Embrace in the Dark Night (2024)

Equal Parts Scared and Excited

This drama… Oh, this drama. I don’t even know why I started this as I rarely watch present-day Chinese dramas, minis or otherwise, and most I do watch are because they have an actor I like. But I have to say, what a ride this has been. I would categorize this drama as a dark romance. The story has another one of those troupes where the male lead is basically screaming through his actions “I’m giving you trauma because I love you and want to protect you”. But this one had an added spiciness to it. A lot of it. Every time I read the title, I wondered if it was an analogy for us viewers to embrace the darkness of the show. This one definitely kept me wondering about my own moral compass…

The male lead becomes more and more unhinged as the story moves forward. The word psycho kept popping up in my head every time he did something. I’ll be honest, this man both scared and excited me. I never thought WX, the female lead, was the brightest crayon in the box, but I didn’t think she was a dumbass either. That is until around episode 10, I changed my mind then. Her actions had become particularly sloppy and it was clear she was winging it. This is not a situation where you just “wing it”. The male lead kept having to save her. Although, he was also working against her. If he had communicated with her, she probably wouldn’t have done some many things without thinking them through. Am I giving her too much credit? I am. Their dynamic mostly screamed of abusive relationship and even for me, some things were hard to watch.

The acting… Okay, so the actress portraying the female lead was terrible. She had mostly one expression throughout the whole show and that was scared bunny. She was also very stiff. All of the characters, villains included, were cartoonish versions of what a well depicted character of their type would be. This includes the main leads, although the main lead actor did act really well in a few scenes. Ling Yuan, the “second male lead”, if he can even be called that, was also unhinged. He was also as obsessed with our male lead as I was. In one scene, he laments he has to buy his own chocolates, as if he went through a break up with Xu Zhe Qing. Which to be honest, he kind of did. You can have break ups with friends also and these break ups sometimes hurt more than one with a partner. Should that have been as funny as I found it? Probably not, but I was dying from laughter. Also, the OST was perfectly chosen for this show. The songs echoed possession and being possessed and of danger lurking in every corner. I enjoyed that very much as I felt it was fitting. The show also ends in what can be considered a cliffhanger, but it can also be considered as a "their adventures continue" and I don't need to actually see, but am happy to imagine it.

Did I think this was a masterpiece? Not at all. Was it entertaining? Yes. Also, Did I mention it was spaaaicy? Because it was. If you try to make sense of how things happen in this drama, you will get a headache. However, if you watch it for what it is, mindless fun, you'll be wheezing from laughing so much.

Note: If you have a hard time watching abusive relationships and possessive male leads on screen, it would be best to skip this one.

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so freaaaaaking good!!!!!

if you're into wattpad esque dramas, this drama hits everything! all the classic tropes goes wild in this drama rendition. all i can say is that the director is so damn good at his job so much so that he needs to get the leads together and film a part 2 or 345!!!! the sexual tension, lingering gazes and all the steamy kisses sent me into a frenzy when i was watching it T_T i first got to know this from douyin and once you start ep1 its hard to stop because the way the editing team cuts the episode make you want to keep watching, i would have binged it all in one night if i hadnt had to work the next day HAHHAAH. the height difference between the leads - 188 & 162 is crazy.. everything they do, the way they kiss its so freaking intoxicating. the last time i felt this way about onscreen kissing was from lee jongsuk LOL.... if you manage to make it to the end of my review please!!! pick up your dress and start running to watch this! preferably alone - i find its best to watch this when you're snuggled in your bed at the end of a long tiring day when you can just shut off the world and be in your own bubble. REWATCH VALUE ++++ i will be going to watch it again too

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Teasing that Leaves You Breathless and Wanting...More!

It most certainly does! Honestly, the sensuality of this ML (Jesse Ren aka Xu Zhe Qing) goes from 0-100 in mere seconds. Talk about hot, this man is s-i-z-z-l-i-n-g! You will be catching your breath every time you see how Xu Zhe Qing comes onto his FL (Gao Rong Fang aka Wen Xi/Wen Hao), but Wen Xi is not to be outdone, oh no, she gives it back to him just as good. And just when you are so involved, the episode ends. That is what draws you into this drama and get ready for an adrenaline rush!

