m5m

Wonder lead couple and main storyline ruined by terrible script in second half

Strengths: The two leads in this are cast perfectly. Both play their respective roles wonderfully and their chemistry is fantastic, whether they are arguing, goofing off together, being cold & businesslike or romantically hugging and kissing. They are perfect pair for the roles in this series and they make it worth watching. The rest of the cast is also mostly fine, though most of the characters are ... unpleasant for various reasons. Acting talent, for the most part, is not a problem for this show and probably its best feature. The production values (sets, wardrobe, cinematography, etc.) are okay, though there are numerous little glitches such as wrong props, missing bandages, etc., etc., that are easy to spot. Plotwise, the basic story for the main couple (Su Mang and Zheng Chu) is pretty good. It gets a little annoying when they drag out an extended 'noble idiocy' trope over the last several episodes, but still their story is overall fine. And the story for the '3rd' romance plot between Tang Guo Guo and Su Chang is pretty good. Indeed, arguable TGG's character arc is one of the better parts since she really goes through the most dramatic, positive changes throughout the drama.

Now the bad: From somewhere in the middle of this series and all the way to the end, the writing went from just fine to just plain awful. Episodes started to get filled with cheap, lazy drama tropes, one after another. Often just to obviously drag out screen time. And then there is the absolute horror show that is the secondary romance plot line involving Tang Ming and the two sisters, Yan Xiaoqiu and Chen Shan Shan. This story is just so stupid and awful and cringe. It doesn't help that Tang Ming is just a completely unlikeable stupid meathead who makes one bad decision after another and ultimately causes so much harm to both sisters and himself. It is nearly impossible to empathize with him, root for him or feel sorry for him when it all blows up in his face. For someone who isn't meant to be a villain, he is one of the most unlikeable 'good guys' in any show I've seen in recent memory. To make his story progress, the writers resort to an unbelievable amount of cheap, cliche' plot gimmicks and it's beyond annoying. Be prepared to start skipping quickly through scenes involving Tang Ming or Chen Shan Shan or you may loose your mind. And - SPOILER - they even resort to killing off one of the very few truly decent, almost saint-like characters just to provide a dramatic 'life lesson' to the idiots in the plot.

This show starts out so strong and I stuck with it to the end just because I loved the two main leads so much from the start and because the tertiary couple (TGG and SC) really grew on me as the story progressed. But it was not easy to stick through all the badly written crap, especially in most of episodes 30-39.

Read More

Mostly really really good. But when it's bad it's really bad.

First off, let's focus on the positives. The two leads, Bail Lu and Allen Ren, are really good, renewing their quirky chemistry from One and Only only this time in a romance that doesn't have societal and imperial forces blocking them from marriage. The two characters are both 'different' from normal FL & ML characters and both are likely somewhere on the autistic / ADHD spectrum. Both characters are extremely high-functioning, but also each has quirky issues. Ren's character, Zhou Sheng Chen, in particular has quirks that at time feel close to debilitating. But strangely, both characters are immediately drawn to each other and fit perfectly together in complementary ways that just 'work' for their characters. This builds into a slow-paced but incredibly solid love story between two souls that, per the premise of One and Only being their 'past life', seemed destined to finally be together.

Ren has a difficult role to play, being a very different sort of character that is not always easy for the audience to empathize with. He mostly does an outstanding job though perhaps overplays it a bit at times. Some of that may be the fault of the script and direction, though.

Bai Lu's character is also quirky but at least is a little more conventional. She absolutely nails it as this Shi Yi really feels like a modern incarnation of past life Shi Yi. Outwardly sweet, shy and endearing, yet quietly extremely talented and intelligent. The show is by far the most enjoyable to watch when Bail Lu is on-screen. She is able to bring elegance and grace when needed in one scene and goofy cute silliness in the next and she's always so 'real' with her portrayals because she never overacts. An absolute queen of micro-expressions.

