minmay

This drama is very light-hearted, unlike most Chinese dramas. The romance takes until episode 15 until it actually starts to progress, but the first 15 episodes are with Bu Meng and her friends.

I recommend watching this drama if you are looking for something light-hearted. The bad news is that there are only a few episodes that have been subbed, so for those who don't understand Mandarin, you won't be able to understand; however, I still encourage people to watch it for fun and I hope that more subs will be out soon so everyone can give this drama a try.

** EDIT: The ending was kind of disappointing. It was a HAPPY ending though so I'm not completely dissatisfied with it but it was very underwhelming.

Read More

Moonlight Mystique or A Collection of Unfortunate Sacrifices

While I love Bai Lu, I think I was ultimately kind of disappointed with this drama, and I was so excited, too. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I feel like the last 3 xianxia/historical dramas that she has done are like- the same character. I feel like Bai Lu is capable of choosing different kinds of characters, but for whatever reason, it's getting to a point where it kind of feels like I've been watching her play a specific kind of character in several different dramas with not really much of a variation - just different goals in mind.

Ultimately, at some points in this drama, I felt like everything that was happening was either to prop her character or revolved around her character, which made sense because she is the main character, but when literally everyone dies, it's not fun anymore... and when I mean everyone dies; literally, everyone that was worth remembering or a proper support character dies. The entire show is, in a very short summary, just a collection of unfortunate sacrifices.

Mu Jie for example was saved in Rong Xian's resentment illusion with Fan Yue's powers but yet despite being saved has to sacrifice himself in the end...which made it pointless for him to be saved to begin with. The Fox Clan's issue, by the way, is still not solved. The emotion tree will literally continue to need high spiritual energy from another demon to continue to flourish in another- who knows - thousand years or so. The water stone given to Bai Shou is literally an irreplaceable treasure from the Fox Clan. Tian Huo's death was also strange. It was like she was the last person left so the writers had to think of a way to kill her off. Unfortunately and conveniently, Fan Yue is brought back to life at the last second because heaven said, "Oopsie!" I would have honestly maybe preferred it if heaven said, "everyone will come back in one form or another" and left it there. If this were the case, I feel like the ending would have made more sense.

I found Bai Shou and Fan Yue's relationship boring - there was no nuance - just: I'll sacrifice myself for you and vice versa. Not even, it's a lot of Bai Shou going, "My life is my life. Your life is your life," and then someone proceeds to try to sacrifice themself for the other. Fan Yue dying all the time got boring really fast, and he got soft way too fast. In comparison to how he was presented in the first few episodes, the subsequent episodes after Ning'an felt like I was watching a different person. I could not get emotionally attached to either Bai Shou or Fan Yue, so whenever one got hurt, I really did not care as much as when any of the support characters died.

This show isn't without any positive aspects. I was honestly surprised with how Bai Shou got lectured by Fan Yue when she broke into the forbidden room the first time and got yelled at for thinking only about herself. There are several small moments when someone gets lectured into trying to be understanding to other people's situations, which I found really cute that the show is trying to send a message to be more compassionate towards others. There are some life lessons in this drama I think maybe a lot of people don't usually hear, which I feel could be important. Some of the arcs were interesting too. I think the attempt that they had at addressing difficult things, such as someone doing horrific acts but not inherently being a horrible person, is interesting. I absolutely prefer characters like this over cookie-cutter "green flags" because it gives the characters more depth and nuance, so I was happy they were included. For example, Qi Feng massacred those who he believed were behind massacring his clan or did wrong to him and his clan, and Fu Ling became Zheng Yu's slave after being brainwashed. Both were groomed since they were children, and both have done horrible things, but they were not born this way. If they had grown up in better circumstances, they would have never done any of the things they did and when they sobered up from their situations, they became pitiful characters that I wished could have a shot at living on. Unfortunately, there was no justice for these characters. The main leads didn't even get to Zhen Yu, the one who did all this. Zhen Yu died happily saving Mo Li...

*Note: I am very impressed with the costume design and hairstyle choice for Fu Ling. I am a sucker for pretty hairstyles. At first, it was a bit confusing for me to tell why Fu Ling liked Chong Zhao so quickly, but when you later find out about how she had a crush on him since she was a kid, it made more sense- at least they tried to rationalize that amongst the many things that might have been questionable.

