John Hart
First time I've ever said this: the series is too SHORT!
Greetings,
Daisy Li showed up midway in A DREAM OF SPLENDOR and stood out in an already fantastic female cast. Short, scrappy, moody, pretty with big ears -- what's not to love? That's why I decided to give this micro-series a roll.
This series is decent but it suffers from a bumpy premise device. A Book of Fate makes all the rules in this story, and we don't know why the book exists, what rules it must follow, what rules it can break -- and eventually -- it came off to me as a device making all sorts of twists possible instead of believable. The twists also came too many too fast.
Whereas most series seem to be longer than they need to be, this series was too short. I think somewhere between 12 - 20 full length episodes would have covered it. But I chose this series as a bit of bubblegum between more serious series and the sweet taste lasted the entire time, so maybe shorter was the right idea.
I can now say that Daisy Li should be getting more lead roles. She's looks 23, is actually 31, but whenever she lowered her voice in pain and sorrow you FELT her actual age and it was perfect. Yes, she's likely going to get impish roles for the next few years, but I hope they give the edge she sometimes had here.
Speaking of an edge, this series had a little too much choking and stabbing of women for my taste. I love many Chinese romantic dramas because they pull back some on violence, but in just the three years I've been enjoying the 'sex' and violence have been ramping up to Western media excess.
(I put 'sex' in quotes because actually the ramping up there is good. No, I haven't really seen many sex scenes. What I have seen is couples actually kissing instead of the story going out of it's way to removing kissing from romances. My favorite scene of this short series is a great kiss. Wife and I have rewatched it about 10 times, lol.)
The male lead here was generic during the first third of this series but came to life afterwards. I'll keep an eye on his career too.
All in all a satisfying tale, but I wish the entire book thing was simpler instead of jarring. (I would have gone with a lady that talks to her in her dreams and begins appearing as a ghost in real life.)
Daisy Li showed up midway in A DREAM OF SPLENDOR and stood out in an already fantastic female cast. Short, scrappy, moody, pretty with big ears -- what's not to love? That's why I decided to give this micro-series a roll.
This series is decent but it suffers from a bumpy premise device. A Book of Fate makes all the rules in this story, and we don't know why the book exists, what rules it must follow, what rules it can break -- and eventually -- it came off to me as a device making all sorts of twists possible instead of believable. The twists also came too many too fast.
Whereas most series seem to be longer than they need to be, this series was too short. I think somewhere between 12 - 20 full length episodes would have covered it. But I chose this series as a bit of bubblegum between more serious series and the sweet taste lasted the entire time, so maybe shorter was the right idea.
I can now say that Daisy Li should be getting more lead roles. She's looks 23, is actually 31, but whenever she lowered her voice in pain and sorrow you FELT her actual age and it was perfect. Yes, she's likely going to get impish roles for the next few years, but I hope they give the edge she sometimes had here.
Speaking of an edge, this series had a little too much choking and stabbing of women for my taste. I love many Chinese romantic dramas because they pull back some on violence, but in just the three years I've been enjoying the 'sex' and violence have been ramping up to Western media excess.
(I put 'sex' in quotes because actually the ramping up there is good. No, I haven't really seen many sex scenes. What I have seen is couples actually kissing instead of the story going out of it's way to removing kissing from romances. My favorite scene of this short series is a great kiss. Wife and I have rewatched it about 10 times, lol.)
The male lead here was generic during the first third of this series but came to life afterwards. I'll keep an eye on his career too.
All in all a satisfying tale, but I wish the entire book thing was simpler instead of jarring. (I would have gone with a lady that talks to her in her dreams and begins appearing as a ghost in real life.)
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