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If you get past the experimental vertical format, it’s actually not that awful
I -almost- skipped this hot potato because of how much hate it’s been getting, which, tbh totally understandable because it feels unpalatable if you’re not ready for it. Same feeling when you think you’re eating sour cream and onion chips but turns out they’re shrimp flavored.
I don’t know what the thought process was behind the high intensity vertical style cinematography and storytelling, but you can tell the director was really trying to make a splash with the trendiest new thang. There was some thought there, I guess, but tragically it went sideways. The boken and light refraction filters are jarring, the dramatic zooms are hilarious and the 1000 intensity level of every emotion is just so funny.
That being said though, I’m only on episode 3 and it’s already cooling off into a better pace and we’re beginning to see deeper flavors of emotions develop through the conflicts that are being set up between characters. I still hate the blur filter but not as much as I hated it on “The Best Thing” which apparently people loved and thought it added a “soft effect”. No, it just makes me think my eyesight is bad. Idk why people literally need blurry images to think something is “soft”, there’s plenty of other ways to go about it rather than making me question my eyesight.
Still though, I think fundamentally the emotional core of the story is logical, consistent and coherent. Additionally ZLH and WCR’s acting is top notch like, ngl, I’m also watching Key to the Phoenix heart rn and man, it’s so bland, I don’t understand its hype. Despite all this drama’s flaws, ZLH is just… so much better I mean, his eyebrows move! He doesn’t have to speak for me to know his feelings. It’s so great when actors can do that.
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Edit// Okay, catching up now and I'm early posting my update because this drama is getting a lot of unnecessary hate, I think. It is tonally 180 degrees from ZLH's role in PoJ and probably closer to his role in Our Generation. Which, by the way, I LOVED. He is so good at playing psychologically inflicted (and conflicted) characters. All the emotions are at 200% in this drama. There is no reprieve. I don't watch enough C-Dramas to know if they have a makjang genre, but if they did, this show would be top of the list makjang. In that light, the vertical style narrative makes sense because TikTok style videos are basically of the same caliber of high intensity drama, clipped cadence and insanity. Wang Chu Ran's character is also unhinged. She is too broken to make decent life choices. Qing Yi's mother is batshit crazy like... what is wrong with her, his adoptive father is basically a dictator. There is no character at 50% here.
So if you're starting this show, I'd shift my expectations from "will it finally make sense?" to "how hard does sh*t hit the fan today?"
I don’t know what the thought process was behind the high intensity vertical style cinematography and storytelling, but you can tell the director was really trying to make a splash with the trendiest new thang. There was some thought there, I guess, but tragically it went sideways. The boken and light refraction filters are jarring, the dramatic zooms are hilarious and the 1000 intensity level of every emotion is just so funny.
That being said though, I’m only on episode 3 and it’s already cooling off into a better pace and we’re beginning to see deeper flavors of emotions develop through the conflicts that are being set up between characters. I still hate the blur filter but not as much as I hated it on “The Best Thing” which apparently people loved and thought it added a “soft effect”. No, it just makes me think my eyesight is bad. Idk why people literally need blurry images to think something is “soft”, there’s plenty of other ways to go about it rather than making me question my eyesight.
Still though, I think fundamentally the emotional core of the story is logical, consistent and coherent. Additionally ZLH and WCR’s acting is top notch like, ngl, I’m also watching Key to the Phoenix heart rn and man, it’s so bland, I don’t understand its hype. Despite all this drama’s flaws, ZLH is just… so much better I mean, his eyebrows move! He doesn’t have to speak for me to know his feelings. It’s so great when actors can do that.
----
Edit// Okay, catching up now and I'm early posting my update because this drama is getting a lot of unnecessary hate, I think. It is tonally 180 degrees from ZLH's role in PoJ and probably closer to his role in Our Generation. Which, by the way, I LOVED. He is so good at playing psychologically inflicted (and conflicted) characters. All the emotions are at 200% in this drama. There is no reprieve. I don't watch enough C-Dramas to know if they have a makjang genre, but if they did, this show would be top of the list makjang. In that light, the vertical style narrative makes sense because TikTok style videos are basically of the same caliber of high intensity drama, clipped cadence and insanity. Wang Chu Ran's character is also unhinged. She is too broken to make decent life choices. Qing Yi's mother is batshit crazy like... what is wrong with her, his adoptive father is basically a dictator. There is no character at 50% here.
So if you're starting this show, I'd shift my expectations from "will it finally make sense?" to "how hard does sh*t hit the fan today?"
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