Visually stunning, Tragically beautiful.... Unsatisfying ending
If you a fan of mystery thrillers, then this is a must watch. It's got a similar feel to "13 years of Dust", "Bad Kids", "The Pavillion" so on....Well directed & perfect casting! The synopsis already explains what the story is about, so I won't recap that.
What I loved:
Entire Cast:
1. Young Nan Ya matches the mature Nan Ya. I loved that they didn't use the same actress trying to play down. Obviously, you can't really fake youth and all that collagen. Young Na Ya had the innocence slowly lost.
Mature Na Ya is played by Tong Yao who to me has a 70% resemblance to Zhang Zi Yi's facial features, but she definitely has her unique beauty and acting style. Physically, the natural makeup, lighting, camera works captured her best angles & every curve. She's definitely got that mature beauty that younger boys can fantasize about. Acting, I think she nailed the character Nan Ya perfectly.
2. Zhang Xin Cheng playing Zhuo Luo. He's one of the few talented actors that can play young mature characters that tend to internalize all emotions and explode one day.
3. Ye Zu Xin playing the cop that returned to the town. Nan Ya was his first love and there are definitely regrets in his gaze.
Actual Story: Everyone is intertwined. There are secrets, jealously, lies, betrayal, love, lust, obsession, every human emotion possible. However, it's not for the faint of heart as there are some serious disturbing subjects.
Set/lighting/makeup/production quality: Visually stunning. The small-town feel is uniquely beautiful.
Poetry & Music: It's very artistic. The music elevates every emotional scene.
Decent pacing until ep 14 then felt slow. Ending...... Hate it....... A moment of "Did I just spent 28 x 53 min episodes for this kind of ending? ...... Tragic on its own.
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Dark
This is definitely not what one would call a romance, as it is a dark investigation in to a woman's past and present it a not so tender light... Surrounded by slander, murder, psychological harm and more slander. Either one of these would be awful but put all in to one drama and most of what you see is pain and obsession.While there are a few moments of tender light, as well as extremely sensual light, most of this drama is dark and sad. The type that makes you wonder how much more can a person take, how mean can people be?
The female lead is a mazing bot in character and acting. The male leads character was well performed but not as amazing as the female lead and the other male leads character was so well written, a combination. of adding fuel to the fire while simultaneously drinking away ones regret...
The cinematography was stunning,, my only complaint is that they dragged it out a bit to much, and added unnecessary twists as well as just a few too many recaps to male me up the score.
If they had just cut out out some parts in the middle and maybe added a scene or two to the en then I may just may have given it a 9 or 9,5,
Also there is very little, preaching, china propaganda, and ehat I would say more or less anti healing element instead of healing acknowledging that some parts of life are just dark, inexcusable and awful. And has several really good quotes from poetry and life...
A drama that will not restore your faith in humanity, but may restore your faith in C-dramas... If you ever loose it that is.
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Realistic story, Realistic acting, Unbelievably and exceptionally good
Tender light is indeed the best mystery drama of 2024. When I started watching, I didn't know it would be such an interesting but heartbreaking drama. The way the story was depicted is awesome, and that's not all, it was directed and filmed excellently.The acting and story were very realistic.
I've watched quite a number of mystery dramas. But tender light is just different.
The realistic acting and realistic story are what makes this drama different and unique.
Tender light is based on domestic violence, and society prejudice. And unfortunately, that's exactly the type of world we live in. Their are many women out there who suffers from domestic violence, specifically the abuses from their husbands.
Furthermore, the society, neighbors etc, people who knows nothing about that victim, will begin to judge her, speculate about how she must have cheated on her husband to deserve all kinds of violence from him. That's the kind of world we live in, its full of judgmental people. And that's exactly what tender light is all about.
Nan ya suffers from domestic violence from her husband, and there's the crooked judgmental society, passing inhumane comments on her when they know nothing about her. She's obviously the one suffering from the violence of her husband, but they just chose to ignore it, instead of helping her, all they did was judge her for being a flirt. It's indeed sad and unfortunate that that's the kind of world we live in, a world full of judgmental people.
