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Yi ai wei ying (2022)
Don't believe hate reviews. This is a delightful rom-com.
I see haters are already at work trying to malign this drama. Not just here, I'm seeing hate videos on Youtube too. Unfortunately, this happens in the world of Chinese dramas where producers are blackmailed into paying up, otherwise their dramas are defamed on social media. Apparently, the producer of this drama did not give in to blackmail, thus flaws were invented or those that are common in cdramas and would largely be ignored were exaggerated with this drama. The attacks got propagated to other sites including international ones.
But don't let haters keep you from enjoying this delightful rom-com.
Only For Love is about a beautiful and smart but rather quirky reporter, Zheng Shuyi (Bai Lu), and a hotshot mysterious young CEO, Shi Yan (Dylan Wang), who requests to be interviewed by Shuyi to publicize the vision of his venture capital company to help startups achieve their full potential. Shuyi has just caught her boyfriend cheating on her with a girl she mistook for Shi Yan's niece. Her boyfriend breaks up with her for the girl who promised to help him with his career. With her pride shaken, Shuyi decides to flirt with Shi Yan, seemingly to get back at her ex-boyfriend and to allow her to conduct a series of interviews with the much sought after bachelor CEO. Their constant meetings lead to romance. But what would Shi Yan feel when he knows the truth about Shuyi's reasons for pursuing him?
Shuyi is not the usual type of female lead in Chinese dramas. She is brilliant when it comes to work. But outside of it, she is somewhat clueless. Self-centered and shameless too. Her clumsy pursuit of Shi Yan is hilarious, showing how out of character she is at playing a seductress. But is it all play-acting? Might this seductress have fallen in love with her prey?
Shi Yan is being hailed on social media as the Chinese Mr. Darcy with his reserved and stoic demeanor as well as the dashing figure he cuts especially in a riding outfit. But he's also got a charm all his own. When he smirks at Shu Yi's clumsy attempts at seduction or when he looks at her with all the affection and sexual tension he oftentimes has a hard time keeping under wraps, your heart wouldn't be able to help dancing with excitement.
There might be some cultural challenges that could impact a non-Chinese viewer's understanding of the drama. For example, the joke about the cake in Shi Yan's uncle's dinner feast started with Shuyi mischievously texting "making love' to her ex-boyfriend's query about what she was doing. But when she noticed Shi Yan watching her composing the text, she changed her text to "making cake". The misunderstanding arose due to some texts not being subtitled. In addition, it seems "eat cake" has some sexual connotation in Chinese culture. So if you don't understand something in the story, try to join social media discussions and ask away.
All in all, this drama is pleasing to the eye and is quite entertaining. It starts off lighthearted but the characters turn out to be more than typical rom-com characters. These are multi-dimensional characters who are not all good but also not all bad. In short, they are human. Dissecting the characters and what makes them tick is fundamental to enjoying this delightful drama.
(Updated 12/04/2023 to add information about hate reviews)
Wo men de xi nan lian da (2020)
Engaging drama about students in Sino-Japanese war
Something interesting is going on. Not only am I watching historical events in this drama, something historical might also be happening relating to its broadcast.
This drama follows a group of students from top universities in China who witnessed their schools being bombed or occupied by the Japanese during the second Sino-Japanese War from 1937 to 1945. They followed their teachers south to establish the Changsha Temporary University and eventually the National Southwestern Associated University in Kunming.
I'm not a fan of war movies/dramas but this completely engaged my attention with its well-recreated historical events and interesting characters, including famous historical figures like poet Wen Yi Duo and Tsinghua University president Mei Yiqi.
This drama can foster patriotism from Chinese citizens and expatriates. Might the intended audience just be the Chinese community then? Might this be the reason no official subtitles are provided, no matter how much international viewers have been clamoring for them? The timing is curious, considering what's going on in the world today.
What makes it doubly interesting is the reception from its intended audience.
As an international viewer struggling to understand the Youtube auto-translation of the drama, I've been deeply moved by the powerful historical portrayals like the bombings of Nankai University and Changsha, the passion of the teachers and students to serve their country and the depiction of how much residents' lives changed during the war. I've been crying since the second episode.
Yet, comments on Chinese social media are more concerned about the airtime the male lead is getting compared to other characters, the love triangle, deleted scenes, and other gripes about the production that, considering the subject matter, are petty and nit-picky.
Nitpicking is a common strategy to sabotage a show. Or, might this be reflecting the Chinese people's low interest in being dragged into a war at present? It seems like they are more interested in fantasy dramas and other forms of escapism than having their patriotism stoked.
