rje1

I don't think a much large group of raters would give a much greater spread in ratings. Rather it depends on how people rate.

Yes, I get the impression that many people give a drama 10 if they're satisfied with it. How do you rate? I haven't rated anything 10, and I give 9.5 for my few all-time favorites. Something I watched to completion without major faults would get a 7.

Interesting and worthy comment, which took me back to my own first forays, beginning with Japanese dramas. The first Korean drama I watched a few years ago was Jang Ok Jung, which even though only 24 episodes, was repetitive in its plotting. Since then, my favorite Asian dramas are mostly Korean and Taiwanese. The first few Cinese dramas I watched were very disappointing in the writing, despite lavish production, until I discovered Nirvana in Fire.

Interesting article and list, and I see several of my favorite Chinese dramas are included here. I also intend to seek out the ones I haven't seen. I agree with your comments on length, and look forward to more dramas with less episodes, hopefully with tighter writing.
The Bad Kids was the first drama I saw that portrayed the lives of ordinary working-class Chinese (in contrast to the glamorous middle-class Shanghai workers portrayed in most dramas, who are hardly representative of the majority of China), and it stands out b/c it's a crime drama, but the main characters are three kids. The Long Night has a fascinating three time-lines layered script and also focuses on the lives in rural China.
Nirvana in Fire is of course a classic and the second series, although quite separate, is also top class.
Battle of Changsha was entertaining enough.
In your honorable mentions, Romance of Our Parents is an engrossing story of the life of a couple when they marry just after the revolution, into old age in the 90s. The politics are there in the background and form a tension b/c the wife comes from a bourgeios family.

No, although he's an ingenious slacker, when the chips are down he'll dp anything for his sister. Much more of a father figure than their actual father. Not like the movie version at all, who is some kind of rescuing saintly figure.

Hollywood scriptwriter Robert McKee, in his book _story_, says that romance stories are constructed around the couple having to surmount a series of obstacles. In the past, those obstacles were external (e.g. family and society e.g. Romeo and Juliet). These days, such obstacles mostly don't exist, so the obstacles have to be internal. Obviously that's much harder to write convincingly.

Sounds like an addiction to something unhealthy!
I looked over the kdrama romances I enjoyed - Crash Landing on You, Not a Robot, Healer, On the Way to the Airport, Weightlifting Fairy, Painter of the Wind, Memorials, Mad for Each Other - I would like to think the stories are slightly more believable than ones like Pinnochio.

Who knows if this has any basis in reality: a set of North Korean assassins (not spies as most reviews state) including a teenage girl, setting up house in a South Korean suburb, reluctantly connecting with their neighbours, envying their freedom, including the freedom to bicker relentlessly. There's some inconsistency in their early bungling and ineptitude, versus later in the movie being able to overpower several bodyguards so they can kill a general, and to capture a set of seasoned North Korean agents. But that's hardly the point; this movie mourns for the anguish of families across a divided Korea, and for the misery of living under the totalitarian government in the North, which destroys family units to maintain its power.
Like most Korean movies made for adults, the denouement is violent. Except for the coda, which appears to be a fantasy sequence drawn from a Korean teenage movie.

Two episodes so far. Serious problems in this drama about consent. Classic seduction strategies as in "Dangerous Liaisons". Evidently, men shouldn't admit to tender feelings, but instead dominate and manipulate the woman's feelings. He intrudes into the woman's personal space, and when her body responds instinctively, suddenly withdraws and alleges that it's all in HER mind. Apparently, women shouldn't admit to having sexual feelings, but instead be passive and placatory. The FL is mocked and feels a failure because she has had no romantic or sexual experience whatsoever by 25, rather than respecting her right to do things at her pace and to be in control of herself. Who is this drama supposed to appeal to?

Thanks for the info. Unfortunately the comments and info on this page is confusing the original Singaporean drama with the Chinese remake.
BTW are you watching it? I'm watching the Singaporean one, but after 10 episodes getting fed up with the relentlessly evil characters and the silently-suffering heroine.

This long movie chronicles the life of writer Xiao Hong in chronological detail, during the time of huge upheaval in mid-twentieth century China, including the Japanese occupation and the communist revolution. The script is largely constructed from letters and memoirs, and their various authors often speak directly to the camera, as if it in a stage play. However, despite much of it set in freezing winter and dingy urban backstreets, the scenery and camera work is often astounding. There is little action, and the drama is mostly interior, and in the relationship of Xiao Hong and Xiao Jun (reminded me of another long movie about a couple of intellectuals in revolutionary times: Reds). These are the times early revolutions, when intellect is valued, in contrast to later when the dictators take over and free thought is persecuted. In the movie it's the brutal Japanese occupation, but we know that will be followed by civil war and then the respective dictatorships of the mainland communists and the Kuomintang in Taiwan.

Low-budget minimalist movie (one main set, a few actors, sparse musical soundtrack) about a young woman who decides to enact her new-found taste for minimalism and Marie Kondo-style decluttering on the family home, including the hoards of her brother and mother, and discovers that everything interconnects; to attempt to dispose of even one item can have huge and unexpected consequences.

Thanks for your recommendation! Yes, I've seen that one. It's so corny, but I have enjoyed watching it a second time, and also the recent covid-era special.

Not really. These woman are not in glamorous city jobs, but more mundane kinds of occupation. They're frustrated about sex, and not much happens in that department. Their only pleasure in life is their sismance, and exclaiming ecstatically over breakfasts which, let's face it, are not all that spectacular, just the usual cafe staples.

This movie suffers from weird swings in tone. It starts off with a whole lot of attention-deficit frenetic adolescent humour, veers into a serious middle section with a lot of romantic angst, revisits the adolescent humour with a crazy backyard all-in fight scene, and then ends with a soppy reunion.The lead character is a cowardly sap, whose only redeeming feature is supposedly his persistence, which alas he expends and wastes on an equally spineless woman.

See on this site (I don't know where they get their info from):
https://kisskh.at/708199-ode-to-joy-4
https://kisskh.at/708201-ode-to-joy-5

In this musical set on Valentine's Day in which various couples converge on a mass outdoor wedding, if you hadn't noticed the Taipei Tower in the background, you'd know we're in Taiwan because one of the couples are two women dressed white dress/suit, wanting their union blessed even though it's not yet legal. The production and singing are done enthusiastically, but there wasn't enough character or story to keep my interest for long.

The only way this drama passess the Bechdel test is when they're repeatedly exclaiming 美味しい over their breakfast. Life is about sleazy bosses, incompetent husbands and boyfriends, and the only respite is in taking the morning meal in a variety of named locations (in Tokyo?). They talk about sex but don't seem to get much satisfaction in that area. To their credit, these women maintain their mutually supportive friendship despite having quite diverse lifestyles.

May you ever fly without mishap.

Was this filmed in one location/city? Where is the beach etc.?