But it's good to know that she has someone like zhou luo to help her.
I love this drama because it depicts the happenings of life, and more so because it shares light on what wives go through at the hands of their lunatic husbands.
-Edited
Just completed tender light, and I just had to edit my review cause the ending was a sad one. Nan ya didn't reunite with zhou luo even after the series made it known that her cas was rejudged. So I'd say the ending was twisted. But aside from the ending, it's a good drama to watch.
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my favorite series of all time
I have never written a review about a series. Even if it was so good. But here I am......I never thought i would say that a cdrama is my fav of all time bc usually when i watch a cdrama al i get is bad cinematography and bad acting and worst of all a bad writing with the most cliche story.
But Tender Light is different, this cdrama single handedly outdid all the shows i watched with the most intriguing story line where u keep being curious about whats gonna happen next as each episode keeps getting better and better.
The acting is top tier, the romance is everything, the cinematography is BEAUTIFUL
i wish we wouldve seen more nan ya at the end but its okey I AM SATISFIED with ending.
All in all THIS IS THE BEST SERIES EVEEEEEER.
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More than just a thriller or mystery
A bold and realistic drama. As a show about domestic violence, I have to praise the way it shows the total spectrum of the problem. From how archaic divorce laws harm women, how abusers manipulate public opinion, how women are attacked for being themselves, the possessiveness of men, the general lack of any kind of justice from the police, it doesn't leave much out. As depressing and bleak as it is, there is so much that is true about the way this drama depicts our world, unlike the usual escapist fantasies we normally watch.Mystery shows often portray police officers as just, always seeking the truth. Personally I find the genre quite boring, the real world is often more interesting than the simplified stories and characters in dramas. But here, it's clear just how inept and uncaring the police often are towards victims of domestic violence. Personal biases lead cops and the rest of the town to believe that Nan Ya deserves what happens to her. Most people are willing to buy the negative things they hear about others. The law itself is cold and uncaring, and this isn't a show with any heroism from the police.
I was deeply impressed with Zhou Luo's character. He's so flawed, he has a possessive streak, he's childish at times, he really feels like what a young guy - a 'good' guy - would be like in a conservative country. Zhang Xin Cheng killed it here. Overprotective and borderline creepy MLs are a dime a dozen in dramas, but here we have one that actually feels real. The negative stuff that comes with this isn't airbrushed away.
As for Nan Ya, she's the most incisive and decent character here. She cuts Zhou Luo down to pieces multiple times, and rightfully so. Her intelligence really comes through. Personally I wish the drama had another episode or two, with more time to let her character shine. I struggled to buy her side of the relationship with Zhou Luo at points, I thought it needed a bit more screentime. Too much of it was from his perspective, but it's her side that's more interesting, more moving. I feel like I heard too much from him and too little from her.
