1.Obsessed
2.Stay Away from Me
3.My Hero
all three are good though but this one takes the cake.
the actor who portrayed Jiang Jin Teng was AMAZING, his acting is so believable...i can't describe him good enough that my best description will still fall short...it will still be an understatement of how convinced i am on how he portrayed his role. I am not even surprised that I find him very attractive...
Shao Yi Chen was also so well played. Can I just have them both? will be rewatching this soon. So very worth it.
highly recommended.
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JKH is love his acting his facial expressions his everything he never disappoints. the lead female can be somehow( veryyyyyy) very annoying but not to the extent of affecting the drama, if u like her you can ignore her annoying parts.
the story is wonderful and extremely well written, it has many plot twists that will keep you off your seat, it opens your eyes on many facts as it makes you fall for the so called "bad people" (for whom i always fall anyway lol) , there isn't a single boring moment , there was one" unrealistic" scene but you can simply ignore it, the ending is even more thrilling, i don't know how to describe this piece of art, it is just DAEBAK , worth watching and re-watching a million times.
my fav OST was WOUND still on playlist
Overall, if you are still hesitating pleaseeeeeee do not , there is no regret here. and thank me later.
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ACTING/CAST: Nice cast, they do a good decent job acting. BTW: I used the cast names as they are in the list. I don't know Chinese, Pinyin, or anything else.
MUSIC: There's a real cool song sung by Xin that I wish was translated. The video I watched had audio quality issues so I'm not really how to grade this.
REWATCH VALUE: Nah.
OVERALL: The best part of this series are the BL moments. The rest was rather boring. You might be tempted to watch the fan-edited clips that omit everything but the BL. It's not bad to do so but the boring bits do add overall to the story and explain the funky ending. The worse part about the BL is that it's all one-sided romantic love. Xin is "waiting" on Chu to fall in love with him (do people really do this?). It's true, Chu loves Xin but "not in that way." Super annoying. And to have to sit through 4.5 hours of it!? Xin deserved better than that. Oh yeah, the ending: it's not bad or good, just open ended, like a cliff-hanger. Nobody dies. It just...ends. This story is simply unfinished. Also apparently the first 8 episodes deal with Chu and Xin, the second 8 episodes are a different story/cast. I can't seem to find those though.
TL;DR: Well, if you want to watch a slow, one-sided, unrequited burn that ends abruptly, this is your ticket.
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Goodness. This was beyond disappointing. I felt like this was a typical J-drama: insecure & innocent girl falls in love with a deadbeat guy. The acting was great; the story itself is what I have a problem with. The female lead (Nao) constantly doubts herself and whenever she has a problem with the male lead (Uehara), rather than going to him and talking about it, she rants on and on to her friends. Uehara is just as problematic. He talks about how he likes her but then constantly pushes her away (for not apparent reason at all). Acting was fine, but there really wasn't anything outstanding about this drama or story.
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Please stick with me while I go on a tangent. I promise it is very related.
I have been watching Japanese Dramas the longest out of all the dramas I have been watching. (11 years now? No...Yes, Oh MY God, 11 years...I'm getting old, holy crap.) When I first started watching them, no one watched Korean Dramas. I mean, some people did, don't get me wrong, but Japanese Dramas were where it was at. The early, mid-2000's were the Japanese Drama hey day. And then...not so much. I can't honestly say what happened. Perhaps they were simply steam rolled by the tank that was Hallyu. Perhaps they hadn't changed in quality at all and this whole thing is entirely in my own head.
But in my head, it seemed like Japan got bored. They just didn't want to any more. They didn't want to long heart felt speeches, almost cringe-y except for the complete earnestness. They didn't want the romance, the relationships. Rom com after rom com tanked until they pretty much stopped making them. Except for a few notable exceptions, everything was work place dramas and police procedurals and even if the mind was there, the heart wasn't.
Basically, it was boring.
But this show, and the more and more that are coming out like it (9 to 5, A girl & Three Sweethearts, the plethora of manga based shows) seems to me like Japan putting its embarrassing heart back into it. This show made me feel something with out being completely ridiculous. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't super realistic, but it was vulnerable in a way Japanese Dramas haven't been in a long time.
Japan hasn't got it's groove back, but it's shaking, and I'm excited. I feel like Japan entered a Drama dialectic and now we're approaching it's synthesis.
Okay, now I'm definitely over thinking this.
Point is, perhaps it isn't everyone's cup of tea. Like most Japanese shows there is zero, absolutely zero, subtly.
