Funny and superficial so I guess a bit fasfoodish?

As a parody of all the main character´s invincible halo and many other clichés of dramaland, it is nice. I did enjoy the comedy quite a lot in the first half, the acting is ok, the visuals also. I admit I did skip around ten episodes as they were not necessary – you know what will happen after the first (few) episode(s). I will maybe go back to them when I am really bored and in need of some background comedy.

*As for the characters or acting …. All is within the realm of genre. From the last servant to the ideal Mary Sue female lead. Their motivation or background are unnecessary and uninteresting, their portrayal ok. *

The story is simple and flat and not that well-made but considering it sets out to point out and ridicule those traits of its genre, there is no need to attack them on these grounds. They are well-aware of it.
I was wondering about the end – because in this kind of story there is only so much you can do. And they went for the most kitchy one! It is not bad – it stays true to the parodic tongue-in-the-cheek comedy vibe. Similarly, I did appreciate that the girl admitted in the end that the story is bull***t.
The funny thing is that if you don´t want to, you can ignore the parody and happily enjoy/be furious with the simple and clichéd romcom. This, I think, is also intentional. They put just enough jokes about the silly plotlines or stock characters etc. to retain the impression of self-reflection. Thanks to that, the audience can enjoy the romance, comedy and dramatic bits without being annoyed with all those clichés.

As for the feminism or gender equality themes that are addressed here…. Firstly, I think it comes as no surprise that it is done quite cheaply and simplistically. Yes, it points out some issues and absurdities and as a light-hearted start of this discussion can be somewhat accepted. However, the alleged cultural differences are used only when the plot allows it, the main leads stick to the classical drama-couple dynamic, there is not much of independence or value outside of their pairing, the ML saves the girl while the FL is the angel redeeming his soul (honestly, this is such ugly and dangerous trope the bad boy reformed through love!) etc. etc. On the other hand, it was nice that the original genre setting was so simplistic and childish, it went well with the female lead´s personality and writing ability.
Secondly, it seems that the theme is used mainly as a crowd pleaser. Not sure that the authors ever intended to contribute with anything worthwhile to the discussion about gender equality. Rather they just wanted to have something attractive for the audience – something that will address an interesting and popular topic and will create an illusion of difference (similarly the parodic bit can be viewed as an illusion of taking the audience´s intelligence into consideration).

Overall, it is light-hearted and simple romcom that uses all the clichés it is making fun of. All the stock characters, scenes, plot devices and solutions. It tries to distinguish itself from the horde by admitting to it by using the parodic angle. Yes, it makes the superficiality and hollowness of such stories obvious. However, it still stays within its realm… so what is the point? I suspect it is just to appease the viewer. This way their weakness becomes their strength and their, albeit short-lived, allure. It seems that more than being a critique of the low quality of (isekai, historical, fantasy,…) dramas it just wants to gain more popularity without actually doing that much extra work.

As some other reviewer already said – lower your expectations. Accept the cheap parodic bit and you have simple romantic comedy to watch during your lunch or before sleeping. Easy to digest, quick to forget. But don´t forget, same as with fast food, the nutritional value is quite low.

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Compelling addition to films about loss and grief

(some tiny spoilers ahead)
The premise is in general nothing new – death of a loved one, grief and eventual healing with additional homosexual aspect and Dear Ex does a great job of meeting the viewer´s expectations and even surpassing them in some aspects and definitely not just because of the gay motif. Far from it.

What I appreciated the most was the fact that even though the film uses the perspective of the teenage son, i. e. a naïve narrator, the voices of other characters were not reduced or deformed by his emotional state and age. The film manages to gently sketch the experience, reasonings and back stories of all of them without being too obvious or kitschy. The best example would be the mother – pushy, always unsatisfied, angry and slightly OCD, on first glance the stereotypical stepmother, but through the story you are gently reminded of her own troubles, worries etc. without disregarding her son´s unhappiness or the fact that her personality is not the best one in the world. Which was another exhilarating moment for me – the fact that her personality did not change, the only thing that changes is her son´s and ours (as viewers) understanding of her ( in this way the film abandoned the judgement of good and bad, as it often is with the strict-mother trope; similar things can be said about other characters too).

