Maybe Fang in the beginning seemed like your usual stuck up young heir. But after a few episodes he became uber adorable <3 I love the dating scene where he looked so amazed watching aquariums, and shrimp!. Then he became a sad, lost little puppy after his birth history got revealed :'(
Like everyone else, I also feel the female lead is unbearable to watch. I want to say Mary-Sue-ish but I can't for the life of me think of one aspect of her that's good enough to be called Mary Sue-ish (and isn't that ironic). One character (I think it was Xiaonan) even said something like, "But Bicheng is so smart". It's bordering character shilling.
Fine, the writer wants to show her smart, than please write/show how she can be smart, like how Chen Shen, Shanhai, Xiaonan, or even Biantou were shown to be smart. Even more problem is with how her two love interests coddled her. Okay, she's stubborn, emotional, rash, reckless etc *insert bad adjectives that's really not fit for a spy here*. In one scene between the two guys one of them said something like, "I'll let her be her." Sure, let her be stupid and get innocent people killed, meanwhile we'd clean up the mess she'd undoubtedly create.
They both excused her bad qualities too much. Even when her being stupid directly caused all of them in real danger they waved it off like ??? Someone really needed to rein her in. That's why I was so damn happy that finally in later episode Cheng Shen finally told her off "Don't you have a brain?" then he proceeded to say "Are all Nationalists this stupid?" No wonder only the Communists were successful planting a spy (or spies) undetected for several years in the heart of the enemy.
While we're at that topic, I really have to question the Nationalists higher ups for sending someone of her quality to do what must have been their most important undercover work. At first I kept waiting, oh maybe she had this special skill like encrypting or something. But then it was shown, nah Shanhai did all the decrypting, she was just the morse code operator/whatever. Then it was revealed she actually asked for that assignment because she wanted to see Chen Shen. Ok, no one knew one of the 'traitor' was her teacher/past love. A clear conflict of interest, but believable that the boss didn't know. Then someone said she was put together with Shanhai to act as his wife. That's all good, she looked docile and harmless and no one would suspect a thing. But then they put her to work in the Agency with Shanhai, in the heart of the enemy, where you need to be super careful to not even breathe the wrong way. That's a disaster waiting to happen, and happened, it did. They needed to give medals to Chen Shen, and Xiaonan too, for cleaning up the mess the best they could even though it's really not their job. So what quality of hers that the Nationalists felt could actually contribute, positively, for the mission? I still have no idea.
The plot in this drama is actually really good, but the huge flaw that's Bicheng unfortunately ruined what's otherwise a flawless and believable story about spies in WWII-era China. Thank god that she's mostly out of the picture for about the last third of the drama. I have to wonder what the writer was thinking when designing Bicheng's characters for this, especially considering her role in the story was to be one of the spies.
lets do body counts on who died because of xu bi cheng in this draammmaaa
I love reading your rants here lol. So what's the end number for deaths caused by her stupidity? I count only 5. Surprisingly low... But I didn't count people that would die anyway without her stupidity e.g. Prime Minister, even though her thoughtless action also made her an easy target for the sniper outside.
Fine, the writer wants to show her smart, than please write/show how she can be smart, like how Chen Shen, Shanhai, Xiaonan, or even Biantou were shown to be smart. Even more problem is with how her two love interests coddled her. Okay, she's stubborn, emotional, rash, reckless etc *insert bad adjectives that's really not fit for a spy here*. In one scene between the two guys one of them said something like, "I'll let her be her." Sure, let her be stupid and get innocent people killed, meanwhile we'd clean up the mess she'd undoubtedly create.
They both excused her bad qualities too much. Even when her being stupid directly caused all of them in real danger they waved it off like ??? Someone really needed to rein her in. That's why I was so damn happy that finally in later episode Cheng Shen finally told her off "Don't you have a brain?" then he proceeded to say "Are all Nationalists this stupid?" No wonder only the Communists were successful planting a spy (or spies) undetected for several years in the heart of the enemy.
While we're at that topic, I really have to question the Nationalists higher ups for sending someone of her quality to do what must have been their most important undercover work. At first I kept waiting, oh maybe she had this special skill like encrypting or something. But then it was shown, nah Shanhai did all the decrypting, she was just the morse code operator/whatever. Then it was revealed she actually asked for that assignment because she wanted to see Chen Shen. Ok, no one knew one of the 'traitor' was her teacher/past love. A clear conflict of interest, but believable that the boss didn't know. Then someone said she was put together with Shanhai to act as his wife. That's all good, she looked docile and harmless and no one would suspect a thing. But then they put her to work in the Agency with Shanhai, in the heart of the enemy, where you need to be super careful to not even breathe the wrong way. That's a disaster waiting to happen, and happened, it did. They needed to give medals to Chen Shen, and Xiaonan too, for cleaning up the mess the best they could even though it's really not their job. So what quality of hers that the Nationalists felt could actually contribute, positively, for the mission? I still have no idea.
The plot in this drama is actually really good, but the huge flaw that's Bicheng unfortunately ruined what's otherwise a flawless and believable story about spies in WWII-era China. Thank god that she's mostly out of the picture for about the last third of the drama. I have to wonder what the writer was thinking when designing Bicheng's characters for this, especially considering her role in the story was to be one of the spies.