Fully fleshed out and coherent short length costumed drama

I admit I'm really into Yang Ze which is why I sought this out and watched it without subs.

The plot is the story of an immortal close to his final cultivation accidentally helping a little flower immortal reach personhood and she instantly falls in love with him. His last steps include 3 mortal realm travails and she ends up occupying him for them.

I found the plot easy to follow and coherent. The love at first sight from her part made sense (he's beautiful and powerful and she's innocent and new) and the travails were great stories by themselves full of tragic loss and betrayals. I don't normally like tragic stories but in the context of knowing it's part of the travails, it made the little bite-sized tragedies really interesting to watch. The process of him falling for her also made sense and yes, it is eventually a happy ending and, best of all, everything is tied up.

Yang Ze is absolutely one of my favorite actors now, having seen the great job he did in The Killer is Also Romantic and Emperor or Boss. He absolutely sold me and I loved all the different characters he ends up playing and cried at the tribulations he had to go through. The FL was perfectly adequate and had some really stellar moments in the second mortal travail but I admit I was just glued to Yang Ze the whole time.

I really hope someone subs this eventually so you don't need Mandarin comprehension to watch but overall, I am very pleased I watched this.

Read More

Perfectly watchable short form rom-com

This was not the easiest show to follow but it was a fun little watch.

Zhang Xiaohua is a rookie spy who was given her first real mission and is pretty psyched about it. She needed to assassinate a traitor to the royal spy network/association that she's a low ranking member of. There's also money forgery stuff involved.

She maybe sort of succeeds but was held up and foiled by the ML, Luo He. He's a hot shot second in command of a group of bandits. He chases her and she only gets him off her back by saying, "while you were dealing with me, my target is dead!" But was she really?

Then Xiaohua is told that she needs to go integrate herself with the bandit group because they have a super secret list of spies and it'll be a huge problem if that list gets exposed. So now she's pulling out all the tricks trying to get Luo He to take her in. She's a pretty shoddy actress and he's not getting fooled so she settles on pretending he kidnapped her to fool his assistant instead.

She tries lots of unsuccessful things to try and find the list once she's there, including a very unsuccessful seduction of the bandit boss who has a jealous wife. Luo He takes lots of chances to flirtatiously try to get her to come clean about who she is and what she's trying to do.

It honestly kind of lost me and wasn't super interesting at this point. I found the actress grating in how she overacted the comedy and I was just not getting what anyone else's motivation was.

The first big twist/turning point (SPOILER):
Oh but wait! Luo He is actually a seasoned, higher ranking royal spy! They're actually on the same side, he's actually just been undercover this whole time and he wants the list too. But how can two spies trust each other?
(END SPOILER)

There's actually a few more twists after that, but the first one was when I started being more interested in the plot. The romance was cute. The comedy was pretty bad and felt pretty forced. But the twisty plot actually got more interesting, which was nice.

Unlike many shorts, it does have a Happy Ending and is totally wrapped up at the end. I didn't think any of the actors did a stellar job, but I think it was perfectly acceptable to tell what ended up being a somewhat interesting story with a cute romance. I also enjoyed the music.



Random favorite part: her messenger bird is a chicken.

Read More

Adorable short form, only an hour long and it's satisfying!

Sign me up for sexy merman!

This absolutely has everything I love to see and in such a nicely packaged hour long short format. It has a strong, role-reversed female lead (she's the state preceptor!). It has a male lead who is sweet and innocent (did you know merman mate for life?) but isn't dumb at all. Fu Xu is actually very smart and extremely strong to the point where if he were in a fight, he's just gonna win it. I mean, supernatural merman powers, so that makes sense. It has characters who don't pretend they are all saints. The FL gets physical and isn't shy about it. I wanted more, but it was a happy ending and the major plot is resolved at the end.

This is the male lead's only role so far, and I thought he did a great job. He is incredibly attractive but also really sold the character in terms of his faithfulness, innocence, and strong protective instincts. The merman make up on him was also surprisingly not terrible considering it's an hour long short form drama.

I've seen the female lead in The Shoufu Can Read Mind and I remember liking her in that as well so I'm excited to see what else she does in the future. I thought she could have been more expressive (feels like she spends the entire drama looking frustrated) but I'm not sure how much that was just what the script called for.

Overall, definitely a lovely short watch and I really hope to see more from the male lead actor!