The story itself is simple and relies heavily on showing (bits and pieces) and not telling. As a result, you are left with a constantly changing mosaic of several intertwined lives filled with not bad but sometimes slightly problematic decisions (the most obvious one would be the dead man but the same goes for all the other characters). And the result is the most beautiful ambiguity. I truly enjoyed how the film played around with the good guy-bad guy thing, turning it on its head. The role of the bad guy being passed around from one character to another, not really sticking to anyone, even when they tried. Same as with who loved him first – it is simply unanswerable.

As a side note – the therapist was wonderful! Finally, a psychologist who seems like they know what they are doing – no ego trips, no motivational silliness or plain incompetence as it is common in cinematography. And on top of that, they were able to make her a essential part of the narrative without portraying her profession in a disrespectful or clichéd manner (well, it would be better to call her a narrative device, I guess – sort of a second mirror for the family).

Overall, Dear Ex is a genre film and that brings certain limitations to innovation or surprises. Regardless, it does a great job delivering its promises. It takes you on a journey of grief and healing, its various forms based on age, gender, situation in life or personality. It is minimalistic and quite simplistic but still is able to sketch a complex story – a family drama, dealing with issues spanning from teenage rebellion and money, through societal pressure and sexual orientation to grief after the loss of a loved one, whether through death, affair or finding out about their secret. The main theme of death of a parent is quite complex, to add to it the problems of homosexuality (and not sounding cheap) and failing marriages in general without oversimplifying is quite the ordeal but Dear Ex managed to pull it off gently and authentically. Definitely worth the watch.

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Seemingly lighthearted story of wasted lives

Great and enjoyable story where there are no heroes and mostly flawed humans even if you have your moustache twirling, maddly laughing, perpetually monologing villains. The fact that they made the celebrated Sigu sect populated with nothing but idiots and self-involved characters with LXY as their uncontested leader will forever be dear to my heart. Especially as they were all written as likeable or at least understandable.

I enjoyed most the slow peeling of layers of hero-worship that clouded the narrative - for the character and viewer alike. Considering the main motivation of the LXY is not being able to deal with said hero worship (and his perceived inability to fulfil it with healthy dash of burn-out wonderchild), that was very nicely done. This is also a reason why I wasnt annoyed about the fact that everybody was obssessed with our LXY. It was ridiculous but played nicely to the whole theme of hero worship, meeting expectations and child geniuses dealing with glitches.
LXY can´t deal with the whole thing and runs away to live a simple life. But no matter what, he cannot escape fame and his past, which ultimately results into his death (the irony is - the legends remains). On this note, I loved the dynamic between LXY and DFS (the guy in general) - for me it created an option of carefree future where LXY is alive and well, where he truly let go of his past (as opposite to the zen-like statements LLH is spewing all over the place whilst living in this own portable tomb). DFS is another prodigy who, contrary to LXY, has much healtier approach to his past traumas, i.e. confronting them. and dealing with them.
In this sense, him pestering LXY for another match is sort of... asking him to live and be f*cking less sucidal, to let go of the guilt and truly move on, i.e. not throwing everything away just because of one mistake. Unfortunatelly... LXY is and awfully stubborn and arrogant man, so - there goes the ending. (Side note: the little side-story about the two drinking-fighting budies was a nice mirror to this LXY-DFS motif).

You could watch it as a hero´s journey where the MC is FDB on his road to adulthood (it´s rather explicit) - which could be to some extent viewed as casting off the rose-coloured glasses. All his heroes are f*ck-ups, most of the adults are rather useless and the whole martial world is filled with selfish, scheming or just hurt and confused people. And the boy goes through a journey and grows up while magically protecting his bubbly personality, just somewhat temepered, Which is cool and plausible.
And then there is the ending. Our bubbly boy forever optimistic and... nothing had seemingly changed. We are back on the starting point where the legend lives and people who should live their lives keep pining for one scared and scarred person who is too wrapped up in past for anybody´s well-being (dont get me wrong, i like LXY and accept the validity of his issues, but he is a deeply flawed creature - which makes him so wonderful, i guess).

Side note to this - the whole show can be viewed just as a prolonged and higly aeshetized suicide, basically. LXY most of the show talks about letting go of the past but he is unable to do so when it comes to himself (no matter what he says). He gives great advice, just doesnt live according to it, as it usually happens.

