TTR - The Truth Review

I can’t speak high enough of the young girl who played the FL. Incredible!

Yang Enyou is a Revelation. It would be an absolute travesty if Yang Enyou (who plays the young orphan, Zhang Xiaoyu) does not become a global megastar after this. Her performance is truly, unbelievably brilliant. In a genre often dominated by stoic fighters, she brings a raw, visceral vulnerability that anchors the entire film. You don’t just watch her pain and anger, you feel it in every single frame she occupies. She goes toe-to-toe with martial arts veteran Xie Miao and in many scenes, completely steals the spotlight. Her ability to convey that level of soul-crushing grief and white-hot rage at such a young age is nothing short of a masterclass in acting.
The only reason this isn’t a perfect 10 is that it is occasionally very difficult to stomach. Even for a gritty revenge thriller, the level of violence directed at a child is extreme. Seeing a young girl get gang-beaten, kicked, strangled and even poisoned is incredibly heavy and may be too much for some viewers. While it successfully fuels the fire for the eventual revenge, those specific scenes are undeniably brutal.
The sequel manages to surpass the original by adding a profound emotional core. Watch it for the top-tier action, but stay for the legendary performance by Yang Enyou. If this is the start of her career, the sky is the limit.

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What was the point?

So this one episode was 24 minutes long and I wasn’t expecting much and it truly delivered on that.

We got a little bit of resolution from a couple of the couples and the other side characters who are all planning to do their best and work hard, et cetera, et cetera.

However…………

FL still hasn’t bothered to tell the ML that she’s got a job in her hometown and is utterly burying her head in the sand when he’s given her ample opportunity to tell him herself.

When she eventually does, we get this weird, poetic monologue from both of them that doesn’t make any sense and they’re standing at the top of the Lighthouse watching the sea as the credits role.

What a waste of time.

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For a sequel to hidden love it was a lot harder. Watch.

I liked it, but I didn’t love it and I really wanted to.

The cast is fantastic. The story is amazing as it’s essentially a sequel to my favourite hidden Love.. would’ve been nice if it was the same cast however I understand the reasons for the change.

Though it was good, it was excruciatingly slow moving.

At times I was frustrated by her lack of communication, even though I knew the reasons why it was like pulling teeth watching her squirm and not say anything.

I didn’t like her reasons for leaving and breaking the man she loves heart.

The FL mother was a total disgrace and I’m glad they didn’t try and do some weird redemption arc for her after she abandoned her when she was nearly raped by her sister-in-law‘s son. She would have to live with the guilt for the rest of her life and I felt a sense of satisfaction with that.

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The show refuses to punish any villain

30 episodes approximately 10 minutes each and it is not some fluffy comedy but a piece of state propaganda on how the status quo should be maintained and as a citizen you should constantly eat bitterness.
I wanted a little bit of light relief after some pretty grotesque propaganda dramas I’ve watched recently but the CCP have just decided to double down on subjugating their citizens even with supposed fluffy romcoms.
We’ve got the two male leads looking to get married to a prominent family of two women and through a (sarcastically) hilarious mixup they end up marrying the wrong bride but it turns out they were the ones they were meant to marry anyway.

Blah blah blah, the end.

The problem is all the villains never seem to get punished and when they do, it is off screen but whenever the heroes get punished, we have to see them getting beaten.

There was one particularly jarring scene where they eventually brought down the corrupt cousin and he was wheeled through town in a box and the citizens were throwing some lettuce at him. His hair was a little messy, you know the odd strand out of place and his prison clothes were immaculate and even looked ironed. In the exact next scene we see are two male leads getting held down and beaten with heavy paddles.
Why? Who knows?
Well, I know, it is the message that even in victory you still have to suffer.
Truly, this is utterly grotesque and putrid having to grow up in this kind of regime that pumps out this consent to continually condition you into having your neck stood on. Sheesh!

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No mercy given

The absolute standout of this film is the subversion of the tired mercy trope. Usually, in C-Dramas, villains who commit unspeakable atrocities get away with a slap on the wrist or a moral lecture. Not here. When the villain—a man guilty of murder, torture, and rape—has the audacity to beg for his life, the ML gives the most satisfying response imaginable. Instead of taking the high road, he promises a brutal, visceral end (breaking limbs and worse) before finishing the job. It is refreshing to see a hero actually deliver the level of justice the crimes deserve.
At just over 60 minutes, the film feels a bit too short. The world-building and action are so tight that you’re left wishing there was more time to sit with the characters.
The inciting incident involving the leading woman is incredibly heavy. The combination of her being brutally assaulted while her family is massacred was a bit too excessive and too much for my personal taste, even for a revenge thriller.
Overall, if you’re tired of holy protagonists who forgive everyone, watch this for the ML's uncompromising brand of justice. It’s a lean, mean action flick that doesn't pull its punches.

