1
Yuan
Europe
Emotional, touching, but imperfect
I'm torn between giving it a 7 or 8 but decided to add some extra weight to the direction and concept.
It's a great, very emotional drama, with a rather unique idea, decent actors, interesting stories, high-quality props and very professional cinematography.
I want to give some bonus points to how they handled the perpetrators, most of them weren't put into the “mentally ill” category but shown to be normal people, just with no scruple, overly self-centred, and with a disregard for human life born out of their vile character instead of taking the easy way out and blaming it on some illness, so watchers don't have to face the fact that some humans are like this just because they want to.
The music is standard, they have two or three songs that are used in nearly every episode, which makes them lose impact and annoyed me by the fifth, later on I had to mute it because instead of adding to the mood, it ruined it for me.
While the overall idea is intriguing, the rules are inconsistent and some parts very vague, the drama focuses heavily on the characters, world building is minimal, few questions are raised by the MC, and everything he doesn't directly ask about gets no (attempted) explanation, everyone seems so uninterested in understanding how their own world works that it's irritating and hardly believable.
Characterisation has a good basis, sadly they put all of the focus on a certain character that happened to be the only one I wholeheartedly disliked, and who's, in my opinion, the least interesting of them all.
If I put it bluntly, the drama is about two tragic lovers instead of the MC, an unfortunate choice that failed to engage me, made me impatient, it took away time that would have been needed to flash out some of the major characters and do proper world building.
My biggest complain, they rushed the ending in a very tragic way by solving a big portion of the central cast with 1 minute long “resolutions” meant to create a happy ending for everyone; it felt unsatisfactory, like an insult to the viewers attachment to these characters and the investment you put into their individual story.
Most of the inconsistencies are in the last episode as well, without it, this drama would have likely been a 10/10 for me.
Still, it's a touching journey with lovable characters and a good premise, definitely worth your time if you are into this kind of tearjerker.
It's a great, very emotional drama, with a rather unique idea, decent actors, interesting stories, high-quality props and very professional cinematography.
I want to give some bonus points to how they handled the perpetrators, most of them weren't put into the “mentally ill” category but shown to be normal people, just with no scruple, overly self-centred, and with a disregard for human life born out of their vile character instead of taking the easy way out and blaming it on some illness, so watchers don't have to face the fact that some humans are like this just because they want to.
The music is standard, they have two or three songs that are used in nearly every episode, which makes them lose impact and annoyed me by the fifth, later on I had to mute it because instead of adding to the mood, it ruined it for me.
While the overall idea is intriguing, the rules are inconsistent and some parts very vague, the drama focuses heavily on the characters, world building is minimal, few questions are raised by the MC, and everything he doesn't directly ask about gets no (attempted) explanation, everyone seems so uninterested in understanding how their own world works that it's irritating and hardly believable.
Characterisation has a good basis, sadly they put all of the focus on a certain character that happened to be the only one I wholeheartedly disliked, and who's, in my opinion, the least interesting of them all.
If I put it bluntly, the drama is about two tragic lovers instead of the MC, an unfortunate choice that failed to engage me, made me impatient, it took away time that would have been needed to flash out some of the major characters and do proper world building.
My biggest complain, they rushed the ending in a very tragic way by solving a big portion of the central cast with 1 minute long “resolutions” meant to create a happy ending for everyone; it felt unsatisfactory, like an insult to the viewers attachment to these characters and the investment you put into their individual story.
Most of the inconsistencies are in the last episode as well, without it, this drama would have likely been a 10/10 for me.
Still, it's a touching journey with lovable characters and a good premise, definitely worth your time if you are into this kind of tearjerker.
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