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Kudos
The cinematography, screenwriting, editing, acting are all superb. The filming location, and even all the poems and songs are perfectly matched with the plot. Oh, even Nanya's outfit, i love it. KUDOS to the team. It's been a long time since i've watched this kind of suspense-romance drama. It's a bit different from the novel, but that's okay. Too bad there's no final lovey dovey scene. But that's what make us even more interested.Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
This is a drama that’ll stimulate both your mind & soul
Tender Light is a beautifully written mystery thriller with lots of social commentary. Yes, this drama was telling you a story but had a talent of making you feel like you were actually inside of the story and you were a side character quietly watching things as they go along. From the cinematography, to the character building, story building, into the way that they executed the flashbacks, everything was just SO. WELL. DONE. So, the cast, the writers, and the directors all did their BIG ONE. You can tell that there was just SO much care and time taken into this drama and that everyone involved genuinely, from the bottom of their heart took it seriously. And that’s not some thing that you can say about a lot of dramas out there.But, with all that being said, Tender Light is a ALMOST perfect drama. You might be wondering; what stopped it from being perfect? For me, I’ll have to say the final episode. Episode 28 like all of the other episodes, had great pacing and was just really well written overall…. Except for the last 20 minutes of the episode. The drama starts to kinda go into uncharted territory, and did something that it hadn’t done for the entire series up the that point… “telling us the story instead of showing it.” Let me explain further. The use of exposition in a story isn’t a bad thing, but it only becomes a problem when you’re essentially just telling the viewer/reader the entire story instead of showing it to them. As I mentioned earlier though, this has never been a problem for Tender Light, it’s consistently done a good job of immersing us into the story until the finale. The problem with this episode is exactly that. The finale episode was supposed to wrap up all of our unanswered questions on what TRULY happened on the night of the millennium. This is where everything is supposed to reach a head, and all of the reveals supposed to happen, so because of that; by NO circumstances should the finale have had ANY exposition in it, especially considering the fact that we’ve never really had that before. Now I know with Chinese dramas things can get really tricky because of the censorship rules, for example the relationship between Nan Ya and Zhou Luo. From what I’ve gathered from people who have read the novel, their relationship actually had a lot more presence in the actual story, and it was more of a slow burn. Also based off of what these novel readers have said, it seems as though a lot of their relationship had to be cut out because of the censorship rules. So like I said, I understand how censorship can change the way screen writers are able to tell the story that they want to tell. And I also understand that it could be possible that the show was only greenlit 28 episodes when in reality they probably wanted more in order to properly tell the story. I understand both of these things but, I can’t help but think there was still another way to I guess, “counteract” this problem. Let me give you an example; and be mindful of the fact that this is on the basis that what I said earlier, about there being a possibility that the show was only Greenlit 28 episodes wasn’t the case. because in the event that this drama wasn’t restricted to just 28 episodes, this should’ve been given one more episode to properly wrap things up. The 28th episode should’ve ended right after Zhou Luo says to Fang Lu, “That’s not what happened.” That would’ve been a really cool cliffhanger. Then the 29th episode should’ve started with the flashback of what actually happened that night. Then, instead of the screen just fading to black, and them telling us what happens to Nan Ya and Zhou Luo, they would’ve been enough time to properly show it instead of tell it. And I think with that difference, that would’ve made this drama a 10 out of 10 for me.
So, because of that and that alone, I can’t give this drama a 10 out of 10 in good faith (my true rating of this drama is a 9.8/10 which just shows how close this drama was for me to getting that 10), but I have no doubt in my mind that if that was not the case, this would’ve gotten a 10 from me regardless of it’s bitter sweet ending.
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I loved every ill-fated step, every stumble at the gate, every door slammed in the face.
I'm always in a dilemma about how to start writing when everything I say may seem insufficient to express the greatness of a drama. A drama whose complexity and level involves an approach that is almost impossible to edit... there are so many nuances, so many facets, so many striking points that, sometimes, all I can think of are the countless moments in which I found myself moved by its beauty. Therefore, before focusing a little on the story, I must start by saying why I chose to watch it: I love mystery, I love romance, I love criminal investigation, I love daring and I love a good production. This drama has all of this and much more than my meager review property allows. Stunning photography and immersive cinematography in every detail: from the song of a bird, the nakedness of a fruit tree, the croak of a frog, even a drop of sweat. A color palette that deviates from the traditional, but warms you from within, whether in the vibrancy conveyed by the glow of fireworks, the bright gray of sidewalks wet from the rain, or the darkness of a bath in the lake under the moonlight. An alternation that goes from black and white to multifaceted and vibrant colors silences us, on the other hand, it makes our soul scream in scenes of pain, passion and despair. A drama whose metaphors go beyond the figurative sense, being able to use a song instead of a final scene, a look instead of words, a slap instead of a kiss. A “hurt me” instead of “love me” is indeed impressive. A drama that works extremes with mastery. From faithful and touching friendship to extreme humiliation, from gratuitous companionship to irrational public ridicule. From the calm and the ride on a rudimentary boat to the cold torture of an interrogation chair. Intense script, striking dialogues and unforgettable characters give a tender light to what we see here. Zhou Luo is a unique young man. Imperfect in several layers, but full in his convictions. Mature for the age counted in years, immature in the vicissitudes of unilateral love. But bold, persecutive and insistent on his personal desires. This generates disagreements among the public accustomed to admiring a traditional hero. The boldness is above the expected average, above what is permitted, above what is considered normal... I confess, I loved it! And yes, I was saddened by how many people took it so negatively. I guess bursts of youthful passion aren't for everyone. Few understand that this is how emotional maturity is achieved. How else do you achieve fulfillment or learn to live? I loved every ill-fated step, every stumble at the gate, every door slammed in the face. Each true lie and of course the cruel and painful love achieved. I think that the emotional charge of each viewer can make a difference in the evaluation of this masterpiece... what I see differs from what others see, what I feel is far from what others feel. But, on one point, I believe it's easier to agree: Tender Light goes beyond a drama, it's a work of art! I admired the result, but I would have liked more screen time. Even if loose ends are not part of this drama, I would exchange the beautiful music at the end for a long, beautiful tight hug. I recommend it wholeheartedly! Simply exceptional!Was this review helpful to you?