As a standalone drama, this really didn't captivate me as much as I wished for it to. I would absolutely recommend watching this if you turn off your brain and if you enjoy frivolous dramas. If you are an overthinker like me, perhaps this isn't the drama for you. I watched the entire thing because of Bai Lu initially and then for Dai Lu Wa as Fu Ling, but if it were any other actresses, I may not have stayed to watch the whole thing.

Read More

Better Than Season One

As an original watcher of Idol Producer while it was airing in 2018, I had to see Youth With You season 2 as well. I really liked this season a lot more than the first season of Youth With You for several reasons:

1. There were" iconic" moments in the show like Esther Yu's "wow" and when Snow Kong's shoe came off when they did their group dance. I feel like this is especially important as it makes the show come off as more memorable.
2. There was no drama.
3. Although there is not enough screentime for every single one of the 109 trainees, they try their best in that aspect and ultimately do show somewhat fair amounts of screentime. Although maybe not as good as Idol Producer, their original Produce name.
4. All the debuted trainees are extremely talented and some of them would do especially well in variety shows because they are entertaining. This series is the ONLY survival show series where whoever ends up debuting in the group, I am satisfied with because they are all deserving of the spot.
5. I really liked how they invited over some of the Nine Percent members to do collaboration stages with the trainees. They're still so charming and funny and brings back a feeling of nostalgia. Although it's sad that they could not bring back the whole group together, I was happy to see at least three other Nine Percent members other than Kun.
6. The theme song is really catchy like "Ei Ei," although it took about 2-3 listens for me to actually start vibing with it. It took me a bit then I realized it's the theme song they've been playing this entire time and it clicked with me.
7. The songs chosen this season for the stages are all pretty catchy as well. (How Am I So Good-Looking, Ambush On All Sides 2, A Little Bit Sweet, etc.)

Although some of these reasons could be said for Youth With You season one, I felt that season one was more bland. Compared to the first season, the second season had trainees with very contrasting personalities that were able to mix well with each other and create more interesting interactions. I'm giving a lot of credit to all the girls in this season as they were able to make me stick with wanting to watch them till the end as did Idol Producer did to me.

A flaw that I found really disappointing since it could have been fixed is iQiyi translated the whole series and uploaded it on their website; however, the order of the episodes aren't in chronological order and you have to press around due to the order of the parts. Another flaw is that the editing for this season may be kind of awkward. They jump around here and there and it's sort of confusing. There were some scenes that should have probably been shown first rather than later, which can be shown through the ranking evaluations. The first evaluation felt like it took forever to take place. After the first evaluation, the second one occurred in a timely manner, but the third one came way too quickly and it left me wondering "didn't the second evaluation just occur?" What they should have done was put in the collaboration performance behind the scenes and stage first and then did the third evaluation. Speaking of the collaboration stages, the collaboration stages were very disappointing as Ella and Lisa were not even there to actually perform. They did their best in this aspect, but it still doesn't change the fact that it really sucks that the only two girl mentors were not able to perform with the girls. I wish they had a female rap mentor, rather than Jony J, no offense to him, but because it felt like he could not really relate to the girls as much as I would have liked him to.

Overall, I really enjoyed this series and I'm very excited to see what "The Nine" will do next. I hope they don't do the same as they did with Nine Percent and UNINE, where iQiyi literally did not give them much to do together at all, but inevitably, I feel the girls will end up the same as the other two debuted groups. Nevertheless, this show is amazing at giving all the girls the exposure that they need without the extra drama and negative attention like Mnet's Produce series.

Read More

Only Good Because of Select A Few Episodes

Overall: I actually don't know where to start. Starting out it was okay and it got better in the middle, but then the ending was just disappointing and could have been wrapped up a lot sooner. If I were to be very honest, this drama could have just been around 40-50 episodes, I don't understand and don't know why it starting dragging out so much after 50.

Acting/Cast: I didn't really have much of an issue with the cast. The main cast, the two male leads and the female lead are suitable for their roles and they did their best to act out their characters, but their characters have issues and the character development was quite poor.

