Editorials 
1
This review may contain spoilers
Went with the current- direct into trope stream
Against the Current is a regular drama that somehow manages to make even its familiar story feel like a very long journey.
FL's family is massacred, she somehow survives, and ends up as a maid in the household of her former fiancé. She is observant and intelligent, helps the main family, is eventually freed from slavery, and her family becomes free citizens.
And that's about the extent of the substantive story.
After that, the drama simply "went with the current"—straight into the trope stream. The ML develops feelings for FL far too early, followed by a kidnapping, new villains plotting against her, the ML travelling all the way to save her yet somehow not getting much credit for it, and now a marriage by decree. Forced marriage? Of course. Why not.
The frustrating thing is that the individual ingredients aren't necessarily bad. The production is top-notch—costumes, visuals and sets are all gorgeous. But a high budget can only make a dish look good; it can't make the flavours work together. The individual elements may be well cooked, but put them together and somehow the dish just doesn't taste right.
The script is full of inconsistencies, particularly when it comes to the Lin family's values and actions. The drama also seems to switch lenses depending on whose side of the story we're seeing. When presenting FL's side, it frequently imposes a modern lens; when presenting the Lin family's side, suddenly we're reminded that this is a powerful household living in dynastic times. Resulting in inconsistent storytelling and scriptwriting.
XLX is also almost too good and proper. She is intelligent, capable and resourceful, but has barely any flaws and seemingly can't do wrong. It looks like she has a never ending stream of good luck while other women suffer from one thing to next. She somehow always finds a way out of trouble, while the other women are perpetually in trouble, waiting for XLX to swoop in and fix things. At some point, it stops making her look exceptionally capable and starts making everyone around her look unnecessarily incompetent. Apparently, perfection was easier to write than a personality.
And the pacing... this drama is barely cooking. I'm watching at 1.5× and still not missing anything. Scenes are repeatedly prolonged well beyond the point of impact, as though someone forgot that a scene can simply end once it has made its point.
The humour doesn't help. Several scenes are clearly designed to be funny or light-hearted, but too many feel like poor copies of comic moments from other dramas rather than something that naturally belongs to these characters.
The ML's scenes and actions feel like someone tried to create a modified, very watered-down version of Ling Buyi—and ended up with a poor copy.
Despite a poorly written ML and remarkably little screen time, Liu Xueyi has done a good job with what he was given.
Tan Songyun also acts well, but I keep seeing the same expressions and speech modulation I've seen in her other dramas. Instead of completely seeing XLX, I keep seeing Tan Songyun playing XLX
And then there are the trailers. They practically showed everything. By the time the actual drama arrived, the trailers had already done a surprisingly good job of telling me what I was going to get.
So, beautiful costumes, gorgeous sets and polished production aside, ATC feels like a collection of individually decent ingredients that were never properly brought together.
Maybe Against the Current was never going against anything.
It just went with the current- direct into trope stream.
FL's family is massacred, she somehow survives, and ends up as a maid in the household of her former fiancé. She is observant and intelligent, helps the main family, is eventually freed from slavery, and her family becomes free citizens.
And that's about the extent of the substantive story.
After that, the drama simply "went with the current"—straight into the trope stream. The ML develops feelings for FL far too early, followed by a kidnapping, new villains plotting against her, the ML travelling all the way to save her yet somehow not getting much credit for it, and now a marriage by decree. Forced marriage? Of course. Why not.
The frustrating thing is that the individual ingredients aren't necessarily bad. The production is top-notch—costumes, visuals and sets are all gorgeous. But a high budget can only make a dish look good; it can't make the flavours work together. The individual elements may be well cooked, but put them together and somehow the dish just doesn't taste right.
The script is full of inconsistencies, particularly when it comes to the Lin family's values and actions. The drama also seems to switch lenses depending on whose side of the story we're seeing. When presenting FL's side, it frequently imposes a modern lens; when presenting the Lin family's side, suddenly we're reminded that this is a powerful household living in dynastic times. Resulting in inconsistent storytelling and scriptwriting.
XLX is also almost too good and proper. She is intelligent, capable and resourceful, but has barely any flaws and seemingly can't do wrong. It looks like she has a never ending stream of good luck while other women suffer from one thing to next. She somehow always finds a way out of trouble, while the other women are perpetually in trouble, waiting for XLX to swoop in and fix things. At some point, it stops making her look exceptionally capable and starts making everyone around her look unnecessarily incompetent. Apparently, perfection was easier to write than a personality.
And the pacing... this drama is barely cooking. I'm watching at 1.5× and still not missing anything. Scenes are repeatedly prolonged well beyond the point of impact, as though someone forgot that a scene can simply end once it has made its point.
The humour doesn't help. Several scenes are clearly designed to be funny or light-hearted, but too many feel like poor copies of comic moments from other dramas rather than something that naturally belongs to these characters.
The ML's scenes and actions feel like someone tried to create a modified, very watered-down version of Ling Buyi—and ended up with a poor copy.
Despite a poorly written ML and remarkably little screen time, Liu Xueyi has done a good job with what he was given.
Tan Songyun also acts well, but I keep seeing the same expressions and speech modulation I've seen in her other dramas. Instead of completely seeing XLX, I keep seeing Tan Songyun playing XLX
And then there are the trailers. They practically showed everything. By the time the actual drama arrived, the trailers had already done a surprisingly good job of telling me what I was going to get.
So, beautiful costumes, gorgeous sets and polished production aside, ATC feels like a collection of individually decent ingredients that were never properly brought together.
Maybe Against the Current was never going against anything.
It just went with the current- direct into trope stream.
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