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The Most Toxic and Demented Drama You Will Ever Witness

This series is a complete disaster from start to finish. What begins as a story about a young woman in a traditional opera troupe quickly turns into a "misery marathon" that rewards evil and punishes the innocent.
The plot is fundamentally broken. The heroes are treated like punching bags for thirty-eight episodes at 15 minutes each. The ML is subjected to relentless, brutal torture, while the FL remains passive, often nodding along to her own abusers. To make matters worse, the show kills off the most likeable characters off-screen, including the FLs protective older brother, who dies alone in exile.
The most offensive part of this drama is how it treats its main villain. Despite him being a cold-blooded murderer and a torturer, the show gives him "poetic" moments. In the final episode, while the hero is literally bleeding and broken on the ground, the villain is allowed to look clean and handsome while giving a long-winded speech about "love."
The finale is truly upsetting. The female lead weeps over the villain’s body and calls out his name, completely ignoring ML who is collapsing from his injuries just a few feet away. It suggests that obsessive violence is romantic and that the feelings of a monster matter more than the lives he destroyed. The ML also dies at the end leaving her alone but we get this strange dream sequence where she has a conversation with her senior older brother and the ML.
There is no "powerful awakening" or emotional relief here. It is a hollow, frustrating and morally confused mess. If you value your time and your sanity, stay far away from this one.

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Is forgiving somebody who’s tried to kill you multiple times really a virtue????

So this is 26 episodes at approximately 15 minutes each, but it should’ve finished at 22 episodes because the last arc was this weird rehash of the first phase of this drama.
The Premise is basically after being reborn into a second life, Jiang Xue Ying (FL) decides to change her fate by swapping marriages with her sister, Jiang Yu Er who instigates the whole marriage swapping situation.
She marries Xue Ying (ML) and becomes the Crown Princess, marrying the seemingly "idle" or playboy-like Prince Lu Jun Xing
Within the royal household, she must outmanoeuvre treacherous rivals and the FL is a brilliant strategist whose evil sister makes wrong decisions from beginning to end..
We go through this whole phase of the sister constantly trying to kill her or frame her or humiliate her or everything at once. This happens every other episode so I could probably count about a dozen times the sister has tried to ruin the FL.
The use of comedy music during Jiang Yu Er’s most sadistic moments is jarring to say the least, but I get that it is a stylistic choice that stems from the specific production goals of Chinese short-form mini-drams.
By the end of the weird third arc, the sister had switched sides and they gave her a redemption arc. This is so wrong on so many levels because it doesn’t show virtue it just shows stupidity.
It really bothers me that these specific types of "face-slapping" dramas, the antagonist (the sister) is often stripped of her status as a human being because in the eyes of the writers she is no longer a person; she is a plot device or a "boss" to be defeated.
I guess the logic with these things is: "Because she is evil, any horror that happens to her—or that she inflicts to prove her evil—is not 'real' suffering, but a spectacle."
I don’t like this kind of desensitisation within "revenge-porn" style storytelling where the only thing that matters is the protagonist’s eventual victory.

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The truth is, this is actually a poor show

For some reason they made this 31 episodes at just over 40 minutes each and because of all the procrastinating and messing about they could’ve easily made it a 24 episode half an hour show each and it would’ve lost absolutely nothing.
I’m a bit annoyed at this show. For some reason the writers and director must think it’s really cute, charming and endearing to have the females all behave so insufferably that basically tortures all the men in this show.
It really isn’t entertaining watching these cold, aloof women push there men away constantly and watching the men begging at their feet for a crumb of affection.
As a sidenote, the 2ML was way too old and his head was too big.

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Total rubbish from beginning to end, but just about watchable

A ridiculous reborn and transmigration story. The female lead was reborn and the trans migrator is the antagonist who plots and schemes in every other episode to kill the FL.. she does so many ridiculous things and not only does she not get punished but they completely ignore it.
It’s like, she tries something, it doesn’t work out and it’s like never mind, onto the next evil scheme without anybody even saying a word against her. I know these stories are meant to suspend belief and defy logic, but there has to be some common sense woven into it.. it’s just stupid and ridiculous. I’m not even hate watching. I’m just watching in utter bemusement at this nonsense.

