So Much Wasted Potential

The Good:

-Wormhole plot point
- Time traveling desk + prince, but he's always asleep when it happens which is... a bit strange, because then the wormhole theory doesn't actually work. Just make the desk inside the wormhole and then he gets transported with the desk, or what was the point of having the desk transport in the first place?

- Reference to Scarlet Heart\ them watching Scarlet Heart.

- Lantern being connected to the wormhole. Beautiful lantern with original illustrations.

The Bad

- Pretty much everything else.

-FL never matures like in Scarlet Heart. She stays the same.

- Acting all around is OK. Main characters seem to be made up of newbies out of theatre school. No great performances, except the emperor who was excellent.

-CGI animals were incredibly cringe. Not as cringe as watching grown men get swatted by a CGI bear, but pretty close.

- Fight scenes were incredibly fake looking and cringeworthy.

- Characters were all incredibly dumb.

In Conclusion:

This could have been an awesome homage to Scarlet Heart. It started off with the idea of a love that spans 300 years, but Scarlet Heart went deeper than that. It was about human relationships and how there are different ways of looking at them, and about different ways of loving someone and how you can love someone completely but their dark side can ruin you. Anyway, Dreaming Back to the Qing is a superficial drama with no big ideas to it. The FL was likeable enough, but she remained as superficial as the drama itself.

Read More

Unexpected Gem

Kind of funny to me how reviews on here are built on the popularity of the actors. Obviously, the actors in this drama are not pop idols, otherwise the rating would be way higher. This drama was made by the same writing/directing team as "The Confidence", and likewise has two of the same main leads. Actually, the production team was so set on being recognized as being the same team, that they blatantly declared this fact at every available opportunity. The team makes the ML go to a random store and he plays around with his necklace from "The Confidence", then, if all that wasn't enough, they make a secondary character actually watch "The Confidence" in one scene. Still not enough "The Confidence" reference for you? They make the FL go to the same store and look at the same knight armour as the ML had next to his desk in "The Confidence". We get it. This is "The Confidence" team, you've made that clear to us.

The acting in this drama is fantastic. Both the script and storyline are excellent too, which are the most important elements. All the characters were interesting and necessary for the plot. There wasn't a single character that annoyed the heck out of me. All the characters made sense. The bereaved FL had her entire world collapse on her in the first episode, which is why she was so distrustful, cold, distant, and traumatised. Why do so many people expect a traumatized FL to be anything but emotionally numb is beyond me. If you choose to watch a drama where the FL goes through serious trauma within the first episode, does it really make sense to expect her to have a colourful palate of facial expressions?! Just a personal pet peeve of mine on here.

The FL is able to move on in life firstly through the help of her savvy friend Su Wen, and secondly, because she finds out that the man she was grieving as her husband never really existed in the first place. She knew him for over a decade, and it turned out she hardly knew him at all. That sure helps in moving on during bereavement. It gave her a reason to move on with her life, and a logical reason for the ML to make a move towards her, even though he didn't need to forcefully kiss her in this drama, like he did in "The Confidence". The truth is, the writers wanted to keep you guessing if the ML's character was good or bad, so they let you see him in both lights and had side characters build doubt in our minds, well into the later episodes. I need to mention the acting of the SFL Su Wen here as well. She was an excellent contrasting support character to our FL, and the actress that played her was superb.

Peng Guan Ying is a wonderful character actor inside the body of a ML. He has wonderful range and can turn into any character he wants, and he was, as always, wonderful in this drama. Just like in "The Confidence", the plot here was held together by an unrealistic..... idea, if you will. In "The Confidence" this idea was that a human can have their entire face copy\pasted onto another human's completely different bone structure and come out of it looking like Peng Guan Ying. In "The Unexpected Falling", this outlandish idea is that a person cannot look up a famous lawyer's face and see a picture of them. I get that Chinese internet is censored, but not a single picture of a famous lawyer on the internet? Doesn't seem likely. The FL never goes to the ML's law firm? She just expects him to follow her around? This was explained away by giving the FL a naive character, and it worked up to a point, but she is understandably mistrustful at the same time, so.... I just feel like this was a lot to expect of the audience to look past.

