2023 in review

Sweet and fun. I wish Love You Seven Times and Back From the Brink were half as good as this one. 

The beginning is gut-wrenching. It's just trashy enough to be fun in the long run and not constantly miserable. I just wish they picked another actress (Song Hye Kyo is showing her limitations here) and let go of the dumb romance with the doctor, or picked an older actor...

My second favorite 2023 drama after TTEOTM and would you know it, it's another dark, sexy and twisted angst-fest with Bai Lu as its lead. This time she has three suitors, but this is no harem like Lost You Forever and Zhang Ling He outshines his rivals very fast. I love that antiheroes are making a comeback in romance, good guys were starting to get boring. 

Based on the first twenty or so episodes, I thought I was in for a delicious slow-burn romance between a fiery princess and a wounded prince who longs for love, but instead I got endless, boring conspiracies between kingdoms I did not care about and a tedious, cringy love rival who refused to go away. And not enough skinship to make up for it. Why was this so tame ???  The show's writers seem to believe that we should care about the extended universe of the novels, but this is not Novoland and they should have focused first on writing a good story around their main characters ! Such a waste of good actors and a strong premise.

Pure fluff that I will forget in a few months. It should have been shorter but I do recommended it if the tropes appeal to you. It is very, very cute.

It's been a long while since a drama fascinated me like this one did. I was obssessed with it all along its run and have been thinking about it for the rest of the year. I would kill for a bonus epilogue, will we ever get one ?

My third pick for best drama of the year. Production quality and directing are incredible, on par with big cinema. Esther Yu's character is too much of a riddle until the end and the story is not completely finished but it gives some closure. I will never forget Zhang Ling He and Ryan Cheng's introductory scenes, it took my breath away.

This is good but I realize I may be growing tired of this kind of snappy, flashy, big city romance where everybody is a big shot (or an aspiring one), looks like a model, wears luxury brands we are supposed to lust after and has become cynical and practical about love and relationships. Love the opening credits though and the critical view of modern work.

A basic xianxia that starts average and becomes bad very fast. Skip it.

I couldn't get into it, despite the striking leads and the intriguing plot. Like in Wonderland of Love, another 2023 wuxia I could not get into, I was not really feeling the romance and the heroïne was a bit too perfect for me. 

Everybody needs a good palate-cleanser between meatier stuff and for me this was the perfect pick, just silly enough, sad but not too sad, and romantic but in a fluffy, youthful way. Sometimes you just need to watch a young god raise a baby pheonix and the hijinks that ensue.