The Autumn Ballad (2022)

One of the most underrated series so far...

Right, I wont write a long-ass essay for the review but, all I can say is it's nice how this is fast-paced and not too much drama about female exes or whatnot. I loved how cleverly they solve each cases and how the female lead was made to portray as a strong one who redeemed her family when they fell from grace. Some twists are unexpectable and they really got me racking my brains for possible answers and further clues. Jeremy Tsui's acting surprised me here, he proved he can show versatility in his facial expressions and it's really refreshing to see. When he smiles, he reminds me of Lee Dong Wook haha

Anyway, the series was arguably good as I found myself doing super few skips on some episodes. If there's one thing I didn't like, was how the writers unnecessarily inserted a negative twist in the last episode which made the happy ending not totally satisfying. Why on earth reveal that Liang Yi's mother voluntarily poisoned the old marquis when its already established that the noble consort did it out of fear that her Northern Liang lineage would be revealed? I find it useless. Qiu Yan and Liang Yi could have gotten a few more screen time to enjoy their happiness at last, but it was jammed into one scene by making them reunite in that same peak. They also left the guessing with the audiences how Liang Yi was able to appear as if Qiu Yan hadn't lied about his mother's death. Hope these writers could stop doing that in series.

Read More

Writing, It Turns Out, Is Not That Simple

The Autumn Ballad wishes to be a classic tale of family intricacies, power and corruption, mystery and love, but hitting all separate points does not a good story make. An extremely promising first part somehow ends as a series of happenstances so random and unbelievable that it feels parodic.

I want to focus here on 3 aspects of Qiu Yan's character: her relationships with her sister, her mother, and with Liang Yi.

Her relationship with Liang Yi remains the best of all 3, but not for the reasons it should. The pacing of meeting each other, disliking each other, relying on each other, and all the way to being in love / realizing the other is in love, is impeccable at first and very correct later on. The chemistry is here, the tempers, body languages, conflicts and devotions, are lovely. Things such as asking her to come with him, never acting dominantly, never trying to make her stay, are what i was looking forward to, and i was satisfied. It fits with the view we originally have of them both: Qiu Yan as a headstrong girl always hiding under a layer of defiance, Liang Yi as a usually cold man who cares very little for affection and who recovers his tenderness and mischievous side.

Qiu Yan's relationship with her mother was hinted from the beginning to be a big part of her emotional burdens and the source of her resentment. It follows through as such, the (lack of) development is logical and the last scene they share is wonderful because Qiu Yan refuses to simply forgive and forget. But this conflict brimming with story potential is simply left to stew in a corner, nearly-untouched, but for the 3 or 4 scenes it is given, which makes me wonder—was its climax good on purpose, or just because the writers didn't pay enough attention to it to mess it up?

But by far the most disappointing part of this drama is Qiu Yan and Qiu Min's relationship. Once again beautifully introduced as a delicate dynamic: Qiu Yan convinced that Qiu Min hates her, angry and worried at once to see her act so meekly; Qiu Min envious of her older sister who seems so capable and smart, who captured her mother's love, but who also exists as a protective shadow that she doesn't want to live.
They have so many of those delicate and beautiful scenes. Qiu Min asking Qiu Yan to hug her, and Qiu Yan holding back because she wants Qiu Min to learn to be on her own, is only the most memorable one. And I was so hopeful about how they would develop that I kept up hope even after the base cliché of sexual assault as a lesson to the maudlin and selfish girl; even with her "turning dark", I was hopeful; because I knew that it could be so good, if only all of this was focused on the sisters' relationship. As you probably guessed, it didn't happen. Qiu Min becomes a cheap rival love interest antagonist whose entire character is dedicated to making the viewer feel satisfied when her petty attempts fail. Even the excellent parting line, "I was so jealous of you, I forgot that I used to like you," can't simply fix this disaster.

