All_In

I thought the drama sagged a little in the middle but the last two episode finally moved the story along and finally glad to get more about alligator guy. And thinking of the doc with the tambourine never fails to bring a smile.

Okay, I got to 19. Just in the nick of time. Phew.

This author also wrote Too Late to Say I Love You, and it has the same obsessive, intense romance but I would say the drama was perhaps more true to the novel (except I think the drama changed the end on that one). I dropped that one because it was just too much but it veered into sexual assault or pretty close so I easily could see how it was written similarly in SOF.

Honestly, given the timeframe, I found it unbelievable that in SOF they hadn't consummated the marriage. I just think a woman of that time would have been expected to lie back and think of Shanghai so to speak. I am glad that they diluted that aspect in the drama because I do think it sends a horrible message and romanticizes something that isn't romantic.

When this drama is done, I'm going right over to Dramafever and watch the new drama with Elvia they just started.

I'll post again. Yes, I think he did. I am already forgetting the names of the characters. Sorry.

Ooops, I'm getting my characters mixed up...that's the bad dude...yes, I believe he did.

No...keep watching, it will be explained.

All three men love her and when we first meet RuGe, she has a broken heart because Bin Bin's character has dumped her and brought another woman home. The romance is actually secondary to just the general story being told. I don't think she's needy but rather brokenhearted. The story just throws you in and the synopsis is useless so if you skip or fast forward, you'll be even more confused. Oh, and RuGe (Dilraba's character) is a total badass in the fight scenes so there is that.

Yeah, I'm kind of sick of her as well and I think they waited too long to start on the flashbacks (I just finished episode 11). The relationship is very repetitive in its dysfunction so I need the pacing to be a bit quicker because it's a bit much to think 2 years into a marriage they haven't seemed to have had one honest conversation.

I think that a good writer can take a cliche and make it work, but I also think that even then cliches or tropes can still be very stale. I like all kinds of dramas, including slice of life and I do think k-drama, as well as j-dramas, do these very well. I also think that with Old Boy, the c-dramas are dipping their toe in the slice of life genre as well. I don't know if slice of life is taking over k-drama but, again, they do them well and I'm happy to see more of them.

All the actors are really good, but I am on episode 11 and already sick of the dynamic between the leads. They chat, she - in the same complacent voice - says mean things, he blows up: rinse and repeat. I feel like I've seen 20 different variations of the same scene. I would like to see the relationship move forward but that would take some type of honest conversation that hopefully will not take 40 episodes to get to.

As best I know, FFS means "for f_ _ ks sake".

I actually think this would have gone a lot better if the parents had been totally left out of the equation. Instead, we get this contrived set of coincidences along the lines of your mom was going to see the other mom and then that other mom came upon a big mess and.... Oy Vey. He fell for her too fast and too many break ups.

I was all in on this until I realized the writer wrote Too Late to Say I Love You....not even for Wallace Chung could I get through it. Having said that, I have no other historical Chinese drama to watch so I'm probably going to give it a go.

Ha! You're scaring me with the ending comment on Seige of Fog, but - oh well - I just go into C-dramas thinking it's all going to be tragic and being pleasantly surprised when it doesn't go that way. Not seeing much about upcoming historical/wuxia C-dramas though I think Viki might be getting the Yang Mi/Ethan Ruan drama. I've heard it's romance/politics, heavy on the politics so we'll see.

Well, I appreciate the info because I don't read C-novels and it does help figure things out. I just did a review of this one ...maybe I was generous but gave it 9 out of 10. If the writer had kept YX the same as in the book, it would have been a waste of Vic Chou imo, and I say this as someone who has only ever seen him in MARS and one movie. I hear that Viki has gotten Seige in Fog which is Chinese Republican era so might give that a go. Let me know if you know /watching any good ones.

Just finished the last episode. I really liked this drama a lot. The screenwriter also did My Sunshine which is a contemporary drama with Wallace Chung and Tiffany Tang. So now I've seen three that she's done, and all have very good pacing though My Sunshine is definitely ummm, I guess I would say, politically incorrect. Lots of forced kisses. Anyway, given what you've mentioned, I think the screen writer actually improved on the source material.

I believe the gal who did the screenplay from the book is quite good in that I think she did the screenplay for the C-drama version of Scarlet Heart which has very complex political stuff all the way through (it's gut-wrenching). So I am putting any story issues on the writer of the novel until someone who has read it tells me differently. Dramafever has a post on the writer of the book where she admits she went into the end not knowing how to end the book which seems a ridiculous way to write this kind of novel. Having said that, I'm actually enjoying it quite a bit more than you just because it's different than a lot of c-drama historicals I've seen.

I've only seen Vic Chou in contemporary T-dramas, but he certainly had no issues in those shows so I'm assuming this is the way the writer/PD chose to go. Or else the source material is more romantic than passionate.

I am on episode 35 and am enjoying the drama. It is not as romance centric as The General and I or Ten Mile Peach Orchard but it is more this one gals journey and how three different guys impact that. It throws you right in so you have to get to episode 3 to kind of figure things out and we kind of learn as we go. Since I find some c-dramas kind of cookie cutter, I actually am fine with this but it is frustrating to some. The production value is good and the fight scenes are awesome. Oh and the summary is absolutely worthless.

@Kimberly is right. The synopsis is no help. This drama just throws you into the middle of a story and we figure (or try to) things out as we go along. I normally wouldn't like this but it is actually working for me this time around.