When it comes to a drama with a lot of side plots and characters, I usually lose interest in at least some, if not most of the side stories, but not so in this one! Even the side stories held my interest, which didn't happen in "The Confidence", so I think this drama overshadows "The Confidence" by far. I agree with the review that talked about the director needing to learn more about editing, absolutely, too many unnecessary shots, but I also understand the political constraints of the Chinese media, wherein writers and directors are literally forced to write a certain number of episodes and to fill those episodes with content means something has to suffer the cost of that. As a result, I never watch a Chinese drama expecting some form of perfection, because it isn't possible under dictatorship. Art under dictatorship will never be perfect simply because it can't be. For that reason, I do lower my expectations in my judgement, but the writing and acting here was really great regardless. This is a great ensemble mystery thriller series that doesn't disappoint.

9 beige raincoats out of 10.

Read More

She Stoops To Conquer

A smart game developer is being used and manipulated like a test dummy by the CEO she works for.

She enters a VR game world, where she is cast as "the ugly maid" just because of a scar on her face. Chinese dramas are obsessed with facial scars for some reason. Acne, facial scars, even freckles on occasion, are signs of weakness for some reason, and decrease your worth as an individual.

Anyway, our FL has to start from the bottom and kick her way up from there, probably the same way she had to get promoted at the game company she works at in the real world. She gets kicked around both in the real world, as well as the VR world, but this girl isn't going to let anything keep her down. She is kind to everyone that will recieve her kindness, and though she might have moments of self-pity, she doesn't act like the usual C-drama victim FL. I liked her as a character a lot, and I liked the SML, who was part of another cute couple. It's been a couple years since I saw this drama, but I don't remember a lot about the ML, except he had great chemistry with the FL when they had their picnic heart-to-heart evening talks, and that was really sweet to see.

Overall, I found this drama to be surprisingly pleasant, and the best VR time travel costume drama of all of them. Simple story, sincere characters that weren't annoying (at least the FL wasn't).

Read More

Splash Toilet Love

This is China's version of the Korean drama: Splash Splash Love. Instead of entering the timeslip through a puddle, she enters through a toilet, somehow.

She doesn't have the intelligence of the FL in "Splash Splash Love", unfortunately. I doubt if she could solve those math equations, for example. However, she is somewhat charming in her strong will and her loyalty to her friends, which should be a minor detail, but in C dramaland, this can't be taken for granted of any FL.

This FL trips over herself every few steps though, which became pretty annoying, but overall, she had a mind of her own and was outspoken, not like many human doormat female characters.

The ML, well, he didn't really need to act much, he was just there for show. I don't remember who played the SML, but I do remember I liked him better. If the FL didn't act like a typical teenager (and that smart phone charm was ugly and tacky, and just expressed her lack of taste very well).

The story started out quite strong. The time-travel toilet was a funny and cute idea, had the writers committed to it. Unfortunately, the writers committed the worst storyline crime of all, and went with the "everything was just a dream" route, which is the laziest, most non-committal storyline choice you can possible choose!! Don't waste your time. This could have just been a charming and fun tale, but the writers completely ruined it.

Read More

Im Ju Hwan

I remember nothing about this thriller except Im Ju Hwan. I remember only how he stole the show, and how his character was the only fully developed one in the whole drama. What an amazing actor! He also stole "Oh My Ghostess" and "The Bride of Habaek" in much the same fashion, with his multi-faceted characters, even though all thise characters were antagonists!!

He is a character actor inside a gorgeous man's body. Why on earth hasn't he been the ML in most of the dramas he has been in so far??! Maybe it's his choice to continue not to be cast as the handsome ML, but I hope to still see him as the ML in the future.

Read More

Seduce To Conquer

Typical grow-up and return to revenge K-drama, done unusually well in a lot of ways.

Every character in this drama was acted to perfection, with the exception of maybe the annoying child actresses that played the two little girls that would be periodically forgotten as if they never existed, since they were nothing more than a detail to the drama and subsequently to the characters.