I will spare you all from just how ridiculous the actual plot becomes, because I could write a whole review on how absurd the last episode was. In the end, what to take out of The Autumn Ballad? It's not the sort of drama you can watch "just for the romance"; the romance is good only because you go through the plot alongside it, and as the plot becomes offensively bad, the romance alone can't satisfy a viewer. At least not this viewer. The show is a mess, and in my opinion, the mess is due in part to its length. The plot, once rearranged, could've been beautifully wrapped up in 25 episodes. Alas, quality is never the only goal in a drama production.

Wanting to fill the afforded space is not that simple—especially not when you aim for this setting and deal with delicate characters. Good writing also means knowing how to prune the branches of a story.

Read More

A pleasant one

Cast: Having seen Qiao Xin acted in many modern dramas, her historical role in the Autumn Ballad did come off as fresh to me and needless to say - she nailed the role, managing to portray the witty and bold female lead. Jeremy on the other hand is also an experienced actor whom is extremely charismatic in this drama. Both actors have good chemistry thus making the show enjoyable. The second female lead (aka qiu min) is starting to get on my nerve. She has this gentle personality yet ruins all her sisters plans simply because of jealousy. Yet I can’t bring myself to hate her Bc she is infact kind hearted - and that’s the annoying bit.

Story: The story isn’t that entertaining but it certainly isn’t a boring one. There are numerous different cases and the right pace of the story manage to keep me hook. For those who fear watching crime shows yet still enjoys how they unfold the truth, I highly recommend watching this show as parts of the story involves the main leads trying to find culprits etc, meanwhile there is also NO gruesome imageries involve.

Read More

Pulling a supporting character through the mud to make the main character shine

Autumn ballad is one of lately popular genres of palace detective historical series.

The Heroine is a smart girl , able to solve the crime like Sherlock Holmes in ancient China.
She then meets our Smart Hero on her journey, sparks fly due to her sharp intellect and the rest is history.

I love that kind of story since Maiden Holmes , so I came to watch Autumn Ballad.

*****
The Beginning episodes are not bad , which start with the case of our Heroine,Qiu Yan's bethroned death on their wedding day.
The resistance of the heroine who refused to die for a husband ,whom she didn't know and hadn't properly wed yet , is admirable.

But my problem with the drama actually starts after that case had been solved and she came back home .

We are indroduced to many members of Qiu family as supporting characters ,but none of them particularly stands out as an individual , they are described as either selfish or
self-orientated to make the Heroine shine in comparison in drama fashion.

Among them, one particular supporting character is Qiu Min, Heroine step sister.
Qiu Min seems to be jealous of Qiu Yan for her talent and also her biological mom's love for Qiu Yan.

To make the Heroine unique, the story made her fallen in love with other man ,Qin Xuan rather than ML ,Liang Yi at the beginning of story. Coincidentally, Qiu Min also fell in love with that Qin Xuan.

When misfortunes fell upon Qiu family, Qiu Yan broke up with Qin Xuan. ( Not real break up at that time )
The story should be like Qiu Yan broke up with him under difficult circumstances and fell in love with Liang Yi due to their closeness in solving Qiu family case. Simple and Modernized , right ?

But they make Qiu Min dirty again.
They made her rob Qin Xuan ( after she got raped ) from Qiu Yan , so QY had no choice , but to cut QX ( for real this time) and got close to LY , to present QY as a loyal woman ,not as a woman who had change of heart.
(Another problem of mine with chinese dramas .
Why does rape victim suddenly go bad and turn into villain mood ? Also in Prince of Liang Lin )

I mean there are individuals among society, some are strong like Qiu Yan while others can be weak like Qiu Min.
Qiu Min may be unpleasant cause she is a hypocrite, but there is no way to make her dirty to the end ,to make the Heroine shine.


Also I heard the main villain who made all of these happened, wasn't punished either at the end of the story.

Where can I find my satisfaction ?


:::::::::::
I mean I understand it needs a villain to make a hero.
But as a drama which wants to be orientated around a smart female lead and writes about feminism, they make QM totally terrible.

If they are business models who need to be compared for god's sake , I understand.

But it is the two females.
I feel bad for the actress who plays as QM actually.

