Skip a Beat (2023)

Thriller and comedic, fun for some who are not afraid of tropes, Luo Zheng and He Ruixian drama

Synopsis on dramawiki : "This tells the story of Gu Yi, a strong and assertive man who is unruly, promiscuous, and ignorant about love, and Qiao Jing, a seemingly weak woman who is actually determined, courageous, and intelligent. " Official Baidu presentation has it as ""Heartbeat" tells the story of Gu Yi (played by Luo Zheng), a "strong man" who is rebellious, romantic, and doesn't understand love, and Qiao Jie (played by "two-faced girl") who seems to be weak, but is actually resolute, courageous and resourceful. He Ruixian), the love story of the two from falling in love and killing each other to sadistic and infatuated love" (Google translation; and no, they never "kill each other"! This was a mistranslation of an expression which would have been better termed "torturing each other" which even then is rather exaggerated; as for the sadism: there is no BDSM or overt sadism in the couple's relationship, that we could witness.)

This was the second time I watched a drama starring Luo Zheng (罗正).
The first one was "Time to fall in Love" which I ended up hating despite the pretty Hanfu dresses, because of the silly and annoying twin plot. I had not really been impressed by ML then, so came to this one with a wary bias, only because I was advised it would be a thriller romance. Coming more for the thriller than the romance, "Skip A Beat" did not disappoint me with all the twists and turns.
Lets quickly state for “parents guidance” that this drama is "not for everyone", because of some intense scenes, psychological and physical violence, gang style bloodying fight, death threats, a fall that induces a miscarriage (actual miscarriage discussed but not shown), drunk scenes (but no drugs, rape, or smoking), and miscellaneous questionable behavior (and, as usual, let's not use dramas as a moral compass to how we should behave in real life!)
There was not much product placement fun : cars, beer (was there a beauty cream: I am not sure?).

As for actors, I thought drama actress He Ruixian (何瑞贤), who was playing in her 10th drama the FL Qiao Jing 乔净 , was rather unmoving, looking very cold, which was in tune with her undercover investigation of a mystery that involved ML family and her former friend. I did not warm up to her for a while, especially during the “willing victim” beginning. I thought her character did not mesh with the "sharp cookie" description, and I was not really admiring her "independence" when she broke away, or her "fidelity to first love". As the episodes went by, they centered mostly on her relations with ML, a passing friend who grandly gave her a lease for a pretty house with a garden (before conveniently leaving the country) and a confidante in the form of a journalist best friend. She did cry nicely once, and kissed well, but did not look much like a romantic lover, mostly like a tepid one, too often with trust withheld, such as when she explored the contents of a phone record while ML was sleeping...
(As this was the first drama I saw where she featured, I did not come "for her", and I was not part of her 艾瑞丝 fandom: she seems to have garnered some faithful followers, from what I checked about her. So it was an interesting introduction to her style of acting, although I still am reserved about it).

But perhaps because of the mystery, and the blessed absence of the twin trope, I was not as annoyed by FL and characters as I was by those in TFIL.
There were plenty of antagonists and a festival of tropes, which after first puzzlement, I found very entertaining!
Watching comments, I was amused to find one that termed it as a "mix of Bollywood, Korean, Indian, even Turkish surprise" and just now, as I was checking what had been excerpted to Youtube, I had fun with one Turkish MV titled : "Yeni Dizi • Çin Klip | Sevdiğine başta acımasız davrandı sonra çok sevdi💜" But this drama would not make it to the standards of those musical summaries made by another well-known C-drama lover and Youtuber ; and I am not skilled enough to try doing it to the tune of the song "For I know that love is pain, please don't go away from me again, promise me that you'll be back: I can't stop loving you again" that featured in a much more torrid and sweet romance.

