end, which led me to deduct 0.5-1 point from the overall score. It felt like they introduced these nonsensical elements for the sake of convenience. It's as if they had a specific ending in mind but struggled to develop the storyline to reach that conclusion, resulting in them fabricating illogical scenarios to meet their predetermined ending. This, I consider, is irresponsibility from the production team.

Nevertheless, this mini-series only exhibited these issues towards the ending (about 1-2 episodes before the end), whereas many others in this genre scatter illogical elements throughout when they run out of ideas to maintain a logical storyline. Overall, this mini-series ranked at the top of my list among the 8 I watched.

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P.S. The list of my 8 binge-watched shows is as follows:

Passable:
1. The Deliberations of Love
2. Confess Your Love (2023)

So bad:
1. My Villain Husband
2. A Tale of Love and Loyalty
3. My Cat-astrophic Lover
4. My Fake Wife

Dropped:
1. The West Wind Is Strong
2. The Everlasting Love

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Cute but super dragging.

Long story spanning from high school to working life - same style as A Love So Beautiful, but it is not as plot-driven. At least, the story is rational. ML+FL are not silly. In the story, there's nothing heart-wrenching, nothing much in it, so it's quite dragging to the point of almost boring. I actually had to increase speed and skim since ep12. Personally I think they can finish the whole story within 15 episodes instead of 25.

Anyway, the production quality is good and ML+FL's characters+acting are cute. These were the points that kept me watching until the end or else I'd drop at around ep15-17.

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Impressive story & acting but disappointed on how they unfold last ep.

My gosh... it's been all really really good and then dropped a lot in the last episode. A lot of loopholes appeared right in the last episode. A lot of previous knots couldn't solve well in the last episode. I wanted to give a lower score for this drama because of this last ep, but the process coming through till this last point has been really impressive, so I can't help but add a little more points than what it actually deserves.

The cast is great. Love the acting of all the main characters.

The story is heart-warming and tearfully touching during the last 2 ep.

P.S.1
Though how disappointing the last ep was, I still think they did it neater than what they did in Someday or One Day. Someday or One Day's last ep was a lot messier. The story's crucial rules and logic were annihilated. Lots of contradiction there.

P.S.2
I want to leave a note on a few points I really don't like in the last ep below but it's a bit of a spoiler, so beware to proceed on.

1. How the hell the FL traveled back through time right in front of the ML??

2. How the ML had a new identity to completely fit in the present world??

3. If the storyline in the past would change as much as the real ML's identity changed while his love interest was the girl in the next class who transferred during high school, the whole story in the previous 23 ep would totally be ruined. Lots of loopholes become apparent just by this irresponsible, reckless, unthoughtful story unfolding. As to how messy the end has become, it makes shown that the writer desperately wrote all the knots to make the story interesting but he went too far to finally tightly trap himself without a way out. This eventually ruined the world he tried hard to create in the first place. It's very disappointing and annoying how they couldn't think the story through to unfold it properly.

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P.S.3 is added after I had a constructive discussion with another viewer on the comment section :)
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P.S.3
What is important in 'every' show is the logic of its own universe. This show finally contradicts itself = it ruins its own rules = it ruins its own world.

A time-traveling story is especially hard to unfold. Most of the time they fail because of the rules and logic they set up themselves. It doesn't surprise me that this show also fails at the end when it tries to unfold as it's expectable. The only time-traveling show that impresses me is Dark, the German series of 3 seasons in total.

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I really want to like this series but there're some unacceptable loopholes.

I really want to give this series a good score for their strong will and good intention to pass on some important messages that have a social impact, but if I'd be honest to myself, this series still doesn't reach my satisfaction standard.

Story [~]
In spite of having strong main plot and subplots, the elements in their main and subplots have loopholes occurring from time to time. And they aren't just some small loopholes that we can pretend to close one eye and let them pass.

