Love at first sight, reconcile 10 years later between two Individuals of Noble Profession.

It’s love at first sight for ML in their teenage years, both 19. FL reciprocate the love but wasn’t brave and strong enough to defy her family. She left him but her heart never love again. ML tried but FL’s family is powerful, influential and did some unscrupulous act to harm ML, leaving him broken. But he also never gave up on his love for her and he choose to never love again. Till they reconciled by accident 10 years later, she is a medical doctor and he is a firefighter. Fate and time and time they were brought together and their love for each other continues to grow. FL wants to pursue ML but she still struggles with lack of bravery and courage to break her family ties thinking she is indebted to them. She is an adoptive child and was grateful of her adoptive parents providing for her, hence she struggles with intense guilt, till she discovered what her adoptive mom has done to harm ML and their love for her is conditioned and not genuine. ML is also an adopted child by his uncle’s family. His own father was an alcoholic who died in accident and his mom abandoned him, however his adoptive family provides secure and healthy love allowing ML to grow up with a lot more courage and resilience, hence he understands FL struggles and wanted to be her strengths. The catalyst of their relationship happened from ep 25 onwards, due to a major earthquake, both learnt they can’t live without each other and reconciled finally. After that, the rest of the series, there will be a few more incidents involving change in FL’s adoptive brother and parents. I love that at least this drama didn’t make an ultimate villain out of FL’s adoptive family. It gave the audience a chance to learn how they can also change and reconciliation is possible. Both leads’ love strengthen over time and their passion in their profession continue to flourish.
Although the romance is the core, it’s not the only emphasis here, be prepared for the slow burn, but worth the wait as their romance from ep., 25 onwards is steaming hot!

Verdict:
A well written story of growth, finding your own voice and believing in love. Of all the other drama with firefighter as profession, I would say this is the best! With brotherly love, family values and love, relationship and character growth, as well as believable rescue mission. Of course strong message on the pride represented in the profession too.

Some thoughts:
Faithful love is hard to come by. It does feel that the story stemmed from showing the FL’s perspectives as victim and flaws in her character resulting in her needing ML more. ML is just purely one track mind and obsessed with her. That’s the only part I find unrealistic, ML’s obsession for FL, he can easily find another woman, but he didn’t as script requires. He just have eyes for her, and it does feel that his existence is a blessing for FL as he truly rescue her from her dysfunctional family and help her grow. As a viewer I can see that FL has strengths but was uncovered because of ML. As mentioned in the drama, at an earlier ep. 11, FL feels and said she doesn’t deserve him, and she will harm him as she is not brave enough, which is very insightful and true in some perspectives.
However as the story progresses, it shows her growth in character and strength, learning to attune to her own needs and learning to love, as well as learning to be an independent adult through various events and experiences of her profession. ML to me, written here was flawless, I may be bias as because he is Yang Yang. Lol! Although ML was slightly rebellious in young age, he grew to take responsibility for self, family and the profession he hold prideful of.
Both Yang Yang and Wang Chu Ran are a beautiful pair. Chemistry is great.

The drama does have a lot more emphasis on the firefighter profession and medical doctor. Seeing so many of these theme in drama recently, I can’t help to wonder China really needs people to be inspired to take up this profession. the rescue mission were quite well filmed and realistic. The cameo of many familiar faces from cast of Glory of Special Forces were fantastic, can see their good teamwork with Yang Yang. And then the surprised good few episodes portraying strong brotherly relationship between Zhang Bin Bin and Yang Yang were very heart warming.

Read More

Romancing the last Ancient God

This is likely my shortest review with no spoiler. JUST GO WATCH IT, this is really worth it!! It has good humour, great chemistry, al the casts’ acting are top notch, fight scenes and CGI are nicely choreographed, great BGM and beautiful scenery.
I started this because of Lin Geng Xin and Zhao LiYing, after their cliff hanging ending (of this CP in Princess Agent), I am curious about their second time partnership in a XianXia drama. And I am not disappointed, very satisfied except can’t help still feeling mild awkwardness in this CP’s kiss scenes. But their scenes together are really natural.