Places : The drama was shot from July 2018 in Changzhou, Jiangsu province. Changzhou is a 4 million inhabitants third tier city on the Yangtse river and the Grand Canal, between Nanjing, Zhenjiang and Suzhou-Wuxi. It has boomed in the 2000s with a business and hi tech district, busy highways and rapid transit, and skyscrapers, built on the sites of former factories, such as the developing area featured in ep.16. You can see the skyline under several angles in the drama, esp. in episode 20. Nevertheless, the shots purposefully don’t show the most recognizable landmarks (China's tallest Buddhist pagoda that was built in the city in the 2010s, dwarfing the ancient Tianning temple that was famous once for its 500 arhats and 12 jade Buddhas collection ; nor the well known Grand Canal side architectural gem called Qingguo Lane, that was home to Song dynasty poet Su Shi and many more scholars later). Aside from the modern business corporate offices, we do get a glimpse of Jiangnan house style (white-washed brick walls, more or less curved “hanging” or “hard hill” roofs with the signature, stylized, horizontal snake/dragon-like ridge ending with upturned fantastic beast pointed tails or blunt snouts on each side, flush gables or high firewalls at the ends, slate grey tiles). The Gu family home in the drama, with its green terrace for outside dining, is built in a modern quarter in this style, adding a few modern touches such as the diamond shaped window (ep.10). The nearby countryside under Changzhou prefecture has varied landscapes, including wooded hills, which could be the “Xilin mountain” in the drama (real Xilin is a part of the Changzhou city), with winding roads and hilltops and viewpoints, but I do not know the precise one used in the drama (the one with white railings on top of stairs partly masked by bamboos, appearing a few times such as in ep13, perhaps it is a new feature near Tianmuhu reservoir, or elsewhere ; I doubt it is in the Maoshan Mountain Scenic Area since we do not see the famous tea growing terraces there).

OST : The intro instrumental theme, with storyboard drawing pictures and live action clips, is nice. The background music is not overwhelming, fits the atmosphere of the scenes, and the pieces of classic piano music are well chosen. The ending theme song is called 《嘉宾》(Guest), written and composed by Wang Zeyan 王泽言 and Zhang Yuan 张远 (who is the male singer, with a pleasant voice). Lyricist and composer Fu Hao 付毫 also sang the song《空气》(Air) during episode, and is the author of the song 《Tell me why》 sung by He Ruixian in an interlude (but I can't remember exactly where these two songs featured). From discussion I was informed that "嘉宾 is played frequently throughout the drama. It is a very popular Chinese song that was released in 2021! It’s got like 41 million views on YouTube and ...it’s frequently used as the background music in Chinese social networking apps such as Douyin and 快手" (hmm perhaps that's why it sounded nicely pleasing, like a forgotten memory to me).

Back to description and my impressions, spoilers included :

The Bai Yun 白纭 SFL rival “fiancée” (played by Zhu Jintong 朱近桐) was not much present : she interacted infrequently with FL, except for first episode and later, the nasty shove moment). Bai Yun, a pianist and heir to a wealthy family, unlike FL, was the puppet of her ambitious family who had made her haughty (publicly humiliating FL in first episode) and unable to deal with setbacks (she would drink herself into a stupor).

She also was the puppet of her fawning music agent, and soon, of the scheming SML, Su Jue 苏倦 , played by Guo Jianan (郭迦南: an actor who has appeared in about 15 dramas since 2020, mostly as support, but also as sweet ML in 2022 short drama My dearest boss : he has much experience in varied roles, and played a convincingly vicious two-faced antagonist here).

I wondered if Luo Zheng whose shape and hair style reminds me somewhat of Xiao Zhan (but stiffer), also has a severe myopia necessitating contact lenses and giving a strange wide-eyed and often cold feeling look (different from XZ’s cross-eyed smiles with the slight gap between front teeth, whereas LZ’s does not show teeth in this drama) ? The "moody" or deranged, or bipolar (according to plot description) "condition", that got rather miraculously "successfully treated" out of camera focus, in the first episodes, were in tune with that look. So, his sudden morphing into a funny guy (Mr Rabbit) did both surprise and make his Gu Yi 顾译 more sympathetic in my opinion. But I do agree with those who think he was too pale, even when he supposedly was sunburned. Would that be because he was a former heart condition patient, who had undergone successful heart transplant ? Yet, he did not seem that sickly in many episodes. He did look vampire-style evil when “angry”, in the first “scary” episodes. Next, he suddenly became a driven suitor, who was trying his best to regain his position next to FL after their breakup. Gu Yi realizing he could not have both ladies, discarded resolutely the fiancée agreed on for business ties between families. He faced courageously the staunchly opposing mom and dad who could demote him from his CEO position and even have him work in a physically difficult position as construction worker.
Luo Zheng could and did act adequately in the various dramatic parts, as wronged son, struggling professional faced with treason from a “sworn brother” friend, bereavements.
ML interaction with FL was as I expected, and I did notice the kissing skill, justifying the "romance" tag.
He was quite comedic in the scenes as Mr Rabbit, those “botching chores” and “fat mama's son in law candidate” again doing chores. I did laugh there.
The fight scene (almost choreographed as copied out of MG script?) to defend FL was OK, although I thought that part too contrived in the scenario ; on the other hand I was much more dissatisfied by last fight scene with Su Juan and the knife wavering there. ML looked too weak and movements were too slow in that scene, so the drama, despite finally explaining all or most of the loose threads still hanging, ended up on the wrong side of bitter or better ending for me.

