Agarwood Like a Dream (2024)

When You Only Watch for the Male Lead

Admittedly I gave this as high a rating as I did because of Li Jiu Lin. I love this guy. He is gorgeous. He has such an expressive face; he doesn't need a lot of talk for you to know what he thinks or feels - and that body! Wow!

Didn't care much for the FL, nor the SML, or the SFL. Their characters were weak and useless. Their story arcs were sloppy at best. The story itself was vague and going nowhere fast. It had potential, but the writers do what writers seem to do best these days, made a mockery of it. There wasn't even any real sizzle between the lead couple despite such a smoking hot ML.

Talk about not tying up loose ends? The SFL got away scot-free with her shenanigans. She even wrangled the ML into her bed, which made me sick to my stomach!

The direction of the writing and quality of Chinese dramas these days is falling fast. No matter how good looking, appealing, or even talented the actors are, they can only perform the roles they are given. I stick mostly with period dramas anymore because the modern-day ones are fraught with domestic violence and abusive relationships.

Is anyone paying attention to the rapidly falling standards of these dramas? Doesn't seem so.

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At last a good series with Li Jiu Lin

At last a good series with Li Jiu Lin. Thanks to the director Jiang Xuan Yi for having directed him in a way his talents are displayed. Since his great success in ‘Decreed by fate’ he had received only poor roles of the big guy with no expression, whom lusty women want to touch all over … What a shame! In ‘Eaglewood as a dream’ he has the opportunity to express his strong and gentle character and it is worth it. This series has also many beautiful aspects. First the ladies in front of him are beautiful as it should be in front of such a handsome man. Also, thanks to the production for taking us to settings still unfamiliar, rustic and elegant decors. The cast is perfect, including very charming children appearing here and there as the main leads in their childhood. Finally I found the plot interesting, pleasantly surprising and over all coherent, a quality rare these days when to follow a popular 40 ep series we have to shut down our reasoning because of so much implausibility and endure a descent into more and more morbid plots when the imagination of the writer got dry in the middle of the series. Here during those short 20 episode, the flow remains fine and we are even given a happy ending. A real treat !

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