The rest of the cast is solid though I can't really call out any outstanding performances since most of the supporting characters just didn't get a lot to do in the story even though they presented as potentially having more to show. The SML character of Mei Xing, played by Ci Sha, has the only other important story arc, as it is implied that he is also reincarnated from the One and Only timeline. He seems clearly to be the modern life of the psychotic prince Liu Zi Xing who was just awful and caused so much pain for past-life Zhou SHeng Chen and Shi Yi in O&O. Past life Xing brutally tortured and killed ZSC and motivated Shi Yi to take her own life in order to follow ZSC. So this 'modern' Xing has a lot of past life sins to atone for and pay penance for. After initially looking like he, as in the past life, also might become bizarrely obsessed with Shi Yi, eventually shows that he's not going to be the same in this life. He holds true as the most loyal of friends to modern life Zhou Sheng Chen. And eventually finds his way to realizing that he loves Chen's younger sibling. His loyalty and faithful service to ZSC is his atonement for the injustices he committed to past-life ZSC. His acknowledgement of his love for Chen's sister Zhou Wen Xing is atonement for his dismissal of the love that Qi Xing Hua had offered in the past life. And the pain he endures as he has to watch Wen Xing's life slip away from him is his penance to endure in this life. If the whole 'next life' premise of these two stories is to be accepted, then one has to believe that in a future life, Mei Xing and Wen Xing will finally be able to be happy together.

So the acting performances were solid and those two main romance arcs, one ultimately happy and the other sad but perhaps hopeful for the next life were overall good. The production values are all excellent. Some beautiful cinematography, great on-point wardrobes and costumes and beautiful sets. Oh, and really nice musical soundtrack as well. What's not to like?

Well ... just a couple of things. For the most part, when the story is moving forward with the quirky but steady romance, it works well and is very intelligently scripted. But whenever the story decided to add an 'exciting drama event' .... it is just a disaster. In those scenes, suddenly characters just start behaving incredibly stupid and bizarrely, seemingly on purpose to just make the drama event as crazy bad as possible. This happens 3 times in particular.

****SPOILERS****
In one scene, Mei Xing, who is very drunk, is being driven back by side character Lin Fei along a highway. Some 'bandits' stand out on the road holding clubs, with the apparent intention to rob passing vehicles. So what does Lin Fei do? First, he slows gradually to a halt. He could easily have kept up speed and simply dared the thugs to jump out of the way. Or he could have thrown the car into reverse to get away and then turned around to leave easily. But no. for no apparent reason he stops. And then he makes it worse by STEPPING OUT OF THE CAR????? That made absolutely zero sense. He should have stayed in the car and called police. And driven away. So both he and Mei Xing end up getting beaten by the thugs (who of course it turns out were actually sent there by the villain of the story but that's irrelevant to just how stupid this scene played out). The whole scene just drops your jaw as you watch it, wondering how any human could be that stupid. Yes, the plot wanted a scene where the villain had some thugs beat up Mei Xing. Fine. But it could have easily, EASILY have been done without looking comically stupid and contrived like this.

Later, in another 'important' scene, Shi Yi and Wen Xing are sitting in a boat with a boatman paddling them slowly along the canal during a festival. Fine. Then, when they decide it was time to go back, for some inexplicable reason both girls stand up in the boat. Naturally Shi Yi falls into the water. Naturally Shi Yi can't swim. UN-naturally, THE BOATMAN CAN"T SWIM EITHER!!! This forces the chronically ill Wen Xing to have to jump into the water to save Shi Yi. This event puts Shi Yi into a coma for a bit and dramatically worsens Wen Xings already poor health. The 'event' was important to the story. But how it played out was just so silly and contrived. It just, again, seems like any half-decent writer could have written that scene so it would play out more realistically.

Another event that I won't go into too much detail is the 'acute appendicitis' event that again, makes no sense. This gets glossed over with no appendectomy occurring which makes no sense. But whatever. Magic medicine made it go away?