The most unacceptable loophole in the plot is right at the end which is the climax. The teacher doesn't want to commit suicide by jumping from the rooftop. He only jumps to repeat a student's traumatic experience when she couldn't help her best friend doing the same thing so that she can modify the outcome by saving him this time. But the hell to that idea! He really jumps and it's just by chance that the student runs to grasp his hand at the last minute when his whole body already dropped from the building. The student is a girl and comes alone, though... There's no way she can help him up by herself if she couldn't do it for her friend. And not to say about running to him in the first place, she might not be able to run or be in time to even catch his hand. The teacher risks beyond the acceptable limit in the process that he claims to help the girl. If he really jumped to death before the girl's eyes as she couldn't reach him in time or especially if he dropped to death after she already got hold of him, the result could turn out to be totally opposite and worsen the state of mind of that student. (In the end, other friends appear in time to help pull the teacher back up, but the teacher never knew other students were to show up esp. it's the last minute.)

Acting [~]
Suda Masaki acts wholeheartedly. Moka and Mei are not so good at acting. Their BFF's happy laughters are so fake. Ryota's acting isn't convincing, either. I doubt that Ryota might not be able to act in challenging roles and be stuck in rom-com high school films/series forever.

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Not a story. Just a too-long presentation of one-point idea.

The film about e-sport that is more proper to target the audience who are parents in Gen-X or upper, esp. those who oppose kids playing games.

I watch this film because the promotional trailer looks interesting, but the real thing is just complete opposite. The subject is about e-sport—a trendy contemporary subject, so I expected for the least of exciting CG, fast-pacing story progress and enthusiastic youthful energy. What I found is ordinary CG like a presentation of a 1st-year film student, slow-pacing progress to the point of almost reaching nowhere, and laggard/sluggish energy due to an under par acting direction of supporting roles.

[Shortcut note in case you wouldn't read this 'til the end:
If anyone like this kind of gaming/e-sport theme with the youthful+comical tone, I want to recommend Cross Fire. It's a 36-ep. Chinese series presenting a lot of topics surrounding gaming and e-sport. One of them is also about prejudice from the older generation toward gaming/e-sport, but the production team can present it like a professional storyteller. Rip off all the decoration like CG or cinematography techniques and left only the organic element like the storytelling skills, it's already highly admirable.
P.S. I watched Cross Fire after Mother Gamer.]

Let's talk:

(1) Story
It's not a story. This 2-hour film has only one-point idea which is a mother who opposes her exemplary-student son to play in e-sport league, so she tries to make him lose the competition by building another team to beat his team but becomes a player in the process. Along 2 hours, it mainly presents the journey of a Gen-X mom becoming a game player. The selling point of the film is just to show the contrast of being an old Gen-X in the new world of e-sport (though the vibe is sorta outdated kind of e-sport). The film is shallow. Actually, this starting idea is interesting and has huge potential to create an elaborative story on another level, but the creator might be too lazy to be creative and just stop dead at the first sentence of the story while repeating the loop of that sentence for another 2 hours (—most of the time is mom trying to build the team). There's no story in it. That's why I call it just a too-long presentation of one-point idea.

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(2) Directing
The continuity between shots and scenes is obviously unskilled. At times, there wouldn't be connecting point between scenes. This messes the storytelling making the audience confused and doubts the necessity in the existence of the scene that comes later. The director is not a storyteller. He has no tactic in smoothening out the story esp. the romance part of it. He always puts a flirting scene next to another irrelevant scene out of the blue. The big fail is that all the lovey-dovey bits in the film are unimportant at all. If they cut off all these love bits, the film would look more roundly even than bumpy as it already happens to be.

Anyway, I can see why they try to add the love bits into the film. It's because they want to target the teenage group of audience, but their leading character is a Gen-X. Moreover, their main point is to change the pessimistic mindset of Gen-X about gaming, which is literally an unnecessary message to the teens. So instead, they think to pull the teenage audience in with love story, but the result is awkward. Yet to say there's no chemistry between the couple at all. The portion around love here is just too extra, out of context, or in another word—a leftover added on, which resulting in the film direction being a mess.