Story/Plot/Character: Most reviews that gave this drama a bad ending was because of Jin Mi's character and I honestly don't blame them. She IS extremely naive, airheaded, and perhaps ignorant as there was an episode that showed she didn't even know what gender she was. She's so clueless with the world outside because she was sheltered for about 4,000 years of her life so I completely understand why her character was the way it was so it didn't particularly bother me because I knew that. One thing that bothered me was how they overly dramatized how her mother got heartbroken. I completely understand because I've been there but I don't see how it could be such a huge deal other than the fact the Heavenly Empress tried to kill her.

My favorite arc was the mortal arc was where she finally snapped and told Fire Immortal that she liked him and after that, I felt that her character development was finally really starting to take shape, but then they made a twist where she suddenly doesn't know what love feels like anymore, that was very repelling and I felt like they did that just to drag the drama on even longer. There were one too many twists to be considered "good" for this drama. Another note to add was there were also way too many "useless" episodes in this drama. The little princess from the demon realm and her boyfriend was the least interesting part of this drama and I had to skip through those scenes because, honestly, I did not care. I didn't notice how many episodes were about these two until I skipped multiple episodes just to see the main lead together more. Another issue was that there doesn't seem to be any proper character development within the main leads if anyone had proper character development to begin with.

Personally, I could only stand to watch this drama with selective episodes. There are just too many episodes that dragged on for no particular reason and could have been a lot shorter.

Read More

Speed, Love, and Yearning

Initially, I didn't have high expectations going into Speed and Love, since I wasn't really into cars and racing, but my philosophy for watching this show anyway was because of Esther. Although the production was met with a plethora of issues, including crew and script changes, I felt this drama was still really fun, and I had a blast watching it.

I was thrown off guard in the beginning when Jin Zhao was shown to be underground boxing. I had thought that maybe the cars and racing were pretty minimal since he had other things going on, but rest assured, we see a lot of cars AND racing.

Whoever the casting director that casted He Yu and Esther together deserves a raise because the chemistry was insanely good - everything else was more trivial to me. I love the way Esther brought Jiang Mu to life with the acting, outfits, and hairstyles. The voice and mannerisms are very on brand to Jiang Mu's character too! Esther always plays such fun characters.

I wanted to note He Yu????? I've never watched a drama where a guy wanted to kiss a girl so bad you could very obviously see it in his face - like if you pay attention to whenever he's just about to kiss Jiang Mu, oh my god???? He's actually crazy good!

I really appreciate the first few episodes. The first episode was a bit choppier, but it still got the point across. We are thrown into the realization that Jin Zhao has changed and has been fending for himself. He's involved with shady-seeming people, and Jiang Mu, being spoiled and sheltered, is very unaccustomed to the lifestyle that Jin Zhao has. It got the point across quite well, in my opinion. I imagine they probably cut some scenes related to Jiang Mu since she has a more normal and wealthy lifestyle that didn't require her to struggle as much in comparison to Jin Zhao, who has a rather tumultuous and dangerous lifestyle. So, it seems to me that it could have been a choice of choosing to show more drama vs. a perhaps slightly unrelatable lifestyle, where money isn't an issue.

I also really appreciate Jiang Mu being a bit more on the proactive side to chasing Jin Zhao. I find a lot of dramas like doing the opposite, where the male lead pursues the female lead, which gets little complaints - i.e., The First Frost. So, actually, I don't mind the switch, and considering they always repeat "Zhao Zhao Mu Mu" and constantly think of each other, even when they were separated, they're both mega-yearner 3000s to me.

Now cons:
I honestly really wanted to rate this show a lot higher, but it does have a few pitfalls, namely a few abrupt cuts - don't get me started on the straight-up cut of the wedding, and the storyline issue from the breakup. All issues are attributed to the scriptwriter's fault or the production.

The mom vs Jin Zhao and break-up portion felt a little bit "yikes" - actually, I don't view Jin Zhao negatively. You can see in the show that Jiang Mu's mother almost made the same choice he did, except she was more communicative, and Chris was right there with her when he found out about her condition. If I'm understanding Jin Zhao's character correctly, he seems to have specific confidence issues when it comes to her. He definitely took it very far by ghosting her when he really should have just communicated; however, I do feel that at some point, people were being too harsh to his character, specifically about Jin Zhao's circumstances. The chronological timeline of what happened:

