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This review may contain spoilers
From Boy to Man
I am more impressed with Xu Kai than ever before after watching this drama. Even waiting a little while to gather my thoughts, I am still at a loss for words in regards to his skills.Let’s go through the production. Fir the most part the scenery, stunts, buildings and battles were well done. There were a few wobbly swords, a couple of pre-sword strike dye pouch bursts, and awkward extras in the battle scenes, but not in every scene, so they were negligible. The Candyland trees on the plains were a bit much, but they did lend a bit of sweetness to the story between the leads. And the fake horses with the yellow eyes were laughable - and it’s obvious that they are used because a lot of the up-close scenes looked like they were on rocking horses.
The rest of the scenery was beautiful and each location added depth to the scenes rather than detracting from it.
There are a few characters that were so annoying I almost fast forwarded through the scenes they were in. Tge Emporer and his sons were like watching clowns crawl out of a smart car in front of an oncoming train. Cringey bad characters.
Lady Gu (aka the silk stalker stuck in her imaginary world was just as unpleasant as the ML’s father and siblings. She feigned her purity of heart, while colluding with her father the traitor to eliminate the FL. As if her crazy self was even qualified to be something she couldn’t handle. Her annoying maid had a voice like a mosquito and was just as whiney.
Now that they’re out of the way, I can talk about the story.
The script writer did a very good job setting up scenes and the profession from one to the next. The transitions were smooth without a lot if repeat from the previous episode in the first few minutes.
The characters were all brought to life by each actor (even the annoying ones). I was also surprised to see that Liu Yuning had such a small roll, however, he pulled the quirky character off in his usual professional way. He should have had more screen time!
No on to Xu Kai’s performance. It didn’t matter if the scene called for martial arts, war scenes, or anything else for that matter. His eyes, facial expressions and movement was flawless. In one scene where he was angry that emotion was not only on his face, but his neck started turning red. I the last could of episodes, he was heart broken and it was all over his face, in his voice and reflected in his voice. There were two particularly poignant scenes where his body was shaking with fear and his crying was powerfully portrayed. So much so that I had tears streaming down my face and not just sitting in my eyes. He also did fabulously with the martial arts stunts.
The FL was an excellent choice for thar roll. She was tough being a general in the army, but put her in a beautiful silk dress and she carried off the sweet girl who could turn into a sword bearing guardian of the underdogs. She was an excellent actress for this role. She too performed extremely well in the martial arts scenes.
The music was pretty good. I am certain I heard Xu Kai’s singing voice several times.
Overall, this was a great drama, and well worth the 40 episode watch. It will be on my watch again list, that’s for certain.
It’s worth the cringey characters. Watch it, you won’t be disappointed!
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Products, crazy teacher, know it all best friend and more products.
This is my 3rd watch. And Johnny Huang is still sexy - he exudes masculinity in whatever role he plays, and this drama is no exception.This drama was good but infuriationgly annoying. 1. The mothers - “its for your own good” excuse for manipulation, control and emotional entrapment to force their children into doing what they want them to do. Such as breaking into the FL’s apartment in order to spy on her and going through cabinets and drawers. The kids do almost anything to make the parent happy regardless of the consequences for their lives and tolerate their bad behavior. I realize it may be a cultural practice, but it’s still annoying. And still going into their childs home and rifling through their papers and belongings when the child is living outside of the home? Ridiculously manipulative.
2. That stupid ringtone.
3. The advertising of products. Every.Single.Scene.
4. The FL’s overbearing best friend who acts as if one must “do things my way or we arent friends any more’. Her incredible sense of assuming she is right about everyone and everything when all she does is speculate. And the way she treats 53 is like shes talking to a slave rather than someone she cares about.
5. The second half of the drama focusing on the 2ML and 2FL, and adding in bits and pieces of the FL and ML.
Good things:
Development of the ML and FL individually and as a couple. Their chemistry was on fire, and they looked and behaved like a real couple.
The story line between them could have been developed further to the point where they eventually worked together and combined efforts to make their mark on the world.
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Honesty, Perseverance and Reward
I have one complaint about this drama and that it is all of the screen time dedicated to the side couples. If more time had been spent with the ML and FL I would have given it more time. Not because of their relationship but because of their evolution of becoming stronger individually and in business.While Seven’s character went from a tech position to entrepreneur in a relatively short time, her development as a business owner and then CEO was grossly underdone. They highlighted the difficulties others inflicted on her, but gave no insight on how she decided to make the decisions she did.
After a while, the ML and FL scenes became so short that it almost seemed like they were one of the side couples and not the leads.
Basically it is a story about knowing your worth, not giving up when things seem out of control, and learning that love doesn’t always come attached to a bouquet of flowers, with glittery clouds and happily ever after. It’s hard, requires swallowing your ‘right’ to demand your way is right, and learning to adapt and love your partner despite their imperfections while talking out issues rather than insisting you get your way.
Seven and Xu Kai had fire for chemistry. They were so natural and actually portray every aspect of their characters perfectly.
The villains were portrayed well and really showed what happens when you compromise good behavior and business practices in order to get what you want because someone else has what you want. There were instances finger pointing, blame transference and excuses in every misdeed the committed. But in the end, they were punished for their crimes.
Spoiler here - the bonus us episode will require tissues; have them close by. It was the sweetest, most beautiful way to end this drama.
This was my second watching, and I enjoyed much more this time around.
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Cliff Hanger for Eternity
I really enjoyed this drama even on the second watch. I just with they had been able to tie up everything that was left wide open at the end.It was refreshing to see a drama that made you think while watching it, keeping you entangled in each sub-story - and to deal with difficult issues surrounding mental health and society’s attitudes toward people who suffer from the ailments as well as neurodivergent peoples. Many of the cases were not given adequate time to fully explain their complexities, let alone how long some of those would take to bring someone to the place of functionality again.