I don't really care about rating, but let's say this one also went down a notch for me because of the shaky justifications for some actions : Why on earth would a pregnant woman accept to meet a supposedly wheelchair and cane using sick man on top of an isolated platform involving climbing many stairs? (Phoning to get help getting back was not sufficient when she could have insisted to go later, with Gu Yi or with friend) and the implausible fight on company rooftop, mom in tears and FL stony-faced looking on. And then the rushed end resolution. Could we have had something warmer than just a poster bearer mom shoving household registration booklets into CP's hands to order them to get married ?

So, to sum it up, I did have fun and thrills. This included looking for, betting on, and counting the many tropes and twists on tropes that this drama offered. And comparing how they were used and adapted from the “model” dramas (MG...) that spawned them.

Now will I recommend this drama? Certainly not to everyone: not to pregnant women, not to easily triggered people, not to those who seek life lessons in drama (although the convicted criminals do get appropriate jail sentences, and the other offenders show regrets and will to reform). If roller coaster thrills, plot twists, cliff hanger episode ends, gleeful counting tropes, and watching with a "black humor" mental shield (let's say like coping in such fashion with GOT "Red Wedding" episode – but this drama never gets as gory as that classic) are fun to spend time, then it is quite enjoyable. I was not bored except dissatisfied with the way loose ends were tied in the finale.

Will I rewatch it? Likely not, despite my still feeling annoyed at myself for not having remembered immediately the names and composers of the famous piano pieces excerpted in the Bai Yun parts (I like to put names on places, people in dramas, and references, lol). But not because I regretted the time I spent watching it, nor are afraid of anything in that one, it is not toxic enough to cause me any nightmares! Just because I have watched and checked it carefully enough, and can now move on to other more remarkable dramas that are on my watchlist. (But I may rewatch the nice official iQiyi MV with the "Guests" theme song, which can be found, titled " 主題曲：張遠演唱 《嘉賓》細膩詮釋虐心愛情｜愛奇藝 "on YouTube).

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Poor representation of health/mental health issues

The male lead is a walking red flag, the female lead has her own issues. I can set all that aside until the writers attempt to explain away the poor behavior by misrepresenting real life health issues. It's not just inappropriate it's dangerous. It sickens me to think she'll end up with him at the end, but she's the one making excuses for him. It's text book domestic abuse, and this shouldn't be fodder for entertainment. Ladies let me just leave you with this. If you're having menstrual cramps so bad that you need assistance, and a man takes you to a hotel instead of a hospital he is not suitable friend material. Kick him to the curb and find someone better.

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There's a lot happening

I started to watch this drama after seeing some reels on it and was already prepared for the psychotic male lead. But when I started watching this, I got to know the fl is strong, independant and very promising, even with flaws. I was expecting to see him crying and begging her after how he treated her , but that guy actually made me like him. There is obviously some plot holes, like where did the BPD go? I read some reviews of people trashing the fl, so was prepared for the worst, but she was actually very reasonable for wt she went through and had great development. The whole revenge and family drama was a rollercoaster and i hates Su Juan for wt he have become. But i love this at the end, theres growth, plot and actual flaws for chracters to b human.

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Why!!?!

Okay, so apparently China is into making dramas with hot guys that has a HUGE red flag to his personality. The ML is rude, possessive, arrogant, selfish and a creep. Alsp. He's a dirtbag for thinking he can have keep the girl AND get married.
Again Luo Zheng decided to continue to play the rich, prideful and emotionless boss. I don't find it cute or romantic when your BF treats u like trash but ur dumb enough to go back to him after some cheesy lines and couple drops of tears.
GUYS, DO NOT IGNORE THE RED FLAGS IN A RELATIONSHIP! DOESN'T MATTER HOW MUCH YOU LOVE THAT PERSON, YOU WILL REGRET IT!

The acting is mediocre, both actors have little to no expression. They are glaring at each other half the time with almost hate in their eyes... where is the love? I'm watching this show to spot the red flags, thats it. It is too slow, with mediocre acting, dubbing and music. So rate it 3/10

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excellent

C'est un drama vraiment intéressant, il démarre sur un patron abusif et méprisable, et puis au fil des épisodes on se rend compte que les mauvais ne sont pas forcément ceux auxquels on pense et que les bons peuvent avoir un plan caché ! Les acteurs principaux sont excellents, notamment Luo Zheng que je ne connaissais pas !
Il joue très bien les multiples facettes de son personnage.
Les caractéristiques d'un bon drama sont là : famille pourrie, amis pas forcément amis, relations amoureuses pas forcément saines etc.
En revanche on peut zapper la partie où la mère de l'actrice principale revient, c'est fatiguant.

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