The last major plot event that was just bizarre to watch play out is near the end of the series: Through a combined sequence of just incredibly bizarre behaviors and stupid decisions by multiple characters, the 'villain' o f the story, Zhou Wen Chuan, manages to take Shi Yi hostage and ends up hurting both her and Zhou Sheng Chen seriously in a just totally silly sequence. The end result is Shi Yi falls into a coma. And this leads into by far, the WORSt 2 episode stretch of the whole series. Basically both episodes 28 and 29 are utter garbage. Shi Yi spends nearly all of it in a coma and all the other characters act bizarre and strange and the whole thing just drags incredibly slowly. All you can do is grit your teeth and wait for Shi Yi to finally wake up, which finally happens in Episode 30. At that point, seeing Bai Lu again is like fresh air and at least gives a decent 'bounce back' to end the series. But man, both episodes 28 & 29 are so bad they nearly ruined the entire series for me. They are just shocking poorly written after the first 27 episodes had been mostly very well written. They are just full of things, both little and large, that just make no sense because people simply do not really act or do things in the way these episodes portrayed.

I haven't read the books so I can't say whether these 'drama events' are better, more intelligently told in the book or not. But these events were played out just shockingly bad in this show. They really felt like some drunk college freshman in drama club wrote and directed them. And that was so at odds with the way the rest of the show was written.

Okay. That's a lot of complaints about what amounts to 2 full episodes and parts of 2 others. Aside from those bad bits, I found the rest of the series quite enjoyable and do give it a 'thumbs up'. I do think the show is more enjoyable for folks who endured the painful, beautiful tragedy of One and Only. So that may be an impediment for some viewers. But if you have that behind you, Forever and Ever is mostly a much deserved pleasant treat to watch. Just grit your teeth through the above cringe parts.

Read More

So much potential, wasted on a truly horrible script.

The cast is fantastic. Love both leads and the supporting cast is excellent as well. In particular, Guan Xue Ying is brilliant at making you hate her psychotic unrequited female rival character. The production quality is good. Some of the martial arts scenes are fantastic. Indeed there are plenty of enjoyable entertainment moments scattered throughout this series.

But the script is god-awful. The writers rely heavily on a relentless stream of cliche' plot contrivances, one after another and the plot loses all credibility again and again. The villains never truly get punished despite getting caught. They just keep coming back again and again repeating the same stupid schemes. And no happy ending either.

The chemistry between the leads is fantastic --- when they actually get to be together! But the plot gimmicks employed by the writers just bury all that goodness. The chain of absurd, improbably events , one after another, that the writers contrive drag what should be short story arcs of 1 or 2 episodes out to 8-9 or more episodes!! It's easy to forget just what led to where the story ends up at various points. In particular, the long stretch of contrivances they use to keep the main leads apart is just crazy and drags across a huge span of episodes.. The script leans heavily into plot-induced stupidity again and again to create unnecessary drama events that just drag the resolution of larger plot lines to a slow, frustrating crawl.

I'm so disappointed. I really like the premise of this story. And Li Qin and Qin Hao both are wonderful to watch in their scenes. But I can't recommend this show. It's just too exasperating and the end-game payoff is just not worth enduring it.

Read More

Fantastic acting and production wasted by poor script.

The actors -- especially the two leads -- and the overall production were fantastic in this show. The costumes, effects, visuals -- all were stunning and beautiful. The only real flaw was, well, the script. The script leans heavily on several cliche drama tropes that just made this a real painful chore to grind through at times. The two scripting flaws that really bothered me were (a) a massive over-reliance on 'misconceptions' plot trope (where people jump to conclusions based on only partial information) and (b) plot-induced stupidity where on 3 distinct occasions they made Li SuSu suddenly act very, very stupid and out of character, forgetting her mission. They also tended to 'take her out of the story' for long stretches, either asleep, in a coma or just plain absent for whatever reason. I got very tired of these blatant writer-hacks and had to force myself to not give up watching at several points. And I'm not sure the pay-off at the end is worth it. While I liked a lot about this show - in particular the performances of both Bai Lu and Luo Yun Xi - I don't know if I'd recommend it to anyone who values a strong, well-written script over spectacle. Here's a test: If you preferred Good Will Hunting over Titanic, then this is not the series for you.

