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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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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This review may contain spoilers
An Ode to self-righteness
I would like to arrogantly state that this is my opinion and that it's not intended to hurt anyone's sensibility and that in regards is anyone intended to treat my opinion as the holy grail or anything. I also like to say that I pride myself as being fair to the drama that I invest my time in, and am quite picky. I'm a pretty committed person and rarely do I drop a drama. And knowing that taste and colors are an individual choice and adhering to the rule that "one individual trash, is another treasure, " I tend to keep my opinion to myself and don't usually post reviews. But this drama upset me enough that I felt the need to write one, so my rant would be on record somewhere.I avoided watching the original this drama was based on for the longest time, then when Viki and youtube kept putting this drama in my recommendation I decided to give the original a go first before diving into this to have a frame of reference. As someone who likes to read, I am well aware that it's ludicrous to expect an adaptation to stay true to the original. And this drama is quite the best example of that because the pet peeves that stop me from giving the original version a 10 were amplified in this drama so much so that he sucked all the fun out of the watching experience. If I listened to my anger and just rated this drama based on that anger this would get a 1. But I still gave it a 5 because although it was not out of the ballpark I was quite satisfied with the acting and some aspects of the side stories.
Story 3.5/10
The story somewhat tried to follow the original material since one could easily recognize some of the stories that were told but somewhat tweaked to I imagine fit Chinese aesthetic more. And that to me was where this adaptation dropped the ball. Granted I was quite glad we got to see more of character development for each of the characters. But it was also that development which in the end killed the drama. Why do I say that? Well, I will only talk about the 4 main leads.
Where Etsuko overconfidence and her ability to just sprout everything that came to her mind was slightly annoying because she mostly reminded you of that one friend that you have that is extremely bad at reading social cues. Li Xiao simply comes off as an extremely brash sheltered kid that has no regard for anyone but her own self-interest and extremely narrow view of the world. She is opinionated and immature, to the point that she does not even realize that she forces her opinion on people. To me, this was evident so many times throughout the handling of her work, where she foolishly ignored the recommendations of seniors who have been at it longer than her. But it was even more flagrant in her interpersonal relationship and the way she approached things, there could only be one view to things and it was hers. She came out sounding self-righteous and unaware of her own biases. She literally threw a fit at the guy she liked because he first said he wanted to quit modeling, but then he got into it, and it started to encroach on her view of the world she threw a hIssy fit.
Where Yukito just came off as a weird character, who seemed to have no real spine and mostly went along with things. Li Mo came off as a man-boy with serious mental scars. From the start of the drama to the end the most we saw of Li Mo characters was him going through the motions of what others were planning, getting depressed, and throwing Hissy fit. And I was so taken aback with the turn that his character took with his obsession about becoming famous, something that so did not fit the framework of the character he had during the first half of the drama.
Where Morio came off of emotionally close off and a mooch. Xia Fan simply came off as mentally unstable and manipulative. The all drama the only person she was truly looking for was herself. Not that putting yourself first is a bad thing and I did have my moment of sympathizing with her by recognizing the amount of stress she was under. And I truly felt for her because I would be morose too if I had a friend like LI Xia who is constantly under the impression that she walks on water and everyone else is beneath her sanctity.
Where Kaizuka mostly comes off as a selfish comic relief. Wu Yu was downright as wretched as Li Xiao felt to me, the high horses these two characters were riding on were just on another level. Every single time he opened his mouth to talk to Zimo I actually wanted to punch him. Yes, he actually did give a few good advice to Li Xiao but the way he treated the people that were supposedly his authors was just disgusting.
I don't even want to start ranting about the lack of chemistry among "romantics" pairing of this drama from the one shoved in our face to the cameos. None of the characters had a healthy relationship that may make you go oh I'm rooting for you.
This story was supposed to be an Ode to the forgotten heroes that make it possible for us readers to enjoy the book we read, and may I even simply say all the forbidden and overwork heroes that are quietly working behind the scene so that we can enjoy all the comfort we take for granted. Got turned into a self-righteous, piece of propaganda for filial piety and a world where everything is black and white. To the point that you forget to root for the heroes. The all-time I was watching these I felt like elders were shaking their finger at me going this is what is wrong with your life. And sadly I make the mistake of watching this drama on Viki with the Timed comments on and the numbers of self-righteous ignorant invalidating some of Zimo I believe deserved tantrums were even more infuriating. When the only sound of reason in a drama is a child actor you already know how wrong things are. And oh lord do not get me started on the level of unprofessionalism going on in this thing.
