This review may contain spoilers
Heartwarming Drama
This drama tells the story of 5 children who are friends and live in a hutong alley (next to the red wall/palace).+ This drama is the first Chinese drama with the theme of reconstructing historical objects such as paintings, traditional clothes, antique clocks, etc. The two main characters will work in the field of tourism and history (this is my favorite part because there are rarely dramas that discuss this)
+ If you came here for a passionate romance, this drama is not the place. But if you need a daily life drama with a slow pace, this drama is the right choice.
+ I will tell you a drama that is similar to this drama so that you don't have wrong expectations. This drama is similar to the drama: - Go Ahead - Reply 1988
- This is a period drama, starting from their teenage years in the 90s, it is a drama of family, friendship, reality, life, dreams and love. This drama even highlights cases of outbreaks in the late 90s such as the corona outbreak, they wore masks and closed themselves off from the outside world.
- Their teenage stories are filled with reality scenes that teenagers often do, such as truancy, makeup, hiding exam results and problems with views between a mother and child.
- I really like how this drama depicts our daily lives as middle teenagers and the inner conflicts between parents and children.
- The parents' stories are presented so sweetly and touchingly, this is my favorite. With this drama I can understand how parents think and the things they worry about as well as their words which sometimes we (children) think are hurtful but are actually for our good.
- Apart from the warm story, this drama OST is very warm, very suitable for describing the whole story, especially the cheerful opening song typical of young people and the ending song which has deep meaning as an adult. The whole ost is very touching.
- For acting, everyone has their own assessment, I think all actors/actresses are suitable for their roles. For Lin Yi, I think he has developed, ZSN's character is like a transition from the characters he played before, acting deeper and more mature. For Yuqi, there are some that are not very relevant and are not suitable or are considered excessive, but I think she has tried her best because she dares to try new roles that are different from the ones she usually plays. Don't think too negatively that the SX character will mature in time.
Believe me, after finishing this drama, you will miss the friendship of this hutong gang, because after they grow up there will be many changes that will make you miss the early episodes and miss the other additional actors.
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Something you know is okay but will tire you out!
Somehow FL has a serious look typecasted on her. I couldn't feel her genuinity in her role. Some scenes felt so plastic.Main drawbacks are cliche plot and poor production. Why did the FL had to suffer such ordeal in order to be united with ML? FL and ML could have been better as characters if they were shown atleast trying to move on with new relations. The reconciliation plots are a disaster. Some relations don't even make any sense.
The only episodes that could connect with audience is around early 20's(episodes). That too are pity scenarios where they did stretch everything and anything as much as they could. If I could delete one character from this drama that would be ML. Not FL. Even with all the flaws FL was far better convincing than the ML.
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Memory of youth, friendship, and family all within the walls of Liuli Hutong
Memory of Encaustic Tile is a good enough show for you to try, it contains almost all positives that I've been looking for in cdramas. cute love story, friendship and family. having a good community is a + too.I've watched this drama on and off because I kept feeling sad vibes due to the ending OST (hence the low music rating) and I don't want to spoil myself if there are annoying arcs in the drama.
And when I finally decided to finish the drama, I'm surprised that the (annoying parts I was expecting) wasn't that bad.
Sure, there could be some improvements, but we take these types of dramas as long as there are not a lot of annoying arcs.
This drama has a shade of Reply Series but with a lighter overall story since most of the story revolved around Zheng Sunian and Shao Xue.
I give this drama a solid 8/10!
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This review may contain spoilers
This is a great slice of life drama for the first 21 episodes which depicted family, high school, and neighborhood interactions; a group of kids growing together and supporting each other while highlighting family and friendship connections as well as outlining cultural and social issues. The parents are excellent on this drama, their mutual friendship, love, and care was genuinely portrayed and it was wonderful to watch. Episodes 22-25 are about college and choices. Then finally, the very slow burned romance forms into a relationship and the drama suffers a decline as it was full of clichés, misunderstandings, and even bad advice and cover ups from their shared friends. The love story works better as friends that love and deeply care about each other than friends to lovers’ plot line. The lack of proper communication from the main leads makes the rest of the episodes, and their romance, overwhelming to watch. The drama has a happy ending but it is rushed and unamusing! Was this review helpful to you?
Slow burner drama
Memories of the encaustic tiles story is about the lives of the people living in hutong housing area somewhere in beijing. In my recollection of the knowledge about hutong this is a densely packed slum where most of the lower income people lives. The scene depicted in drama is actually a studio set which i seen far too clean and far too organised. Well this is a drama of cause things had to be tidy a bit to represent a good image to the viewers.One thing i felt pretty amused is chen yu qi and lin yi. Both of them had a 7 years gap with yu qi coming to near 30 while lin yi just passing 23 years old. Still I need to praise yu qi for her professional acting skill depicting a teenage girl ( in my brain i still set her as nearing 30) sometimes i felt she was too overact herself by making those children's walk and act. I just could not digest the age reality versus the act. Meanwhile for lin yi due to his giant stature he shows a very mature looking man's complexion.