Read More

Flawed but enjoyable and worth watching.

Not going to be remembered as one of the classics, but still this was an overall an enjoyable series to watch. You do need to tough it out to get past some silliness in the first half-dozen episodes. But then it gets pretty good from there.

First the negatives: The plot bogs down here or there - especially early in the series - with some outright silliness that is grit-your-teeth cringy. Especially the FL's behavior in the first few episodes. She's a mid-20s mature woman who acts like a silly teenager. And the ML's character is very flat and stereotypical almost throughout the whole series.

But overall the positives outweighed these negatives for me. The overall plot is good with some will paced 'reveals' of important backstory elements as you go. The series has a good pacing of action scenes without focusing too much on that and the choreography for the fights is pretty good. The scenery and cinematography are very good. Lots of great visual candy in this series with some nice sets. And while the FL's character is annoying early on, she shows a lot of growth throughout and ultimately, imho, it is her character that carries the series over the last half as she almost single-handedly has to generate all the chemistry between her and the ML, whose character is simply written to be too flat and mysterious to the point of being barely interesting. You care about their relationship, but primarily because of the FL and actor Xuan Lu's ability to share herself with the audience. I don't blame Gao Wei Guang - he's a very good actor and I think he does the best he can with the material. It's just the way his character is written is fairly stereotypical and limited.

Read More

Massive disappointment due to terrible editing, direction and pacing.

Almost everything about this show was very good. Lovely, talented cast. Great costumes, sets, cinematography, OST. But the editing and direction were just awful. So much over-use of long, drawn-out 'dramatic moments'. Events that should have taken 2-3 minutes to convey were constantly taking 10-20 minutes of screen time! And this happened more and more as the show progressed. The last 4 episodes were ridiculous and barely watchable. You can literally just skip through most of these episodes and you won't miss hardly anything. And the show really just wasted the talents of Chen Du Ling as the FL because her character is nearly useless in most of this story. Not the actress' fault. She's just rendered by this story as simply incapable of doing much other than getting hurt and watching others getting hurt and crying about it all. Overall, very disappointed in this show and don't know how it got such a high rating. I literally wish I had not watched this show.

Read More

Never underestimate Li Pei Yi

Others have written excellent, more extensive reviews so I'm not going to spend a lot of words talking about the wonderful acting, script and production values that make this a top-notch historical c-drama. I just want to lay the thought for new viewers: Do not ever underestimate Li Pei Yi. She is an unbelievably brilliant master of events and everything ultimately plays out according to her schemes. Just when you think she has lost hold of the reigns, things will turn and show how she was riding a completely different horse. What a great character and Bai Lu does a wonderful job portraying her.

Read More

Excellent script and two wonderful lead actors.

I stumbled upon this drama almost by accident and I'm so glad I did. This drama is so under-the-radar but was a truly great show. It featured the two most important aspects of a great show: (1) Really solid, mature script that doesn't treat the viewers like idiots. And (2) two really truly amazing actors as leads. Peng Xiao Ran and Jin Han both absolutely nailed their respective roles and were absolutely compelling both as a couple and in their solo parts of the story. This story manages to avoid most of the major annoying drama plot tropes. No long contrived 'misunderstandings'. And no contrived love triangle. Yes, there are three other men interested in and professing to like the FL. But it's never in doubt for a second that Jiu Ling's only true love was Zhu Zan and you never have a doubt that he is the one she was going to be with eventually So not a lot of time is wasted on fluffing up any of the other relationships to try to fool the audience. Instead, while the story did use those other men as important plot elements, the story put its time and energy in simply telling a good story that had strong plot contributions from multiple characters but focused mainly on the two leads. And boy did the two leads deliver, as two characters who were so well matched and complementary.

If the show had a weakness, it was that it obviously could have used a bigger budget for production costs. A few parts of the story really cried out for bigger budget production. One scene was exemplary of this: In one episode there is a scene with some 10s of thousands of people and soldiers waiting outside the city walls when they all spontaneously kowtow in their appeal for the gates to be opened. This could have been a visually epic scene with a camera pull-back showing the wave of people dropping into kowtow. But unfortunately, the scene was implemented only in close shots with just a few dozen people. There were other scenes throughout that similarly could have been more visually impactful with a bigger budget for either more resources or more visual effects.

