Gentlemen of East 8th (2022)

Why? Why? Why?

This is the new trend of the chinese drama industry. Feminist boss (FL) going around screwing (messing with) people below her.

The most toxic people in our current era is not the modern feminist rather feminist men. This drama written by a man to suit the feminist audience just proves that. Rather than watching this drama from an audience pov, you would find it more interesting watching this as an observer to the menace that was created to curry favor the modern feminist ideology.

I hated the fact that the FL boss couldn't be professional enough with their employees. She was an emotional mess. I have seen many drama's which depicts FL as an exceptional boss who keeps professional life separate from personal. This was just a failed attempt to do that. The student was an interesting plot which later turned out to be 'Master Oogway' in disguise. The rich insecure wife and her husband never resolved their problems but were stuck together as a result. The cake maker was just pitiful.

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Failed Rom-Com fluffy summer drama

Zhang Han is the writer , producer and the main lead but he failed miserably at least at writing this drama
The drama promoted itself as Four Gentlemen and their growth in life ,,, where is exactly the growth in this ?
The four dudes are all grown up supposedly in their forties living their best lives ,, they have good jobs living with each other in the same High rise compound witch is a billion dollar unit or so .. very high tech ,, smart house and so on
they don't have wives nor girlfriends ,, they are bachelors playing around but the male lead has a kid from somewhere ,, they didn't mention ,, the kid's mother ever or even tell her story or if she's dead or alive and they stated he didn't get married
so the story is super Cliché with extra superficial approach on dating women
and the women in the story are very obnoxious ,,, the male lead's love interest is his boss ,, she bosses him around and he's a jerk to her and that's how their love suddenly happen ... there is no gentlemen attitude at all in this
the other three friends love interest are as useless as the female lead
the most irritating one is the businesswoman who asked one of the fourth guys to marry her and she made him sign alot of contracts to be her boy toy and he agreed ,,, this was the most horrible thing ever and his friends told him to go for it
really??!!! they didn't advice him against loveless marriage and they were okey about their bestfriend marrying for money
Isn't there one mature grown up of those four dudes ?? I struggled to make excuses for this drama as I love Zhang Han as an actor but he's a horrible writer may be good producer ,, the production quality is very good but the plot is flat out painful to watch
The only positive thing about the whole drama is the male friendship between the four guys nothing more
Don't waste your time watching this ridiculous drama but if you really like light fluffy drama to pass time then go for it

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4 dramas in 1 and still manages to be boring!

This drama caught my attention cause of Zhang Han, so I thought it might be a good one!
well, after first episode, I figured I should lower my expectations a lot!!
As I stated in the title of the review, it's like 4 dramas about each guy that get cramped in a single drama.

Tong Yu is the main character and the other are more like support roles.
There are moments they are hanging out together out of nowhere to give us a recap of what happened and when they are together it feels like they are telling something to audience and not a talk among friends..

The only good thing I might remember about this drama is that The cast looks pretty and handsome! and that's it!

I had seen ZhangHan and Huang You Ming and Zhang Yang Guo Er in Boss&Me drama but the rest of them I haven't seen their works previously.
The acting looks stiff and fake in some scenes. (specially the Xiao fei character, his scenes are the worst in case of acting).

The first episode was boring! the rest is watchable and then it becomes barely watchable real fast...
The more I watch the more ridiculous this becomes...
There are instances and remarks in this drama that makes you wonder if a teenage boy on his puberty wrote this!
I wish they had put more efforts in dialogues to be less shallow!

Tong Yu is one of the least likable characters I've seen for a ML and he has so much ego that it makes it painful to watch him!
I used to root for Guo Chong to have a happy ending but It's so boring that I don't care about any of them anymore.

I'm not going to continue watching this! I feel like I'm losing my brain cells while doing so.
Initially I gave it a 5 and waited to see how it goes and it went for the worst. I'm feeling generous so I'll give this undeserving painfully boring drama 3!

If you are wondering if you should watch this or not... just don't!
Don't waste your time on this.. there are plenty of better dramas out there.

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A drama that tells the legend of four best friends

I am totally amazed by the story it holds. I would recommend it to others also. Plz watch the whole drama to understand the story better
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Below average

Four friends who spent more time with each other except nights . Nights ,they spent in their respective home . They belong to different professional fields .they were college friends.so drama started with the introduction of each friend's life . One live alone with his child . Due to busy schedule he sometime left his child to child's grandparents. About others two didn't have girlfriends ,they were leaving a bachelor life ,one was chef and other did random jobs. About 4th one he was a professor who was a heartbroken. In this way story was started. Till then everything was good. Then drama did so much mixture of the story . As four stories were went in parallel , actually execution of parallel stories were not done properly and secondly the dialogues and screen play were also not written well.
This degrade the story and hence it below average drama

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A wonderful series!!!

An amazing series!. The trailer, was the one that made me curious
to watch it and even from the first episode, I got hooked! I have seen many but this one has become one of my favourites. The chemistry of the protagonists, and the rest of the couples, is fantastic. The constant twists and turns until they become a couple is one of the really cool elements of the series. It keeps your interest throughout the run without getting boring. The last episode is one of the best and gives this fantastic story, the ending it deserves. Well done! I wish there were more like this!

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One for the history books

I've only watched 5 episodes because I can't stand the unchecked misogyny any further.

This show is sprinkled generously with misogynistic comments and microaggressions against female characters from our 4 male leads (and other characters from the show). The first 20 minutes of the show was basically misogyny speedrun.