Let me mention a bit about the cinematography style of the film. I can see they try to use those minimal camera angles that look more contemporary like still shots, edge cut-off shots, symmetric shots, scenes with few props, but it's also seen that it isn't their real style. This style doesn't persist throughout. In the end, what they do is just kind of copying the trend.

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(3) Acting
The acting in love-bit scenes between the boy and the girl gamers is awful. It's unnatural and out of place. They're not shy but awkward. Their no-chemistry is a failure. Their flirting scenes are all fail and not convincing.

The acting direction of the fat boy is also wrong. I think this is the fault of the director. The direction of this character to be humorous by putting himself to be a bland joke doesn't come from the actor for sure. Having a character being a bland joke himself is a kind of comedy that Thai people like, but this direction doesn't work here. The film is already pretty much quiet despite being a (self-proclaimed) action film. This character being a bland joke just make the whole thing worse—now it's truly blandly quiet, but without being humorous. In the film, he even raps a song explaining the game they play, which oh... so awful. The rap is amateur and totally awful in the aspects of lyrics, rhythm and rapping skills. I'm secondhand embarrassed just by hearing it.

The acting of many main characters is just unbalanced in various layers.

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(4) Music
As I just mention that this film is pretty much quiet. Not that they don't use music. It's that they don't know how to use music. For example, at places like stimulating scenes that need music, they don't use the right music to boost the audience's emotions, and at places, the music just fades down until almost disappear altogether despite that it shouldn't. It's like they don't have a good sense of music and when they don't know what music to use or how to use music, they're not afraid of leaving it silent. Anyway, though the music isn't much helpful to the film, at least it doesn't obtrude their own work.

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With the unskillful work of the director, cinematographer, actors/actresses as well as editing team, the film doesn't come out at the top of the level they can reach (—not that the level could be very high, but instead of 2.5 score, they might get up to 3.5 from me).

Let me just finish myself here. I feel like I take more time writing this than watching the film itself.

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Stiff female lead. Script isn't good.

In the story, the female lead pursues the male lead. One of her chasing trick is sending her own composition of flirting poems to him as a secret admirer. Those poems were embarrassing both for the awkward meaning and unsmooth rhyme. The writer tries hard to forcefully put the right sound into the rhyme position of the poem but fails to select the right word for the meaning. As the result, those poems carry weird meanings with forceful sounds. If you know the rhyming rules of Thai poetry, you'd know the poems in this story are lame and a shame.

I don't like this drama after finish watching it, so I'm not really interested in talking/writing about it in detail, but I kind of feel obligated to give proper reasons on some negative points since I mentioned those points as a comparison on another drama's review (also Thai drama). So in conclusion about the poems, they are cringey and badly composed - broken on both the meanings and aesthetic. In the story, the female lead is supposed to be a genius, these poems exist just to downgrade that claim.

Apart from the poems, the dialogue is super cringey. No one would talk like the female lead in real life and get the male lead as the result. In reality, this kind of dialogue would make the speaker embarrassed and make those who hear it secondhand embarrassed as well.

I can see the actress playing the female lead really tries her best in acting. She says all those lame dialogues with all her heart. She acts with courage and hopes to make the best out of it. But nonetheless, her acting is still amateur and too stiff. If you understand Thai, you would know the way she talks is very unnatural. It's reciting. She put too much effort in every word so the words she says have come out intentional, robotic and stiffen her own overall acting.

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Awesome plot, but FL’s acting is a bit much.

The story is seriously awesome, with a plot that keeps you hooked and subplots that add depth. It’s the kind of stuff that really grabs your attention. But let’s talk about the FL – her acting is just too over the top. Actually, she’s always like that in most series she’s in, including this one. In my opinion, she shines the most when she plays the villain role.

Now, about the FL’s character... It felt a bit off in the first couple of episodes. Like, the writer couldn’t quite figure out what to do with her. She came off more like a crazed fan club of the ML with her obsession that drives her to do quite a few embarrassing things. I almost gave up on the show at the start because of this sasaeng-borderline behavior of the FL, but it got better after that.

