Flawed, irritating at times, but worthwhile
This Drama had a lot of really good points to it. I had been waiting for it for more than a year, after seeing Zhou Yu Tong's great performance in Begin Again, and it did not disappoint. Her performance her as a very relaisitic character was impressive. As someone with a congenital disability, I enjoyed watching her character's arc from that perspective. It was also great that there was no trace of maudlin sympathy for her or excusing/grlorifying her personality flaws because of a 'she's disabled, let her off' kind of approach.
That lack of maudlin sympathy though was taken to extremes in the many scenes related to death and mourning. The "we're all gonna die, suck it up don't cry" mantra was megaphoned too often for my tastes. Others have accused the writer of doing a sloppy job, and that may be true, but having seen the dead hand (ha!) of SARFT at work for a decade now, my first reaction to such unsubtle preaching is to suspect state-mandate.
The other thing I really, REALLY hted were the constant references to the virtue of being fair-skinned. In a Drama that kept preaching against prejudice, to hear many characters including the FL repeatedly spouting THIS prejudice was really irksome
Despite that, there was a lot of very real and relatable human emotion on display. The leads were very flawed and complicated and that was great. The show also suprised me with it's repeated messages about gender equality - chauvinist misogyny is the norm in moden C Dramas, so this was very refreshing. I was REALLY surprised at what seemed to be a VERY clear "I'm gay" moment for one character. Given the crackdown obn BL Dramasa either SARFT missed it or they decided to let it pass.
I absolutely LOVED Wan Peng' role as the FL's BFF and the young actor playing her little sister was superb. Given the realistically open ending, the more extreme ending that was teased at the beginning of the final episode would not have been out of place either.
That lack of maudlin sympathy though was taken to extremes in the many scenes related to death and mourning. The "we're all gonna die, suck it up don't cry" mantra was megaphoned too often for my tastes. Others have accused the writer of doing a sloppy job, and that may be true, but having seen the dead hand (ha!) of SARFT at work for a decade now, my first reaction to such unsubtle preaching is to suspect state-mandate.
The other thing I really, REALLY hted were the constant references to the virtue of being fair-skinned. In a Drama that kept preaching against prejudice, to hear many characters including the FL repeatedly spouting THIS prejudice was really irksome
Despite that, there was a lot of very real and relatable human emotion on display. The leads were very flawed and complicated and that was great. The show also suprised me with it's repeated messages about gender equality - chauvinist misogyny is the norm in moden C Dramas, so this was very refreshing. I was REALLY surprised at what seemed to be a VERY clear "I'm gay" moment for one character. Given the crackdown obn BL Dramasa either SARFT missed it or they decided to let it pass.
I absolutely LOVED Wan Peng' role as the FL's BFF and the young actor playing her little sister was superb. Given the realistically open ending, the more extreme ending that was teased at the beginning of the final episode would not have been out of place either.
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