After I started this drama, especially the first few ep., the great comedic moments and storyline got me so interested that I finished the novel in two days.

This is a very BEAUTIFULLY adapted story from its novel, it stayed true to the characters and storytelling with very minimal changes. The best XianXia for me so far in 2024!
The actors were all well casts including the supporting casts, all are fantastic in their roles. Especially for ZLY and LGX, they ace their roles! The fights scenes, cinematography were exhilarating and some of scenery were so beautiful. Both the humor and romance were well paced. Great BGM during fights and emotional scenes. My only complaints is there are too many flashbacks scenes, a little repetitive. But I am overall so very satisfied and very much enjoyed this drama. Kudos to the team!

Read More

Reality is What It is

I started watching this because of FL, Zhou Ye. However after I started, I was totally drawn into the story of a FL being a villain desperately seeking redemption.

It’s my first time seeing the ML, Wang Xin Yue. I am impressed by the CP’s chemistry and ML’s mature acting skills despite his young age. And Zhou Ye is fantastic in this role.

The story…warning on spoiler.
Begins with dark setting, where the FL, Hua Qian(HQ) who was on a run but was caught by official. Her family, Hua family, had done lots of misdeed, hence her father was executed by the emperor and both her mother and elder brother were also put to death. HQ, FL was on the run but soon was caught and badly beaten up, injured and fainted.
The next scene HQ woke up on her wedding day, which was 2 years ago. So here we get a background set up on FL’s time travelling back to her past. But as we understand C regulation of censorship, this story has a twist.
FL, HQ with all her knowledge of her past, is determine to change her and her family’s fate. So she went on to plan to undo her marriage with Zhong YanLan (ZYL) which she obtained through unscrupulous ways. She tried to gather her father’s misdeed and attempt to make him change his mind and retire early to country side.
In her previous arc, she was a villain who manipulates and plot to marry ZYL. She is one track mind deeply obsessed with her love to ZYL. She lies and broke up ZYL and his childhood love with Mu Yao (MY). MY and her family were victim of Hua family(father)’s scheme to gain power. MY’s family is on exiled. MY was rescued by ZYL, so with his help in the previous arc, she found evidences, she exposes HQ and brought down Hua’s family, which we saw at the beginning of ep So HQ knowing all the likely events, she attempted to reverse her fate.
To redeem herself, in this second arc, she decided to tell ZYL the truth and her misdeed, she plots to divorce him and brought ZYL and MY together. She rescued a beggar, Hua Rong Zhou(HRZ) who became her loyal admirer and protector. Her revealing her true self caught ZYL’s attention and interest. As she lost interest and divorce ZYL, Zhong Xi Wu (ZXW) ZYL’s junior became bolder and decided to confess his long hidden love for her, which put HQ in a dilemma. As HQ would never imagine herself in Zhong’s residence and fighting with women politics. So she accepted ZXW’s mother offer to fake death.
With HQ’s changes, she made peace with ZYL and MY, knew about ZXW’s love for her. But her brother still died protecting her. And her father’s misdeed was still revealed but they weren’t executed, instead retired to a small town by ZXW’s order. ZXW realised at the end that he can’t keep HQ and make peace by letting her go.

Which we were brought to the end (last ep., major spoiler ahead): the plot twist - it’s all HQ’s dream. So after ep. 1, she has been in coma, for 2years, ZXW rescued her and have been nursing her, he manages to convince his Mom to let him manage the business and also take care of the comatose HQ. Finally she woke up but fainted back into the dream as grief stricken of the reality. Then hearing ZXW talking to her in her sleep, she decided to wake up and say goodbye to HRZ who is actually a symbol of herself in the dream state. She makes peace and woke up, calling ZXW’s name, and the story ends.