And I gotta mention about the ridiculous details in the first half. For example, when the house gets on fire, the FL's brother help a girl out of the house by going up to the roof of the building without extinguishing the fire. Ok, not only that he doesn't stop the fire, but when escaping the fire, who would go upstairs to trap themselves when it's possible to go downstairs out of the building?? And there's this scene where the FL and ML see a rainbow that appears on the same side as the sun – that totally goes against science. It’s like the production team has no basic knowledge and common sense.

But despite all that, the plot is solid. The ML is very charming. I ended up enjoying the series a lot.

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Great Concept. Great Storyline. But Lame and Convenient Ending.

Great concept. Great storyline. Some reckless details but very few. However, the ending is very lame and feels like cheating.

Just before the ending, the ML can suddenly touch anything in the past just to clear the game—this is cheating #1. Then, his son can bring anything from the past at the age of 5, when he doesn't even understand the concept of the past. He doesn't know what a 'year' is, so we can't even talk about how he understands '18 years ago', but the FL can persuade him to bring the ML back from 18 years ago...? And they don't make it realized about his method for bringing things back from the past either, so it feels more like magic than a superpower. They make it too convenient without rationality. So that's cheating #2.

P.S. I usually give music scores an average of 5 because I don't consider myself an expert in that field. If the music isn’t exceptionally good or bad, I might not notice it, so I try to be fair. But this series has put the wrong music in the wrong places and at the wrong times quite often. For example, when the ML goes back to meet the FL in the past for the first time. It happens under a serious atmosphere, but a light, funny music suddenly starts at that point -_- The music sounds out of place and doesn’t match the mood of the scenes. It's noticeably off.

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Art style copied from Hunger Games + Squid Game. Weak storyline. Weak Performance.

Plot [-]

The concept of the story is alright, but the plot and storyline are weak. There's not much substance at all. There's absolutely no need for 6 episodes. They could just make it into a 2-hr movie and that would be enough.

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Acting [-]

The worst acting goes to the FL. Her performance is exaggerated and unnatural. While the genre may require some level of exaggeration, her portrayal goes beyond what is necessary. It seems like she hasn't found the right balance between delivering a performance while maintaining the level of believability.

Apart from FL, FL's friend also delivers an unnatural performance in some scenes. As for the FL's younger sister, she is cute and natural in appearance (I think her performance is the best in the series. She has a long way to go in this career), but the words she uses in her dialogue seem to come from almost 20 years ago. I strongly feel that the writer of this series might belong to Gen Y as their slangs are from the heyday of that era. (For example, who still says เพื่ออออ? (The FL uses this word a couple of times.) And you make the younger sister who is an early teen says ตายแล้วววว (-_-) Guys... no kid says that word. I don't even say it myself though I'm older than her.)

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Music [-]

This series is quite silent when it comes to music. They hardly use any soundtracks or backing tracks apart from the main opening song. I usually admire a series/movie that can captivate viewers without relying on music which often plays a significant role in evoking emotions. However, the way this series avoids using music seems somewhat out of theme. Firstly, with their shallow story and character design, they can hardly engage viewers emotionally, so incorporating backing music would be beneficial for them. Secondly, considering that the series has a futuristic and dystopian theme within the fantasy genre, using the right music would help immerse people who haven't experienced such environments before. While it would be impressive and ingenious if they could achieve this without music, since they cannot do so effectively, they should take advantage of what music can offer here.

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Art Direction [-]

I quite like the art direction for most parts of the series. The light, the colors, the props and camera angles are align with my taste, but they totally lack originality. They are heavily inspired by Hunger Games + Squid Game. The color palettes and the uniform used in this series appear to be direct copies from Squid Game. Though copy, they still did it quite alright, but there's one aspect that stands out negatively, which is the costume of the actors in the last scene, including the ML's costume and hairstyle. The world of the commune in that scene lacks imagination and creativity. It's simply a copy of the hippie style but ends up feeling fake. Just look at the ML's hairstyle, it feels overdone. They seem to have run out of ideas on how to differentiate that community.

