The plot of the first 14 episodes in a nutshell: A partly-autistic but very bright boy is left alone thoughout…
I guess we'll have to disagree about what love is, then.
For example, I don't think one partner making a unilateral decision to break up for the sake of the other partner's career is actually love at all. What it looks like to me is more of an inability to communicate, and unwillingness to make joint decisions.
I’m on episode 13 and feeling frustrated with the show. Oddly enough, it isn’t for the same reason as other…
My main problems are:
1. The FL is inconsistently written. She starts out daring, brave, interesting and skilled. But by the middle of the show she seems to lose a lot of that ability whenever the plot needs it.
2. Both the ML and FL are extremely uncommunicative. The FL is at times, but the ML is extremely uncommunicative throughout. A lot of the drama in the plot involves the ML learning a fact, then going “but I’d better not tell Jin because otherwise she’ll worry / get annoyed.” Then, unsurprisingly, she finds out and it’s a misunderstanding. Rinse and repeat.
3. My biggest issue, however, is the ML’s complete lack of communication with the FL over the actual plot of the entire show. He struggles to open a lock, takes her there and she opens it for him. He uses her locket to open a casket. Then takes out a small box. Ok. They’ve cooperated. But he then takes it and hides it away and (at least for the first 13 episodes) doesn’t tell her one single thing about it. This is despite the fact she has a necklace linked to the case he’s investigating, an embroidery pattern linked to it, and picks up a locket linked to it. And they are supposed to love each other. But no, he’s not telling her anything about the one thing he’s focused on solving.
My problem is a simple one. Over and above physical attraction and the Emperor forcing them together, I’m struggling to believe these two have a strong relationship. Because the FL is reasonably happy. But the ML has a problem he’s obsessing about, and never discusses it at all with his partner.
I’m on episode 13 and feeling frustrated with the show. Oddly enough, it isn’t for the same reason as other people. Most of the negative comments are critical of the FL. I’m actually critical of the ML. I’ll put why in a spoiler.
Dropped part-way through episode 14. Ultimately, I didn’t think these people were enough of a couple when it…
The plot of the first 14 episodes in a nutshell:
A partly-autistic but very bright boy is left alone thoughout childhood by his parents. He grows up to be cold and not at all in touch with his feelings.
A gentle and sensitive girl is abused by her father and supported by her brother. When her mother divorces and remarries, she finds a family that supports her, but is still very timid.
The ML and FL meet in school and are massively repressed but seem to like each other. They stand awkwardly and don’t say much, but do demonstrate affection.
The ML is going off to study at Cambridge. The FL agrees to apply to the University of East Anglia to be near him. Then her Father has an accident and is left in a wheelchair.
She deliberately doesn’t tell him. That’s strike 1 against their relationship for me.
He finds out anyway. So she starts ghosting him. That’s strike 2.
The ML wants to stay behind in China and help. The FL says in public that she doesn’t care for him. He asks for a final talk. She doesn’t turn up. He goes abroad anyway. That’s strike 3.
I stopped watching when the words “four years later” came on screen.
Look. I like a good romance. But the couple have to be helping each other through the toughest part of their lives, not having separate lives, and only getting together when times are good. The one who was nicest to her and always there for her was her brother. And that just isn’t enough in what’s supposed to be a romance.
Dropped part-way through episode 14. Ultimately, I didn’t think these people were enough of a couple when it mattered. I’ve put a spoiler as to why, but be warned it is the entire plot of the first 14 episodes.
Real life couples also have some problems. This drama couple did not get angry but understood each others decisions.They…
They stayed together but they're going to have a difficult marriage because their whole way of dealing with difficult things is to not tell the other person.
The worst example for me was the way the Female Lead decided to go live in a different country for two years. She didn't discuss anything with her partner and made the decision without him. Then, having made the decision, she couldn't bring herself to tell him about it. If his friends hadn't given the game away the first time he would have known they were spending two years apart is when she sent him a text from the plane.
I know she had good reasons for doing so. But she could have had the same set of reasons and actually talked to him about it.