Read More

FL delivers great kisses and good chemistry in a binge-able transmigration story... with caveats.

I am a fan of hers, but I genuinely feel like Chen Fangtong chooses fun projects and this one is no exception. I enjoyed my time with it and it was an easy binge watch. Lots to like in this one, so let's start with the positives.

The Good:
- Chen Fangtong is not shy in her dramas and those kisses definitely looked open-mouthed. She is funny and creates great chemistry with her costars. Always a pleasure to see on the screen.
- This is the second drama I've seen featuring the Male Lead, Zhao Wenhao, and I think he did an admirable job. I quite liked him in Blood of Youth (as the disciple to the gambling fairy) and thought he was part of some of the funnier scenes in BoY. He had moments of stiffness, but his loving glances were oftentimes on point and I thought he carried himself well.
- The show made me laugh. Oftentimes, I find costume comedies (especially transmigration ones) on the cringier side with their forced jokes. The comedy here was usually on point, witty, and genuinely amusing.
- It was often self-aware, calling out known tired tropes directly.
- Role reversal! I love a story with a girl who can pick up her man.
- The secondary couple was very sweet and a great no-drama side-couple that was very easy to cheer for.
- The story felt good, and the ending is not one that left me bitter or disappointed.
- The parents were sweet and loveable.
- It's only 24 episodes, 30 minutes each! That's definitely on the short side for a cdrama, and I appreciate that it was a satisfying watch without dragging

The Mid:
- It looked decent. Cinematography and costumes weren't first in class, but this was obviously a lower budget drama and I think they did a good job with what they had.
- Music was fairly forgettable but not poorly done or a negative.
- Some interesting choices with time skips. Entire segments of story were told with little comic segments, which I thought was a very clever way to not bog down the drama but also created weird disconnects in the plot.
- Chinese censorship of this genre (isekai/transmigration) strikes again! The ending probably created a lot of confusion for people who aren't used to watching this genre. But as this kind of story goes under censorship laws, it was wrapped up on the better side than most. The weird disconnects and confusions are expected to conform to "we cannot imply that transmigration is real" standards.

The Frustrating:
- Despite calling out tropes openly, it then face smacks into them (but will also admit that it did). If you know, why do you do it?
- Attack of the incredibly annoying second male and female leads! Oh boy, you will love to hate them. In defense of the 2ML, I think some of the experiences he went through in the later parts completely broke him. But the 2FL is literally just the kind that exists to be annoying.
- Suspension of disbelief is required! Well, more than is necessary, even for transmigration tropes. In no point is it explained how the FL's skills in the real world somehow translates into her martial competence in the story world. And things always go right in a very neat way for the leads. The villains are as flimsy as a cardboard cutout. The emperor is so agreeable that one wonders why anyone ever struggled to implement any changes before the arrival of the FL.

Overall, it was a very fun watch despite any negatives. I admit I am especially biased towards the FL, but if you're looking for a light watch and enjoy the isekai genre, this is not a bad watch. I would not recommend it if you're looking for anything deeper or more thought-involved. This is purely a feel good watch for when you want to turn your brain off.

Read More

This love is Everything

I do not give a 10 lightly or easily but here we are. I don't normally rewatch things. Yet, I have already rewatched once with a friend who is not a drama-watcher and already have plans for another rewatch with my spouse. It's that good.

I'm sure everyone else has waxed poetic about every facet of this great show so I will focus my review on what blew me away the most: The Male Lead. Shaodian Youqin. Acted spectacularly by Chen Xing Xu.

SDYQ is the best male lead I have ever had the pleasure of witnessing. His strength, his resolve, and his determination are heavily intertwined with his softness, his kindness, and his tender affections. He is not afraid to forsake the world for his love. He never tries to keep Yetan in the dark. He guides and helps her and gives her the tools to be strong but also steps back when he knows it's not his place. He is open with his devotion. He has absolute faith in her.

Truly, I think we'd all be richer for it if we can have more SDYQs in the drama world. This character proves that you can have an engaging, beautiful, and heart wrenching love story without falling into toxic male lead tropes. We can have some of the best humor I've ever seen without diminishing the character growths of the main cast.

Yes, I am absolutely biased. But if you are at all tempted by the prospect of a green flag male lead who is so green that it puts Shrek to shame, give The Starry Love a try.