If I was to point out performances that really stood out to me, it would be the central antagonists. The SFL, with her complex personality.... disorder and mental illness, the actor that played the evil father, and the other guy... who ends up in hospital... for me, personally, as much as I loved to hate them as characters, the amount of thought and work that went into breathing life into those characters was the most impressive for me. I want to see all of them again in something else. They are superb actors.

The plot point about tango was so stupid to me. I mean, tango isn't sophisticated in any way. It was invented so that the opposite sex could have physical contact with one another. Tango music is just European classical music with a South American folk twist to it. The way they talked about it like it's this spiritual dance, instead of what it actually is, which is an intimate dance that developed into a dance to envoke sensuality. Well, that's so much like the ML and FL's relationship, isn't it?!! They both lived in an imaginary place in their heads, where they romanticized their relationship to more than what it was, which was a sexual affair. Claiming they are "Twin Flames", after he recently asked her to just forget about the lawsuit? LOL. Nope! If two people in this drama are actual twin flames, it's the FL and SML. The SML actually loves her as a real-life human being, not as an imaginary sexualized figure of his imagination. The ML has no idea what love is though, having never been loved before, except by his daughter, so it does make sense that he wouldn't be able to recognize it.

I guess the writers wanted to evoke the biblical Eve, who was Adam's second wife. The first wife, Lilith, is often depicted in classic novels such as "Jane Eyre" as the mad-woman in the attic. From the drama title alone, I know that our SFL was headed for "the attic", via madness. The scene with her putting on her war-paint mask of make-up was a stroke of genius, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that it was done spontaneously the first time, as it looked so organic and instinctive.

I know I keep mentioning the SFL as if the FL wasn't fantastic as well, I don't mean to imply that, it's just that the SFL role is so much juicier and more interesting from a character point-of-view. The ML was excellent in his role, though, he was a character severely stunted by lack of love, which I mentioned before. The ML sacrificed himself for nothing, as it turns out, since I mean, everything would have turned out pretty much the same had he lived (though, I wouldn't have wanted him to just survive the crash, that would have been too far-fetched).

All in all, well done to the cast and crew. SFL, I loved watching a mature actress steal the show! I'll be looking for your work from now on. Also, I liked her outfits even more than the FL's, and some of them (ep 15 & 16), I want to wear myself, which doesn't happen often.... actually, that's never happened before.

Read More

How To Sabotage A Wonderful Story

Story is more important than casting, CGI, acting, setting, or directing

This original story was special, unique, fantastical, and everything I would want in a Chinese fantasy costume drama. It had a bit of everything, comedy, tragedy, romance, fantasy, adventure. It had the potential to be the best Xanxia drama ever made. Unfortunately, some choices were made that really spoiled things.

Firstly, the FL started off strong and looked every inch like the beautiful and capable princess FL we all hope for when watching a costume drama, only to be literally AND figuratively defaced by Zhao Lu Si. Zhao Lu Si being an actress that either has no desire to embody any character that isn't a comic one, or she just doesn't have the skill to be a serious actress. Either way, the FL went from being a cultured, beautiful, intelligent and complex princess character, to being a reckless and overexaggerated character for the sake of comic relief. The ML, Zheng Ye Chen, is perfectly cast here, however, the director pretty much ruined his character for us, as in one scene he is seen full-on groping the FL, and she barely even knows who he is! He sexually harrasses her like a perverted creep, even using other female attention in order to gain the FL's attention. I don't know in what universe the screenwriters or directors thought this was OK, but it isn't!

The rest of the series is basically the FL being a rash idiot, and the ML has to come bail her out if every situation because she is too stupid to work with him instead of against him.

Also of note, is one of the secondary characters said something the Chinese government didn't like, so they had to replace that actress's face with a superimposed face of another actress using horrific CGI.

Truly, it's a so sad that such a great storyline had to be ruined by bad scriftwriting, CGI, and casting of the FL, but it's all really a reflection of the industry. A place where not very attractive actresses get cast out of popularity alone, sexual harrassment is written into a script for absolutely no reason, and an actress becomes a political victim and gets replaced through bad CGI. It's all in there.

