Standing in the Time (2019)

Tainted with Negativity

Standing in the Time is the Chinese remake of Jimi ni Sugoi! Koetsu Garu Kono Etsuko, which was such a positive and inspiring Jdrama. This drama is an okay remake, but it just seemed like it was tainted with negativity. The writers extended the plot and added a lot of angst and drama to do so. The characters were immature, obnoxious, annoyingly selfish, and extremely unprofessional. All of the negative traits of the original characters were amplified 3x.

There are probably only 3 characters I liked about the same or better than the original: the editor, the restaurant owner, and the director of the proofreading department. Correct me if I'm wrong, there was a gay supporting character in the original and they replaced him with this young, annoying brat who pretty much slept and played games on his phone all day at work (if he even showed up).

There was just so much super unprofessional behavior that people could get fired over and yet, the characters would get away with it again and again. It was ridiculous. It seemed like the message of the show got lost. The drama went from something about proofreading, work ethic, and the importance of less glamorous jobs to that of the fashion world and modeling (the glamorous side). The direction of the show changed. Contrary to the original story, they focused less on the female lead (main character) and focused more on the male lead. And don't get me wrong the female lead was annoying, but I think the actress did a great job portraying her character. As annoying as the female lead was, the male lead was much worse in my opinion, especially in the second half. I'm beginning to suspect that the drama began to focus more on the male lead's modeling career due to the actor's popularity.

As I was watching this, I tried to figure out what I would have rated this had I not seen the original...the first half I probably would have given it a 7, but the second half really dragged and I wanted to give it a 5. Overall, it's probably around a 6. However, let it be known that the original drama is way better, so if you have not seen that, save yourself some time and see that instead.

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The drama is sold to me after the first 10 minutes of the show. I love the conversation of 'A Footless Insect Without Feet' (lol) between Zimo & his Editor Wu Yu. I love the complexity of the whole Chinese language and when it comes to Chinese Literature, the complexity of the language is upped even more. So this whole scene was a good start to make me sucked right into the drama.

One of the whole premises of the drama is to portray the everyday struggles of people living in this modern world. This is a drama with people who are flawed and struggled to live their lives. It can be depressing at times since the drama mirrored the real life so much. From how difficult it is to make a living, to how difficult to do the job that you dream of to how you might struggle to get into something, but other people with no passion at all got in and become successful instead. Due to this, it might not be popular with audiences but I actually enjoyed watching the struggles of the characters and how they come terms with it.

Another things that made this drama special are the characters. Zhao Zimo is indeed the most interesting character and also the one with the most character development in the drama as well. It’s the first time where Xing Zhaolin played a poor character (lol) and he excels so much in it. The desperation is shown on his face and the way he handled his struggles of identities between a misunderstood and scarred writer and a reluctant model is very believable. I thought they picked the right actor to play Zimo as Zhaolin portrays lonely and melancholy very well on pictures. And later the warmth and tender looks in one of the photoshoot with the foreign model was done really well! -- his eyes are very expressive! While Zimo is the most interesting character, I have to hand it to Xia Fan to be the most relatable character on the show. Her struggles and hard work despite being so good in her work is very relevant to the audiences and when Zimo being so unprofessional, I share her frustrations and irritations. She's wise and very likable so it’s nice to watch all of her scenes. While Wu Yu is without doubt the best character on the show. Age got to do a lot to his maturity so from the right on, he always makes the right decisions and always know what he wants. Watching him is actually a delight because he is someone who always seemed to know what he is doing and the one who live life with no regrets.

The plot is also of the of reasons why this drama stands out as well. The whole plot of how writers have influence on the readers are so well done and portrayed. How a writer glamorises ‘alone and lonely life’ as something admirable can and will have influences to their readers whether they like it or not. And to influence someone's life is not a small thing thus they have social responsibilities and accountability in their profession. And the plot later involving Zimo and his father is the icing on the cake for me. His father's tender letters to him all over the years is like an awakening for him -- the one who made him finally understand his own soul and comes to terms with his identity and he is reborn as a new man. Those hatreds and resentment are resolved beautifully and he now, understood his father and his father’s past struggles.

However, the downside of this drama for me is unfortunately the main character Li Xiao. Li Xiao is portrayed as someone with bravery, determination, hardworking and most of all straightforward. But unfortunately, all these qualities are only on the surface level as when the character was developed by the writers, she becomes someone unlikable instead to my dismay. Her layers of characteristic is like peeling an onion, the more you peeled, the more you finds flaws in it. Despite the good qualities that I listed above, she actually ended up being self-righteous, insensitive, impulsive and most of all a hypocrite person. I don’t mind flaws in characters but when the flaws are never addressed or corrected but instead being glorified and glamorise instead, that's when I have a problem. Throughout the story, we've seen her in her high horse where she judge everyone with what she thinks is right. And this fact never got addressed till the end and she remains the same person as she is at the beginning of the drama -- with no character development at all.

I also personally feel the love relationship between the leads just doesn’t work. Li Xiao is too superficial to understand Zimo's artistic soul. Her insensitiveness towards his identity as Lei Yang the writer and Zhao Zimo the model is just really hard to watch and again, it never got addressed till the end. One thing not to be able to understand his writing due to the complexity of the language but to be brutal towards his writing is just wrong especially when you can see on his face how he valued his identity as a writer. I'm sure Zimo's 'A Footless Insect' is a pretentious book with many obscure and difficult words but everytime snippet of the book is shown to the audiences, I'm just amazed how poetic is the language and the use of metaphor are done excellently. So, to people who actually understand and appreciate literature, Li Xiao comes out as uneducated instead. I actually really liked them as a couple since they have this understanding with each other but the core problem of their relationship never being address which a huge red light to me. She seemed to only accept one part of him instead of both parts of him. First, ridicule his identity as Lei Yang and later, rejecting his model identity when it didn’t fit her narrative.

But despite all this, I actually enjoyed the drama. The ending is very satisfactory and I thought what Xia Fan did at the end is just very cool and admirable. I really like the second couple a lot and the whole Zimo's relationship with his father are resolved with such class and tenderness. Thus this drama as a whole deserved a 7/10 from me.

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