UNIQUE
Tender Light is another one of those underrated gems that come out once in a while and feel refreshingly different.This review is mostly for people that are hesitant to watch it, because of the rating, the length or any other reason.
I will briefly mention some of the things I didn't like and then I will refer to the things that made me really enjoy this series.
Things that I disliked or could have been better:
- Some of the actors' performances. I specifically think that both Tong Yao starring as Nan Ya and Wang Zi Xuan as Qing Li were not as great as they should be in their roles.
- Last half an hour - no spoilers-, but it could have definitely been better execution-wise, but unfortunately it ended up being another example that proves that censorship ruins creative freedom.
- Some plot points, character choices in the last few eps were very sudden and out of place.
Now to the things I loved and why I think you should give this a watch:
Length
Despite its 28 episodes the drama manages to keep your attention. Even though it could be shortened, since there were quite a lot of scenes that felt like fillers, I think they added to the atmosphere. It was ideal to watch, while it was airing, since it is definitely not a binge-worthy show.
Zhang Xin Cheng
I haven't watched many Cdramas and even though many actors and actresses were good, I can't help but mention specifically Zhang Xing Cheng. He did an incredible job portraying a very complex character and honestly I can't believe he is the same person that starred in Justice in the Dark and The Day of Becoming You. It's like he completely transforms, when he acts (and no not all actors manage that, despite being their job).
Characters
Tender Light has some of the most complex, realistic, flawed and raw characters I have seen in a very long time. Some are a joy to watch, others can get frustrating, but all of them manage -for the most part- to feel very very real.
Directing/Cinematography
I must mention that the series is visually stunning. It's nothing like the typical Cdrama, it is obvious that the director has paid attention to every single shot and most importantly he managed to make every frame filled with emotions.
Atmosphere
The series is talking place -mostly- in 1999 and 2000 and the atmosphere captures greatly that time. The subtle transitions because of technological advancements is evident and even though it may feel sometimes that the series is talking place years earlier, I think it was a great choice taking into consideration that the drama is taking place in a very small town/village, where things obviously can't be as advanced as in the capital.
Mystery/Plot
No spoilers allowed, so I will just say that generally speaking the plot is pretty well written. Even though the series is slow paced and character driven, the mystery and the revelations will keep you glued to the screen.
Village/Small town setting
Well, apparently this is one of my favorite things. I love this setting, mostly because as viewers we know all the characters. As a result, it is much more entertaining when guessing who could have done what, cause no new characters are going to pop out of nowhere.
Plus, it is a great ''excuse'' to deal with themes like marginalization, stigma and of course the whole ''everyone knows everyone, everyone judges everyone'' and my most favorite ''no matter what happens, it's none of our business'' one of the biggest problems in any society.
