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Tears on Fire taiwanese drama review
Completed
Tears on Fire
10 people found this review helpful
by huuuuuuu
Jun 16, 2021
10 of 10 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 8.5
Story 8.0
Acting/Cast 10.0
Music 9.0
Rewatch Value 8.0
This is my first review ever and I'm not a drama reviewer by any stretch of the imagination, but so far this drama has almost nothing about it on MyDramaList and I do want to encourage people to give this drama a chance.

To go straight to the point, this show comes from a very mature, tender, and yet mostly unsentimental place, and wishes to humanize a crucial part of society that media (at least in Taiwan) ignores except to occasionally heap vitriol and bad press upon. It's a drama with a deep love for these workers, a hatred for lobbying and for corruption within bureaucracy, and yet it presents itself in a way that is often moving and always watchable. It's not a story-based drama as much as a character-based one, and it does what it does very well.

An argument could be made that this show idealizes those within this line of work, and to be quite honest, I don't know nearly enough real-life firefighters to be able to confirm or deny this. However, this show takes the idea of "emergency workers" and makes me care more about them in real life, and that is valuable even if certain aspects are slightly drama-fied. You always feel like you're watching people instead of characters or ideals, and the meticulousness with which these lives are portrayed, as well as the amount of sensitivity that the show has for them, stays long after the show has finished.

The show is pretty short at 10 45-minute episodes, but it uses its time very effectively. Also, on a technical level, it is absolutely fabulous - the acting is impeccable, the script is really funny and moving and hits all the right notes, and it just *feels* polished and competent (lol, again, not a drama reviewer, hopefully you know what I mean.). I watched it on Netflix Taiwan - hopefully it'll be out on other platforms soon.
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