1
burhaa aadmi
Hic Sunt Dracones
REALLY Good TW Drama, but...
This was EASILY the best Taiwanese drama I have seen in years. It was so good that I bumped it up half a point. At the start of the final episode I was going to score it 8/10 but there was such a pleasant surprise during the final episode I gave it 8.5.
I started this drama for Ivy Chen and Roy Qiu, but I stuck it out for Lian Man Shu. Her performance as Mei Ji was awesome, as was the writing of the character. That character and Jenny really set this drama apart from conventional tropes, and it was the resolution of Jenny's arc in the final episode that prompted me to increase my score.
This was a female-centric drama that focused on friendship. The music was awesome (I especially love that they had a lot of Italian music), but it was the writing and acting that made this joy to watch. The drama went a little soggy toward the end, just a little, but I was pleased that it did avoid the Makjang excesses which often mark the final quarter of Taiwanese dramas.
Nevertheless the slight sogginess in the final six is one of the things that caused me to mark the drama down. Had the drama been 24 45-minute episodes, it could have been a 9/10 , had it been 20 it could even have been a 9.5/10.
The other problem the drama had was with the central lead. One of the tags associated with the drama here at MDL is "smart female lead", but for the first 15 to 18 episodes, the female lead was someone who thought she was smart but consistently made bad decisions, showed poor judgement and refused to accept that anyone knew better than her about anything. She treated the two people who had invested in her business as nothing more than employees who had to do what she said, and as people whose opinions were of no worth. This was profoundly irritating, especially because it was presented as if she did know what she was doing despite the fact that so many of her decisions were ill thought out and generated negative consequences.
Despite those niggles I am very glad I watched this drama, and I highly recommend it as an example of what Taiwanese dramas can be when good writing is paired with very good acting.
I started this drama for Ivy Chen and Roy Qiu, but I stuck it out for Lian Man Shu. Her performance as Mei Ji was awesome, as was the writing of the character. That character and Jenny really set this drama apart from conventional tropes, and it was the resolution of Jenny's arc in the final episode that prompted me to increase my score.
This was a female-centric drama that focused on friendship. The music was awesome (I especially love that they had a lot of Italian music), but it was the writing and acting that made this joy to watch. The drama went a little soggy toward the end, just a little, but I was pleased that it did avoid the Makjang excesses which often mark the final quarter of Taiwanese dramas.
Nevertheless the slight sogginess in the final six is one of the things that caused me to mark the drama down. Had the drama been 24 45-minute episodes, it could have been a 9/10 , had it been 20 it could even have been a 9.5/10.
The other problem the drama had was with the central lead. One of the tags associated with the drama here at MDL is "smart female lead", but for the first 15 to 18 episodes, the female lead was someone who thought she was smart but consistently made bad decisions, showed poor judgement and refused to accept that anyone knew better than her about anything. She treated the two people who had invested in her business as nothing more than employees who had to do what she said, and as people whose opinions were of no worth. This was profoundly irritating, especially because it was presented as if she did know what she was doing despite the fact that so many of her decisions were ill thought out and generated negative consequences.
Despite those niggles I am very glad I watched this drama, and I highly recommend it as an example of what Taiwanese dramas can be when good writing is paired with very good acting.
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