After thought:
The novel is slightly different and gave HQ a time travel arc, where she gets her redemption and gain her freedom, save her parents and she lives quietly with HRZ in that village. But in this drama, we knew in order to pass C regulation, the screenplay has to be changed to show that reality cannot be changed, and there is no possibility for time travel to reverse your wrongdoing. Hence this story has to add the dream concept and she has to wake up to face her consequences. I understand and felt overall this drama is quite well done, just felt such cruelty on HQ’s story. But with the end is a new beginning, and we knew ZXW will be there for her.

Read More

Optimism falls in love with Pessimism

Story
In comes FL, Xiao Xi, who despite her difficulties and struggles in life and work, she always holds a positive view in living her life. She works in a company that purchased IP from web novelist and send them in film production. FL has been a fan to a web novel series written by Ji Shu. She is in love with Ji Shu’s novel CP and wanted to get company to purchased his IP. Hence FL meet ML. Ji Shu is the opposite, due to misfortunes of his family and blames himself for the death of unborn sister, he became aloof and pessimistic about life, relationship and love. And after encountering a betrayal from love and friend in University. He became more withdrawn and devoted to his novel writing and used it for his own therapeutic healing, hoping that he wrote his story out, he can heal and move on.
While I mentioned because of their work FL and ML met, fell in love and ultimately through various trials and situations involving life threatening events, they have an happy ending. The story involves FL trying to use love initially to make ML sell his IP. H the fantasy element is that while she was upset with how ML changes her sweet CP characters to a sad ending, she started to make comments on his site, but miraculously suck into the web novel as a character and was able to change ML’s novel CP through her involvement in his web novel world. Subsequently ML also got suck in too and fell in love with FL through their encounters. Simply put it that her positivity changed him and he learnt to love someone whole heartedly.

Pros and Cons
The story’s premises were refreshing and realistic about fanatic fans chasing novel CP and wants writer to gave them a happy ending. Characters entering web novel is not new storyline, this drama didn’t spend much time explaining how and why it happened. It just follow on the story of the characters and their development.
It’s definitely a low budget production as the unfitting clothes, poor styling to bad lighting and outdated fashion is quite obvious from main lead to supporting casts. I wish they have done more justice to ML’s charming appearance. FL is also pretty but here, they may have purposely increase her ugliness for the character. In later part, one can see her dress sense change slightly after the CP got together. The dress sense for all the cast just seems cheap and poorly done.

The romance is a bit cliche at some parts but acceptable with comedy, the story is straightforward. The FL’s character is a little over the top to sometimes being irritable, annoying and draggy. However FL is silly but yet adorable at moments. ML acts well here being melancholic and aloof, and taking a process of change. The antagonist is also conveniently planted with not much depth, and I couldn’t understand the hatred he has for ML, if it’s spin off from jealousy, it’s too convenient plot. At some point one may wonder how come the antagonist has so much power to control internet and their fate in the internet world.
The supporting casts are good. The side story involving the novel CP is interesting and their changes reflected the writer’s perspective, but I wasn’t that invested in them. It’s acceptable to me that this story wants to show how lack of love or trauma can shape and change one’s perspectives. I would wish there are more depth to the characters. The comedy is fun to watch. As a ROM-Com, with good amount of tension and good effort of set up of a cohere story and low budget, I thought this is relatively a good drama and definitely worth a re-watch for the CP’s sweetness.
I enjoyed the journey watching the development of main CP, although the ending was conveniently wrapped up with happy ending and then again, one need not think too much on watching this drama.

Read More

Full of Surprises!

Watch this because of Zhao LuSi, and was hook after part 1. Not conventional FL, instead her flaws were fully presented in the series. Similarly the ML’s character is also not perfect. However their growth became significant as the revenge plot unveil. The
Second part shown how FL’s perseverance in finding her love for ML again and reconciling what they had left off or never broken bond for each other. Surprised by some of the twists in the plot, the great acting and the whole filming sequences, plus the high production value.

The whole team deserved a good rating.

