jaroekin

This is a drama that’ll stimulate both your mind & soul

Tender Light is a beautifully written mystery thriller with lots of social commentary. Yes, this drama was telling you a story but had a talent of making you feel like you were actually inside of the story and you were a side character quietly watching things as they go along. From the cinematography, to the character building, story building, into the way that they executed the flashbacks, everything was just SO. WELL. DONE. So, the cast, the writers, and the directors all did their BIG ONE. You can tell that there was just SO much care and time taken into this drama and that everyone involved genuinely, from the bottom of their heart took it seriously. And that’s not some thing that you can say about a lot of dramas out there.

But, with all that being said, Tender Light is a ALMOST perfect drama. You might be wondering; what stopped it from being perfect? For me, I’ll have to say the final episode. Episode 28 like all of the other episodes, had great pacing and was just really well written overall…. Except for the last 20 minutes of the episode. The drama starts to kinda go into uncharted territory, and did something that it hadn’t done for the entire series up the that point… “telling us the story instead of showing it.” Let me explain further. The use of exposition in a story isn’t a bad thing, but it only becomes a problem when you’re essentially just telling the viewer/reader the entire story instead of showing it to them. As I mentioned earlier though, this has never been a problem for Tender Light, it’s consistently done a good job of immersing us into the story until the finale. The problem with this episode is exactly that. The finale episode was supposed to wrap up all of our unanswered questions on what TRULY happened on the night of the millennium. This is where everything is supposed to reach a head, and all of the reveals supposed to happen, so because of that; by NO circumstances should the finale have had ANY exposition in it, especially considering the fact that we’ve never really had that before. Now I know with Chinese dramas things can get really tricky because of the censorship rules, for example the relationship between Nan Ya and Zhou Luo. From what I’ve gathered from people who have read the novel, their relationship actually had a lot more presence in the actual story, and it was more of a slow burn. Also based off of what these novel readers have said, it seems as though a lot of their relationship had to be cut out because of the censorship rules. So like I said, I understand how censorship can change the way screen writers are able to tell the story that they want to tell. And I also understand that it could be possible that the show was only greenlit 28 episodes when in reality they probably wanted more in order to properly tell the story. I understand both of these things but, I can’t help but think there was still another way to I guess, “counteract” this problem. Let me give you an example; and be mindful of the fact that this is on the basis that what I said earlier, about there being a possibility that the show was only Greenlit 28 episodes wasn’t the case. because in the event that this drama wasn’t restricted to just 28 episodes, this should’ve been given one more episode to properly wrap things up. The 28th episode should’ve ended right after Zhou Luo says to Fang Lu, “That’s not what happened.” That would’ve been a really cool cliffhanger. Then the 29th episode should’ve started with the flashback of what actually happened that night. Then, instead of the screen just fading to black, and them telling us what happens to Nan Ya and Zhou Luo, they would’ve been enough time to properly show it instead of tell it. And I think with that difference, that would’ve made this drama a 10 out of 10 for me.

So, because of that and that alone, I can’t give this drama a 10 out of 10 in good faith (my true rating of this drama is a 9.8/10 which just shows how close this drama was for me to getting that 10), but I have no doubt in my mind that if that was not the case, this would’ve gotten a 10 from me regardless of it’s bitter sweet ending.

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An enjoyable watch that had the potential to be more

Since I finished my three favorite dramas of 2024, Tender Light, Lovely Runner, & Will Love In Spring, I had been struggling to find a drama to really hook me in the way those three did. After watching the first episode of this drama, I felt relatively confident that this drama would end up being that for me. For a while I could see it. I loved the leads (mainly the FL, but the ML had a special place in my heart as well), and the rest of the main friend group. I found myself growing quite attached to them and their individual stories. Now you’re probably wondering, what changed? The pacing did.

I noticed around episode 13 that the writing started to lack of a better word, rush the story. Up until this point, the story felt gradual and the ending arcs felt clear. Before I continue, there is one thing I want to talk about. This drama was initially slated for 40 episodes. Take what I say next with a grain of salt, because I obviously wasn’t a part of the production crew. I believe that decision to remove those 16 episodes was made at the very least after the script was already written and after the drama was finished filming.

Around episode 15, the drama adapted the “tell don’t show approach” where a lot of important plot lines were simply just told to us. The best example being the portrayal of Jiang Qiao Xi’s life after going to Hong Kong. Before I continue, I going to state something that I imagine will be somewhat of an unpopular opinion; I was fine with the fact that Lin Tao (Cherry) chose to go after him. I think she has proven her dedication to him time and time again so I wasn’t surprised and accepted even though I wish she made him suffer a little bit. I’m just a petty person but she isn’t, so it was a decision I was okay with.

The problem though, without receiving full context of what was happening in Jiang Qiao Xi’s life, it made both their “confrontation” and eventual reunion not hit as hard as I know it would have. If we had those extra 16 episodes, with in depth perspective of both of our leads (EPESPECIALLY Jiang Qiao Xi’s since he was the one who chose to leave) of how hard the 2 year separation was for them, and also dual narration, I think it would’ve given this drama SO much more emotional depth.

I think the main thing for me that disappoints me the most about this drama is that I could see what it would’ve looked like if it was at its full potential. I know that obviously things happened behind the scenes that determined the removal of the other 16 episodes, and I don’t blame the writers for this. As I said earlier, I do truly believe that the script for the show was written before that decision was made. but as someone who truly does love the art of storytelling there’s just something about untapped in potential that just pains my spirit.

At the end of the day, I can only go off of what we were given. Overall, I did enjoy this drama. I can’t say I’d 100% recommended it, but I think it’s at least worth checking out.

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A Pleasant Surprise

Going into this drama, I wasn’t expecting much. I thought that this would just be a tropey, messy makjang (to the kdrama watchers iykyk) style drama and just a fun time. I wasn’t expecting to genuinely enjoy it. I was surprised by how well written Nira’s character was and amazing the acting by her actress was. (Shoutout to her fr)

Another thing that I found to be particularly interesting was the writing of the main villains at the end with the exception of one. Don’t get me wrong, I DO NOT feel bad for these two people in the slightest, but even with my hatred that I have for these two characters and hatred that I maintained throughout that duration of the drama, the narrative still managed to conclude their arcs in a way even I was satisfied with and I gotta give the writers props for that.

This drama isn’t perfect by any means, certain performances weren’t that great (aka the screaming lady) and the sound effects during genuinely laughable at times, (average lakorn stuff) but, if you ask me, I’d say that it’s worth the watch.

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