The Arc of Life (2021)

Friendship, Family, and Love for Career Women

I watched Arc of Life as it aired and honestly looked forward to it every week. This is one of those Taiwanese dramas that feature strong female leads in their later 20's/30's at a crossroads with their career and purpose in life, but it is well-written with unique aspects that set it apart from other dramas (and even from its book source material). It often focuses on making tough decisions in life - whether at work, at home with family, or in platonic and romantic relationships.

It was so refreshing watching the women all work together instead of tear each other apart, the music was perfect (I am a fan of Accusefive), and the directing and cinematography was well shot and well paced. The writing did weaken near the end; however, I found watching to the last minute to be very rewarding in terms of character development.

My favorite aspect of this drama was certainly the characters. The three women - Xiao Niao, Xia Zhi, and Mei Ji - are all very different but compliment one another. They do begin as tropes - the ice princess, the naive one, and the dumb eye candy - but the writing shifts to show that they have more underneath, and the three grow a friendship of respect for one another. But their respect extends also to other "antagonistic" characters - with our leads often taking the high road, instead of bitter bickering like in other dramas. Because of that, I found myself connecting with the characters and rooting for their development.

I also appreciated how the drama touches upon so many different aspects of life - rich parents, broke parents, divorced parents, dead parents, children, children with disabilities, estranged children, corporate life, ethics at work, environmentalism, etc. It introduced the different topics naturally without feeling forced.

I will say, I came into this drama as a fan of the main leads, Roy Chiu, Ruby Lin, and Ivy Chen, and found myself loving the acting and chemistry with the rest of the cast, with Jian Man Shu and Li Yuan Yuan standing out to me as great actors on their part. The entire cast is full of seasoned actors and new faces that blend together well, never over-acting or seeming out of place.

I wouldn't necessarily go back to rewatch this drama, but I do recommend it as a high-quality Taiwanese drama and I very much appreciated seeing each character's growth - especially Xia Zhi :)

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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.

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