Actually quite enjoyable

Alright so I watched this because I honestly just didn’t know what to watch, and I actually liked it quite a lot.

Cast: I was a little unsure about the choice for the Main actor, I liked him in Meteor Garden, but I didn’t feel like his acting was that great as to portray a leading role, however, be it because his previous role was not challenging enough, or because he got some more coaching, I absolutely loved him in this one. At some point I even forgot that he’s the same dude who played the rather monotonous Huaze Lei in Meteor Garden. In the End I don’t think I could imagine another actor playing his role in this one. Of course he wasn’t perfect to every detail but he gave his character so much charm.
As for the female lead, I really loved the actress that played her. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Drama where they put so little effort into making her “look male” and she still looked the part (like a pretty young man), she also acted very well as a young girl who disguises herself as a man, to me it made sense that most of the other characters took her for a man, that’s what I’m trying to say.

As for the side characters, I thought it was interesting to see so many known faces, playing side characters, they all did very well.

Plot: Now this is what is interesting, watching this I had this constant “manga” feeling. The entire plot, everything that happened and how it was portrayed looked 1:1 like a manga made into a TV Drama. This was really interesting, and also kind of entertaining on one side, but it also means that there were some parts that did not make a whole lot of sense, seen as a TV Series. Like there are things you can do in Mangas, that only work in Mangas, for example people finding stuff out but then seemingly forgetting about it for the next few Episodes/chapters; very crazy ways of punishment, that might make a romantic scene in a Manga but are just kinda over the top put on film, and so on. Let’s say sometimes it felt a little too unrealistic.

As for the main couples story and their development, I vastly liked how it developed, I liked their chemistry, and the plot that “connected them” was also quite entertaining. However it did feel a little too slow-burn at some point in later episodes. There was one scene where I literally thought, just get it together already. There was also a little (in my eyes) unnecessary Drama added, but it was solved quite quickly so it’s no big deal.

Now there’s one part to this storyline which I personally enjoyed, because it underlined the thought of “命中注定” （something like destiny/meant to be together), however I feel like this part might be problematic in the eyes of some people, who experience the the thing they used to tie the Leads together. (Sorry for being vague I don’t want to spoiler, you will understand if you watch it). To me it added nicely to the kind of unrealistic “meant to be” love story that this Drama was telling, but it might feel a bit tasteless to other people.

I also vastly enjoyed the side stories, they weren’t explored too deep, to me it felt just right.

I also enjoyed the athletic side storyline, it didn’t feel boring at all, and gave the Drama some nice extra plot, apart from the love-line.

All in all this was a nice, unrealistically ‘romantic’ Drama, that didn’t feel too long nor too short. It’s the kind that you can really enjoy the first time around, but I would not necessarily watch it a second time.

Read More

Do yourself a favour and don’t waste any time on this.

Alright so the only reason I forced myself through this is because this only has two(?) negative reviews on here. My guess is that most people dropped this after two episodes and didn’t see the need to write anything.

I’ll start with the positive (that made me not give it one star) since this will be the fastest to write.
I really like the actor that played the main lead, not sure if he was a good choice for this part since his character was just stupid, but the actor himself did a good job at portraying a bad role.
The main reason I’ve added 1.5 stars to my rating are the side couples or side characters in general. I honestly liked their stories and their characters, sadly they alone are not worth forcing yourself through this mess. They could have made a Drama out of them and their stories, I’d have probably enjoyed watching that. There we’re some kind of entertaining scenes, but that doesn’t make up for 24 Episodes of terrible screenwriting.

Now the negative:
Let’s start with the female lead. I know that the actress chosen is capable of acting, she did quite good in Meteor Garden. However in this drama I did not vibe with her at all.
Theoretically her character should have been the most interesting. However to me she was just boring, the switch in her characters was extremely inconsistent, she did alright portraying her first alter ego, afterwards the lines between her normal self and her different identities just got really blurry. I also did not feel any chemistry with the male lead on her part. This and most of my problems with her are probably not entirely the actresses fault and more due to the bad screen writing I guess. Which is why I’ll elaborate further in the next section.