But that's nitpicking. The scenes still worked fine for story purposes. And the story overall was so strong that I almost feel guilty for quibbling. I'm really glad I stumbled into watching this show.

Read More

Fun romance drama who's biggest villain is work-life imbalance!

This show is proof that you can have an entertaining romance drama without any stupid love-triangles. Wthout any contrived, dragged-out misunderstandings. Without anyone being killed, kidnapped, blackmailed or raped or really any criminal activity whatsoever. And without any stupid pointless scheming. Other than a brief stretch early on when the writers made the ML become really stupid just so they could contrive an early 'break up' and not settle them in as a couple too early, once that stupidity was over, this was just a nice pair of adults having a growing, positive adult relationship. And it wasn't boring. Yang Yang was overall pretty solid as the ML. Yes he is eye-candy, but he did a good job of playing a character who was super smart and capable when it came to math, science and factual matters ... but a deeply limited, severely under-developed person emotionally. His character has to undergo the most growth in order for the relationship to work because, well, he's kind of a socio-emotional idiot for the first 15+ episodes. Meanwhile, Dilraba Dilmurat is just fantastic as the quirky, clever and incredibly emotionally sensible JingJing who is the true rock of the relationship. Yes, she knows she is never going to be his intellectual equal in matters math, science and technology. But she shows again and again that she is the wise one between the two in matters of emotion and the heart. And she uses her skills to support him and guide him forward, never letting her love for him become a distraction or hindrance. Always able to make their love a strength for both their careers. The overall cast is charming and wonderful. The production values are very good - the soundtrack is especially excellent. One thing that is interesting is the social messaging in the show. A major plot theme is the struggles of people like YuTu and his colleagues, working in the aerospace industry, with balancing work pressures and family and social relationships. The picture painted in the show is that they have to sacrifice so much of their personal lives in order to support the missions. The picture painted is very stark. And matches up with what is true and known outside this show. But the show also has the various characters basically yield patriotic lip-service with "that's just the way it has to be". Clearly that's to get past the censors. Because it doesn't really have to be that way. Western aerospace institutions are able to accomplish all the same things while often working within mandated work-life balance rules that prevent the kind of overwork burnout conditions the show alludes to. So it feels like the show was having it both ways. On one hand, clearly illustrating the problem, but then safely skirting past the sensors by not having characters decry the state of things or call for changes.

Read More

Not a conventional romance drama but way better than I was expecting.

This show was different and WAY better than I was expecting based on the synopsis. While there is a romance that develops (slowly) it is very much secondary to the main plot themes which are about 'found family', mentor-student relationships and an on-going discussion about TCM and how it fits in the modern Chinese world. The latter discussion is very open-minded each aspect, presenting different views from different characters and the show as a whole doesn't get preachy or make any outrageous claims. I'm an extremely skeptical, rational person and found myself really thinking a lot about the different points of view presented. Plotwise, the show is mostly very well crafted and scripted and only uses cliche plot tropes a couple of times. Mostly it avoids them because they are usually unnecessary. The cast is very solid with several very experienced actors. As usual, Zhou Lusi is wonderful, taking hold of the audience's attention and emotions in every scene. Her character is very different and pretty complex with some interesting layers. Seemingly wild, ignorant and silly on the surface, but with a core practical wisdom born of hardship.

Read More

Not really a romance. More a profile of a family with a dysfunctional mother.