They are very cute together, and I liked their chemistry. But their relationship with each other at the end of the show had a lot of problems.
I was really enjoying this until the last ten or so episodes, when our leads suddenly decided to become the world’s least communicative couple.
Is an actual mature and healthy relationship too much to ask?
Plot point 1: He has an issue with the company, and doesn’t tell her. Plot point 2: She has an issue with her mother, and doesn’t tell him. Plot point 3: He has an issue with an ex-friend and doesn’t tell her. Plot point 4. She has a different issue with her mother and doesn’t tell him.
… Repeat multiple times.
It’s a pity, because I really thought the chemistry was great until they stopped talking to each other.
I liked this for the first 20 or so episodes, but have been feeling like it's going downhill ever since. I'm now on episode 32 but my interest is really fading.
My problem is two-fold:
a) Apart from the lead couple, the ML's servant and Minister Feng, I'm honestly not interested in all the other characters. The ML has the world's most unappreciative and useless Father, and all the other contenders in the martial world are, frankly, staid and boring.
b) I'm getting a bit tired of the writers deciding to make something happen by having someone in the Martial Art sect do something stupid. I get it. It's a sect composed entirely of idiots who just make everything worse. But why do idiots have such a large part to play in the show?
Ultimately, I'd have preferred it if the other contender to rule the world was more interesting, and if we saw more of our couple roaming the world doing martial arts stuff and less of our ML doing court duties.
> can someone recommend a good drama of ZYL?The Story of Ming Lan.Her other shows may be hits or misses, but Ming…
Is it really good? Yes. I’d put it in the top tier of Chinese dramas ever made, and it’s probably up there in the top tier of dramas ever made in any language. It’s that good.
Out of 10: I’d give it 10. And I have so far only thought three dramas fit that score: Go Ahead, The Story of Minglan and Someday or One Day.
However, that said, Minglan does demand a bit of patience from the viewer. It’s an incredibly good slice of life show, but it’s still a slice of life show - which means those who don’t like that type of show will probably still not like it no matter how good it is.
Things you might find make it hard to get into are:
a) It’s very strongly about social pressure. Most of the characters in the show feel a massive weight of public expectation on their behaviour, particularly the women. Taking the title character as an example, Minglan has to obey her father and his wife, fit into society’s expectations and, after marriage, obey all the elders in that new household. This makes a world that’s quite alien and takes a bit of time to get your head around.
b) It’s a slice of life show where we get to see the characters grow up. The leading actor and actress don’t appear at all at first because their characters are played by child actors. Pretty good child actors, though. But it does come as a bit of a surprise compared to other shows to not have the main stars in from the start.
c) Minglan is under massive social obligation to toe the line and behave appropriately. So she’s got to do what she’s told in the first part of the show. As a result, while she’s very clever and resourceful, she isn’t the full protagonist she will eventually become for the first 18 or so episodes. What that means is that you very slowly get to see her change and become more active.
d) Minglan is courted by a series of different men. At least one of them gets pretty close to her and is in her heart for a while. This can cause some confusion about who the leading man is. But all that changes when the real proposal goes in from the final suitor - and from that point on they spend the show getting deeper in love.
Those are all the reasons someone might be put off. The reasons I’d recommend it are:
a) The plot is really well done. The opening half (in the Sheng household) has a lot of things happening that, in a smaller form, parallel the problems Minglan will go through in the second half. All the characters are treated fairly, and if something happens in the plot they work it through properly and don’t just leave it hanging.
b) The characters are amazing. There’s a constant call on various boards for a show with a “strong female lead.” Well, here she is. One of the nicest, cleverest and most resourceful female leads in Chinese drama.
c) They hit lucky with the main pairing. The second part of the show involves a romance between the ML and FL, and, as fortune would have it, the actor and actress were in love in real life at the time. This gives their on-screen chemistry a realism you don’t often see.
d) It’s full of tension. Minglan can’t fight at all. But during the show she ends up being attacked in multiple different ways and having to defend herself. She’s chased out of the palace by people who want to murder her, various people try all sorts of tactics to wreck her marriage, her ship gets attacked by pirates, people poison her or her loved ones, and so on.
e) It’s full of happiness. The show takes time to breathe. They have fun on the polo pitch, fun at different get togethers, and a wonderful wedding night. It’s also one of the happiest endings you’ll ever find.