The plot: First of all, the description of this Drama on here contains major spoilers (not the Drama’s fault obviously but a MDL problem). So if you’ve not read the description yet but plan to watch don’t read it, it’ll kill the little suspense the Drama actually built.
I did not read the description before starting, but the first Episode kind of intrigued me, it was done quite entertaining, the female lead and her condition seemed interesting, and it wasn’t as full of BS about dissociative identity disorder/PTS as other Dramas I’ve seen.
However all of this quickly went down hill at around the second or third Episode.

First of all the Female Leads condition got weirder and weirder with every Episode. At least her switch in characters wasn’t as dramatic as in other Dramas. Still I do not get why you have to portray a switch in character by making it look like the character is turning into the hulk. Especially since in the beginning her characters where quite distinct so it would have been enough to just show the change in posture and expression.

Now they said in the beginning that her alter egos mostly come out in very emotional situations etc (which is the case for a lot of DID patients) because they mostly start existing to protect the Person from seemingly dangerous situations. This was all fine however, they seemed to distance themselves further and further from this rather accurate portrayal of mental illness. There is no logical explanation as to why her alter ego should leave her in the moments she needs it most. Then they just start giving her random personalities, Creating new ones whenever necessary, none of them ever return. And lastly turning them into some kind of quest the other characters have to master. I mean if they wanted to give her some kind of non-existing disease, they should have not used an existing condition and turned it into something so absurd, to me it just seemed really tasteless, getting worse and worse every episode, and lastly being “cured” by the most stupid thing.

The main problem I had with the main couple was that they just seemed really forced and uncomfortable the entire time. There was no moment I could truly enjoy them together or wish them happiness.
Starting from the weird development of the female Leads feeling, or let’s say the absence of it. Most of the time she wasn’t even herself, still somehow the feelings for the ML we’re just there all of a sudden.

Now their relationship in general: this was just painful honestly since there was always one big hurdle right in between the two of them that was never really dissolved. Which to me made it absolutely impossible to enjoy the few moments that could have actually been kind of cute. Everything just seemed fake, forced and awkward. Every reason for the characters making a choice or doing something was just plain stupid.
The way they treated the female lead when she was “not herself” was also just plain stupid and lacked any sense of logic.

I also had to ask myself a couple of times how the ML’s Company hasn’t gone bankrupt yet. Him handling his work was really just painful to watch.
Basically everything about the two leads and their relationship was just Bad.

While the ML at least had some kind of goal and we got to know some things about him, the FL didn’t really have anything to her except for her condition. No apparent goals or a clear character.
While the ML did have a character that was a little more thought through, he was still 100% frustrating and stupid in almost his every action. Most of the time he didn’t even think for himself and rather listened to other people’s opinions, and when he did think for himself his choices were everything but rational.

The OST was honestly just as weird as the rest. There was basically one song that was just repeated over and over no matter the situation.

In the end I really can’t say what kind of story this Drama wanted to tell? Maybe that beauty is everything and that if you’re not pretty you’ve basically lost in life? ‘Love’ is the ultimate goal no matter at what cost?
Idk this is the only lesson that I could draw from this mess of a story.
This was honestly just an absolute random mess and sadly not even in a funny or entertaining way.

Do yourself a favour and don’t watch it.

Read More

one of my favourites

I’m writing this review after having read the novel (I definitely recommend reading it if you haven’t yet).
It still fascinates me how someone in China must have read that novel and said to themselves YES this must be turned into a Drama... but I’m thankful for whoever did it. Even though it would have been nice if it would have been shot somewhere else so we could have at least gotten a tiny glimpse of skin-ship. That’s not why I deducted half a point of my rating though.

The actors were chosen extremely well. I loved how Wang Yibo (Lan Wangji) managed to convey every single emotion even tho he basically had the same expression and didn’t say much throughout most scenes. And even though they couldn’t give us anything too substantial, to me the chemistry between the characters was definitely tangible.

I won’t go to deep into the story, it was interesting and new (to me at least), sad at times, funny at others, all in all it did a great job at putting the novel’s storyline (apart from the romance arch) on film. There where some parts left out or altered, causing some parts of the story to become kind of confusing, however all in all it still made enough sense for me to watch and enjoy before having read the novel.

The reason I’m not giving this a 10 is mainly because I felt that some parts where kind of confusing or let’s say missing something?