Xu Zhe Qing is a mercenary hired to go to the Border of Country M to save Wen Xi who has been abducted. He has to arrive by the evening to enter into a contest because the prize to the winner – Wen Xi. Of course, Xu Zhe Qing does his thing and wins her. But you probably wonder how Wen Xi got into this situation. Well, three hours prior, she tried to help a girl who said loan sharks were chasing her. Wen Xi finds out to late that it was a set up by the girl for her to be her replacement.

Winning the fight, Xu Zhe Qing throws Wen Xi over his shoulders and takes her to the bedroom. He tells her not to struggle because she will need her strength as he puts her up against the wall. Keeping her arms around his neck, he takes his hand and proceeds to take off her shoes. Sliding his hand up her leg and still having her legs and arms wrapped around him, he puts her in his arms and carries her over to the shower. Placing her on the floor and cutting the shower on (of course we see his white shirt become all wet to reveal his nicely tight chest) he begins to apply water pressure on her legs and cleans them. Putting on a t-shirt, he then takes her to the window and turns her around and tells her if she wants to stay alive that she needs to follow what he tells her to do. Carrying her over to the bed he drops her down and straddles her body and pulls his shirt off and uses it to tie her hands above her head.

Because they are begin watched, he makes it seems like he is going to have sex with her because he picks up her leg with his head down on it. The men watching are satisfied and leave. Xu Zhe Qing, once he knows they are gone drops her leg down and continues to apply ointment on her wound. He was actually blowing on a wound on her leg to stop the sting of the ointment. Now that the men outside were gone, Xu Zhe Qing tell her that he works for a private security company and that her family hired him to get her.

There is a lot of action just when you think he is going to get both of them out only to have an issue arise that he doesn't.

Some of his sexiest moves during their captivity:
- Coming up behind her after they “supposedly” spent the night together and whispering in her ear that she had to make it believable that they did, so he left a mark on her neck.
- When one of the captors took Wen Xi and he chased them down to get her back only to find they couldn't leave because there was GPS in the car to track them. He then gave the illusion when Mr. Jia and his team approach the car that the two were making out.
- Mr. Jia's daughter drugging him. Wen Xi (ok, no choice here) has to sober him up, hence the best "water kiss" you have ever seen. You can literally hear him swallowing the water, so hot!
- Catching her with one arm (girl must be lighter than a feather) all the while holding a gun.

It is funny to hear Mr. Jia say that he can't believe how Xu Zhe Qing is so into her. The true test comes when Mr. Jia's daughter tells her father that she wants him. Xu Zhe Qing tells him that he will go with her only if he can have Wen Xi come as well. This was the opportunity for her to escape with the help of his "man Friday - Ren." But again, it was foiled due to the fact that Wen Xi knew they were testing him, and to Xu Zhe Qing's surprise and to Mr. Jia and his daughter, she comes out of the dressing room asking him if he likes her dress.

Finally, the escape happens, and we now meet SML (Liu Tian Yang aka Ling Yuan) who Xu Zhe Qing was told by Mr. Jia to kill. He doesn't kill him and they too like Wen Xi escape unscathed.

Thus begins the adventures of Xu Zhe Qing and Wen Xi.

Wen Xi finds out that the contract payment was $1,640,000 which is more than two years of her sister's salary. She asks Xu Zhe Qing if there is a discount, and he tells her he does need a female partner for some things so he tells her that she can help him in order to pay off her contract. Eventually, he tells her there will be no more jobs. The contract is invalid. He rips it up. Before they part ways, Wen Xi gives him her number and tells him the next time he is in China to call her.

Three years later, Wen Xi is back to her life. Xu Zhe Qing is back to his or is he. The number Wen Xi gave him was in his pocket of the clothes that Ren washed and, you got it, the number was unreadable. Fast forward and Xu Zhe Qing see Wen Xi as she is fixing her hair in front of a convenience store window. He follows her and see her bending down on the ground. He offers her his hand. Only for her to hand him a nail that was near his car tire because she didn’t want to have his car run over it. Xu Zhe Qing is surprised that she shows no reaction or recognition of him. But in her haste, or was it, he found her key card with the name "Wen Hao" indicating to him it was not Wen Xi but at least he found out where she was working which was the same company as him. He would test her to see if she really was Wen Hao or Wen Xi.