The dialogue is fast and if you aren't into the dialogue, you just aren't going to be into the show, which is fair. There isn't a ton else going on here.
But, if you're like me and you were into the dialogue, you can feel it's heart. And that's it. That's the whole shebang, it was honest and I could feel it's heart and loved it for it. The feels man. That's why we're all here in the first place, no?
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That disappointment aside, I still think dropping it wasn't a bad choice. The shift between the 4th and the 5th episode is too much. It's like the writer was hit by creative inspiration. They had this story as a base and then went to the moon with it. Which is wonderful, really. I would love it if more writers took more risks with their stories. But as the writer went off to the moon, they needed to take us with and they didn't. It wasn't just hard to follow, which would have been more forgivable, but honestly jarring. Jarring's not good. Jarring is dropping.
Besides that, the Pretty was good. The actors were great, even if Seol Hyun was a little green and awkward, the two actors really stepped in and then none of that mattered. I was surprised and impressed by the sexuality (as a tangible feeling of lust, not showing actual sex) displayed in the first couple of episodes, which Korea seems reluctant to show in most adult dramas, let alone ones based around teenagers. But still I wish they'd show it more in more Vampire type shows, as that's half the appeal of the lore, the sexual tension around it.
I can't recommend the show because of how it doesn't take you with it, but I can't be mad at it because it does everything else so well.
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This is not ISWAK 2.0. ISWAK was my favorite adaptation of the manga/anime, but this is a great adaptation! I love the casting. Esther Wu is absolutely adorable, and Dino Lee plays a GREAT Zhi Shu. I literally fell in love with each of the characters in this adaptation. I also like the special twists they added to this story - the Old Lunar Tree and the significance behind Yue Qin's name. Yes, Yue Qin's character is pretty ridiculous...but that goes for the character in ALL of the adaptations - the character of Kotoko is just like that. I really enjoyed how we really got to see Zhi Shu's feelings develop for Yue Qin, and I feel like we were able to get into his head a bit more compared to other adaptations.
I would recommend this to anyone who has an open mind and to anyone who isn't going to criticize this for not being ISWAK 2.0. Whether or not you compare this to other adaptations, this is overall a wonderful drama. Great production, great cast.
I prefer the second part of the story compared to the first, so I AM DYING for a second season. Fingers are definitely crossed.
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Total run time: approx 5h 23m. Each episode is around 18-22 minutes long but have 5 minutes of credits and in some cases another minute of what happened last episode. Take that all out and the run time is a lot shorter. Easy to binge in one setting with the fast-forward button.
ACTING/CAST: Same basic cast that is in Love Is More Than a Word. So it was nice to see them in different parts. They all do a great job. I totally loved Lu Zhou in both dramas and in this one he's a gun-wielding bad-ass. Also, the villian, Gu Han, from The Fairy Fox makes a cameo in one episode; see if you can spot him.
MUSIC: It was great actually. It made this show seem like a sweeping epic.
REWATCH VALUE: Of course! This is a great show with so much intrigue I need to watch it again.
OVERALL: Amazing production value. Shot in full 1080p! The sets and costume design are spectacular. It's a gorgeous production. I wish each episode was longer: credits just chew up so much screen time. For those looking for the BL aspect, there isn't anything overt but maybe something will happen in season 2.
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The beginning of the series is slow, as they really go in depth with the main lead's character and career developments. But I dropped the series at first because I found her character to be unrealistic, as she's ever so hopeful in a world of corrupt politicians--funny, because this becomes the point of the series. How do the four main leads change as they try to bring justice in society/what kind of leaders do they develop into? Can Chen Yi Jun remain as hopeful and persistent throughout? After picking up the series, I began to root for Chen Yi Jun's "unrealistic" idealism myself.
The last ~three episodes were rushed and it felt like some scenes were missing, but didn't leave many unanswered questions, in a good way.
I would say the best part of the series was the amazing character development, as you really begin to feel for the different characters by the later half of the series, whether it's fortunate/unfortunate how they've developed.
Overall, the series was very inspiring to watch if you're interested in social justice/politics. Unlike other political dramas, this isn't just about corrupt political dealings and unlike other coming of age dramas, this isn't just about romance/family/career.
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PLOT
Interesting: immortal girl trying to find another incarnation of her first love.
However, although enjoyable, the story didn’t flow as well as it could and the developments seemed a little rapid/disjointed at times. On the plus side, there were no obvious annoying or out of place events.
