1
Not spectacular but highly watchable, with awesome breakout performance by Wu Bo Wei
The strengths of this drama:
❤️ Brisk pacing and good story flow makes it highly binge-able. Direction, camerawork, production value all of higher caliber than most stories of similar episode-length.
❤️ Actors and actresses brought their A-game to this. Some performances are stronger than others, but no one was actually bad in their role, there is no "weak link" that ruins the continuity of the drama. I'm really impressed by the cast that they were all fully invested and tried to make this story shine.
❤️ Absolutely AWESOME performance by Wu Bo Wei (the "villain" ML). I tend to shy away from comparing actors to other actors, but Wu Bo Wei is the chinese Zo In Sung, and I mean that as a compliment. He has those sexy deep eyes, strong handsome facial features, onscreen confidence, and most importantly imo... he has this "shimmery" quality to his acting where he's not just acting, he's acting down to the level of microexpressions where you can see huge range of emotion coming through from just his facial reactions.... and he has FIREY chemistry with his female love interest, like burn down the whole drama level fire. With the right career breaks and the right directors, he could be a huge powerhouse actor that could easily co-star or lead in a major production drama.
❤️ Styling is often a c-drama's weak point, but not here. Here the styling fits the story very well and helps build some of that "seamless watch" energy it has going for it. It could be better, but hey. Budget restraints are a thing. At least no one had truly crappy hair. I could see the care that went into styling each character, and appreciated it.
The weaknesses:
💥The ending. Super disjointed and confused, ruins the sense of continuity they had built up through the whole drama and just drops the ball. Big cop-out energy.... (and speaking of cop-out energy, the way they wrapped up the "villain's" character arc was so absolutely AWFUL it was laughable)
💥The lack of depth. Much of the story is cliche and trope. There are creative and refreshing aspects to the drama, but those threads aren't really pulled on and teased out like they would have been in a winning script. The emotional depth is sounded out a little bit with some of the characters, but there is not the masterful depth of human understanding some Chinese writers have, so the final product is a little bit flat-feeling.
💥Some are gonna disagree with me but OST/BGM was a net negative for me. The mood of the songs was fine, I didn't think the musical direction was tone-deaf, it matched the storyline. But it was intrusive and persistent, and all in all I think it would have been better without an OST at all if they're gonna be so aggressive about it. Somebody thought this production was a good opportunity to showcase some musicians and singers. But I wanted to watch a romance drama, not a music video. I get that that whole folk-indie-pop-Mazzy-Star sound might be just what some people like. But I listen to EDM and speed/thrash metal and hiphop. So for me sitting through this OST was like a form of torture, and ruined many scenes for me.
All in all, I think worth a one-time watch. Fast paced, major eye candy factor, great acting by the whole cast. But to me, not really "rewatch" caliber.
❤️ Brisk pacing and good story flow makes it highly binge-able. Direction, camerawork, production value all of higher caliber than most stories of similar episode-length.
❤️ Actors and actresses brought their A-game to this. Some performances are stronger than others, but no one was actually bad in their role, there is no "weak link" that ruins the continuity of the drama. I'm really impressed by the cast that they were all fully invested and tried to make this story shine.
❤️ Absolutely AWESOME performance by Wu Bo Wei (the "villain" ML). I tend to shy away from comparing actors to other actors, but Wu Bo Wei is the chinese Zo In Sung, and I mean that as a compliment. He has those sexy deep eyes, strong handsome facial features, onscreen confidence, and most importantly imo... he has this "shimmery" quality to his acting where he's not just acting, he's acting down to the level of microexpressions where you can see huge range of emotion coming through from just his facial reactions.... and he has FIREY chemistry with his female love interest, like burn down the whole drama level fire. With the right career breaks and the right directors, he could be a huge powerhouse actor that could easily co-star or lead in a major production drama.
❤️ Styling is often a c-drama's weak point, but not here. Here the styling fits the story very well and helps build some of that "seamless watch" energy it has going for it. It could be better, but hey. Budget restraints are a thing. At least no one had truly crappy hair. I could see the care that went into styling each character, and appreciated it.
The weaknesses:
💥The ending. Super disjointed and confused, ruins the sense of continuity they had built up through the whole drama and just drops the ball. Big cop-out energy.... (and speaking of cop-out energy, the way they wrapped up the "villain's" character arc was so absolutely AWFUL it was laughable)
💥The lack of depth. Much of the story is cliche and trope. There are creative and refreshing aspects to the drama, but those threads aren't really pulled on and teased out like they would have been in a winning script. The emotional depth is sounded out a little bit with some of the characters, but there is not the masterful depth of human understanding some Chinese writers have, so the final product is a little bit flat-feeling.
💥Some are gonna disagree with me but OST/BGM was a net negative for me. The mood of the songs was fine, I didn't think the musical direction was tone-deaf, it matched the storyline. But it was intrusive and persistent, and all in all I think it would have been better without an OST at all if they're gonna be so aggressive about it. Somebody thought this production was a good opportunity to showcase some musicians and singers. But I wanted to watch a romance drama, not a music video. I get that that whole folk-indie-pop-Mazzy-Star sound might be just what some people like. But I listen to EDM and speed/thrash metal and hiphop. So for me sitting through this OST was like a form of torture, and ruined many scenes for me.
All in all, I think worth a one-time watch. Fast paced, major eye candy factor, great acting by the whole cast. But to me, not really "rewatch" caliber.
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