Read More

The Ingenious One Or more like the Ingenious Group

Overall this is a good Wu Xia with fantastic fight scenes that were choreograph. You actually see the realism of kungfu fighting and martial arts performed here by various cast.
Acting:
You have a group of seasonal actors acting as protagonists and antagonists, so no complaint. Everyone is spot on with their performances. The ML is Chen Xiao, initially portrayed himself as helpless and not much of kungfu skills but all brain and stratgegy. Then Rachel Momo is the FL, first time I am seeing her as a martial artist and I am impressed by her skills. Her emotions were also spot on in every scene. The supporting casts were all great in their characters and believable in their role. For villains, I especially like Qi Tian Feng and Tang Xiao. For supporting leads, I like Liu Gong Chan, Su Huai Rou, Mo Bu Fan and Jin Biao. The villains and SL are grey in their character but yet so like-able.
Story/Plot:
A revenge plot complicated by its back story of rebellion movement plotted by Prince Fu and conflicts between two sect., YunTai and LingYuan. The ML’s Luo family was massacre and he was rescued and kept at YunTai and was selected to learn strategies. As he has great potential, he became the close and direct disciple under YunTai Master. YunTai has years of conflict with another sect which is LingYuan where our FL, Shu YaNan is from, because of their differences in value. The ML and FL crossed paths for their own agenda but fell in love. Initially it felt like a Romeo and Juliet storyline. FL has very good Kungfu skills and uses poison well, she is also smart and trusted ML despite knowing his hidden agenda. ML became a love brain for a while. Actually at some point, I felt their love is a little draggy and unnecessary but I guessed the story is trying to show that love change a person (ML). I am not fully invested in their love story or even any side plot love line, it just feels redundant.
ML was initially all scheming, heartless and detached to others, as that is his way of YunTai and he was single-pointedly focused on uncovering his family’s massacres mystery and revenge. Along the journey, he learnt to care, value relationships and trust others and made quite a lot of good friends who also trusted him wholeheartedly and help him drives his ultimate plan.
Hence I wouldn’t say ML is the ingenious one, instead it’s a group of them.
The plot has good tension and suspense that keeps the audience interested, although the ending plot was predictable and not hard to guess. It’s still interesting to see how things unfold and come together.
There is a happy ending and nice closure but I won’t re-watch as once you know the ending, really no point to re-watch.
If you want to scrutinize, there were also a lot of loopholes and untied loose ends, but i can’t expect much with all the C-entertainment restrictions. So I am satisfied and happy that it at least gave us a complete story with good closure.

Read More

For What’s It’s Worth

The story begins with a navy trainee with planned prospective future, back to his hometown for summer break. His life trajectory went off course for a while after he got entangled with a teacher he admired, who asked him a favour. The favour brought him to Shanghai, he rescued a little girl whose family was murdered in front of her. She offered him her precious chain and 23/- (where she gathered from her school friends) and hired him to investigate her parents’ murder. Probably ML is so bored, he agreed to take on a fake ID and joined the 4th station police team as rookie through back door recommendation by his brother, so he can investigate the case.
The 4th station is make up of the Station leader who holds a retirement mindset but caring; the team lead who is smart and sharp (but also a hidden communist) and three other rookie policeman which one of them is our courageous FL. Through the investigation he discovered his teacher is a communist, ML was sent to deliver train tickets to the family who got murdered, were also part of the communist movement. He became good buddy with the team-lead, Captain Chen Hao and FL, Lou MinMin.
In span of one month, the case was resolved, they found the murderer and ML thought he can be back on track till his fake identity was being investigated again and he was framed to be a communist.
With ML’s brother help, he cleared his name and was sent back to Navy school, and forced to cut away from Shanghai contacts. By chance Hua Zhen went back to Shanghai and because of his curiosity, he is once again entangled with Luo MinMin and Chen Hao. Hua Zhen discovered that his brother is involved in illegal smuggling of arm fire materials to Japanese military. So our final arc will be on how Hua Zhen with Chen Hao and Luo Min Min work together to uncover the clues and unveil the smuggling crime. Both Hua Zhen and Luo MinMin also decided to join the communist movement.