So my tldr is that it’s not for everyone. But if you like this sort of thing it’s really well done. Think “Jane Austen meets wuxia,” and you’ll be roughly in the right place.
Not really, and that's the most disappointing thing about the show, because it gets so much of the rest of it right.
It's not a sad ending either. Just a bit unresolved, and a bit grey. Two people who you think will end up together don't, and a person who is bad throughout doesn't get their comeuppance.
I loved the rest of the show, and I get what the makers were trying to do with the ending leaving things not quite sorted. But for me that isn't why I watch drama so I ended up disappointed.
They're both very attractive people, but episode 21 contains the world’s stupidest argument between a supposedly…
She’s working hard to get a part, and he’s being really supportive, giving her on-site medical care. Then the casting decision comes around and he thinks it needs a nudge, so he meets an old friend who can make the decision. But, when it comes to it, he decides she can do it herself anyway and doesn’t need his help.
So the entire reason for the breakup is that he was:
a) Completely supportive for months up to the meeting. b) Not sure if she could get the job on her own for about a day, or two. c) But realised he did believe in her once the meeting was underway.
And for that she runs away and won’t talk to him?
I have to be honest. I’d be looking for another fiancee.
The show is very good, and very hard-hitting. But two things stand out for me overall:
1. Never have I ever seen a bunch of people offered so many repeated chances to leave a warzone, only to stubbornly refuse. It’s entirely possible that the ultimate villain of the piece is actually Granny, because every time she dug her heels in and refused to move, one or more family members had to stay with her.
2. The Chinese could have won the war in six months simply by giving Xiaoman to the Japanese and letting him mess up all their plans instead. He is, by far, the dumbest and least useful character I have ever come across in any form of fiction.
I have to admit, I really didn’t understand episode 24. I’ve put the thing I didn’t understand hidden as…
At the point the ML is ready to go to Germany, the FL believes he is only staying for her, and doesn’t want to ruin his life. So she leaves, and goes to another country and starts a new life.
What I didn’t understand:
If she was ok leaving the country and going abroad and starting a new life… why could she not have picked Germany? They could have had a happy marriage and his career opportunity with no problem.
Her decision to leave only makes sense if she believes he won’t go to Germany because she can’t leave the country due to her high powered job. So in her mind he decides to stay with her and not go for his big opportunity. But it turns out she can leave her job, and can leave the country. So it makes no sense. All along, she could have just been supportive and gone with him.
I've read a lot of comments about the ending being disappointing, and I find that a pity, because I was wanting to watch this show after the buzz it got at the start.
If we start from the position that I want to see a happy ending, and I want to feel as satisfied as possible about our main couple being together... Is there any agreement about the best place to stop watching?
I.e. What point does the story feel the most happy and complete? I'm thinking of just watching the story to that point and ignoring the rest.
Warning - it's really spoilery, so probably best read only after you've seen the entire thing.
For example, I don't think one partner making a unilateral decision to break up for the sake of the other partner's career is actually love at all. What it looks like to me is more of an inability to communicate, and unwillingness to make joint decisions.
1. The FL is inconsistently written. She starts out daring, brave, interesting and skilled. But by the middle of the show she seems to lose a lot of that ability whenever the plot needs it.
2. Both the ML and FL are extremely uncommunicative. The FL is at times, but the ML is extremely uncommunicative throughout. A lot of the drama in the plot involves the ML learning a fact, then going “but I’d better not tell Jin because otherwise she’ll worry / get annoyed.” Then, unsurprisingly, she finds out and it’s a misunderstanding. Rinse and repeat.