The thing that needs to be said - and yes, other reviews have said this but it bears repeating - is that this is not really a romance drama. Yes there are a couple of romances within the story. And indeed a lot of the early story structure looks like it's a romance. But this story is really about mothers. There are multiple, very different mothers presented in this story and in particular, of course, this story ultimately revolves around the FL's not-mentally-healthy mother and her relationships within the family. The FL's mother, Liu Wanyu, is clearly suffering from some deep issues. Some sort of combination of depression, narcism, and oppositional defiance disorder. So she does not act rational. She is near insanely stubborn and given that she is prone to lock onto irrational ideas this makes for some serious socio-destructive behavior. In a word: Exasperating. Anyone who has a family member with severe behavioral/mental issues will relate to just how difficult such a person can make life for the people around them. So large segments of this story follow along as she behaves in ways that drive not just her family members nuts, but of course, also the viewers. Viki comments during this drama are filled with constant exasperation and dismay at the mother's behavior. This is testament to how powerful He Sai Fei's performance is, as the annoying mother. All of the actor's performances in this drama are fantastic. And the production quality is top-notch. Often the camera work is so beautiful you need to pause the video to enjoy a shot. This overall is a top notch drama. But if you are looking for a conventional romance you may find yourself pulling your hair out watching this.

Read More

Overall a great series, despite a bad plot hiccup late in the series.

First, the bad: This show would have deserved a higher ranking from me, but has to take a hit due to a serious mess-up in the plot in episodes 13-15 when the story just goes down the crapper with a completely unrealistic evil-mommy-returns-from-the-dead sub-arc. Not only is the premise for this particular arc completely implausible, the show implements it by using just a ton of really bad, cheap, stereotypical plot devices. In particular, they lean heavily into 'misunderstandings'. due to excessive lack of communication and 'white lies' between the various protagonists and support characters. The show through the first 12 episodes is so good that the hard turn into the ditch of cheap drama tropes in 13-15 is very jarring. Fortunately, the 16th & final episode returns to what made the rest of the show so good.

Now, the good: This show's real plot premise is wonderful and interesting. They flip several classic plot tropes over, in particular by having the female lead (Seo Yea Ji, as Ko Mun Yeong) be a sociopath - yet one the audience actually loves and sympathizes for. Usually, her sort of sociopathic character is either the villain or at best the annoying unrequited love interest. SYJ is absolutely wonderful in this role. Her character's eccentric mannerisms are simultaneously rude and frightening and yet also incredibly endearing. Your heart goes out to her more and more as you understand the pain her character has been forged through. Another trope flip is that the ML, Kim Soo Hyun as Moon Gang-Tae, is, well, kinda often useless due to his own heavy emotional baggage. He's incredibly frustrating and often and emotional coward (he's called out for this repeatedly by multiple characters) and as the series progresses actually outhunt becomes less and less useful for even the 'physical' heavy lifting. But again, despite behaving in so many ways that irritate and frustrate you, his character still gains your sympathy and you want him to survive, thrive and be happy.

Finally, gotta mention Oh Jung Se's brilliant performance as Moon Sang-Tae. He delivers a brilliant performance that just has to be seen. My words of praise wouldn't do it justice.

The rest f the cast is excellent as well. Every character is interesting. The production values are also top notch. The wardrobes, cinematography and music are especially all great. My only quibbles would with the directing, tending to dwell too long on characters just staring into space a lot - that happened far too often in this story and felt like it was often just filling screen time.

Read More

Not perfect, but very, very enjoyable and wonderfully acted drama.

First off: The performances by the two leads, Lu Yu Xiao and Chen Xing Xu were both fantastic. Both really went deep into being their respective characters and their chemistry as a romantic couple was off the charts. I'd like to especially call out Lu Yu Xiao's performance. I had already been extremely impressed by her fantastic performance of a girl on the spectrum in Blossoms In Adversity and then as a more conventional 'strong action heroine' in Love in the Clouds. But this performance was next level. Very different from either of those two roles. She put all kinds of interesting mannerisms into her character and was consistent so that those things weren't dropped along the way. Hu Xiu has a cute almost cartoonish way of walking that is so endearing and her way of expressing emotions through her hands. In lesser dramas these little things often get dropped a few episodes into the story but these (and other nuances) were part of her character's uniqueness and she kept them all the way through. Smiling, laughing, angry or crying - the character of Hu Xiu was unique and real. And very endearing. As the classic strong-silent-type Male Lead, Chen Xing Xu has a more conventional role and is, to be fair, overshadowed by Lu Yu Xiao's performance, but he still does a fantastic job. He does not over-act and also is very consistent in how he presents the character. His breaks from strength to vulnerable are believable and don't look forced. And as mentioned, he has great chemistry with LYX. The two really worked great together.