Read More

Maybe it's for the best that this is hard to find.

I've been looking for a way to watch this movie for months, being a fan of Xu Ruohan. I finally found it on YouTube, albeit with no English subtitles. That said, I have 90% comprehension of spoken Mandarin and have watched raws before so I was excited to finally find a way to watch this movie.

Well. I am no longer excited.

The scant handful of positives:
- Xu Ruohan. I still love her. She's still cute and talented and I'm still looking forward to seeing much more from her.
- The music was decent.
- The cinematography was adequate, no complaints.

Now for the trash fire that's everything else, starting with a plot summary because who the hell thought this plot was a good idea:
The overarching moral of this story is missing your chance and not taking what you have for granted. This is fine, but we start with our FL, Xia Mo literally explaining how she tossed the ML, Chu Qiu, into the friend zone and left him there. I think we're supposed to take away that she's fatherless and fears losing her best friend, but mostly she just acts bossy in the high school arc at the beginning and has a lot of words about "people say men and women can't be best friends but we prove them wrong." Bold words from a romance that is telegraphed immediately, plot. Way to show that men and women really can't be just friends.

They add a friend, their buddy Zhang Tian Hao, who then proceeds to spend the rest of his screentime doing nothing but living for his two friends and eventually using his own wedding to set them up (????). I mean, what a friend, but also he literally does nothing but advanced plot points which is some intensely shallow characterization.

As the three of them look towards college, Xia Mo literally takes the other twos college goals and writes in the college she's going to. She then declares, "Chu Qiu is sticking with my forever. Which means Hao is too." Yup, that's the set up.

Off they go to college and the main plot point here is that, on a dare from Hao, Xia Mo and Chu Qiu try to sleep with their boyfriend and girlfriend respectively, winner gets to decide their upcoming trip. And the resolution of that was.... They both decided not to go through with it and she runs over to his room at the hotel where he's almost naked and blurts out that she's pregnant. His girlfriend immediately dumps him and slaps him. Her boyfriend, who she has tied up and left, finds them in the hall and assumes she's been cheating on him so he breaks up with her and slaps Chu Qiu. Then the two "best friends" look at each other and laugh. I'm not sure if this was a great way to show that they're "best friends through thick and thin" and I really feel for their partners who were lied to and tossed away for this joke of a dare.

At the camping trip they end up going on (Hao wins since they both lost and choose camping), Xia Mo gets really drunk and tells Chu Qiu her four big wishes in life.

So now we're on to adulthood and the bulk of the movie.

On Xia Mo's way to her big important (first?) interview, she bumps older hot CEO type Wei Sidong's Bentley with her scooter because she was distracted. This is our 2ML who then creepily chases Xia Mo with such promises as, "if you become my girlfriend you won't owe me this huge debt for the car repair." Classy. She repeatedly turns him down but ends up mightily entangled because he has her working for him (selling wine) to pay her debt.

Meanwhile our ML, who has absolutely no personality at this point other than being FL's ride or die bestie, watches sadly from the sidelines as the creep seems to be wearing Xia Mo down and it seems inevitable that she'll give in (though the audience sees that she keeps saying no). His response to this is to start fulfilling her Four Big Wishes she told him while drunk in college.

He feeds her steak at the beach (it was a homemade dinner, near a pool and their long suffering plot advancing buddy Hao was the server). Then he confesses to her with a heart made of candles. She turns him down, saying it's impossible. I think because they're friends was the excuse but I wasn't trying too hard to understand this part because I was annoyed.

To deal with his heartbreak, he goes to a club with plot device Hao and then drinks alcohol.... Which he's allergic to and can give him anaphylactic shock. A cute girl (new plot device) kisses him/hits on him and he collapses on the floor due to his allergic reaction.

Xia Mo meets him at the hospital and calls him an idiot (true) but then get awkward with new plot device girl shows up. Xia Mo vehemently denies that she's Chu Qiu's girlfriend so new plot device girl starts taking video of her taking responsibility/dibs for the ML. Good job plot, totally not contrived.

Chu Qiu goes to new plot device girl's performance. Then, callback to a really forced plot point early on where Xia Mo's mom has been day trading stocks and hmmm wonder why that was a plot point, oh because now she and her mom are in a lot of debt and Chu Qiu comes running with flowers. Oh but creepy CEO foil shows up first (who could have called this) and he's already paid off all her debts, no problem (yeah I don't know how he found out either). She sobs in relief and he hugs her. Oh and guess who sees it from the other side of the alley. Our ML, duh.