The first arc of investigation involving our little girl was my favourite. their chemistry were fantastic. I enjoyed watching LiXian’s portrayal of ML, Hua Zhen, the main hero, sharp, calm, observant, smart and decisive with righteous principle, when strong determination, once decided on his goal, he will achieved it. Then our inspirational, second ML, Chen Hao portrayed by Zhuo Yu, a great actor also another smart character, an undercover communist, hidden in police station to investigate the corruption. Our FL, Lou MinMin portrayed by REN Ming, adorable, cheerful and courageous, have a great family, especially protective father. All casts were well fitted in their roles, even the villains by Wang Miao Lei, Jiang Yi and Song Ning were spot on in their roles.
Pros
Warmth of family relationship, friendship and brotherhood.
The fights and gun fights are quite well filmed.
For a Republican Era, this drama gave the unusual positive and happy ending, which is rarely seen in most drama for this time period but I am not complaining as it’s a positive message of strength and young people’s determination to fight for a greater cause, for the country. It’s emphasis on honoring the unsung hero’s sacrifice in those difficult times.
Cons
Not totally realistic, for a Republican Era, a communist movement at that time, death count very little.
An 8 year old girl has a soul and intelligent of an old adult
FL and Chen Hao being severely beaten up yet survived and recovered fast
How did so many things happen in one month. Time is relative in this drama.
Some emotional scenes and flashback scenes were repetitive and draggy.
The ending kiss scene between the leads is not necessary. They have chosen to be on mission and sacrifice for greater course, so romance can be just a subtle thing. I preferred the treatment between Shi JunYu and Chen Hao, love but yet not need to express.

Read More

Is this a duck??? No it’s a Rabbit!!!

I watched this mainly for Chen Fei Yu and Zhou Ye, as I knew the original story in Japanese was sad and not a happy ending. I like this re-scripted version, where it gives viewers at least a feel good closure after all the agony the couple gone through.

The story:
Is simple and straightforward. Boy meets girl at young age, she is his 白月光in his difficult childhood (abusive alcoholic father). Then they parted as girl’s family moved away. They met again in adulthood and quickly were attracted and got together. Misunderstanding because of ML’s past (father’s debt affected his self esteem and he was negative towards FL). Then misfortune happened, FL got into accident and die on ML’s birthday. And the magical element of this show here, is that his birthday candles and wish allows ML to relive the day before her accident. Every time he tried to change her fate or rescue her, FL will still end up dying. Till a point when FL realised and she made the ultimate wish of never to meet him as adult, never cross paths and never love, so they won’t suffer. And with that last wish, they both survived but they never met again. Until in the winter’s day (another significant theme for this couple as they met on winter), ML again walked into FL’s bakery and met her. Final scene, they grew old together.

My verdict:
The pacing was good, however the sweetness for the couple here is very short, and we have to go on a journey of agony till the last 5 mins of happy ending. But to be fair, I can’t expect much as it’s a 90mins movie. The chemistry were fantastic. The acting were clear and spot on. Really love Arther Chen’s deep set voice and he is very handsome here. Adored Zhou Ye’s pure and innocent portrayal of the character is so believable. She is a very pretty actress and her cuteness is just right.
So warm and fuzzy even on cold winter to have to beautiful CP getting together in the dreamland of drama world. Re-watch value ?!

Read More

It’s All About The Voice

Giving another sub heading: God-like Perfect Man found love.

Let’s begin by saying I only watched this because of Tan JianCi and Zhou Ye. I like both their previous works and since this is TJC’s first time in a sweet Rom-Com, I am more forgiving of the plot and endure till the end.

TJC’s ML character is just God-like perfect, smart, intelligent, workaholic, cardiac surgeon who is a brilliant voice actor (and started his voice acting company with a group of friends and got famous), and he is a great chef! You literally see him sleeps everywhere or don’t sleep at all, have energy to voice act and now date.
I strongly believe such character design only exists in novel or drama world. FL (Zhuo Ye) is a sheltered, protected and love by everybody girl who behave like she is 10 yrs younger than her actual age. Her talents include her love for food, eats a lot and not be fat; plus she composes GuFeng song with an aspiring band and sing. ZY has a unique cute pretty outlook and is suitable for this role, but I feel she needs to put on more flesh, a little too skinny for a lady who eats so much and love food.