Other cast members were all solid. Especially Li Ting Ting as bestie Zhao Rou, whose voice has a quality that just owns scenes when she speaks. Her character's story by itself could have been a main lead story. And while I hated the contrived, annoying and mostly useless existence of the Pei Zhen character, I have to give credit to Dai Xu for his performance, especially given the crappy writing involving his character.

The music, sets, wardrobe, cinemetography are all mostly top-notch production. The 'Scripted Murder Game' settings especially were often beautifully done. The one real low point in production quality was late in the series with the warehouse fire scene. That was just very poorly executed and so many aspects of that episode just did not make sense. Poorly written, poorly directed and cheaply implemented.

Aside with that one drop in production quality, my only real complaints are with regard to a couple of specifics with the script / plot. 90% of the time the script is fine and even fantastic. I especially like the dialog given to both Hu Xiu and Zhao Rou. As the top female characters they got consistently intelligent dialog that showcased the intelligence and emotional insight of the two characters. Way better than the dialog given to many other female leads in so many dramas. And for the most part they avoided plot-induced stupidity with either of these two characters so I really appreciated that. Where the script really stumbles is in the contrived character of Pei Zhen as the ML's step-brother. This character is almost completely meaningless to the plot and serves mainly as nothing more than a time-wasting annoyance. He's not even a half-brother to the ML so their sibling relationship is extremely tenuous and what little there is was marked mostly by abuse against the ML. Otherwise it is clear from the plot that ML mostly grew up completely separate of Pei. Yet the plot tries to imply that there should be a bond between them underneath all the misunderstandings. There isn't. Pei is simply an abused son who himself commits his own crimes and is, frankly not a sympathetic character other than for the abuse he does take from his father. The plot tries to make him seem sympathetic, but does not go anywhere near the real steps that need to be taken by him to become sympathetic: He needed to turn himself in, go to prison for his crimes and get counseling for his deep psychological problems - which persist all the way to his last scene. His 'unrequited love' for the FL is just mostly pathetic and childish. I mean, seriously? He's obsessing and fondling that old bandaid at the end? That is just so sad and pathetic. Not one step towards real character growth. Saying "I'm sorry" at the end is not meaningful. Especially when at the same time he still is looking longingly with his stupid sad puppy-dog expression like a 14-year old boy looking at the unattainable popular girl. He's emotionally still a child even at the very end. His character needs years of therapy.

The script for Pei Zhen's dialog tended to be the worst, most comic-book silly of all the characters. Especially in the scenes when he and the ML, Xiao Zhi Yu, would be pumping testosterone at each other. I'll give credit to Dai Xu for delivering well with what he had to work with. But really, this show could have been done better without the Pei Zhen character existing at all.

Read More

How come I had never hear of this gem?

I stumbled upon this series by way of a random short segment showing up in my YouTube feed. Once I figured out the title of the series I found the full series of episodes on YouTube and started watching it. And it did not disappoint. This series is a classic hero-returns-from-presumed-dead-to-take-revenge story so the basic nature of the plot is not unique. However, the delivery of that plot is fantastic. Christy Guo is just so perfectly cast as the mesmerizing, mysterious vengeance-seeking Mo Wang / Quingchuan. Tall and with an ethereal beauty, she enters scenes with an almost supernatural aura. Her intensity of resolve is wielded like armor on top of unimaginable pain, both personal and social. As the story goes on to reveal more and more of what she was forced to endure by the selfish decisions of others, Guo's acting makes her rage becomes your rage. The rest of the cast is excellent. In particular, veteran actor Tian Miao, as the Empress Dowager delivers yet another fantastic performance. She steals scene after scene. I am not a huge fan of Zhour Zhan as the choice for the Male Lead, Xia Qiguang. To me, he simply looks too delicate and baby-faced to take seriously for a role like this one. It's a matter of taste, but I just think he's more of a 'SML' type of actor for me. That said, he did grow on me as the series progressed and he really, really delivered in a scene late in the series when Qiguang was breaking down and crying to Qingchuan. Beyond the excellent script and acting, another strong point of this series is length / editing / pacing. It is not a long series with only 18 episodes (fewer in some re-organized formats such as on YouTube). And there is no wasted screen time on 'plot filler' contrivances. Almost no minutes are wasted in this drama and it avoids most annoying gimmick that many dramas use just to fill out extra episodes. The concise story-telling that results from this is refreshing and captivating.

