Started out promising but ultimately disappointing

I wonder if other viewers have different standards or is grade inflation the norm for drama reviews as well. The premise of the story is interesting enough but this show is severely let down by very poor writing and pacing. This drama is based on a book and since I have not read the book, I do not know if it is the original story itself that is dumb or script changes that made it dumb. For a story about a strong FL with brains and martial arts skills, the FL got to demonstrate her martial arts for a total of 3 times lasting less than 5 mins over the course of a 24 episode long season. That can be forgiven if the intrigue and subplots were more interesting, but all the schemes are transparently obvious to anyone with half a brain. Suspense is near zero. Comedic relief is there but too infrequent to make it truly entertaining. That whole “I want to be a feeble beauty” schtick was entertaining for 5 episodes but got old very fast and every time the FL repeated it, you just want to roll your eyes and fast forward the show.

The worst is the ending. The writers suddenly decided to have no consequences for all the pretty boys who might have any female fan following. The Jinpo second prince suffered no consequences (not even a confrontation) for attempting to kill the ML and FL, multiple times!!! The triple agent Yun Hao appeared to have died in the arms of the woman he cares out (which would be a satisfactory death) but appeared alive with no explanation given. This is an agent who could have died multiple times in the whole show.

Very very disappointing overall.

Read More

Boring with unlikeable characters

Don’t get the rave reviews. The plot moves slowly and for most of the show, it is focused on the high school years. Both leads are totally unlikeable. The male lead is a total jackass to the female lead in the name of being “cool”. The female lead is dumb and incompetent to the extent of being annoying, rather than being “cute”. In real life, you should avoid this kind of people at all costs. High maintenance. The whole show portrays the shallow kind of attraction. Most days, I had the show on while reading a book and didn’t miss much at all. Total garbage.

Read More

Starts off promising, but a complete letdown in the end

The initial setup and premise is interesting. But towards the second half of the show, it becomes a complete letdown. I am not someone who only looks for happy endings. But this show has the worst ending for the worst reasons. The editing is also ridiculously bad. It almost seems that the showrunners decided to skip some of the most important parts of the story in favor of shock content. For instance, the killing of the first prince of An and setup of the second prince took place in the space of ~2-3 mins of screen time. Anyway, the second half is so bad that this show has little redeeming value.

Read More

Lazy script and forgettable show with beautiful scenery

I don't get the hype. Yes the scenery (place and people) are beautiful. But that's really all there is to it. One can only conclude that like the female lead character, Liu Yifei has basically decided to phone it in with her career. The script is lazily written (much like the premise of the show) and the producers decide to insert the *same* songs in almost every single scene! This is not your typical OST or sound effects that occur at key junctures. The whole show is like an ultralong MTV with songs every 5 mins or so.

The pacing is also unbelievably slow. For the first 10 episodes, you are treated to Hongdou moping around. It is not until well past the halfway point when anyone else knows what she was moping about. And when the romance begins to develop, it does so with suddenness and complete lack of character development. There are also many pointless side stories. While I appreciate well-developed side stories, none of those in this show are remotely interesting and extremely cliched. The lazy young musician with the take-charge cougar. The little brother with the crush on the older sister. Ironically, it is the non-romance stories involving the elderly folks that are far more engaging.

Maybe the reason why this show generated such hype is because of a unique malaise afflicting urbanites in Beijing and Shanghai. As a show, it is very forgettable. Certainly I don't recall any episode or scene where I would even want to rewatch.

Read More

Great adaption but patience required

I have read the entire Remembrance of Earth's Past series. I suspect most watchers would have at least read the first book, which this show is based on. The show is now just past the halfway point.

As an adaptation, this show is great. It is close to being "Lord of the Rings trilogy movies" great. It is very faithful to the original book and where changes are made (which are quite minimal), you can see why they are necessary. I especially appreciate the shuffling of the chapters from the book - one can see why going by the original novel would be problematic in a TV series. The figurative layman's explanations of the physics concepts are also very useful to viewers not that well-schooled in the sciences.

That said, for people completely new to the book and show, some patience is needed. The first 10 episodes or so are fairly slow and mostly spent in world-building and setting. Things begin to pick up pace in the middle 1/3 of the show where some of the mysteries are revealed and people know the stakes involved.

The actors are also great. All are well-established character actors. There are not many pretty faces in this show, as you can imagine. That is to be expected.

Nonetheless, there are a few minor negatives.
1. The OST is generally terrible and unmemorable.
2. The sound production needs work. In some scenes, the voices are hard to hear. For instance, Wang Miao's baritone is especially boomy and unclear in many scenes and I was forced to adjust the sound settings frequently whenever he is talking (and this is a very talky show).
3. The video production also needs work. The CGI parts (where the characters are in the VR game) are amazing and generally the cinematography is suitably dark and gloomy. What bothers me is the frequent appearance of visible artifacts, especially in moving dark scenes. I am not sure whether it is due to noise or compression or both. I have a high-speed connection and watch at the highest possible resolution on an OLED TV. Given the obvious investment in the best recording and CGI capabilities in this show, is it too much to ask that they don't ruin that with substandard post-processing?

I am kind of hoping for Netflix/Disney+ quality video/audio in such a high production value show. So it is somewhat disappointing that the video is still 1080p and the audio is stereo (not even 5.1, much less Dolby Atmos). That said, this is common on all Chinese dramas at the moment and I don't really take that many points off for that.

Read More

Most improved + most worsened character = Mediocre

I started this because the trailer looked somewhat interesting. While the series is reasonably watchable, it is overall let down by poor story writing and character development.

Unlike other reviewers, I don't find the FL to be that bad. Yes she starts off as being a bit selfish and indecisive. When she was in her teens, that is totally excusable. Once she started making demands on the ML to get back together, these flaws become less acceptable. However, FL also demonstrates the most improvement in character across the series. By the end, she begins to understand the meaning of sacrifice and begins to stand up for her career and relationship goals. The mother is overbearing but that is by design obviously. Wang Churan is also especially good in the role. Her acting is very good for a relative newcomer. Coupled with her undeniable beauty and charisma, you can forigve her in the initial episodes until she becomes the one you want to root for. She also has more emotional material to work with - anger, disappointment, sadness, determination, etc.

In contrast, the ML went in the opposite direction. He starts out as the most sympathetic character - prosecuted by the FL's mother, heroic, self-sacrificing. But towards the end, his character showed near zero development and becomes especially annoying. This is of course a problem with the script writers. I intensely dislike poorly-motivated plot drama. Drama is of course good and necessary, but it has to be the result of understandable, realistic motivations. In the latter episodes, the drama is in the form of ML refusing to communicate with the FL on the crap that her mother put him through. All in the name of "not making the FL sad". This is complete BS. I know of no one who would refuse to share with their other half a simple account such as "your mother destroyed my career". Perhaps this is the typical stupid "strong silent toxic male" that perhaps the scriptwriters think is sexy. Yang Yang is of course the pretty veteran of Chinese TV. But his performances are always the same and his acting has seen marginal improvement since his early days. His roles always call for being the perfect stone-faced male (also the case in this show), because maybe that's about all he can emote. His fans can continue to swoon but it is boring.

In the end, the most interesting plot points are left to the side characters. The fireman who had the relationship with an older doctor but died for example. Overall, a mediocre show.

Read More