The detective cases and their reasoning is sometimes awfully farfetched but given the genre, it´s not really that much of an issue. On the positive note, in the initial stories not everything was explained in various explanatory monologues, which was nice. Not that there were none, but at least initially they offered some clues to chase for the viewers first.

There are some tiresome parts in the later part of the story where they try to keep up the detective structure which doesnt add much to the supposedly rising tension of the story. The main consipracy was interesting especially for the emotional impact. The final siege got a bit ridiculous.

However, if you want to see strong or even interesting female characters, don´t botther with this story. I greatly appreciate that the past love interest had some agency, but it doesnt change the fact that all the female characters are written either as fawning over one of the three main guys or/and having no personality and agency aside from helping them. Main evil lady is obssessed with a man, another woman marries a person after couple of days to aledgedly piss of another guy, young girl plays the wikipedia role to impress the guy and so on, and so on. The only one who maintained some levelheadedness was always faithful to LXY and pops up usually just to resolve some administrative issue (especially at first).
Still, it is a good and enjoyablel show. Just watch it for the boys.

As for acting, music, visual apeal etc - all nice and withtout much issue. the cgi is sometimes slightly subpar but nothing to cause much bother.

To sum this unexpected rambling up - there are many annoying tropes in this show but despite that, it´s very enjoyable and good watch because of the story (so many fix-it musings, so many...), the slight subversion of certain tropes and mostly the characters.
It could be viewed as tragedy, hidden behind the grand schemes and light elegant tones. Same as LXY hides his own issues with jest and diversions and never speaks of them, the show never overanalyzes (or even explicitly states) many of the issues he or others face . Whether that is done because dwelling too much on such things would only cheapen them or to forcibly preserve the elegant and rosy image, that is up to interpretation.

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Melodrama, stock characters and not even mediocre writing

Beautiful visuals are probably the only positive aspect of this show.

The main issue is the subpar writing - basically just haphazardly stitched together tropes with abundance of melodrama. The intention, i think, was some sort of star-crossed lovers & with bad-boy-saved-by-love story, the result makes cheap day-time telenovelas seem like quality tv.
Honestly, the only criteria for the plot seemed to be over-the-top angst and the absence of logic. The emperor? The scared brother with parental issues? The amount of torment dished out to ML? And what about the clothing - if you make a storyline about ML not having warm clothing in winter, can´t you let everybody wear warm clothes? How am I to take it seriously when half the cast is in chiffon?? And for godsake, can´t you let them sleep without the ridiculous headpieces? (I know this one is truly silly, but given the overall problems, it irked me so much).
The FL in the first few episodes is painfully stupid, her decisions driven by nothing else but topping up the already exaggerated situation (example: XY explains what has to happen and how she needs to go and do this and that, FL says ok and stops and watches bad things happen so you can have here cry and shout uselessly - otherwise we would not get that this is a severe problem, oh no, just world ending, without the crying heroine, how would i know?!). And then suddenly she turns into the perfect actress - and competent fighter and responsible member of society without any issue despite the fact till that point she was a spoiled idiotic villainess.

All (main couple included) the characters are paper-thin stick figurines, driven by the magical plot-said-so-shut-up without any personality, stable traits or logical motivation. A scene to scene their behaviour changes for no good reason aside from what sort of trope the scene had to convey.
The show tried to cover up the lack of care for the characters by the tragedy and melodrama and... a sense of forbidden fruit, i guess (psychopathic male lead, the steamy scenes - ah, another plus, the kissing scenes are realistic not the usual barbie dolls), but it´s not enough - definitely not for this type of show. Instead of taking time to develop them, to make me as a viewer care about the story and its inhabitants, they just rushed to epic fights and emotionally hightened moments (where the stakes are so high, it´s almost laughable) for a momentary entertainement but without any substance. (I think i would enjoy it more, if the ML stayed evil and just went around murdering anybody).