3. My biggest issue, however, is the ML’s complete lack of communication with the FL over the actual plot of the entire show. He struggles to open a lock, takes her there and she opens it for him. He uses her locket to open a casket. Then takes out a small box. Ok. They’ve cooperated. But he then takes it and hides it away and (at least for the first 13 episodes) doesn’t tell her one single thing about it. This is despite the fact she has a necklace linked to the case he’s investigating, an embroidery pattern linked to it, and picks up a locket linked to it. And they are supposed to love each other. But no, he’s not telling her anything about the one thing he’s focused on solving.
My problem is a simple one. Over and above physical attraction and the Emperor forcing them together, I’m struggling to believe these two have a strong relationship. Because the FL is reasonably happy. But the ML has a problem he’s obsessing about, and never discusses it at all with his partner.
A partly-autistic but very bright boy is left alone thoughout childhood by his parents. He grows up to be cold and not at all in touch with his feelings.
A gentle and sensitive girl is abused by her father and supported by her brother. When her mother divorces and remarries, she finds a family that supports her, but is still very timid.
The ML and FL meet in school and are massively repressed but seem to like each other. They stand awkwardly and don’t say much, but do demonstrate affection.
The ML is going off to study at Cambridge. The FL agrees to apply to the University of East Anglia to be near him. Then her Father has an accident and is left in a wheelchair.
She deliberately doesn’t tell him. That’s strike 1 against their relationship for me.
He finds out anyway. So she starts ghosting him. That’s strike 2.
The ML wants to stay behind in China and help. The FL says in public that she doesn’t care for him. He asks for a final talk. She doesn’t turn up. He goes abroad anyway. That’s strike 3.
I stopped watching when the words “four years later” came on screen.
Look. I like a good romance. But the couple have to be helping each other through the toughest part of their lives, not having separate lives, and only getting together when times are good. The one who was nicest to her and always there for her was her brother. And that just isn’t enough in what’s supposed to be a romance.
The worst example for me was the way the Female Lead decided to go live in a different country for two years. She didn't discuss anything with her partner and made the decision without him. Then, having made the decision, she couldn't bring herself to tell him about it. If his friends hadn't given the game away the first time he would have known they were spending two years apart is when she sent him a text from the plane.
I know she had good reasons for doing so. But she could have had the same set of reasons and actually talked to him about it.
They are very cute together, and I liked their chemistry. But their relationship with each other at the end of the show had a lot of problems.
Is an actual mature and healthy relationship too much to ask?
Plot point 1: He has an issue with the company, and doesn’t tell her.
Plot point 2: She has an issue with her mother, and doesn’t tell him.
Plot point 3: He has an issue with an ex-friend and doesn’t tell her.
Plot point 4. She has a different issue with her mother and doesn’t tell him.
… Repeat multiple times.
It’s a pity, because I really thought the chemistry was great until they stopped talking to each other.
My problem is two-fold:
a) Apart from the lead couple, the ML's servant and Minister Feng, I'm honestly not interested in all the other characters. The ML has the world's most unappreciative and useless Father, and all the other contenders in the martial world are, frankly, staid and boring.
b) I'm getting a bit tired of the writers deciding to make something happen by having someone in the Martial Art sect do something stupid. I get it. It's a sect composed entirely of idiots who just make everything worse. But why do idiots have such a large part to play in the show?
Ultimately, I'd have preferred it if the other contender to rule the world was more interesting, and if we saw more of our couple roaming the world doing martial arts stuff and less of our ML doing court duties.
Out of 10: I’d give it 10. And I have so far only thought three dramas fit that score: Go Ahead, The Story of Minglan and Someday or One Day.
However, that said, Minglan does demand a bit of patience from the viewer. It’s an incredibly good slice of life show, but it’s still a slice of life show - which means those who don’t like that type of show will probably still not like it no matter how good it is.