While I understand that the show focuses on the men, the female characters introduced are there to fulfill their purpose of being a love interest instead of a person. From the 5 episodes I watched, there aren't many conversations between two female characters but even when we get it, they are ALWAYS talking about the men. If they really cared, they could've set up these female characters a little more instead of treating them as prop for their main characters.

I'll also need to talk about the title track. We are living in a man's world but these men are complaining that the world has given up on them?

I genuinely wonder who this tone deaf show is for. I guess it serves as a PSA against people like our main characters? For real, a show that glorifies bro culture and locker room talks should have no place on TV in 2022.

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I don't feel guilty dropping this drama...

I really tried to watch this drama because I enjoy Zhang Han and male-led ensemble series, but after a while it felt like a waste of my time. The initial premise of four male friends is pretty simple, but quickly became boring. I wanted to enjoy the enemies-to-lovers romance between Tong Yu (Zhang Han) and Xu Duo (Wang Xiao Chen), but her pettiness got on my nerves, and the whole group of them were very immature given that they are well into their late 30s. The other male leads weren't that interesting and so their romances dragged on.

The Korean drama, A Gentleman's Dignity, would be the closest comparison and I really enjoyed it years ago. Each of the leads had distinct differences and very different story arcs, but were all similarly successful.

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20 minutes into the first episode is enough to conclude that this is a shitty drama

What a shitty show filled with sexist and misogynistic beliefs, there's a reason why it has 2.1 on Douban.

The first scene introduced us to the 4 main leads who are all in their 30s dressing up as high school students being punished by their teacher that seriously looks younger than them. The teacher's dialogue was absolute bullshit, oh what you can't graduate if you don't get straight As? Then punishing the ML to run 10 laps in the rain? You would have been FIRED by now, who does that???

Here comes the first set of cringe, the rest of the guys joined in with the ML and they were making the stupidest faces being high out of their minds with BGM playing over them. Then comes the 2nd set of cringe with their dialogues especially the ending where they were like "We're gonna consummate together YEAAA".

NOBODY TALKS LIKE THIS

Then comes the 3rd set of cringe when they were leaving a helicopter wearing suits and sunglasses with BGM and different camera angles and shots to show just how charming all of them are. They were attending a wedding where they weren't even the groom. Who tf does that and how is that showing y'all are ordinary everyday people??? You don't see us folks entering a wedding with a freaking helicopter that probably cost a couple thousands.

Then the 4th set of cringe with the horrible dialogues during the after party. My favourite being Huang You Ming's line where he was having this conversation with a girl.

Him : Where are you from?
Her : I'm from Mexico, do you like to eat spicy food?
Him : Of course, what about you?
Her : I also really like spicy food
Him : No wonder your body is so spicy

Dude what the fuck

Then 5th set of cringe with disgustingness adding to it. It finally introduced us to the FL where she was entering her hotel room and the way her door did not get closed is literally the dumbest shit I've seen. Then ML walks in sleeping next to her, again with romantic BGM. Is it to show that this is somehow sweet and romantic? Then, they both wake up, analysed each other to then scream. Then when they were arguing and shit, they fell and KISSED WTF. I would be terrified if I was the FL, to have a literal stranger sleeping next to you. CALL THE POLICE, at least she did call security.

And how the ML was like "Oh you're a scammer" because the FL wanted compensation. Like dude, you were clearly in the wrong and being creepy, the FL was rightfully upset.

Then the 6th set of cringe. Again, showing just how charming and good looking they are, with BGM playing as they were walking in a straight line at the airport. ML could somehow eat his cup noodles in like an uber and he freaking spilled in in the car. If this was real life, he would have gotten screamed at but the taxi driver even comforted him about it. ????

And I saw other scenes where the FL fell and ML caught her BY HER BRA STRAPS. Could you not have put your arm on her back?? Why do you have to reach down and catch her bra strap?? And them with the whole Zheng Shuang as his first love thing is just funny.

Conclusion : don't watch this drama, it is not worth you time

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Bonne série (4 potes qui deviennent meilleurs grâce à leur femme) ?

Je suis venue dans cette série pour Hans Zhang, (ce que je n'ai pas regretté) mais il est accompagné par 3 autres grands acteurs.

Première chose : le 1e épisode NUL (et le dernier n'est pas très crédible non plus :( , bourré de clichés sexistes, caricatural,... Bref, je me suis demandé si j'allais poursuivre.
De plus, le contexte met du temps à s'installer, donc j'ai du mal avec les 1e épisodes.

Cependant, les acteurs sont excellents, l'histoire est bien écrite, et on s'attache très vite aux personnages. Je ne vais pas retracer l'histoire, qui tourne autour d'un groupe de 4 copains, de leur parcours (professionnel, de vie), de leurs amours.

Remarques :
- dommage que les SMS ne soient pas traduits.
- pourquoi dans beaucoup de dramas, les garçons fonctionnent par groupe de 4 (surtout quand ils sont handsome) ?
- série qui reprend des clichés de "Gentleman's dignity" (1 marié à 1 FL riche, 1 ML avec 1 enfant, 1 ami qui aimerait devenir lover, etc.) mais l'époque et le ton sont différents.
- certains critiquent le côté macho du drama. Je suis totalement en désaccord avec eux. OK, on retrouve les clichés "Sois fort, tu es un homme" et "je dois protéger la femme que j'aime", etc. Mais dans cette série, les femmes sont indiscutablement plus fortes, plus courageuses et plus intelligentes que les hommes.

Globalement, pas mal, bien joué, et finalement plutôt féministe.

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