Although I said I was only going to vent about the mains, I must say what on earth were the writers thinking when they replaced Yoneoka character with Liang Hu or whatever is name was, okay I can swallow my bitterness at the fact that his character got axed 100% because he was gay. They could have kept the character and changed his sexual orientation, instead of the trash that they added. Liang Hu did nothing but sleep, eat, and be immature.
The original drama had a positive vibe around it, that made you appreciate what you have. But this one had so much negativity floating around.
Acting/Cast 8.0/10
The Acting was stellar on the part of the supporting veteran's actors, who were the actual reason why I stuck with this drama. Because no amount of my love for Xing Zhao Lin could have saved his character, although I did feel bad for him at time. And although I enjoyed watching all the outfits An Yue Xi was thrown in, her acting left me old and unimpressed.
Music 2.0/10
other than the opening and closing number I don't remember hearing anything worth going on there was music being played.
Rewatch Value 1/10
Unless I'm in a situation where the only thing playing no one is ever going to catch me voluntarily watching this mess.
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my perspective: haven't watched the Japanese version
I would say the strongest part of this drama is the story and its characters. The realism of the story comes through the lostness of the characters while they are young. I also feel like the CPs relationship has some very real elements of lack of definition and reasonable lack of communication due to the busyness of life. The characters are very much independent and they have their own lives besides the relationship where they deal with problems on their own. Both characters are flawed and while there is character development, their natural strong unique personalities still persist until the end (they haven't changed who they fundamentally are).I think the only portion I remember disliking about the storyline was when the repetitiveness of the situation: FL's stubbornness leads her to problems but she persists and eventually wins them over somehow because she makes them reflect on life. This happens 3 times IN A ROW which I feel is absolutely unrealistic. I think if they just kept the first and the third situation, it wouldn't have been unnatural. In the third situation, she wasn't able to obtain the result she wanted, but there was a resolution. The stubbornness and bluntness of the FL was already established in her work attitude in the first and second episodes so these conflicts/issues were just unnecessary. I'm not sure if this happened in the Japanese version, but this series of events does seem to be straight out of a Chinese drama playbook.
I think the acting was great although there could've been a little more chemistry. I do feel that the nature of the characters makes it hard to display chemistry but acting would've been 10/10 if the actors were able to achieve that non-verbal chemistry without help from the script.
Music was aight...nothing memorable and rewatch value is mediocre only because I personally prefer to only rewatch comedies.
Reviews and comments seem to say that the Japanese version is better. Seeing as the strongest point of the drama was the story and its characters, maybe it might be worth to watch the original Japanese version for some. But I am more comfortable with Chinese so I chose to watch this version. Although I am unable to compare this to the original Japanese story, I would say the execution of this story really wasn't bad in this version.
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The story telling and plot leaves quite a lot to be desired
I like the way they have established the characters, and how they are shown in their day to day life. but I have some grievances with how they are handled some times. For starters, the Lead actress is basically never wrong. She follows her conviction even when it crosses professional lines, and personal boundaries. But it's being portrayed as fine because it ended well. She's time and time again proven she can't be a professional proof-reader, and I'm only on ep 16. I'm all for a super direct and honest to a fault MC, but this is just too far. She would be fired immediately in almost all real world situation. (But you could argue it's a drama and not real life.) I can concede that, but still art should imitate life. And now for the Main dude. He's honestly one of my favorite actors, probably the sole reason why I decided to watch the show. But his character has no proper depth. Like I can understanding bending a little to get buy in the beginning. But from the way his identity has been setup, the one thing he shouldn't fold on is that he want's to be a writer first, and will never reveal is true name or face in association with his writing. But like almost immediately he decided to continue being a model because The female lead "Prefers him being a model" (My interpretation, take with a grain of salt). This is somewhat ok, but then he also folded on his whole Identity and decided to allow for his writing career to mix with his modelling as a form of apology for missing a shoot. Like I get it was important and he felt bad, but if mixing modelling and writing wasn't a big deal in the first place, why say no. It really just feels like a lazy cop-out by the producer/director. Apart from those main things, the show is mostly enjoyable. A nice bingeWas this review helpful to you?
Dropped Because Of Female Lead
As someone who hasn't watched the Japanese version I wasn't familiar with the story. The FL is so annoying in the first episode. I get her character is supposed to be the determined and excited type but she just comes off as an annoying know it all. She has no regard for her environment and those around her. I absolutely hate her character and can only imagine how much more annoying she gets later on.Was this review helpful to you?