Once I read the novel I figured out why/what. There are some parts in the novel where what’s happening is closely correlated to the two characters’ relationship. However since the Drama never actually defined this relationship they had to find other reasons as to why they needed to start a fight at that moment etc. And that sometimes made it seem kind of weird or uncalled for (in my eyes).

The other part is the timing of the Drama, I’m not sure whether I liked it or not, because I don’t know if the timing from the novel would have been watchable if kept in the Drama. The Drama gives us a short glimpse of what is happening right now, and then jumps into the past for a loooooong flashback until it returns and stays in the present.
The novel mixed past and present whenever the past was necessary to explain the current situation or fit the current situation. This made it easier to actually understand the story and follow along.
While watching the Drama I actually had to go back to the beginning once the flashback ended to check what had happened before we traveled to the past.

However all in all this was still a great Drama that definitely deserves the hype.

Read More

Very cute, very short, nothing too serious.

I found this while roaming through Korean BL web series. I really liked it.

The story is nothing too deep or serious, there are a lot of elements which sometimes made things feel kind of random. Obstacles were tackled quite easily and in a fun rather than a Dramatic way.
I liked both actors especially the one that acted the younger one, since in my opinion he did a really good job at portraying is rather positive character in the face of a rather “dramatic” fate.

I Can’t really say more about this, it’s just a short light hearted thing with some very sweet moments, some points didn’t really make sense, but when did a Drama ever fully make sense.
There was not much of a climax or anything, but it was just fine without it, I for one did not get bored.

If you’re looking for a short and sweet BL definitely give this one a go.

Read More

Absolutely adored this

Writing this at 10/11 will update if the spin-off episode somehow ruins everything, but I‘m quite confident it won’t so:

Not much to say it’s your typical cool cold guy + innocent, naive, sheltered romance. I personally loved every second of it. So incredibly cute.

Both actors did really well in their roles, I was a bit put off by Taishin looking mich older than he was supposed to be and especially than his co-star (which makes sense since he is 4 years older irl) who was supposedly his senior. But overall it didn’t really take anything away from the experience.

Some things could have been done a bit different…but overall I still really really enjoyed this one.

Read More

Difficult

I personally enjoyed watching it, but I would 100% understand some people not getting with this one at all (especially one of the two couples).

Let’s start off with the positive: the TengTeng/ Li Cheng couple. They were absolutely adorable. And if you really can’t get with the other couple (or don’t want to) just watch their scenes and you’ll be happy.

Usually I get kind of annoyed with Fuyoshi playing a (bigger) part in BL but I actually liked how it was included here.

I also very much appreciated the chemistry between all of the actors, even for the not so great couple.

Now the not so positive:
Let’s call them Couple B, the Drama already started off on the wrong foot with them causing me to almost quit on the first EP. It got a little better so I decided to stick with it, mainly because I wanted to see how their “main issue” would be solved/handled. Their trope is not something I’m very fond of, but I genuinely liked how Xing Si handled his feelings and the whole situation.
The other party involved (Yong Jie) however was an absolute disaster.
And more than controversial on so many levels.
I personally still enjoyed their scenes, because well I am a kinky person and I tend to separate things that happen in TV series from things that happen in real life. But since not everybody seems to be able to separate those two, this couple sends some really terrible messages, not even solely because on the things that happen, but mostly because of how they deal (or don’t deal) with them.
I guess everybody will have to make up their own minds about whether or not they can or want to ship/watch/enjoy this couple.

Another thing that kind of put me off about this Drama is how it was so extremely obvious that this is a BL made for h*rny girls/women. I don’t know how to describe it but literally everything felt like they were trying to feed into as many “desires” the female audience may have as possible.
Don’t get me wrong, since I am a great appreciator of everything cliche I was happy about most of the scenes (well they accomplished what they were aiming to do) but it just felt too glaringly obvious…

Another thing that is completely unrelated to the plot but really really bothered me is the camera movements in some scenes.
There was one scene that was supposed to be romantic that literally just made me nauseous because the camera was spinning for an unnecessary amount of time.
There were some other scenes where the camera movements were just terribly distracting.

All in all I personally enjoyed watching it and I would recommend at least giving TengTeng and Li Cheng a chance. The rest is a question of preference I guess.