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Above all [~/-]

It's super cringey. I got goosebumps and second-hand embarrassment watching the FL doing her foolish things. She's the character that could have been cool, really, but they portray her as dumb.

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Instant formular of cliche storyline and artificial sentiment.

Unoriginal plot. Their story is like the instant noodles that just aims to finish things quick without creating anything worth cherish. Their story accumulates so many cliche plots that we've seen so often in other movies and make them even more cliche by not adding any new element into their own work. It's the pop star falling in love with an ordinary girl. Also a one-night falling in love in a foreign land. And Confessing love at a friend's wedding (by stealing the scene from the bride and groom -- which is very impolite in real life, I would say. And very cringey when it appears in the film.)

Things in this movie pass by in a very superficial style. Nothing deep but they try to force the audience to perceive what happen as something deep. There's almost nothing happen between the ML and FL during their time together, which is not more than 12 hours, apart from running in a spooky cemetery and baking a cake together. But ML, who is a celebrity, is so naively certain this is true forever love and ready to give up everything for FL.

So many things happen nonsensically and baselessly. The production team absolutely doesn't care to lay out any solid foundation for the leads' feelings. Until to the point that they kiss, I still don't feel they have feelings for each other. It's more like a suit-for-the-moment kiss than any deep-meaning kiss. Throughout the movie, from beginning to end, I don't feel any chemistry between ML and FL at all. And ironically, there's this dialogue of FL around the beginning saying it's funny for her that people in entertainment business can fakely love each other on a show because love can be portrayed through the eyes and when she sees the eyes, it tells whether the love is real of not. People can't fake love -- Yes, she surely can't fake it. I don't feel any feeling in her eyes towards ML at all, and to be fair, it's vice versa.

A few positive points about this movie is that they have proper production. They know how to use the camera and set the setting well. FL seems to be able to speak Italian as well. If she can't, she came prepared. Her mounth shape while speaking goes along with Italian language sound making it looks natural when she have a conversation.

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I hate this series so much - hate it the same way each time Na Heedo saying she hate Park Yijin.

Well wrap-up. It's so hurtful. This pain almost suppressed the positive score I had for this series, but because of the way they wrap up with recollection scenes to remind the viewers what their messages are - and those messages are so strong I just can't deny it. In this way, they kind of console me to not let the anguish bury the valuable points we've gained from watching the series. The original plot is complex and well built, the characters are interesting and well created, the dialogues are well written. The FL's acting is superb. I don't feel much chemistry between the leads though, and still hate the ending so much. I think maybe because I've been through only ordinary kind of love, never this kind that so intensely intertwines with life to the core. So when I see this kind of love that two people went through so much before being together falls apart, their break-up just doesn't make sense to me.

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Impressive but Big Error at the Climax

(1) Cinematography
First of all, the cinematography of this film is superb. The depiction of all scenes, the gestures of all actors/actresses are beautiful. The CG is both well designed and properly brought about. The teams involved in the art direction and cinematography deserve the biggest applause.

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(2) Acting
All the actors/actresses did a very well-done job even the supporting or guest roles have left a deep impression on me. I'm especially impressed with the actor who played He Shou Ye after finding out at the end of the whole story what kind of performance this actor actually deliverer for the film. (I put the further detail in the spoiler box at the bottommost as it could be a spoiler kind of information.)

Also, I'm especially fond of the actor who played The Golden Spirit, such adorable in the cool/serious character he has portrayed. I have to rewind again and again to watch the scene of his desperate run.

All the important characters including Qing Ming, Bo Ya and the princess don't have the kind of flaw that leaves a sting in my heart to recall after the movie.

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(3) Story
But.. the film makes a big error in the plot at the climax which is the vital pillar that the story needs to resolve to the ending, therefore this mistake is unacceptable. (To explain what it actually is would be a spoiler as well, so I'll mention this further in the box at the bottom.)