CEO Wei gifts Xia Mo a big surprise: her own fashion studio! Free of charge! All yours, girl! Knock yourself out! Oh but how did he know exactly what her dream was and designed it exactly the way she loves? He's cagey but no sh** Sherlock, Chu Qiu told him all of it and made the designs. Chu Qiu apparently has gone off the grid to find himself or something and no one can get in touch with him. But before he does, he tells his love rival (who he has already decided he lost to) about Xia Mo's third wish: her dream of having her own fashion studio. Everyone clap.

Xia Mo's response is to.... Tell the plot device girl who has had all of five minutes of screen time everything she knows about Chu Qiu's likes and dislikes and tells her to take good care of him (???).

Fast forward 3 years and the movie is almost over (okay now actually clap). Buddy Hao is getting married but why is Xia Mo also suspiciously dressed up in a dress that looks like bridal wear? The voiceover talks about how she's doing well and has a successful career as a fashion designer now and "even Hao is getting married." She walks into the reception/wedding hall and suddenly she is being attacked by slow falling feathers. Oh it turns out that's her fourth wish, to walk down the aisle to her husband getting married while being rained on by white feathers. So of course waiting at the end for her is Chu Qiu. Who has been MIA for 3 years until he could come crash his friend's wedding and make it about him and his "bestie." They look at each other misty eyed and the guests clap (while the background has the names of the actual bride and groom but we know how much they matter here). The end.


I don't have a whole lot to add. Because that was the plot. I'm sorry Xu Ruohan, I hope you get better projects.

One star for XRH, one star for being watchable enough that I didn't just drop it, one star for the music and cinematography, and half a star for the rest of the cast for trying.

Read More

Unexpected Gem

Short summary:
Qing Heng is a dead soul trying to find his love who he's been searching for for a very long time. But dead souls are required to give up all their memories, so how can he fight the rules of heavens to find his beloved?

Saw this on iQiyi and decided to give it a try and was very pleasantly surprised. I spent most of the movie wondering how on earth they were going to resolve anything and surprisingly, it did! I've watched much longer full length dramas that managed a fraction of the plot resolution that this movie did. We find out major motivations of main characters and there are surprises along the way.

You might get less out of it if you're not familiar with Chinese mythology about Meng Po and reincarnation. An important point to know is that canonically, Meng Po is the lady who cooks up the soup of forgetfulness that one must drink before getting reincarnated.

It's the length of a movie so the main points are not overly complicated but I think the execution was very well done considering the constraints of telling a fairly involved story in 90 minutes. I thought the CGI was actually very well done for what I assumed was not a movie with a big budget. I recognize the female lead from a (passable but not great) low budget costume drama I've seen before and the ML seems to have been only in support roles so far. They both did a solid job acting. Some of the support cast didn't sell their roles anywhere near as well but it hardly mattered when they had so little screentime.

Read More

Fun, but shallow and requires heavier suspension of disbelief than one might think

Why I watched:
I am a big fan of Chen Fangtong, and probably have more than a bit of bias. I think she is adorable and have been consistently impressed with her acting. When I saw this show was available, I had to jump right in.

What I liked:
- As expected, Chen Fangtong was a treat. I think she sells comedy well and there were a number of good laugh out loud moments in the show. Her expressions are on point and I love her sass.
- The premise is a little different and somewhat novel because of it. Instead of transmigrating and staying in the new world, the FL transmigrates when she falls asleep and is back in the real world when she wakes up. This created an interesting duality and it was interesting to see the scenes set in the real world, with other characters who are aware of what she was going through.
- It definitely doesn't take itself too seriously and there were some great light-hearted comedy moment.
- It is an easy watch/binge. Events move at a good pace that makes sense in the context of the story. It does wrap up instead of being a cliffhanger.

