If it doesn´t concern you, you will watch a great drama.
The first episode is a bit slow, but after that its really great. The story gets better and better and the relationships getting complicated, but overall all the charas are so original (especially Joe Chengs chara, really cute).
The acting and music is good.
From time to time i watch my favorite scenes from this drama, so the rewatch value is really high.
One of the best taiwanese drama that i ever saw. I really recommend it.
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I've watched all the ISWAK dramas, and wasn't too impressed with Joe Cheng's acting there, and if I hadn't seen this wouldn't have believed he was as good as he is based on those dramas alone. He is able to convincingly portray the range of emotions that are quite demanding for his character in this drama. He basically carries this drama, I have to say. (And I don't say this because I am a fan of his, because I wasn't based on his ISWAK role, but you'll have to watch a few episodes to understand!)
There is a good dose of romance, enough to make you feel that warm fuzzy feeling. However, I also found there was too much crying for too little reasons in order to tie the characters together. Everyone loves a good emotional tug in a drama, but sometimes you wanted to shout "Stop being such a crybaby over nothing!" to the characters.
As with many dramas, it could have been 16 episodes, but I understand the emphasis was on character development in this drama, and many shorter dramas rush this.
In summary, I would watch this for the great acting job that Joe Cheng did, the oddity of characters, and the different viewpoints that are brought in a romance drama.
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ACTING: the actors was very believable. you creid and laughed with them and the chemistry between the actors was very believable.
MUSIC: i don't rember much about the music
REWATCH: you well go back and rewatch this drama or go and see your favorite clips
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Very fresh and new
I watched this drama years ago. The story was weird at first, but as the characters developed, i got to see a thorough and elaborate story. The family is not functional, and so are the kids. The relationships are weird to begin with, but they grow up through the series.I haven't watched many Taiwanese dramas as of today, but i dare say this one is a must-watch, despite it's age and somewhat mediocre production( which was ok for the time it aired).
Overall, a delicate yet entertaining drama.
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This review may contain spoilers
A masterpiece of the twisted and scandalous...
This drama is a very strange blend of deep psychological exploration and taboo romance. Because of this reason alone, it will only attract a certain kind of viewer. Not everyone finds psychological analysis interesting. And not everyone can hang with a story that includes incestuous feelings and actions.Unlike many dramas, the main strength of this one is it's screenplay. It is original, the dialogue is thoughtful and intelligent and at times wickedly hot. The characters are full of dimension, and the writer makes them come alive. The dynamics between characters are complex. The psychological insights are simple, profound, and treated with great sensitivity.
This is a story about a bunch of batshit crazy people. They're rich, for starters. The drama is very good at imparting to the viewer the kind of claustrophobia that rich/famous people live inside of. They rarely leave their house. Most scenes are in someone's bedroom, in the living room, in the kitchen, in the backyard. When they go on vacation, they just go to another house (their villla). The only animal that makes an appearance in the drama are horses. Which is a good parallel of the characters. They spend most of their time either in a little stable, or running trying to be free. When they leave their cocoon to go out to eat or to experience a new situation, they inevitably have unpleasant experiences with "outsiders"... this teaches them further that they are better off staying at home. Even within their home, there is a feeling of people continually trying to invade their privacy for one reason or another.
The characters all handle this strain by retreating into themselves.... and then the FL comes along and draws them each out of themselves, making them into healthier people with stronger loving bonds.
Because they are all perpetually rich, isolated, and withdrawn, they don't perceive themselves as abnormal. They don't have people in their lives to compare themselves to. Normal people are just "outsiders", and their opinions are not only immaterial, but unknowable. So the crazy is treated as normal.
SPOILERS NOW.....
What kind of crazy, well a crazy absent-parent actress mother. One brother whose girlfriend died and he went completely off the deep end and is living in the wake of his own deep grief, and becomes attracted to his newly arrived sister.... but only when he's drunk. Another brother who is likewise attracted to his newly discovered sister, and also attracted to his brother and dresses like the dead girlfriend to get his attention. An older sister who thinks all of this is perfectly normal and amusing, and enables their behavior.
Each of these characters is thoughtful, sensitive, intelligent in their own way. They have a lot of depth. Yet the perversion is always there running through everything. Sprinkled sparingly through somewhat normal scenes, theres scenes like.... the brothers arguing over which of them is going to take their sister's virginity.