One thing which troubles me is during audio dubbed to English. It is not only focus to this drama but for every Chinese drama I watched before. In my point of view the Chinese had a unique way of speaking English. I sincerely much more happy for them to preserve this unique accent. When they perform dubbing a multiple of strange sounds happens which I felt the tone had become alien to the original speech. sometimes I can hear American English, British English, Australian English and most funny of all an autogenerate speech anywhere from google translate or a robotic tone. I felt it is not necessary to imitate others but try more effort to promote the own Chinese identity. In other words, BE YOURSELF
Regarding on the drama genre, i would label thjs drama as a slow burning storyline with not much suspense. The storyline depicts the normal daily life in hutong area where the population closely knit with each other at the central city of Beijing. This kind of city life with village feel hardly found elsewhere nowadays.
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simple and heart warming - unlike cliché romcom
Until now the drama is heartwarming. with cute and lovable actors. I am definitely getting vibes of Reply 1988 with decent parent and child conversation, without annoying siblings fights. The drama is adapted from a novel of the same name written by author Bei Feng San Bai Li.Besides cute moments, story also depicts unique social issues highlighting importance of duty and career over love life , worth of true friendship, depth of relationship with parents and grand parents etc,
The story mainly focused on Shao Xue (Chen Yu Qi), Zheng Su Nian (Lin Yi), and Zhang Qi (Yan Zi Dong), three childhood friends who have grown up together while experiencing life, love and value of friendship.
This is heartwarming and soft drama so far.
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This review may contain spoilers
Friendship & life decision
Hesitate to watch this, but fortunately I've watch this. Because this year, this is one of the best drama I've watch. & one of the drama that make me hard to let go. I just want to repeatedly watch the ending over & over....OK let's discuss the drama. This drama about friendship & life decision. Friendship not only between our 5 friends, but also about their family.
The plus:
+ The friendship between our character is really real. Especially between Shao Xue (SX) & Zhang Qi (ZQ) and also with Lin Shi Yin (SY). Although their friendship not really smooth without rock, but in the end they still friend to the end.
+ ZQ really one true gentlemen. He is one of the few SML that make me have second lead syndrome. Although he love SX, he never forced or even try to win her love, he knows for sure who her love for and respect her feeling. So he just walks that hard path to become her best friend & witness how SX & Zheng Su Nian (SN) relationship bloom.
+ Sometimes you can't forced the relationship, no matter how much you love your partner. Like Wu Huan (WH) & SY or Bai Yun Sheng & his girlfriend. Quite sad for WH & SY, but I have a bet to myself will their relationship nailed it or not. Maybe if they are the main couple the story will gonna be different. But I like when they decided to break WH & SY apart. Yeah when the relationship rolled, we can sense how much the other party fit to our life or future. In my opinion WH & SY from the first step already took the different path, just time will decide to break them apart.
The minus:
- You can't fool your age. Haha... Of course I'm talking about Yukee Chen & Yan Zi Dong, but especially Yukee Chen. Although her behavior quite OK as a teenage girl, but often I can see the wrinkle & her face feature overall just too old to play as teenage girl. Sometimes that quite bothered me.
- Sometimes the friendship just partial to our FL. Like when SY become gloom when she broke up with WH, SX not even bothered to ask, she just heavily deep with her problem with SN. Best friend talk about both side, the writer just too focus about SX feeling & kinda neglected SY feeling.
- I don't know to put it into the bad or good thing, but I lean toward the bad thing so yeah I put it here then. The decision that SN take when he break up with SX. In my opinion it's unnecessary break up. Because just like ZQ said, "let go not break up." & like SN said what the different...? For me the difference kinda a lot. If he just let go, that mean SX still will contact him & they will have long distance relationship. If break up yeah happen exactly just like in this drama.
Overall this is one a good youth drama.
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I have just finished watching this drama and I honestly can’t understand the negativity of some of the comments, but I appreciate that not everyone can like it.
I thoroughly enjoyed it and the acting was excellent, I know that some didn’t like that the FL was childish but this was the writer’s intent and I found it on point. The only negative point was the very poor acting of the English speaking characters, I’ve found this to be the case in a lot of the dramas and it’s a shame, still it didn’t spoil anything for me.
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Adopt the pace of nature. Her secret is patience.
I just can't wait to watch the first episode of this series so I am writing this to show my excitement. Lin Yi is ML and also the first look shows it's a high school rom-com. Just thinking about other fans out there those are as crazy as me for LIN YI. Let's wait for tomorrow. Hope it will win everyone's heart.#morelovelinyi #linyifan <3
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