Storyline
Simple and sweet: ML falls for FL’s singing voice many years ago and he accidentally found her chat room and set out to pursue her. They connect via ML reading food recipe to her as she loves to eat. FL happens to be also a fan of ML’s voice acting too. So they met, fall in love and all is well. If you are looking for drama in this story, there is none. The couple literally do the most cliche troupe of all couple in love, first trip (tourism ad on Guilin/YunShuo), see the first sunrise, first kiss, sweet talk, It feels like two teenagers’ journey of falling in love but just that the CP are mature adults. It’s because it’s TJC acting as ML, so it make it all okay and less cringy for me to watch.

Pros
All sweetness of TJC and ZY. The showcase of voice acting profession that now I have full admiration for them. TJC holds the cord for the whole drama. He is such a versatile actor that sings most of the OST, dome a great job in showcasing the complexity of voice acting and he cooks! He has a one-take fried rice scene, he really can cook. The Gu Feng songs were quite nicely composed for this drama and of course the showcase of beautiful Guilin that urge me to want to go there. I personally feel this is a tan service drama for TJC’s fans. lol.

Cons
Lack of realism in the characters’ design. The storyline is flat.
ML is God-like perfect, such charisma and handsome, yet he said he never dated at age 29, but his moves are so smooth to FL. He has to be living in the mountain somewhere for such a character to exist or he has an extreme detached or narcissistic personality to be real! FL in the novel is even more shy and introvert, ZY’s portrayal here is more vocal, she acts well, but my only complaint is that wish she doesn’t need to behave so baby like in her response to ML. For a modern girl, at her age and exposed to social media, it’s just hard to imagine she is still so ‘baby’?

Many fillers plots but just anti-climatic with no element of growth or doesn’t serve any pivotal turn for the plot. It just feels like a lot of little happening around the CP and a group of people, but not much purposes to drive any growth in characters.
There are other side couples, but feels insignificant to mention them, as not much of a storyline for them too.

The final ending has yet to reveal but I will update it again after I finish the drama, also read the novel. The novel ending has the main CP engaged and ML retiring from his voice acting. Not sure how this drama will end, but will update again.

Final note after completing this drama: So the last 10 ep as mentioned is his retirement, their more sweet scenes flood the screen. There are plots on FL’s graduation, FL found out ML was her tan, ML’s proposal, their wedding shots. And the other two CPs also progresses in their relationship. The end.

I won’t re-watched, but maybe someone just compiled the main CP sweet scenes with the fantastic OST, and watching those may be good enough if you want some simple sugars in your life.

Read More

What Actually Matters…

A truly must watch if you are a sucker for slice of life theme that triumphs on meaning making plots and characters.

I started this with low expectation and purely because I have seen Katrina’s (FL) past works and thought will just try this out. It’s my first drama with ML, to my surprise, his acting is really good, spot on and made the whole character lively and relate-able. He is not an idol but definitely a good actor and should be given more recognition. After watching, it was beyond my expectation, there were no dull moments in the main or side stories narrated.

It is a slice of life theme but not overly dramatic, stories were realistic and the plot were characters’ driven. The growth of characters are organic and progressive with lots of learning moments and very touching.
The conflicts were resolved quickly and no ridiculous fillers.
Normally I don’t pay much attention to side couples, but this drama, I even enjoyed watching the development of the other 2 secondary CPs storyline.
Overall it’s extremely therapeutic and healing for me, like my daily chicken soup reading.