The subpar writing is probably a reason why the acting seemed... less than idea (ML switching from besotted to trademark evil to constipated to blank model face randomly; a character talking suddenly in deep voice and being all powerful and suave just because she turned evil). But i will admit the choice for the ML was great - the actor looks like tragical heroine suffering from consumption with just the right amount of decadence, so at least they had that going for them.
As for the main couple - yes, their chemistry is nice to watch, as long as you forgot the ridiculous plot (the weriters surely seemed to - early happy frolling in the snow and then hurray, our main guy is emotionless psychopath again) and take them as generic FL and ML in tropey situations.

Can be used as background show for the pretty visuals and brainless nonsense.

Or even better - if you enjoy xianxia and are deseprate for something good, go watch Love between fairy and the devil, this one is really waste of time. (Did they make LBFD as an angry response to this drivel? It does sound like that.)

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stereotypical story done right

Love and destiny, disregarding the horrid English title, is truly wonderful drama with engaging plot, fantastic acting, nice visuals (even though I noticed that some complain about their, especially male, hairstyles) and music and surprising lack of traditional plotholes and horrendous editing. Even though the ending was a bit rushed it still retained the coherence of the story. Love and destiny is genuinely worth your time.

The story is not original, of course. On one hand, there is the mythology, on the other hand, as far as I know, Love and destiny was the director´s third (?) attempt on the three-lives-same-love narrative. Not to mention is a love story in Chinese fantasy realm, there is only so much originality you can put in it. All its genres have their set of narratives, stock characters, subplots, motivations etc. Love and destiny, however, does a great job in delivering them. The drama plays around and subverts nicely various tropes and clichés connected with this type of story (and generally fantasy-romance drama), making them seem a bit fresh and more realistic (nice example is of course main couple falling into the overused category of older powerful male & young naive girl; but also Shi San-Si Ming story etc.).
So you don’t have to turn your suspension of disbelief on maximum, accepting the fact that "the plot-said-so" is a valuable narrative device and instead you can enjoy the logical and wholesome journey and interactions of well-rounded characters (not only the main leads but also side ones ).
Most of the characters have an inherent flaw, or at least dominant trait that determines their behaviour (being it rigidness, pride, low self-esteem, inability to let go of the past or laziness) and moves the plot. The value of character, so to speak, is then based on their ability to understand this flaw and, at least try to, overcome it (apart from the ML, of course; I do like him but he is quite set in his ways… well, he is the ML and not the youngest of gods). If they try to, overcome it or at least accept it, they are the "good" guys (not only main cast, but also side ones such as Lin Mo sister). If they remain blind - you have tragic ones (such as the Queen of Shang Ling or her daughter) or the bad ones (even though it can be argued that even those are mostly tragic). Again - quite normal narrative device but in the dramaland not so common, unfortunately.
There is quite a number of “bad guys”, however, not one of them is truly evil – even the villainess is portrayed with enough empathy to accept her actions (what I enjoyed is the fact that her obsession with ML is not her only motivation. I would be happier if they omitted it completely or played down even more but still, she has her aspirations and dreams (and traumas) that are independent of ML. And she is rather bitter when they turn into naught. She is… a career woman, so to speak. And yes, we could complain about the fact that the only truly ambitious woman is the bad one, but I think it is better to just note it as a representation of the culture.). Not to mention the God of Thunder – finally an arc where having different opinion (than the main couple) does not mean to be evil. And I must admit, as the story progressed, I came to like him quite a lot, especially his unintentional comedy.

The story itself is engaging – it consists of nice and quite balanced mixture of comedy, tragedy, love, fantasy, action, and a bit of mystery. It is essentially a bildungsroman – the story of a girl growing up into adulthood, responsibility etc., but also of an old man overcoming his occupational burn-out mixed with depression and PTSD. Apart from their individual journeys and common rom-com, there is the arc of demon tribe and great wars, side love stories and all the little bits from everyday heaven realm life which are truly endearing and help to evoke the stagnant time of the Heaven, where the life span is measured in ten of thousands of years. On a side note; the timeline, generally, is wonky and I had quite of lot of trouble to determine whether it was hours, days or years that passed between certain events. Can be annoying but in hindsight, maybe intentional.

The only real problem I had with the story is the ending. The last arc, in contrast to the first two was unbalanced, relied quite a lot on telling and even though you could understand why it happened the way it did, it still felt a bit rushed (in comparison to other drama in similar situation still a very good job). I guess this was due to technical issues and various… bureaucratic reasons and not because of laziness or fatigue of the authors.