Working in the office and same company posed as a challenge to not only Wen Xi but Xu Zhe Qing as well. They always seemed to have the steamiest encounters. You will never look at a chair in an office the same way. Trust me. Oh, and the glasses he wears, that even makes him hotter to Wen Xi. She continues, with the utmost effort not to be swayed by Xu Zhe Qing. That went by the wayside when both her and Xu Zhe Qing are basically working on the same case. He is trying to prove his father's innocence with regards to embezzlement and she trying to find out about who killed her twin sister.

Xu Zhe Qing does find out that she is the Wen Xi that he fell in love with three years ago. She gets drunk and he questions her, and she reveals everything. This makes Xu Zhe Qing very happy.

Finding information, and mind you, we find out that Xu Zhe Qing has been setting up Wen Xi in different ways to find out what she knows. Case in point, she finds papers and gets caught. Of course, Xu Zhe Qing comes to the rescue. As the guy gets away, the papers and key go out into the road. Xu Zhe Qing goes to get them and almost gets hit by a truck. Now, this has to be the HOTTEST kiss!!! She runs over to him after finding out he is safe and he takes her in his arms and he gives her the most passionate, I mean passionate (look closely, you see that tongue action) kiss. Remember, this is a man that has been wanting her for THREE years. You gonna love this man, for real!

She reveals the truth to him about her sister and everything and the papers he is holding will prove what her sister was doing and reopen the case. But what he does will surprise you. He burns them right in front of her. At that point, he lost her.

The other nemesis in all this is Ling De Chang, who is the father to Ling Quan and is the best friend of Xu Zhe Qing and lover of Wen Xi's sister Wen Hao.

But again, instead of these two working together so many miscommunications ran rapid. Due to the fact of them both wanting to find out the same things but going about it differently, but also Ling Yuan who posed a problem for both of them. He pitted them against each other to do what his father wanted. It was up to Ling Yuan to kill both of them so that the company would survive and none of their dirty dealings would be revealed.

Xu Zhe Qing was trying to protect Wen Xi so, he had her leave her job, move in with him and boy did things heat up at home too. But Wen Xi was at the point that she no longer trusted Xu Zhe Qing so she went rogue a lot which drove him insane because he was afraid, he would not be there to protect her. This reached a head after he told her everything that had happened with his father and how he used her. She could not bear anymore deception from him and told him the relationship was over.

As she was leaving to go Xu Zhe Qing snatched her back not once, not twice, but three times until he pushed her on the couch. Holding her down and beginning to cry and covering her mouth with his hand, not having the words yet to say to her, Xu Zhe Qing finally uttered “I’m sorry. I was too arrogant.” He said this to her over and over, all the while staring at her until his lips come down on hers in another passionate kiss, saying to her, "From now on, you protect Xu Zhe Qing and Yu Zhe." He then continued kissing her until he wakes up the next morning naked in bed looking for Wen Xi. He thinks she is gone only for her to appear and say that she was going to get breakfast, and he needs more sleep because his eyes are still puffy from crying.

You know it couldn’t go smoothly. Ling Yuan's dad gets her at the convenience store and calls Xu Zhe Qing and tells him to bring the phone which Wen Xi’s sister had copied all the information of where the monies went. He takes the phone and has to go back to Border M to get Wen Xi.

At last, getting to her, he gets in the car and is given the key by Ling Yuan which didn’t work because he took control of the car. Disabled the breaks. He and Wen Xi jump out of the car before it went into the water.

One last attempt to take out the duo is when they were caught by Ling Yuan's father. Xu Zhe Qing is held in a separate room while Wen Xi awakes to find Ling Yuan's father making the decision to wipe out her memories and turn her into her sister Wen Hao. But the doctor turns out to be Xu Zhe Qing who breaks out and comes to the rescue of Wen Xi. As they are leaving, they run into Ling Yuan who is dressed in black, just as Xu Zhe Qing did on his assignments. He gives them keys to the car to escape. Ling Yuan's father shoots and unbeknownst to him until he takes off the mask, he has killed his own son.