Yang Zi and Jing Moran were very wel cast in their roles and played them extremely well. Their chemistry was quite believable and played well into the school crush backstory.
For a change, there wasn’t much of the hysterical crying or overly controlling parent trying to nanipulate either of the leads nor the second leads.
It was a treat to hear Yang Zi sing one of the songs and the OST was truly beautiful.
I sometimes notice odd things in the set or costumes in dramas, and noticed the couch originally purchased for the practice the FL opened started out as orange leather and in later episodes change to either grey or blue fabric.
There were a few misconceptions regarding Bipolar disorder, but there was one thing said that stood out from the mother of the 2ML. She said something along the lines of not everyone needs to be fixed. And this is true. Neurodivergency is not a disease, nor should anyone be debased or institutionalized (basing this on her diagnosis) because they see and feel things differently than everyone else.
Overall, this was a very good drama. I just wish they’d been able to complete the storyline.
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Excellent
I have to say that I really enjoy the intro footage in a lot of the C-dramas. The artists who create them for the dramas deserve a lot of credit. Tgey are impressive.There are some oddities you might notice in the battle scenes. 1. Battles in the foreground at one speed and then background battles are at hyper-human speed. 2. When the armies are shown in arial view the horses being ridden through the formations are tiny compared to the soldiers themselves.
The wire stunts were done exceptionally well. There were no odd angles in the actors bodies, and the flight scenes were believable with the wind and clothing going in the same direction. I saw no rubber swords flopping around during battle either.
Zhao LuSi and Yang Yang were magical in their chemistry and interaction as their characters. Their growth individuall and together was well written and believable. And, their commitment to each other was portrayed very well.
I do not remember much about the OST, because I was so focused on what was taking place that music wasn’t really important to me.
As a wuxia fan, this drama hits the spot for action, the battle between good and evil, with a side of compassion and the desire for everyone to live peaceably together - with a side of love and self-sacrifice.
Overall, I found this to be a very good production and worthy of rewatching.
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Love Is Beautiful
Firstly I have to say that there was very little I did not enjoy about this drama. Anything negative was my own response to annoyingly clueless characters who did not know the meaning of personal space - and probably cultural differences with over-protective family members.The most enjoyable thing about this drama aside from the beautiful music and gorgeous scenery was the development of the ML/FL as a couple.
There were no stalker-like exes who insisted on pursuit even after rejection, no vengeful coworkers or sinister plots by competing companies or peers. It is a beautiful, sweet and pure development of love, respect and transformation of two people coming together and learning the complexities of love and sharing good and difficult things - together.
There was no noble sacrifice, no break-up, no angst. Just people learning how to love each other, and sharing a passion for music and voice acting.
I have watched this several times now, and enjoy it every time. It is a very well done production from start to finish. Encore!
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Sweetness
While the initial conversation between FL and ML showed her fear of opening up to another relationship, it also showed both of them to being vulnerable and wanting more than just friendship.There’s the whole denial of my feelings because my bff likes you, a couple of episodes later that momentary angst disappears, and the romance begins.
It was refreshing to see the ML stand up to parental disapproval and the FL to not bow down to possible MIL’s attempt to force a breakup.
The ML/FL were so sweet together and showed a lot of chemistry throughout. Even though the 2nd FL was initially annoying to me, she mellowed out when she dropped her high school obsession and found someone whom she really loved.
This was a truly enjoyable drama and it’s definitely worth another watch.
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Sweet and Persistent
I have to say that this drama was done quite well. There are so many trope-filled dramas out in the last few years that are over-done and ruin what could have been really good stories.I really appreciated this drama because it lacked the histrionics and focused on mature adults who learned how to love each other well.
The M and FL’s worked quite well together, and I loved the fact that they actually learned how to communicate, adapt and work together toward their goals.
cont…
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This review may contain spoilers
Perfect Ending
This drama was a mixed bag of nuts that I didn’t know what I would pull out if I put my hand in the bag. And I loved it.The ML - Yu Yu - was endearingly annoying initially. Like many creative people many of his thought processes and social difficulties came from overthinking and the inability to put into spoken words what he was thinking and feeling. This character was a beautifully flawed human being who wanted to connect with people but didn’t know how.
His behavior is classic ADHD with sides of social anxiety and OCD. His design theory of a “warm zone” was also a way he expressed his desire to connect on an intimate level with someone but could only do so through his designs. Wallace Huo performed exceedingly well (as he usually does) and made his character lovable even when he came across as a snob or a jerk. He made you love and feel frustrated with Yu Yu at the same time.
Every character in this drama was well cast - even the little pug.
There were no angst driven sub plots, no villainous characters and I loved how the writer connected all of their lives together and they grew into solid friendships.
The music was lovely and very appropriate to the scenes.
There were chats cters who came in and moved out of the storyline which gave it a slice-of-life realistic feel.
The romance is a slow one between the leads, and it was beautiful, painful, funny and realistic. They weren’t carried away by emotion or hormones, but slowly and steadily drew closer and then came together. Tgey built a good foundation and then started dreaming.
This drama was so good in showing that our assumptions and snap judgements of people that are different from ourselves are often very wrong. It showed that even though someone might be annoying doesn’t mean they are terrible people and how important it is to look outside the “normal” and see the beauty hidden behind the thorns and briars.
By the end of the last episode I was smiling so much my face hurt. The ending was truly beautifully done.
If you’re hesitating to watch because it’s not a typical rom com, put the thoughts aside and watch this. There’s so much packed into 16 episodes and worth the time to watch and rewatch!
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