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(4) Dialogue
There's one part of the dialogue that bothers me. It's the finishing line right at the final scene. I can see the director/writer try hard to give a beautiful/impressive finishing line to end the film, but the result is instead a superficial dialogue. It's just a shame because throughout the story they don't have that many words the characters have to speak. There're only sufficient and adequate, and that makes the whole way until that final point a graceful, pleasing path. At the end, though, the characters start to create a set of conversations with overly decorative words. Too much intended decoration and that makes things lose their true meaning. In the end, those words just become gibberish to me.

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(5) Music
As for the music, the style is quite cliche and often reminds me of RPG background music style. Most of the pieces are so-so, not initiative though can go along with the story flow quite fine. Anyway, a few pieces have been mixed with the local music style which I like and think goes well with the movie's ambiance. They try to compose the music for action scenes by fitting the musical rhythm/melody with the choreography. I also appreciate that. The editing, though, isn't the highest skilled. I can still often hear the sharp seam at the transitions when two pieces are put next to each other.

That's all. Below is the spoiler part.

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The error: Qing Ming is supposed to be able to teleport to only the places he has experienced in person like visiting or seeing with his own eyes, but at the climax he teleports into the snake's stomach without even having ever met the snake before. He's never been/seen the place in its stomach so that teleportation should have been impossible.

The actor: He played two roles in the movie that I didn't recognize as the same person at all while watching!
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Weak landing... What a shame...

The opening is interesting. It sets up in a way that keep me curious. And even though the pacing leans toward a slow burn, it doesn't feel boring. There’s a steady momentum that makes me want to keep going episode after episode.

For most of the series, I was fully on board. About 70% in, I’d comfortably rate it around an 8.5. It’s engaging, the dynamics work, and there’s enough emotional tension to keep things alive.

But then… the last stretch pulls the score down...

The series loses direction around ep 11 and especially ep 12.

In the last episode, the story suddenly introduces a new issue right at the end - something that clearly doesn’t have enough time to be developed, explored or resolved properly. At the same time, this “new opening” isn't strong enough to justify a second season. It comes off like a forced attempt to leave an impression, but instead it just drags things down.

Another thing I noticed - the ML’s laughter feels off. It's even more obvious in the last stretch when the story is heading toward a happy ending. His supposedly happy laughter with the FL feels dry and fake.

This is one of those shows that almost made it, but the finish is noticeably weak and leaves an underwhelming aftertaste.

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Nothing to the plot, but cool FL.

There's nothing to the plot; it's very shallow and one-dimensional. The movie focuses on showcasing action scenes with a cool FL. However, all actors and actresses are very capable; everyone fits their role and has done a good job in acting. I had watched a rom-com series featuring the same FL (Wedding Impossible) just before watching this movie. She did a terrible job in the romance/rom-com genre. Her deadpan expression is more suitable for solemn characters like her role in this movie. With only one facial expression, she can't convey complicated emotions, which doesn't suit a romantic series/movie at all.

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Deadpan FL expression. Logic goes downhill from halfway of the story.

Since episode 7, when many revelations surfaced, the logic behind the actions of the three main characters in coping with the situations becomes increasingly absurd. Additionally, I think the series would have been better with 8 or 9 episodes instead of the current 12. At the current pace, there is too much dragging. The dialogues, even those between the main characters, are also dull. However, the show really pulls off some hilarious scenes, especially during the first half. They had me laughing out loud a few time, which isn't something I usually do.

Anyway, a major disappointment lies in the performance of the FL. Honestly, I can't fathom why she was cast for this role. Initially, I appreciated her portrayal of a realistic woman who doesn't conform to femininity but exudes coolness, particularly in her interactions within her friend circle. However, when it comes to scenes with the ML, she falls very short. There's supposed to be a spark, some chemistry, something romantic, but it's totally absent. Zero. None. There's no romantic vibe from the FL at all, while the ML has already done his part. Furthermore, the plot does little to support their supposed deep love for each other in such a short time, to the extent of risking and betraying the feelings of another person they both care about deeply. Their love lacks conviction. Additionally, the FL's portrayal in these romantic contexts fails to evoke any genuine emotion in me. While the marriage between the FL and the ML's brother might be a sham, watching the FL and ML together, I can't help but feel their love is just as fake.

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