Read More

Not a must watch

After finishing Make it right I jumped right into season two since season one kind of left a few open ends.. however this one was not nearly as smooth to watch as season 1...

Let’s start off with the acting: this was the only part that to me got a lot better... there were a lot less unnatural looking interactions.. kissing or “hot scenes” seemed a bit more natural and the acting wasn’t as much over the top.

Now the story: I don’t know but this one just kind of dragged for me... the storyline felt all over the place, there were a lot of scenes that just left me confused and could have been left out in my opinion... overall I got the feeling that the writers tried to make this season feel a little more mature as opposed to season one... however for me that just made it feel awkward... The drama created in this season mostly felt over the top and awkward and I think the only reason I pulled through till the end was because the characters had become dear to my heart in season one and I wanted all lose ends to be tied up.. (also most of the characters are quite nice to look at)

So if you’ve finished season one maybe consider watching this one to tie up most lose ends... but I wouldn’t get my expectations up too high.

Read More

I believe the makers of this misunderstood who the main characters are…

This was amazing, I actually watched it twice before finishing the last EP cause I wanted to watch it with my sister before finishing it.

I enjoyed pretty much every part of this each time. I cried, I laughed…

This could have been a 10/10 drama, but the ending made that impossible. It wasn’t a terrible ending. Just way too much missing. Too many unanswered questions, leaving me vastly dissatisfied. This is the first time I believe a drama might need another episode, just to actually make the story be complete.

This in part had to do with the fact that I was watching this thing for what appears to have been the „side couple“, which for me was 100% absolutely the center of the whole series and they should have 100% elaborated a lot more on that.

Overall I still 100% recommend watching this though.

Read More

Good but with some drawbacks

I did enjoy this and I was invested for most of it. The acting was great and both the series and the actors did great in portraying heavier subjects.

However, as someone else mentioned the editing in this was just terrible. It was incredibly hard to tell what was happening when and for one of the scenes (which was an important scene) I wasn’t even sure what was happening at all. It felt a bit like it was trying very hard to be “art”, which it absolutely didn’t need to be.

I enjoyed watching and I do encourage you to watch too, it’s short anyways. But to me this was not as mind blowingly great as some are making it out to be.

Read More

Only works cause it’s fiction at its finest

I personally enjoyed watching this for the most part. It was short and sort of sexy and ”sweet” in the toxic kind of way that’s okay when it’s fiction.

My biggest issue aside from well the obvious.. was that the series didn’t really end anywhere? It felt like there was still a bunch missing? It just ended very abruptly I didn’t even realise it was the end until I saw the ending credits?

If you just need something to entertain you for a short while and you don’t mind morally questionable relationships, you’ll probably be okay watching this. Otherwise maybe skip this one.

Read More

Watch if you like questioning your own morals

It’s been a while since I’ve been this invested in a series and the weird thing is I don’t even know what exactly I think of it.

I love hated almost every minute of this. Story was new and entertaining. The actors were absolutely brilliant. I don’t think I was a big Up fan before but I am now. This man made me love hate him (his character) the way only Damon Salvatore has managed to before…

Not much to say honestly… watch it if you enjoy: what, wtf, why is this happening, what is happening, arrgggghh and naked backs.

The ending was a bit too “happy end” imo, but that didn’t take away much from the whole thing so I still enjoyed watching. And I don’t remember the last time I wanted to rewatch something right after finishing it…but I do kind of want to do exactly that.

Read More

Feel good Series

Wholeheartedly enjoyed this. Very simple very easy, no (or almost no) unnecessary Drama, just a friend group that apparently exclusively consists of people who like men and their stories of finding to each other.

I’m pretty sure it took me a few Eps to get into this but latest at around EP 4/5 I couldn’t stop watching since everyone was just so cute and I wanted to see how things progress.

There’s really not much of a story aside from the 500 couples getting together, but that was enough for me honestly.

Just a feel good drama for those times when you just need a cute pick me up.

I did feel like the last couple of episodes where stretched out a bit unnecessarily just repeating the same stuff over and over, so I don’t really think it needed 16 episodes, but overall I still wholeheartedly enjoyed this.

Read More