CHARACTERS
I dare to disagree with the review above. It was not the best drama I watched; but it was quite nice. It certainly didn’t feel as if the female lead was a twelve-year old whose only life aspiration was finding a boyfriend. I admit, she was quite capricious (especially at the beginning, this changed with time), but it makes sense from a perspective of someone who has been traversing the earth for 1000 years, who got to experience almost everything that life had to offer, except for a peaceful life with the one she loves. Furthermore, since she looked like a normal 20-year old, it would seem weird if she suddenly exposed her accumulated life-wisdom (but if you watch carefully, she was quite canny under-cover).
The male lead’s character (Shi Yi) was ok, but a little uninteresting. He was quite reserved and didn’t really do much… Second lead (Li Zhe) was of more interest – he understood Xue Ji very well, was always protecting her and seemed quite capable in life, in spite of his own problems…
The second couple was also fun to watch…
ACTORS
I really liked Zhou Yu Tong in Love Through a Millennium and this show didn’t disappoint me. One could argue that she was not very expressive in this drama, but in a way that seemed quite appropriate to me – at the end of the day she is a 1000-year old girl, so had a lot of opportunities to learn to hide her emotions and not to expose her inner suffering…
Song Wei Long is also a very promising actor, but at times I felt he was quite stiff. This made sense at the beginning, but was a little over the top as the story progressed.
The supporting actors were also very good.
OST
Very nice, one of the better ones I heard in a while. Check out the song??? (Gang gang hao)
There is a full OST list on Chinese wiki (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%88%91%E8%88%87%E4%BD%A0%E7%9A%84%E5%85%89%E5%B9%B4%E8%B7%9D%E9%9B%A2).
LANGUAGE
Sadly, to date, no English subtitles are available. However, if you have a basic grasp of Chinese, I recommend to have a go at this show – the language is not very difficult, and a lot of events make sense even without understanding everything that is being said (but I recommend spending some time to translate some of the phrases in the first 1-2 eps to understand the issue with the family politics and the inheritance).
REWATCH VALUE
Not too high, because of the simple story line. The romantic scenes are not very abundant and quite scattered, so if you like to rewatch for the sake of those, it wouldn’t be very convenient. However, the episodes are very short and the shots (both outdoor and indoor) are really beautiful, so it might be possible after all…
In summary:
Strong points:
- beautiful cinematography (this show is truly beautiful to watch!)
- interesting story
- very nice OST
Weaker points:
- not a breathtaking acting – actors could be more expressive…
- did not make the most of the story concept
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The rich male lead is an egoistic bastard who thinks of women as possessions. He doesn't trust Chuxia, not even tries, to be honest. the other characters are all bland and the storyline gets worse as it moves on.
Guys, if you are looking for a show with a male chauvinist lead and nothing but the same old and worn out cliches, this is it.
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Story:
The story is paper-thin. It's a series of mixed vignettes from the anime and manga. When pieced together, it really doesn't make a lot of sense. The characters' motivations lack grounding. Their behaviors changed without much provocation, usually just taking one instance to dictate a change in behavior. The dialogue is really awkward. The scenes were badly thought out, and I can tell that the budget was low due to the poor production values and set quality. The explosion of colors will assault your senses. In the original anime and manga, they wore school uniforms. In the movie, we get ugly, ugly, unfashionable (because I'm reviewing it in 2017) clothes. If they used school uniforms, this movie wouldn't appear so dated if you watched it today.
Acting:
It was bad. I mean, really cheesy, over-acting, bad. I don't know if they wanted to reflect the wild, over-reactions that the anime executed perfectly, but you have to understand one thing: THOSE WERE DRAWINGS. Exaggeration in anime can be, and most often is, funny. If you try that with a real-life human being, the actor is gonna look stupid. The characters weren't fleshed-out and come across as either stupid, fickle and senseless. This includes the two leads. They flip-flop from one emotion to another without reason. In the anime, the characters were really fleshed-out because of the time that was given to them. It was understandable that they would feel those emotions and come to terms with their decisions. In this movie, it was a real mess. A lot of that is due to time constraints, but mostly, it's due to bad acting. I couldn't care less about these characters.
Music:
Forgettable
Re-watch Value:
If you want to suffer a stroke, go ahead and watch it again.
Over-all, this movie was bad. I can't help compare it to Ore Monogatari. Though not really a cinematic masterpiece in itself, the story was at least sevicable, and the actors were really invested in the performance. Again, this was a really bad movie. It was a bad adaptation of the anime and manga. It was just.... really... Horrible. Don't watch it.
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