As for the acting… it was just fantastic. No awkwardly standing actors with absurd dialogues acted out in a manner of four-year-old. Even the "cute" (i.e. kitschy) ones were bearable, the speech and expression human - so refreshing!
Love and destiny is quite often more about showing than telling, as it is supposed to be with visual media. (Chang Chen was in this regard a treat, of course - to convey so much with so little - truly wonderful!) The only sad thing is that I find it so strange, even though it should be the standard for acting profession, should it not?
As for the chemistry, I enjoyed it quite a lot, whether they were silly, flirting, serious or in love. Especially their interaction in ep 50 and 51. Big applaud to the actors and the director & screenwriter for embodying the whole thing without much description (that came latter from other characters, unfortunately... but still) or even dialogue.
On the side note – I was surprised to note that so many viewers were unhappy about ML appearance, or age. I think, as many others do, he was perfect for this role, which is the most important. As for his looks, I personally enjoyed that he doesn’t look like a 15-yo lead singer from a boy band but still - I think his (or anybody else´s) youth, beauty or attractiveness should not have such an impact on rating a show.

Overall, it is a worthy addition to the world of Chinese fantasy drama that should set standards for acting and character development; if nothing else.

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Watch for the romance, try to ignore the rest

Mediocre show with some intereseting moments, overabundance of sweetness and domestic bliss as well as suprising amount of brutality.

Storyline and characters are mostly mediocre, the level of intrigues by various baddies far from intelectual masterminds. This doesnt have to be a bad thing - a charming proof of their inteligence. Sometimes they felt like a necessary trope to add - e.g. evil concubine. Othertimes, the capricious nature of the bad guys was almost refreshing or on occasion even felt realistic (man in high position who are not eveil mastermind but rather short-sighted scared fools making lot of emotional decisions).

Unfortunately, the shows starts quickly favouring telling and not showing, which leads to tiresome amount of expository monologues or various repetitive dialogues used as characterisation tool (not always supported by the actions of said characters).

And then there is the blasted ep 17 that made me furious by its sheer idiocy. Well, if it was to be a proof of their youthful ignorance, I apologise.


SLIGHT SPOILER - mostly angry rant about the level of idiocy this show can try to present as sound economical thinking

Family moves to a different region for various reasons with the intention to reestablish their business and redevelop the region in very modern sustianable manner - crating a proper infrastructure that would make trading easier, creating various job opportunities in this new underdeveloped region etc etc etc. Yay.
There is lots and lots of talks how thousands of people depend on their business. This relocation is done not just by the main family, but the branches and all their affiliates. Then, suddenly, the main couple gets possesed by the spirit of student communists from the early 20th century and decide to give their wealth away to the governemnt (and you know the government is good because the local homeless community doesnt complain about them - naturally, why would they complain about governemnt that cannot provide them with shelter and food despite their refugee status) as a pennance for their sins of being evil burgoise merchants. This action is framed as something to help the region. Because, naturally, one-time donation accomapnied by aforementioned thousans of people who followed the main family to this new region with promise of jobs and home and are now without said jobs and home (their employer deciding to quit) is the way to go when one tries to improve underdeveloped region.

end of spoiler rant


Acting - nothing to keep you glued to the seat but not bad. Just be prepared for endless talks. Romance between the main couple - tooth-rotting sweetness, be ready for the most pleasant of diabetes.

And to cleanse your palate, you have the cruelty of the bad guys and rather brutal depiction of war and its consequences (at least in contrast to the harmonoius romance strylines) - which is a refreshing alterantive to the usual heroism. Given the drama´s tendency to grand motivational speeches, one tries to see some idea behind this and for the sake of my nerves, i decided to go with pacifism (a good thing). or maybe it´s just a tool to up the drama and hardships of the good guys. Most likely both are correct, even though not both delivered with the same strenght.

Overall, it´s not a bad show, if you concentrate on the romance and the domestic bliss and dont bother to think too much about the grand narrative and economical or societal theories presented here. :) and are fine with charming amount of ageism (mother-in-law is fortyfive and can´t stop whining about being old and useless. Well, at least she is not in her thirties, so some progress has been made!

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