What fell flat:
- The chemistry was massively disappointing. Chen Fangtong has shown in other shows that she can create amazing chemistry with her co-stars but there was so very little of it here. The kisses, though there were many, were the stoic pecks that I would not have expected from Chen Fangtong.
- I have seen the male lead in one other show and I have not been very impressed. I thought he was very wooden in this show for one of his roles and was not especially stand-out for his other one.
- The story started strong but quickly started feeling nonsensical. The villains' motives made almost no sense and the main characters' decision-making seemed lacking at best. The entire conflict feels like it could have been avoided with one call to the authorities and at no point did it feel like there was a good explanation as to why it had to unfold the way it did.
- The backstories felt forced and shallow.
- The CGI for some scenes were pretty bad. The rooftop heart-to-hearts with blossoms falling in the background looked like it was done by some amateur VFX artists.
- The costumes/hair/make-up were questionable. I give it a bit of slack because within the context of the story, it could make sense. But at the same time, it sometimes just looked bad.

In summary:
I thought this show was underrated (currently a 7.4) when I first started because I found the beginning to be very charming and hilarious. It was an easy watch, but it quickly became an exercise in suspending my disbelief because none of the characters' motivations were that deep or even made much sense. I wanted to like this more because of the lead actress, but I have to admit that overall this short form falls on the side of mediocre and around a 7.5 is where I would rate it as well.

Read More

Isekai with Big Heart

The drama is upfront about the fictionalized world and characters but despite that, I ugly cried for much of the sad parts. The story, both inside the game world and the overall drama story, were that touching and well fleshed out. That said, the comedy was definitely on point as well and I never forgot that it was light with lower stakes, just that I was very invested despite the lower stakes.

This was my first drama with Liu Yi Chang and I immediately started looking for more things he was in. His voice has a hypnotic ASMR quality and I live for the way he calls the FL. His character's love is so pure and beautiful.

The supporting cast were all excellent. Once the big reveal happened, there was definitely a good "aha" moment when a lot of things that were puzzling before made a lot of sense. There's no stereotypical villain since the driving forces are more how things are not under the characters' controls and I enjoyed that as a plot device. My heart broke with the FL multiple times over characters that she and I both knew weren't "real."

My only complaint, as is usual with a lot of dramas, is that I wish the happy ending was more fleshed out.

Overall, an absolute top tier costumed rom-com.

Read More

A Really Fun Watch (too bad it's only on Mango with terrible subs)

Caveat: It's hard to recommend trying to watch this if you need the subs, because Mango really is the worse when it comes to bad machine translations. One glaring one in this show is the translation of the FL's nickname (Mo Mo) into.... DOG. Yes, every time anyone called her Mo Mo the subs would say DOG (in caps).

On to my actual review.

The Good:
- Amazing crossdressing comedy galore! Probably because of censorship, I have not seen a lot of good crossdressing cdramas in recent years. This one has the Male Lead spend most of his time dressed as a woman to hilarious effect.
- Super bingeable. As a short form with each episode being 7-9 minutes, it is a satisfying watch with a complete story and no weird cliffhanger or confusing ending.
- The Male Lead is straight up pretty. No, really. As a tall woman, I think he actually looks quite lovely. Easy on the eyes dressed as either man or woman. He also just sells the role very well. I am quite impressed with his acting here.
- Cute secondary couple (with bonus crossdressing woman). The ML's sister has her own loveline/story and she spends most of her time dressed as a man. It's not as convincing as the ML, but it's much better than 80% of cdrama "woman dressed as a man" tropes out there. (Not that that's a hard bar to clear.)

The Mid:
- Predictable story with a lack of elaboration. The latter is expected for a short form so I can't put it into "not so good" but I've definitely watched short forms that surprised and delighted me with the interesting stories/twists they managed to put into them. I think this one definitely tries to fit a longer story into a shorter form in many ways. It means that everything moves fast, but also doesn't give any time for detail.
- The FL did not overly impress me. She reminded me a lot of Tian Xiwei's characters, with the "I'm cute with permanent pouty lips" affect. It's fine for the role, but I wanted to see more range and depth out of her character.
- The rest of the cast was also fairly unremarkable.
- For a romance, I was hoping there would be more focus on the romance. Instead, the story spent most of its time on the mystery/crime solving.

The Not So Good:
- Don't expect a lot of logic as to how some things work out. It has its share of contrived convenient solutions to problems that don't pass a suspension of disbelief check.

Overall, I had a really fun time with this one. I admit that I am biased heavily by a good crossdressing trope. But if you're looking for a light, enjoyable short form, this definitely hits the spot. I really hope it doesn't stay in Mango subs only purgatory forever so that a wider audience can enjoy it.

Read More