Read More

Guilty Pleasure Drama

The premise for this series is so overdone. It seems like every other Chinese Costume Drama starts off in the modern world and ends up in a VR game version of ancient China. This set-up needs to stop. Having said that, this costume drama somehow won me over, reluctantly, to the point that it is now my guilty pleasure drama.

The FL definitely started off as the stereotypical annoying brat, but I prefered this to the docile, perpetual victim self-pitying human doormat trope. She may be uneducated, uncultured, and loud (nothing wrong with being loud if you are also intelligent, but if you aren't, then it's annoying). Over time, however, her natural charm and relatability won me over, and she stopped being annoying.

She was kind, and cared about people, and like all of us, enjoyed lusting after all the hot guys in her VR reverse-harem. Gong Jun's character is the overly stern and cold prince type who doesn't treats the FL quite badly but she chooses him over the SML who literally sacrificed everything for her. That's a rather unfortunate trope that the self-sacrificing lover doesn't get the girl, but the lover that treats her badly does.

Anyway, this isn't meant to be a deep, thoughtful drama. It's meant to be an entertaining and fun watch, which it is.

Read More

What Goes Up Must Come Down

This drama started so strong and promising! CGI was good (for once), plot was engrossing, characters showed promise. The case solving formula of solving a case per episode actually worked here. But then...... we got to know the female lead is actually a child in her mind because she is young "for an immortal", and the first thing that happens to you once you make it into the immortal relm is memory erase followed by a lobotomy.

Evidence of the enforced lobotomy slowly presented itself as the drama progressed. The FL had less and less brain-cells. Her loyal, devoted, yet scorned best friend, Wengu, sacrificed literally everything just to follow her through both mortality and immortality. He also happened to be gorgeous and a medical genius, but she took him for granted and acted like a spoiled brat around him. He tried to let the ML know that she is...... simple.... in her mind (more of a lobotomy, but we'll call it autism to make it sound nicer), so it was totally creepy and inappropriate for him to be going out with her, but of course our FL and ML could not be separated.

The ML is a wooden actor with a smile that would melt even the iciest of hearts. Did I think he was great in this drama? No. Did my heart skip a bit when he smiled? Yes, yes it did, against my will. ?

I have never seen the FL in anything else, but she is not only stunningly beautiful, but there was nothing wooden about her performance. It's unfortunate that the screenwriters wrote her character the way they did, but she herself is a very good actress.

Wengu, the SML was a complex, brooding, conflicted and colourful character that stole the show from the other characters. However, his story was closely followed by the SFL character who was the most annoying perpetual victim character out of all of them! Whenever she entered a scene, it was always to whine about something, manipulate another character, or to throw herself at Wengu. I rejoiced when she finally died.

Cinematography was excellent, by the way. Very atmospheric. The overall idea of this drama was great in my opinion.

So, if you want to watch an engrossing SML get trampled on and try to get over one disappointment after another, then watch this drama. If you don't mind stupid FLs and a wooden ML as long as they are nice to look at, then go ahead and watch this drama.

Read More

Another Mind-numbingly Boring Xanxia

I don't have much to say about this drama. It involves the trials and tribulations of a half-blood immortal fairy, who, like all the Xanxia protagonist in C-dramaland, she has no opinions of her own, no real personality, she behaves like a 9 year-old girl inside a 30 something year-old's body, and we are supposed to like her childish passivity because of her overt femininity and "quirky" way of tripping her way into random predicaments.

Nini, you are gorgeous. You have the face and body of a goddess, to be sure, but other than having the exact look of a goddess, and being "nice", what was your character's relatability supposed to come from, if not from having a rounded, interesting character?