Everything comes to fruition and the illegally raised funds under the name of Yu Wan Qing, the sudden death of Wen Hao six months ago, exposing G.E's money laundering, illegal transactions brought the case finally to be tried.

There was another love match with Ren (Xu Zhe Qing's bestie) and SFL (Zhang Ya Meng aka Qiao Fei). They are too cute together because he is so much younger than her. He has the same sexiness that he takes from watching his boss. You will enjoy those two as well.

At last, our couple is together and just as we get another moment of them giving us those hot kisses. Wen Xi stops him to open up the parcel that came. To their surprise in the box is a black mask and outfit which is Xu Zhe Qing's signature outfit with a note -- "Don't slack off. This isn't over yet."

Yes, we are looking for a season 2!!!!

Jesse Ren is definitely one to put on the hot list of short dramas along with: Dai Gao Zheng (Forever Love), Richard Li (The Deliberation of Love), Yang Ze (The Killer is Also Romantic), Fan Zhi Yan (My Lethal Man), Tsao Yu Ning (Mysterious Love) and another newcomer Yu Yang (First Marriage). All of these are the hottest men when it comes to passionate kisses.

I can only say, this is another drama that is definitely worth the watch. Get ready, this will be one that will not only leave you smiling but also have your pulses racing.

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Good smut + Lynchian darkness + raw depth + strange cheesiness = cult classic

This was like watching Wild At Heart, My Lethal Man, and The K2 blended together in a Vitamix and then smothered in sexy.

I see a fair number of watchers taking this drama only at its face value, which is an in-your-face raciness combined with a wild plot more full of holes than swiss cheese. So it begs obvious comparison to My Lethal man, in that afterward youre like "I dont know what the hell I just watched but it was hot." And that is a fair comparison.

But I was also strongly reminded of David Lynch. (Thats the director that did Twin Peaks, the original Dune movie, Wild at Heart with Nicholas Cage, Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive)

Like Lynch movies, there is a strange, dark, quiet, beautiful, unsettled, disoriented feeling to this drama, that makes you wonder how many mysteries the show holds. Are the plot holes accidental or deliberate? Its riding a fine line.

This odd balance between darkness/lightness... quiet/dramatic... depth/simplicity.... cheesy/sexy..... is what I think has the elements of an instant cult classic.... like Repo Man, Heathers, True Romance, Twilight, etc. Many cult classics have a strange and stylish, mysterious blend of hokey and twisted and profoundly deep that makes the story so rewatchable.

There are weirdly placed intrusions of cheesy frivolity sure. But there are also scenes of real emotional depth that some shows try so hard to bring to the screen and fail at. I teared up at many scenes despite myself, because the emotions were so raw and beautiful, and well placed.

And the wholllle thing is just covered with sexiness everywhere. Even the "villain" is strange-sexy and hot af. Reminds me of a young asian marilyn manson with no makeup and a haircut. His looks are captivating and his acting is excellent. The ML and FL are sexy af and hot like fire and good actors. There is real kissing in the kiss scenes. GOOD real kissing, that make me think the ML is in rl probably an excellent lover. And for any kiss scene affectionados out there ----> there is french kissing in this one.

The casting was so excellent, the costumes and styling will stand up to a test of time... in 10 or 20 years, it will look just as hot as it does now, it will age well.

A very unique style that I appreciated greatly. The dumbness of this drama is deceptive. Beneath the dumbness lies real artistic skill and vision, and the dichotomy between the crappy cheapness and the refined elegance was, imo, highly enjoyable and very genious.

Im a hard grader, I dont give out 9s lightly, but this drama was truly excellent and had a distinct style all its own.

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Good trashy TV

This show is... wild. I may have a lot of criticism but despite it all it was quite entertaining. I was fully engaged with the show for a good 14 eps, I fully watched up till ep 18 and then skipped through 19-22 then dropped it. I actually enjoyed the show up till about ep 10 or whenever the ML started being too toxic for my liking.