Read More

Two fantastic main leads, a bland love interest and a vile sister

I loved Jeremy Tsui's acting in Legend of the Phoenix and thought I'd give this drama a shot. I'm not a big fan of romance-heavy dramas as I often find their plots boring and frustrating and this drama for me was a perfect mix, a plot-driven story enriched by its romance and the great chemistry between the two main leads. This story largely focuses on Qiu Yan and her family in the first part, but takes more than enough time later on to develop the feelings between her and Liang Yi. This was quite the relief to be honest, because I couldn't relate to her fawning over Qin Xuan at all. He seemed like an incredibly bland person to me, but I liked the way Qiu Yan explained her feelings for him later on in the drama. The plot stayed strong until the last few episodes where it seemed like someone had felt the sudden urge to throw in a few last-minute plot twists and turns that seemed pretty illogical and left an unsatisfying aftertaste.

The one thing I absolutely hated about this drama was Qiu Min, the female lead's younger sister. Such an innocent-looking little girl. She keeps saying she admires and cares about her sister right up until the last episode. SPOILER AND RANT ALERT.

I don't think watching your older sister almost die at least twice and not only looking not worried, but almost relieved at the possibility to not have to stand in your sister's shadow anymore gives you any right to say these words. Yes, Qiu Min didn't have it easy, either. Yes, it was terrible that that guy raped her and yes, I can understand her being scared. But why on earth does she think she can go and to the SAME THING to Qin Xuan and still have the guts to try to defend herself? Let's face it: If a man had gotten a woman drunk, drugged her and intentionally dressed like her crush to make her sleep with him, everyone would have started screaming 'rape' immediately. No, she didn't tie him to the bed, but he certainly didn't consent to sleeping with her, Qiu Min, even in his drunk state, much less would he have done it sober. Not a single comment I've read, either here or on YouTube, mentions that word. Maybe it was just so obvious that no one bothered to? Him being drunk alone would have made it questionable. Not only did she also drug him and make him think she was her sister, she later also told him he had raped her, not the other way around. I'm not saying that part shouldn't have been in the drama, I actually like the fact that the lead's own sister is this evil. What bothers me is the fact that none of the main characters picked up on how messed up that was and just sort of accepted Qiu Min's "This was my only choice, sister, not everyone is as lucky as you." I can't believe they made Qin Xuan fall for her in the end after having heard everything she'd done to him with his own ears. I also can't believe that happily watching her sister almost die twice and getting her and her whole family in trouble for her own selfish reasons countless times can be redeemed with that one action in the second to last episode. If I was Qiu Yan, realistically speaking, I wouldn't be able to be in the same room as that person, much less smile and hug and pick flowers. Oh, but Qiu Min likes herself now, isn't that a relief. Surely she knows what she's done wrong. Surely she regrets it.

I don't mind the fact that there is a character like this in the drama. While I'm angry that the other characters don't seem to care much about what kind of person she is, at least not enough to actually take any action, that's what the story is like and I can accept that. What I can't accept is the fact that half the comments I read - up until long after she'd slept with (raped) Qin Xuan - criticized Qiu Yan for being too harsh to her and 'forcing' Qiu Min to do the things she did. While the other half did criticize her, said she took advantage of him etc., the word 'rape', or even the smallest hint that that's what she did, wasn't uttered a single time and while it's just a drama, I find that pretty concerning.

While Qiu Min's constant wide-eyed self-pitying while committing some of the most selfish, vile actions I've ever seen from a female character made her scenes hard to watch, I enjoyed everything else about this drama very much. The acting was very good and the plot-to-romance-ratio was pretty much perfect in my opinion. All in all, it is a drama well worth watching if you have the patience to ignore one very annoying and frustrating side character.