I don't think it's necessarily Nini's fault so much as the writer's. I just want to one day see a Xanxia protagonist character with more than just amazing looks. Yang Mi in Ten Thousand Miles of Peach Blossoms started out as a somewhat interesting and interested character, but Yang Mi can't act, and her character became more and more complacent and obedient and less interesting rather swiftly. I can't really think of anything I've seen Nini in where she wasn't playing the same inquisitive, but ultimately passive, demure, and colourless character. I realize I am being harsh towards female characters, but they are supposed to be the main characters around which the drama is built. Replace Yang Mi with Dilraba, replace Dilraba with Nini, it's all the same character in every drama! It just drives me absolutely crazy.

Anyway, back to this Xanxia. If you've seen one, you've seen them all. This one had a lot of money splashed its way for CGI and costumes. Costumes are the same draped fabric Xanxia pastels you will see in every Xanxia, but I do appreciate the interesting beige-ish coloured robes they gave the FL to hint at her not being quite heavenly. If only they would have put that into her character as well, maybe she could have been a bit different and unique.

Rest of the cast was average at best, and nobody really stood out, so their storylines were just a waste of time. With no interesting characters, what's the point of watching a 50+ episode drama?

Read More

Charming Young Female Professional Drama

The trend of young female professionals in ancient Chinese dramas is usually a hit or miss (no pun intended).

Firstly, let me say that the story was compelling enough that I am writting this having not skipped a single episode thus far, which is a rare occasion.

The story is very simple, about a young woman who handles court cases. Unlike most female characters, she isn't naive to the point of being an idiot. She doesn't rely on others to bail her out of problems more than her male counterparts would in the same circumstances. The FL actress reminds me so much of Sebrina Chen. That same coldness of character, except this actress can actually act. Strangely enough, I looked up her name and her English name is Sabrina, which is quite the coincidence, unless it's a common chosen name in China, I guess.

There were parts of this drama that were clumsily executed. For instance, the litigator reenacts a crime by attempting to hang herself very clumsily, and then says "luckily I survived", as if throwing a rope around a beam without even tying it would have strangled anyone. Why would she even need to try to strangle herself just to see if it was possible? It was just dumb. Then, there's the ML, who I thought for sure was the SML until it became clear the FL had feelings for him. He is a really bad actor. I mean, this guy obviously worked as a model and one day, his agent told him he should be an actor. He is one of the worst actors I've ever seen in a Chinese drama, and that is saying a lot. Yes, he is nice to look at, but so is the SML, and we got to know way more about the SML than the ML. In one unintentionally absurd scene, the ML is supposed to be dying of poison, as evidenced by the unkempt wig devouring his entire head, and he lassos the FL like a cow because he doesn't know who she is.

Overall, it's very difficult to find a female lead drama that is good enough to watch past the first episode, but this one manages well to keep the viewer's attention, despite its pitfalls. It reminds me a lot of a less sensual, more innocent version of "Miss Truth".

Read More

Korean Zorro

This is as corny of a drama as you could hope to find. It's Korean Zorro, fighting against the Japanese occupation. The FL is wandering around getting herself and everyone else into trouble and then the ML has to rescue everyone again and again.

I kind of laughed at the exaggerated acting at the very beginning (people get killed, I'm not proud to say I laughed, but I couldn't help it, the acting was so over the top, so very corny). The FL, well, she was missing both a personality and a brain, so it was hard for me to care about what happens to her. The ML was not helped by the cheesy lines he was given, nor the fact that his main job in his role was to fight.

The SML, in contrast, had time away from shooting guns, where he could really display his inner termoil, and that was what made him the most rounded character in the entire drama. I'd have shot the FL in the very first episode, buddy, so I can understand why you had enough of her by the end.

It's about 75% fight scenes, and the rest is the ML rescuing people whilst pretending he isn't rescuing people. If that sounds appealing to you, go ahead.

Read More

My Body-Snatching Alien Cat Prince

Firstly, I want to make sure everyone knows that: MINT IS HIGHLY TOXIC TO CATS!!!!

Whoever wrote the script has never had a cat in their lives, nor knows anything about cats. Please don't feed mint to any cats, like the FL does to cats in this drama, because she is an idiot.