Read More

WAY better than I expected.

I watched this largely because I had seen Zhang Jing Yi in Legend of Zang Hai. But the synopsis made it seem like a pretty lightweight rom-com sort of drama so I wasn't expecting much. Boy was my expectation off. This was one of the better dramas I have watched recently and although not perfect, nailed all the most critical things I look for in a series.

First the negatives: The makeup was .... not good at times. Kinda amateurish. Especially bad was the 'wound' on the face of the ML in the early episodes. And wounds in general were pretty poorly rendered. High school drama-club stuff. Also some of the 'special effects' - were a little weak - notably with the scenes on the ships out on the water. And while most of the costumes were great, at times they were a little flat and didn't feel authentic period.

Then the positives: Everything else. First off, the script is just excellent. This is a mature adult drama with human characters talking to each other like real humans. Especially the two leads. I can't say enough about how pleasant it was to have two leads who consistently talked to each other like adults. Who didn't hide things unnecessarily and create contrived, unnecessary drama between each other. Not that they didn't have secrets. But the ones they had were real and understandable and they didn't get in the way of their slowly growing romance between each other.. This was a couple that respected each other and always came through for each other. In addition, this script almost never resorted to awkward plot contrivances. They avoided stupid annoying love triangles and no memory losses or long, drawn out forced separations or betrayals caused by misinformation or really any of the usual soap-opera gimmicks. They did include a 'Secondary ML', but after establishing pretty firmly and quickly that he was not and never would be a romantic competitor for the ML, he was allowed to grow into a great supporting character.

One last thing to say about the script: Be prepared for some tears. Most of the tone of this show is positive. But when sad, emotional things happen, my god this show does not spare you. If you don't tear up on some of the emotionally tough scenes in this show then you are perhaps really a robot. The cast performances in these scenes is powerful. Perhaps the most moving scene was the scene when Hua Zhi lies on the bed next to her grandmother, played by the venerable Liu Jia. I won't spoil it, but man that scene had my eyes watering badly.

Gotta talk about the cast. Zhang Jing Yi just knocks it out of the park as a strong, brilliant and compassionate Hua Zhi - without having to be a physical martial arts princess (such as she was in Legend of Zang Hai). Instead of a physical fighter, she is mentally strong willed and determined and most of all, observant and brilliant. She solves problems creatively and consistently with awareness and compassion for everyone concerned. And her co-lead in all this, Hu Yi Tian as Gu Yan Xi , does a fantastic job of being an equal partner in this romance. He is, of course, a very different character being very much a physical killing machine at times. And he is constrained by his position to sometimes do things he would not choose to on his own. But it's very clear early on that he has true compassion and shares Hua Zhi's moral compass. His nature fits like perfect yin/yang complement to hers. The two 'get' each other immediately and have great chemistry that makes their near telepathic connection feel real.

The rest of the cast is loaded with veteran actors who you should recognize from other dramas. Too many to list off. This is a big cast. And I don't think anyone delivers a poor performance. Almost every supporting character has depth and complexity. Only a few of the external characters are 2-dimensional

Oh, also want to give a big nod to the fight choreographer. This is not a drama that is overly heavy with fight scenes. It is not the focus at all. But WHEN this drama has fight scenes, the choreography is absolutely top-notch. I especially like how they use a lot of empty-hands techniques. It isn't always flashy weapons being swung around.

Read More