Read More

Very slow to get started; ending dragged

It took me about 10 times longer to watch this show than it takes me to watch a typical drama. I was so bored the first few episodes that I went and watched several other dramas before coming back to it. Then about 5-6 episodes from the ending I got bored again and dropped it for another month and a half. Part of it was that I didn't like the female lead at all - she was super annoying and I personally think the actress is ugly (not just 'not pretty', but actually ugly). I didn't enjoy watching it because I got annoyed every time she was on-screen. Also, she was so stick thin that I think she must be anorexic - that's probably why she got the lead role, because Chinese people are so obsessed with thinness and think it's beautiful. But that thought kept distracting me and pulling me out of the story. It did pick up and get more interesting in the middle, but slowed down again towards the end. The last episode in particular dragged. The first half of the episode was sooooo boring, then they introduced a completely unnecessary and aggravating new plot element that made me wish I had just stopped watching after the first five minutes of the episode, then it dragged some more and then they wrapped up that plot element in the last thirty seconds. I don't know what the point of that entire last episode was. This was not the worst drama I've ever seen, which is why I'm not giving it a 2, but I don't think it deserves the 8.1 rating it currently has.

Read More

What happened?

The drama started out brilliantly! The ML and FL were great through out and their chemistry were one of the best I have seen, though the FL voice was irritating at first but soon got used to it. The storyline and the pacing was really good, though the main scenarios were nothing new but the the twists and quirkiness made it fun and refreshing to watch. Then came to episode 28 things starts to get a bit wobbly and iffy and a lot of fast-forwarding even before that, and by the time it hit episode 30 I was struggling to keep my interest going. I carried on watching for the sake of the ML and FL as the script and scenes began to deteriorate fast, and then came to final episode, which is the biggest let down! It was just about one of the worst endings there is in Chinese Dramaland, and there are a lot of those around. From a 8.5/10 from Episode 1 to 30, plummeted to 6.5/10. Has it not been forthe great ML and FL, I would have scored it much less, or not even bother to finish it.

Read More

Rivals to lovers

I started this drama just by curiosity and I didn't expect much from it. I fell in love with the characters from the first episodes and I finished the drama in 3-4 days. It caught me and with every episode, I wanted to see more. I liked the female lead, she is strong and intelligent and I liked that she also embraced her femininity, but she had thoughts beyond her time!

I loved that both leads were kinda morally grey and it felt like a breath of fresh air to see a different type of heroine in c-dramas. Unfortunately, from episodes 23-24 onward I wasn't that interested in the story, but I finished it because I wanted to see how it ends and how the characters will evolve.

Read More

So close...

Well.... 33/34 episodes were great and i would rate the drama an 8. But then episode 34 hit and I was very disappointed. There was absolutely no reason for qiu yan to lie to him about his mother and leave him like that... The guy has lost his father, his best friend and then his mother and wife on the same day. He has been lied to since he was 12 or so, he has killed innocent people while seeking revenge for a crime commited by his mother after all. I cannot comprehend qiu yan's sacrifice... maybe this is an asian way of thinking?? i dont know.

The ML's acting was pretty good. The FL had her good moments but overall her acting was a bit shallow for me.

the music fit the drama well.

i rarely rewatch dramas and i absolutely wont be rewatching this one.

It s such a shame because it was going soo well.

Anyway, if you watch it consider stopping at episode 33.

Read More

Not an old cliche

I love The Autumn Ballad more than I thought. It's very different from other series I watched.

Qiu Yan is very special. I love how she's not that typical. She's smart, strong and often scheming yet vulnerable enough in front of her mom, her sister and the one she loves. She's a perfect match with Liang Yi who are the same. He's quite grey and cold but secretly holds a soft spot for Qiu Yan. Their romance progresses quite naturally. It's just realistic and how love should be depicted (i.e. unlike some other series, ML/FL suddenly likes each other for ridiculous reasons...).

The side characters are however lame. Qin Xuan is useless for most of the series. But I cannot blame him because Liang Yi outshines him at all levels. Qiu Min's character development also doesn't make sense, especially in the last few episodes when she suddenly changes (for no reasons).

The ending is obviously weak. They introduce a new villain quite late and the ending for Liang Yi's mom is unnecessary. Why not a wedding instead!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyway, I still love the series, thanks to all the cute scenes between Liang Yi and Qiu Yan.

Read More