The gist of story…
I won’t give too much spoiler, the synopsis already mentioned the main storyline. It’s about a talented, self-centered, prideful, small town girl who plays Suo Na (an instrument that I always thought it’s too loud to listen solo and only works in a group with orchestra). She always have a fixated dream, one goal in mind which is to be a Principle Suo Na player with the reknown National orchestra group, however during her audition, deal to stress and pressure, she couldn’t perform and developed an auditory condition.
In despair, she decided to go back to her hometown to recuperate - there she found new friends, love, and rediscover what she truly value and her growth. We will also understand later that her fixation of this goal was also related to a deeper value she longs for, a connection whether with self, family or her instrument.
Apart from FL’s journey of growth, redefining her values, finding love, reconnecting with family, there is also a background theme in this story which is to flourish the rich Chinese culture in this small town and to create more awareness.

The mini stories of the town folks were tear-jerking in both flavor of joy and sadness. The stories narrated the two major life changing events which are marriage and death.
The main ML holds businesses in both wedding and funeral arrangements.
He is a very sensible and sensitive character (well-written), who struggle with limited life options and circumstances yet never gave up his positive and constantly manages his challenges with resilience.
The message in each mini stories were touching and show us how we can be kinder to each other even when life is hard. There are so many good mini stories, one has to watch it to feel it. I will share one touches me, it is the first few stories that was also a turning point for FL. It was her first case of helping out to re-arrange a song and she played it at the funeral of a child who died from a car accident. That story left me so sad but the story resolution was so meaningful and healing, that cannot be explained through words.

The ending was nicely wrapped up on a joyous and warm note, with a progression of the main theme and the characters. I have a feeling that with all the given struggles and challenges that this characters have overcome. I believe the town, the people and the couples will do well.

The only complain for international viewers is the poor sub., so hopefully this drama receive more recognition and gain more publicity, where better streaming platform will take this up and provide good subtitles for more international audience.

This is a 9/10 for me.

Read More

The Abyss based on Chinese interpretation

As the synopsis mentioned. This is a story/journey that follows Chu SiJing to find his brother Chu SiYu who was lost to a weird happening in an island.

It’s a Chinese Sci-Fi story set in the Ming dynasty, and the war was just a forgettable backdrop with no further mentioning.
I started watching because the premise was interesting, the plot of the first few episodes have a good pace and kept me curious. So the story follows Chu SiJing to investigate the mysterious secret of the island link to his missing brothers. Many elements brought up were interestingly and can have good potential for further development if given more thoughts. E.g. monsters among human, cult group, magical powers, traditional ancient Chinese mystical creature, underlying political agenda to uncover or hide the secret, etc. Initially it gave me vibes of Kdrama, Kingdom, or the Game of throne, then came Alien under the sea.
However the final reveal was IMO anti-climatic and with an ending of a heroic sacrifice.
The ML throughout the story was in high tension state, was wondering when his blood pressure will pop. There were some interesting side characters that I felt if given more time, can have great potential to develop deeper, such as the Eunuch Yang’s agenda, the soldier Bo Yan, the sea girl Angelica, Shen Rang, Captain Xu, even the Head of JingYi Wei / special forces.
But I guess for a short drama series, it is a good attempt and straight to the point story telling, there are some good fight scenes, and genuine friendships/ kinships theme.

If you like a quick Sci-Fi drama, this is a good watch., will not recommend a re-watch.

Read More

Groundhog Day!

It’s the best c-drama about time loop in 2022! It’s about finding the root cause, the best option to save all the key people.