It's shocking to the viewer, and yet the show plays it off as normal. Which makes it somehow even more shocking. And yet if you are into the twisted romances.... it's just so damn hot. Like 3rd degree brain-burns level hot. You will NEVER see this in another asian drama. And the best part is they treat the subject with so much maturity and delicacy, not like a joke or an embarrassment or a tool to be used for shock value alone. This drama is NOT for a psychologically squeamish viewer, and NOT for someone uncomfortable with the topic of sex, because so much of this drama revolves around the subject of sex.
The acting is somewhat amateur, but the actors all have a natural talent that shows through. So you could call it good "bad acting". But yeah, the acting is bad. Especially the ML. The screenplay is such a powerhouse that even saddled by the ML's novice acting performance, it still delivers. Soundtrack and OST doesn't intrude much on the show. A little bit at times, but for the mostpart it was fine. It has more silence than most dramas, and that in itself is such a great relief for the viewer who might be tired of overproduced garbage.
Some people are going to find this boring, because it's mainly dialogue-driven. The interpersonal relationships are the focus, and there is lots and lots of dialogue, most of it involving one degree or another of psychoanalytic conversation. They are also going to find it boring, because the characters themselves are bored. They're all so wounded that nothing from the outside world reaches them anymore.
I give this drama a 9+ because you will NOT find anything else like it in the world of drama, and I'm not kidding here. It is so different from anything else I've ever seen. And some of the scenes achieve a level of hotness you can rarely find in romance dramas, yet without being cheesy or explicit. It has massive imperfections, yes. But it also has a vision and a depth and a sick hotness that leave a lasting impression to say the least.
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The most unforgivable thing a drama can do, is to be boring
There are many things wrong with this drama. The incestual themes and the "fat" shaming (fat in quotation marks because the fl is in no way fat. Is in fact quite thin), being just the tip of the ice berg. I can however forgive a drama for being taboo, or controversial. I have no problem watching a piece of media about something that I'm not okay with in real life. Dramas about controversial topics can be thought-provoking and interesting. I think that is the point of filming stories like these; to question why something is wrong or immoral and to see if there are situations were a wrong can make a right. Not in this case however. This drama is just boring.The story revolves around a girl whose grandma passed away, so she moves in with her mom and her half-siblings. Unfortunately though she ends up falling in love with her half-brother.
Before I began watching it, I found myself wondering how they were going to turn such a revolting premise into something we viewers can accept. I will admit to watching this out of sheer morbid curiosity.
I quickly found out however that the biggest sin this drama made, is not the story itself, but how they executed it. After the first 10 or so episodes, the rest is just like watching paint dry. The drama dragged on for way too long, the story repeated itself a million times over. With an endless amount of crying, second-guessing, pushing someone away just to pull them closer in the very next scene. Oh, how I wish I had just stopped watching this after the first episode.
If you are like me and likely to press play on taboo dramas such as this, just out of curiosity. Trust me and stop now. There is nothing worth watching about this drama. The acting is bad, the writing is bland and repeats itself over and over. It's probably one of the most boring dramas I've ever watched. And they do not manage to turn the controversial storyline into something a reasonable person might accept. Also, I generally see myself as quite an empathetic person, but watching the fl cry for the 1000th time, made me want to punch her in the face.
The only reason I did not give this drama a 1 star is because at least the first few episodes of this train-wreck were somewhat entertaining to see. If you do decide to start watching this, my tip to you is: As soon as the drama starts getting boring, stop watching. It does not get better.
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The Worst Drama I Have EVER SUFFERED THROUGH
Like one of the other reviewers I watched this drama some time ago, so I do not remember any details. I'm only writing a review because I don't see how anyone could rate it any higher than a 1. I don't care if you're a fan of one of the actors or not. I watched this because at the time I was really into Ella. I had just finished re-watching Hana Kimi and Down With Love. A friend and I thought we'd watch another one of Ella's dramas and she picked The Rose. That was over 10 years ago and I have never let her pick again.While the story is interesting, it is poorly executed and the acting, especially that done by Joe Cheng was horrid. Absolutely horrid. It don't remember anything about the music. All I truly know is that I loathed it. It took me the better part of a year to finish this drama. That's how bad it was. A year to watch 26 episodes. In contrast I just finished a 100 episode drama in a week. I wanted to make it the first drama I ever dropped, but my friend kept begging me to stay with it. In the end she blamed me for letting her choose such a horrible drama. This drama is just...I just... Seriously, it's bad y'all. Really Really Bad! Suffer at your own risk. If I could score it in the negative, I would.
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