Also, with the stray cat population in China being at crisis numbers, there is absolutely no excuse for the Chinese TV industry to be advertising human bred cats by featuring them over rescued Chinese domestic short hair cats. These bred cats not only have genetic defects because humans breed them to look a certain way, and often suffer their whole lives from physical illnesses. My rescue cats are 8× more beautiful, sweeter, and smarter than these genetically modified cats that exist for absolutely no reason but to look the way shallow, selfish human beings want them to look. They are not superior in any way, nor are they easier to train.

Anyway, I think you get my point.

1. This drama promotes poisoning your cat through mint consumption.

2. This drama promotes the purchasing of bred cats, when millions of rescue street cats need a home.

And now to the rest of my review:

I don't know why I enjoyed this drama. It had just about everything I hate in a drama:

Saccharinely sweet FL

Every possible Chinese costume drama cliché

Body-snatching alien trope (so overdone).

Every episode or two, they are catching a bad guy, just like in Pokémon, really. I hate that.

The FL is supposed to be an ancient chinese vet of some sort, but, as I stated earlier, she is "curing" cats by feeding them mint, which is toxic!!

There is every reason to hate this drama, but somehow, I didn't hate it. Somehow, I kind of liked the FL, despite her being Saccharinely sweet. At least she wasn't wooden like Angela Baby or Gulnazar (I can't even tell the difference between these two actresses, as they not only look the same, but also neither can actually act. This FL should have been painfully annoying, but somehow, she wasn't. The antics of the ML were fun, even whilst he kept a stoney stoic face. The SML was the most likeable character, as he was not only easy on the eyes, but was also written as a genuinely nice person, which made it hard to choose between ML and SML.

Technically, this should have been another unwatchable and annoying drama, but somehow, there is an undeniable charm to this series that I can't deny.

Read More

Cute and Watchable Costume Drama

Costume dramas are my thing. If I see a Chinese costume drama, of course I will give it a go. Mostly, they can't be relied on for acting, cinematography, story, or anything else except costume. There is no way of knowing what a costume drama holds in value until I start watching it. Li Yi Tong annoyed me in "Court Lady" so much so that I held prejudice against watching another drama with her in it.

However, her character here was charming and relatively relatable in its fragility. She was the naive do-gooder archetype, but she wasn't the village idiot, which is what is most important to me.

Anyway, it's a cute story. Nothing unusual. Wish that there wasn't a supernatural aspect to it, as turning into a werewolf is a pretty embarrassing character trait that, let's be honest, wasn't even slightly important for the plot. I found myself getting bored, despite the series being very watchable, which most costume dramas are not.

The ML here... I thought he was going to be a model with no acting skills, but I was wrong. He did a good job with what he was given. Just a bit too good looking to be relatable, in that "characters touch us through their weaknesses" kind of way. He is almost too good looking to be a serious actor (not his fault).

I find it difficult to want the FL and ML to become a couple after the ML brutalises the FL in the first few episodes. I realize it's almost a prerequisite for Chinese dramas, but I hate it. Why does the ML have to strangle, wound, or almost kill the FL at first out of mistrust??!! The FL obviously poses no threat to the ML, yet he must always treat her with suspicion by strangulation, attempted assassination, or duel?!! I don't like it. It's not endearing!!! I can only think of a few C dramas that don't have this trope in them. The SML is always considerate and pleasant to the FL, and the ML brutalises the FL in the beginning, but she still chooses him! Well, it's just a general annoyance I have about tropy C dramas like this one. Make no mistake, this is a tropy drama and this year's version of "The Autumn Ballad".

Read More

Promising, But Boring

We get it, China. People with money= bad, poor people= good. We get it.

Two childhood sweethearts divided by class difference. Nothing new here. We know they are going to get together, but there is no actual connecting story here, so the plot is stretched over sexual tension that just doesn't burn bright enough to keep interest.

I have a girl crush on Janice Wu, which is why I gave this a chance in the first place, and she did not disappoint. I love her facial expressions and mannerisms. The ML was ok as well, but he was written without any real depth, and that also has to do with his lack of flaws. A perfect ML is a boring one.

Read More