The story unfolds little by little in every episode. Bringing the the audience closer to the in-depth story of some key casts, allowing time to develop an attachment in a short period of time was upmost impressive about the script.
We are not only following the plot but also the background story, and speculating who will be the possible perpetrators or victims.
Premise of the story: if we are given a chance to stop a bomb, but not knowing how, what do we do? Do we keep looking for solution or do we give up after many tries?
When we are faced with a time loop, do we ask why or how?
FL represents pure heroic and altruistic nature of humankind. She wants to save them.
ML represents the imperfect part of humanity, some selfishness to only save himself or others. He was influenced by FL.
Strong theme on ‘do not judge the book by its cover’, nicely expressed in various background story of the secondary character.
Overthinking on my part: first point, if I am a scientific mind, I will say, this kind of time loop is not possible at all. It’s against the law of physic. Second point, if it’s an exploration of spiritual theme on how after one died and their soul or mind kept coming back to the last moment of their death, due to resentment or unfinished business, then it will be very sad and quite suffering to know that the whole drama is only someone’s delusion. I am glad thats not how the story ends. Third point, why only ML have the self-awareness, the awakening, why the other anime/cat loving guy did not have the same self-awareness? Is it because he is secondary character?
Fourthly, the motive - it’s a believable plot to drive a grieving parents’ crazy. However to the extend of them wanting to bring down a busload of strangers, why? If you said to revenge for their daughter, how would their behaviour serve justice to their deceased daughter? If it’s because they have given up on humanity, how will their actions create an impact. So based on their logic, wouldn’t people forgotten about it as how they have dismissed their daughter’s situation. Fifth point - the romance is totally unnecessary. I would prefer that the two main casts became closed friends and may be romance bloom only in season 2.

Anyway, it’s my 2cents worth of thoughts. It’s a very very applaudable attempt for C drama to have such good writing and good acting. It’s not perfect but definitely near to perfect for a sci-if series. Well done!

Read More

Fairy-tale like with Realism

My first review ever I wanted to write on MDL because of this drama.

Genre of Youth’s struggle to adulthood, facing challenges in life, facing consequences, doing the right thing, learning to express emotions, IT programming field, parenting, growth, relationships difficulty, facing adversity, kindness of others, genius and flaws, acceptance, etc

The first act focus on developing the background of a few main characters, quite well balanced and not over the top. Youthful struggles and developing friendships and relationships. Trust, faith and dreams. Captivating and realistic character building for phase. You can understand the ML’s aloofness and the FL being giving the label of ‘Princess’. Story well edited.
The characters are consistent and can see their growth to adulthood.
Second act - adult phase shown more of characters picking up what they have loss and reconciling their past to acceptance. Building trust in each other, believing in each other and growth. Some very nice supporting characters were absolutely too perfect like FL’s childhood friends. The ML’s misfortune and stubbornness was acceptable and instead as a flaw, it was narrated more of resilience, perseverance and strengths. ML is not heartless just poor in navigating his emotions and losses in life. Hence the FL is his savior.
And the villains were not all bad in their core except for one. Driven by circumstances and bad choices, all have some bad things happened to them, to allow them to learn their lessons. Of course happy ending.
So hence the fairy tale sweetness.

The actors and actresses also all portray their roles well. Deserved many thumbs up! Sweetness but not too over the top, overall a down to earth presentation.

Worth a re-watch and review the small details designed by the team and actors and actresses.

Read More

A historical detective/coroner drama with simple cute straightforward romance.

I was pleasantly surprised to come across this drama by chance. The first episode got me hooked.
Cast - a group of young actors and actresses who were neither popular and nor famous but their acting were super. They presented their roles well and very natural.

Plot - interesting twist and turns in the story. ML and FL developed love and learnt to trust each other, supported each other through their challenges. No complicated third party. The supporting casts have their own sweet CP too.
The story and plot were witty. Both ML and FL were smart and witty, cute in their own ways. The director had an interesting way of showing how historical coroner (FL) uncovered evidences from the corpses and crime scenes.
Refreshing to watch. The ending was a trap set up to captured the villain and of course happy ending.

Once you start, you can’t stop. Definitely worth a watch if you are in for an appetite of some simple straightforward romance and witty detective work.

Read More

If you are a City Hunter Fan…

City Hunter was a classic J comic, may seem like a simple story but the main character can be complex back story. I am a fan of the comic and anime, so nice to see finally J entertainment made this series into a movie. There has been so many version made previously, the one with good effort and attempt was the French version. However I must say this is movie by far is the best adaptation and maintained the essence of its original comic. And only with a J production, we can see the J humour done so well. The casts done a fantastic job, the fighting and shooting scenes were quite well done. I really enjoyed watching this, if you are a fan of City Hunter, it’s a must watch and you sure will enjoy this a lot.

Read More