> Jin Zhao is in critical condition from the car accident
> Jiang Mu finds out from Officer Lu that he's in critical condition, and they don't know the outcome
> Jiang Mu finds out from Chris about her mother's successful surgery and is rehabilitating, but is basically missing her daughter
> Jiang Mu, at the time, not knowing whether Jin Zhao is out of critical condition or not, tells Chris she'll go back to Canada with him
> Jing Mu texts Jin Zhao about this - although seemingly feeling very conflicted - but again, he's still in critical condition
> This is when you can't tell whether they cut scenes or what because then Jiang Mu says "my mother is not doing very well and I'll have to stay with her for a while to accompany her" and then you cut to Jin Zhao in a coma? Did someone tell her he was okay? What is going on?
> Jin Zhao, miraculously, comes out of his coma and sees her messages
> To support Jiang Mu's decision to go to her mom, he evades the nurses and sends Jiang Mu away with a goodbye so she doesn't feel guilty.
> So, Jiang Mu goes to Canada and goes to school there while staying with her mother for years

The mom vs. Jin Zhao scene was honestly very frustrating to me because it was a little bit of a questionable moment. It was surprising even! Considering that Jiang Mu's mother came out of surgery successfully, with no significant threat to her life, vs. Jin Zhao, who is in critical condition, where Jiang Mu hadn't even confirmed his wellbeing or even seen him before agreeing to go back to Canada with Chris, the whole situation had started giving me a bit of cognitive dissonance.

So now,
> Although Jin Zhao is out of critical condition, he is basically crippled
> Jin Zhao, just like Jiang Mu's mother, has to go through rehabilitation - but unlike Jiang Mu's mother, he does not have Jiang Mu there for him
> Jin Zhao's character is a man who has always had to rely on himself. So what I imagine is that his mental condition has rapidly deteriorated because of him being crippled. So: thoughts of being useless, a burden/baggage, can't defend anyone physically, won't be able to do much in general, etc.
> In the midst of his depression from the trauma of the accident and physical ailments, he pushes away the one insecurity he seemed to have: Jiang Mu
> Anyone who has benefitted from Jin Zhao and has close connections to him would obviously cover for him because it's his wish/decision. I'm not sure why anyone would be surprised that they would all side with Jin Zhao, considering what he's done for everyone. This isn't to say Jiang Mu is bad or they don't like her, but Jin Zhao has been there for and supported everyone through thick and thin

AGAIN, it is wrong for Jin Zhao to ghost her. I really WISH he said something; however, I find that these circumstances don't make him necessarily as bad as everyone wishes he was. It also stressed me out that after Jiang Mu found him, she immediately started lying and provoking him any chance she got to get a reaction out of him. I honestly think I'm getting old, because this felt immature to me, so it was a bit hard to watch. Although I'm not saying Jin Zhao didn't deserve it, and considering his decision to "let her be happier" without communication is also immature, I consider that canceled out. The sharing of the medical information part without Jin Zhao's knowledge was kind of funny because the entire time, at the back of my head, I was like, "where are the privacy laws?!" - I let out a breath of fresh air when he finally told her he'd send her his medical information to decide whether she'd be with him or not. I know Jiang Mu seemed a bit peeved when Jin Zhao said he'd leave her alone if she found his physical ailments too burdensome, but it is a legitimate concern for Jin Zhao that personally affects him, so I do think it's a good thing he finally communicated that so that Jiang Mu understands what she's really getting herself into. And say what you want about Jiang Mu - as immature as she may be at times, she's always been the most communicative person, and I'm honestly happy she is this way!

Overall, besides the mom vs. Jin Zhao and break-up parts, everything else was honestly still good to me. I wish we could have seen more like Jiang Mu's parents coming to the wedding or even Jiang Mu's father finding out about their relationship, but considering how much they cut from the drama, I wouldn't doubt there was more, but they just decided to cut out for whatever reason. I also realized that while I do like the later Nanjing scenes, Jin Zhao and Jiang Mu's tension, fashion, and hair were unmatched when in Thailand. Something in the Thailand air! Altogether, the casting was fantastic, the vibes are unmatched, and the music is very on point for the show. I already wish He Yu and Esther would have a second collaboration already! For anyone who is on the fence or planning to watch, at the end of the day, the cast, tags, and synopsis are there to read - you know what you're getting into, there's really no surprises. This drama absolutely deserved the heat it got when it was airing!

Read More