Sensitive subjects
One of the strongest, if not the strongest, part of this series is the subjects it is dealing with. Tender Light deals with many -non-sensitive- themes like unconditional love and friendships, but also with many sensitive subjects like abuse, mental health, obsession, greed, jealousy (and many others I will not mention cause of spoilers, but if you have any triggers, please check the tags.)
Eroticism/Love
Many people argued about the existence or romance in this series, but I disagree. It is there, but it is a dark kind of love and it can be difficult to watch at times, especially since it starts quite differently. Regardless, the eroticism radiates from many of the scenes and even though romance is not the main theme it is equally -and I would dare say more- impactful than most love stories.
Music
Oh, dear. Amazing. Mostly instrumental music is used, but all I can say is that it is a pleasure for the ears. I would even say that the music in combination with some of the scenes, gave off -strong- Wong Kar-wai vibes.
Daring
Even though I mentioned about censorship and artistic freedom above, I must also mention that the series plot-wise and character-wise was very bold. Some of the scenes felt very real and were hard to watch and at the same time the characters' actions or even their whole personalities were so flawed to a point I was actually wondering how this managed to pass censorship.
Director's skill
What do I mean by that? Well, besides the gorgeous shots and generally the stunning cinematography, the director upgraded the skills of his actors -something that I rarely see, even though it is part of their jobs-. Like mentioned, some actors were good, others not so much. The thing is that he managed to make the good ones look even better and he also managed to make the bad/less good ones seem pretty good -at times-, cause of the shots, the angles he chose. That deserves some applause honestly, because we would be talking about something completely different if he wasn't the one in charge of the directing.
Now, as mentioned, this series has many positive points, but is it for everyone? No. Why?
Here are a few notes for those wondering if it is for them:
- It is quite slow paced
- It is mostly character driven
- It deals with themes that may trigger people or just make them uncomfortable
- A lot of attention is focused on the visual storytelling that many people don't enjoy
- Characters are quite flawed, something that may cause annoyance
- The ''romance'' tag is there for a reason, but the series also doesn't have the usual, healthy or at least lighthearted love story you may be used to watching and can easily make someone uncomfortable, since it starts quite intensely.
All in all, Tender Light is unique. That is the only word that describes it perfectly. It is different and that makes it shine, despite its flaws especially during the last few episodes.
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This review may contain spoilers
Very Sensitive issues, Yet Unforgettable
How can one love a tragic story such as this one? With the enthralling complex plotline such as this along with great direction and acting, it's easy. As for the ending, so angry about that, it left me dumbstruck as to what happened to the Main character of the whole story, at the end? But up till then, the heart sadly follows Nan Ya and watching her whole life be one horrible occurrence after another, and the judgment of a gossipy town for one woman who was humble and low-key and never bothered anybody. But because she was beautiful, she was judged as a seducer of men, a schemer and everything else they could think of. I felt her pain when she was abused, and I felt her happiness when she started to accept Zhou Lou. Because she was finally feeling what normal friendship and yes love really felt like for the first time. Then of course the ins and outs of who did the killing of Xu Yi. The "scenario" ZL and NY were coming up with until the one passionate kiss. The different past "lives" if you will, that continually frames this whole storyline. And finally, even though the police were less than sensitive about an abused woman, I still liked the different emotions that this drama put me through.Despite the ending, which to me, it should have been NY who walked up that street towards ZL and her daughter, I will never forget this drama for a very long time.
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Stellar acting for a stupid storyline
First of all the acting in this drama and the music are awesome. Even the side characters always delivered a perfect performance.The story on the other hand is pretty bad and the way the story is being told is very one sided.
The directing is sometimes very weird with very strange camera angles.
The time skips are pretty annoying and sometimes its hard to tell when a time skip happened.
The story in itself is pretty disgusting. And there is not a single character to root for.
ML has gotten barely any screentime.
FL is a mysterious person. She has been through a lot and has been a victim to a lot of crimes. A lot of people have been arguing that whatever she does its justified. I disagree but make a picture for yourself.
Overall the show tales too much time to give any useful information so people can paint a bigger picture. After 14 eps the drama is very draggy and boring.
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