Things you might find make it hard to get into are:
a) It’s very strongly about social pressure. Most of the characters in the show feel a massive weight of public expectation on their behaviour, particularly the women. Taking the title character as an example, Minglan has to obey her father and his wife, fit into society’s expectations and, after marriage, obey all the elders in that new household. This makes a world that’s quite alien and takes a bit of time to get your head around.
b) It’s a slice of life show where we get to see the characters grow up. The leading actor and actress don’t appear at all at first because their characters are played by child actors. Pretty good child actors, though. But it does come as a bit of a surprise compared to other shows to not have the main stars in from the start.
c) Minglan is under massive social obligation to toe the line and behave appropriately. So she’s got to do what she’s told in the first part of the show. As a result, while she’s very clever and resourceful, she isn’t the full protagonist she will eventually become for the first 18 or so episodes. What that means is that you very slowly get to see her change and become more active.
d) Minglan is courted by a series of different men. At least one of them gets pretty close to her and is in her heart for a while. This can cause some confusion about who the leading man is. But all that changes when the real proposal goes in from the final suitor - and from that point on they spend the show getting deeper in love.
Those are all the reasons someone might be put off. The reasons I’d recommend it are:
a) The plot is really well done. The opening half (in the Sheng household) has a lot of things happening that, in a smaller form, parallel the problems Minglan will go through in the second half. All the characters are treated fairly, and if something happens in the plot they work it through properly and don’t just leave it hanging.
b) The characters are amazing. There’s a constant call on various boards for a show with a “strong female lead.” Well, here she is. One of the nicest, cleverest and most resourceful female leads in Chinese drama.
c) They hit lucky with the main pairing. The second part of the show involves a romance between the ML and FL, and, as fortune would have it, the actor and actress were in love in real life at the time. This gives their on-screen chemistry a realism you don’t often see.
d) It’s full of tension. Minglan can’t fight at all. But during the show she ends up being attacked in multiple different ways and having to defend herself. She’s chased out of the palace by people who want to murder her, various people try all sorts of tactics to wreck her marriage, her ship gets attacked by pirates, people poison her or her loved ones, and so on.
e) It’s full of happiness. The show takes time to breathe. They have fun on the polo pitch, fun at different get togethers, and a wonderful wedding night. It’s also one of the happiest endings you’ll ever find.
So my tldr is that it’s not for everyone. But if you like this sort of thing it’s really well done. Think “Jane Austen meets wuxia,” and you’ll be roughly in the right place.
The Story of Ming Lan.
Her other shows may be hits or misses, but Ming Lan is exceptional.
It's not a sad ending either. Just a bit unresolved, and a bit grey. Two people who you think will end up together don't, and a person who is bad throughout doesn't get their comeuppance.
I loved the rest of the show, and I get what the makers were trying to do with the ending leaving things not quite sorted. But for me that isn't why I watch drama so I ended up disappointed.
The first 2/3 of the show is amazing, though.
So the entire reason for the breakup is that he was:
a) Completely supportive for months up to the meeting.
b) Not sure if she could get the job on her own for about a day, or two.
c) But realised he did believe in her once the meeting was underway.
And for that she runs away and won’t talk to him?
I have to be honest. I’d be looking for another fiancee.
1. Never have I ever seen a bunch of people offered so many repeated chances to leave a warzone, only to stubbornly refuse. It’s entirely possible that the ultimate villain of the piece is actually Granny, because every time she dug her heels in and refused to move, one or more family members had to stay with her.
2. The Chinese could have won the war in six months simply by giving Xiaoman to the Japanese and letting him mess up all their plans instead. He is, by far, the dumbest and least useful character I have ever come across in any form of fiction.
What I didn’t understand:
If she was ok leaving the country and going abroad and starting a new life… why could she not have picked Germany? They could have had a happy marriage and his career opportunity with no problem.
Her decision to leave only makes sense if she believes he won’t go to Germany because she can’t leave the country due to her high powered job. So in her mind he decides to stay with her and not go for his big opportunity. But it turns out she can leave her job, and can leave the country. So it makes no sense. All along, she could have just been supportive and gone with him.
The Story of Ming Lan has a really satisfying conclusion.
If we start from the position that I want to see a happy ending, and I want to feel as satisfied as possible about our main couple being together... Is there any agreement about the best place to stop watching?
I.e. What point does the story feel the most happy and complete? I'm thinking of just watching the story to that point and ignoring the rest.