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This was a mistake and I ended up just fast forwarding and hate watching

Childish, immature and entitled FL versus a cold aloof ML who actually was just mature.
This is a horrendous show and I can’t be bothered to review it but the one thing I will say and mention is the ex-girlfriend of the ML.
Firstly, she pursued the ML relentlessly until he agreed even though he was very lukewarm.
She then felt neglected because he was concentrating on his studies and so she decided to cheat on him with one of his friends who happens to be the main antagonist.
She stole his USB drive, for some reason,which contained all the details of his graduation thesis and the villain who was her boyfriend ended up stealing it and accusing the ML of plagiarism for which he got expelled from the school,
Five years later, she ends up trying to pursue the ML again while still with the boyfriend and she’s so shameless that she thinks he’s being petty and asks if it’s to do with what happened five years ago why he’s not interested in her.
I mean, these kind of shows drive me up the wall because she’s not only complicit in what happened to him but she also cheated and has the brazen cheek to try and win him back with no shame or apology.
We get a couple of half hearted apologies from her from what happened but the whole point with what she did was illegal and she should’ve faced legal consequences but the story writing almost framed her as a victim.
What a load of absolute crap.
This was advertised as a romance and sweet love, but it is a complete nonsense idol drama.

Lastly, I really hated the fact that no matter how much the villain brutalised, and yes he brutalised him with an iron rod. he still tried to save him.

Total garbage.

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This is not a revenge thriller, but misery porn for 95% of the show

24 episodes at approximately 10 minutes and with a strong start I thought this could be good because of the short format.
However, it is complete garbage. This is not a revenge thriller because the FL doesn’t actually do anything and all the villains just fall into their own traps.
All the heroes are passive and never proactive. It really is horrendous. The usual tropes of turning the evil stepsister crazy when everything is lost. Killing the evil dad off screen and explaining that the evil stepmother was arrested for murder..
This all happened off screen so why do they have the perverse pleasure of showing us the FL being tortured and humiliated for most of her life, we get the offscreen explanation that everything is sorted and she can live a happy life now with the ML.
They even included the horrendous biological mother and I’m still struggling to understand how this gets through Chinese censorship because there is nothing pure or decent about this character. She is pure evil and greedy for money that she abandons her children and beats the FL at every opportunity because she isn’t showing any filial piety and she just stands there and takes it.
I’m struggling to understand how this gets through such rigid censorship when we are told we can’t see actual rough justice being served to the villains because it will paint our heroes in a negative light but we get to enjoy endless humiliation and torture being dished out to the heroes in pretty graphic and harrowing detail.. Just strange.

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Why do the FL’s have to be so weak and pathetic at the beginning of these shows?

There are 24 episodes at approximately 10 minutes each of this terrible but watchable drama. The FL is given bullet comments of her life through some supernatural thing and can predict the future and while I absolutely hated her just sitting under the bed while her boyfriend cheated on her. I understand why they did it.. the ML is seeking the truth of his mother‘s death and he’s already suspecting his older brother. The older o son is a cretin and soon gets his comeuppance amongst all of the villains.. even though the FL had quite a character arc in terms of development it was really all a bit meh for me after her weak and pathetic efforts in the first half of this show so the emotional release was not there for me because I’d already checked out.

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Meh. Just about watchable I suppose.

There are 24 episodes in approximately 10 minutes each and The FL was a woman who was looking to take revenge on the family for her twin sister’s death and the male lead was a brother in this family looking to uncover the mystery surrounding his families dealings with the Japanese during turbulent times.
Long story short the elder brother was the mastermind who was colluding with the Japanese and dealing opium and he murdered everybody and everyone including family members and the story just made him crazy. After all his dodgy dealings have been uncovered, he ends up shooting himself in the head and our ML and FL literally ride off into the sunset together.

There was no satisfaction, no emotional release and actually the whole thing was a bit stupid. There were plot holes galore and many many loose threads that were never resolved. It really was quite terrible.

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What happened to the evil sister?

It is watchable but it really is total nonsense and ridiculous. The male lead was a prince and the FL was a skilled doctor.. they are both being set up and be betrayed by their respective families and have to fight palace in intrigued as well as several other villains before we get our happy ending. There are 24 episodes at 10 minutes each and our heroes are constantly getting beaten tortured, humiliated and nearly murdered at every time. All the villains die with some having remorse by their end, but I still don’t know what happened to the evil sister who threw all the chaos was allowed to escape never to be seen or heard from again while our main couple got their happily ever after.

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