Ai (2012)
Entertaining ensemble movie
I found this movie as engaging as other western-made ensemble movies like Love Actually. Entertaining, poignant and funny, it presents different kinds of love - between a commitment phobic businessman (Mark Chao) and a single mother (Wei Zhou), between the businessman and the single mother's son, between the businessman and a beautiful model (Qi Shu), between the model and her sugar daddy (Doze Niu), between the model and a hotel server (Ethan Juan), between the hotel server and his sister (Ivy Yi-han Chen), between the sister and her best friend (Amber Kuo), between the best friend and her boyfriend (Eddie Peng) and between the best friend and her father who is the model's sugar daddy.
As a commitment-phobic jerk with a hidden soft heart, Mark Chao engaged my attention the most. People's Magazine, your next Sexiest Man Alive is right here. If you need more proof, check him out in Eternal Love (Three Lives, Three Worlds, Ten Miles of Peach Blossom).
The King: Youngwonui Gunjoo (2020)
Fascinating, elegant, smart, funny and thrilling
I have not reviewed a movie before but felt compelled to share how much I love this masterpiece. It has been nitpicked to pieces making one wonder whether it has indeed been sabotaged. It is too beautiful to be left to suffer such an injustice. For example, it was lambasted because a temple that was onscreen for, like, a second, did not look Korean. The nitpickers had totally ignored the fact that this is a FANTASY drama, hitting the show below the belt by taking advantage of Korean viewers' patriotism thereby pushing them away. Nevertheless, it became an international hit, having been #1 most streamed TV show on Netflix in at least 11 countries and in the top 10 in at least 19 other countries.
The story centers around King Lee Gon, played to perfection by Lee Min Ho, who found a portal to a parallel universe where he met gutsy detective Jeong Tae Eul played by Kim Go Eun. Dedicated to her job, Tae Eul doubts Lee Gon's fantastic tale of being a king in a parallel world and tries to discover his identity. She is not one to go gaga for a gorgeous stranger at first sight no matter how openly he expresses his interest in her. But her unfavorable first impression of him is a source of amusing repartee so I didn't mind at all that she took her time to fall for him. How she finally believes him is one of the most thrilling and satisfying developments of the series.
The story is rather complicated, but the pace gives viewers enough time to understand what is going on. Scenes and dialogues that might seem irrelevant turn out to be important, so viewers need to be observant, including of those relating to the romance between the leads as they tend to express their feelings more with their eyes and facial expressions than cheesy lines. Viewers who prefer simple plots might not appreciate the complications and mysteries, but those who go along with the ride would be rewarded with a beautiful and fascinating adventure.
(Netflix stats added on 7/6/2020)
Update (9/25/2023): Since this drama came out, I've been bothered by the controversies that derailed its reception in South Korea, baffled by their incongruity. This drama is OBVIOUSLY anti-Japanese. It has scenes where Japanese characters are OBVIOUSLY villainous. Yet, it has been attacked because a temple that appears for less than a minute looks Japanese and some Japanese flags were accidentally placed in the warships of the fictitious Kingdom of Corea for less than minute. Many viewers would not even notice these minutiae! I definitely didn't. In fact, I watched the war scene more than 5 times to see the misplaced flags but all I could see were the flags of the fictitious Corea (one is the red-and-blue flag resembling the Joseon flag and the other is the King's flag with the flower). This is the height of nitpicking. Anti-Japanese viewers did not appreciate the OBVIOUSLY anti-Japanese theme of the drama, but instead complained to high heaven about virtually invisible mistakes that detractors kept insinuating were Japanese leaning. It did not help that South Korean news sites kept featuring these controversies. This aroused my suspicion that there is more to this than meets the eye. And I might have gotten my answer. Recently, this drama was banned in South Korea together with Pachinko, another drama starring Lee Min Ho. Two out of six banned dramas star LMH. And that aligns with my impression that some people in the Kdrama industry have some beef against LMH. Going through social media in 2020 to get more information about the controversies, I saw a shocking amount of antagonism towards LMH. In a drama fan site, a group of haters hogged the comment section of this drama, heckling, harassing and bullying those who posted positive comments about it. A normal viewer who doesn't like a drama would leave a comment or two, probably drop the drama and get on with his life. Right? These haters, who violently objected to being called haters, went on and on and on about alleged flaws of the drama, not letting up even after the finale was aired. If they hated the drama that much, why didn't they drop it and let the fans of the drama enjoy it? They turned out to be fans of LMH rivals in the industry.