Story- The pacing of the story is very choppy and fast, especially in the beginning. The episodes are short (11-20ish mins each). Pretty much every other scene is some kind of whacky setup for the leads to end up in a raunchy situation. This is kind of fun and entertaining but it becomes a bit much after a while. I'm all for soapy, cheesy, and crazy plots but the execution is not quite there for me with this one. I REALLY liked the leads' dynamic in the beginning but then the ML got crazy controlling and toxic, and the aggressive non-consensual stuff was a huge turn-off for me. Also as I got deeper into the show, I kept having more and more "huh??" moments, where things just didn't make sense and the plot holes were just too big for me to look past.

Acting- I don't have any complaints about the acting. The leads definitely have great chemistry which really holds the show together.

Music- The songs themselves are good, but the way they're used/edited in is pretty bad. The Foley effects are also noticeably bad. I don't expect anything great as this seems to be a lower budget series but I've seen so many low budget productions manage to pull off music and sound design much better than this.

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Captivating drama

This drama is so good that I had to sign up on my drama list to let people know this master piece. When I’m writing this review, 2 episodes are still remaining before the end of the drama but I hope it’s gonna be a happy ending (probably). I only watch drama with happy endings and almost never watch on going drama but I couldn’t resist after the edits I’ve seen on TikTok. Anyways, I usually am never duped by the stories and end up not being surprised when plots twists appear. This time I WASN’T disappointed the plots twists were soooo good I had to pause the drama and scream how good this was. Highly recommended drama, coming from a picky watcher. ENJOY IT!

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Exceeded my expectations as a short drama!!!

Well i can't really explain how much i like this one for a short drama, it goes way beyond my expectations. The plot isn't too complicated and even interesting enough. the directing and editing are also very good especially for a short drama because when you wanted to watch something less time consuming and can't find intresting with cheap edition but this is more than enough to be a short drama; no choppy editing that we usually see in a short drama or sometimes in actual dramas also the leads made it more interesting by their acting and chemistry, that actually made this drama one of the best short dramas, and i can't praise enough for the director and writer they mafe this drama more fun and awesome
About Music OMG!!! the music is so intense i loved it so much i am even obsessed with this music the tuning and the rock intense music made this drama much more interesting and romantic hehehe lolll and if you are into books then this drama hits everything, seriously it has all the tropes you wished for. all i can say is that the director is so damn good at his job so much so that he needs to get the leads together and make a part 2 or 34 !!!! i am up for their another season or maybe another drama uhm... moving onto my explanation
The height difference between the leads is crazy.. everything they do, the way they kiss its so freaking intoxicating the sexual tension between them, those lingering gazes and all these steamy kisses sent me into a shock when i was watching this drama i can't control but to watch because the way the editing team cuts the episode make you want to keep watching, i have binged it all in one night and wanted to watch more omg!!!
actually to be honest i find it way more interesting to watch this and the last drama i repeated is ONE AND ONLY idk why i like to traumatized myself by watching sad endings but still i liked this and this review is my re watched review lolll i thought of writing review but I forgot then i am writing this now so i am just making sure that even if you don't find a short drama intresting must watch this one because its very different and so amazing omg you'll definitely fall in love with this one!!! loll I'll stop now enough of my fangirling byee!! :)

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OFF THE CHART LEAD CHARACTER CHEMISTRY

What is this? What exactly was this? The chemistry between the leads was too real and I was not READY! I am telling you that those kisses were too HOT for a Cdrama and I was not prepared. How dare this come without a warning lol.

I am so accustomed to the lil pecks they call kissing that I wasn’t ready. The story line was also fun, a little predictable as I already had an idea who the villain was (and I was correct) and already know who the guy in black was. That hat and mask wasn’t fooling anyone besides the female lead. That was hilarious. No way you cannot tell your man from a distance from the back let alone he was all up in her face and space with a hat and Covid mask and she can’t tell. DNKM. Was well put together YOUKU just might and I mean might get my .99c for the continuation.

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