Zhui Xu (2021)

Ottimi attori per un drama avvincente

La trama è già efficacemente riassunta in scheda, per cui non mi soffermerò.
Occorre prima di tutto sottolineare che la storia ha un finale soddisfacente e potrebbe perfino ritenersi conclusa così com’è. In realtà gli ultimi minuti ci fanno capire che la vicenda continua, e possiamo solo sperare che ne facciano una seconda stagione, possibilmente con gli stessi attori. Già, gli attori. Sono in gran parte gli stessi di Joy of Life, e hanno fatto un ottimo lavoro. Il protagonista Guo Qi Lin è un classico esempio di attore poco appariscente, di media bellezza, di fisico comune e neppure troppo alto. Nulla di cui scrivere a casa, vero? Eppure è lui a reggere gran parte della serie, una vera prova d’attore sia nelle parti comiche che in quelle tragiche. E’ il vero mattatore del drama, che si concentra molto sulla sua abilità di uscire indenne da situazioni apparentemente insostenibili.
Il secondo attore che voglio segnalare è Liu Guan Lin, il caratterista che interpreta il cugino acquisito del protagonista. Un vero comico nato, le sue smorfie e i suoi manierismi sono impagabili.
La serie nasce come commedia brillante e nelle prime puntate si ride parecchio, ma veramente tanto. Ha un po’ le stesse premesse di The romance of Tiger and Rose, con lo scambio di ruoli di potere tra i mariti e le mogli. Ma ben presto ci si rende conto che non è solo su questo che si basa il drama, e cominciano intrighi politici, indagini, lotte e battaglie. La seconda parte dello show non è più molto allegra e anzi, ha momenti piuttosto tragici. Sospetto che la seconda serie, se e quando la faranno, sarà ancora incentrata su lotte di potere. Non che la cosa sia da disprezzare: durante tutta la durata del drama ci sono stati ben pochi momenti di noia. Forse hanno tirato un po’ troppo in lungo l’arco all’interno della città occupata dai banditi: un paio di episodi in meno non avrebbero guastato, ma anche così si arriva alla fine senza fatica e col distinto desiderio di passare subito alla seconda serie. Che, ahimè, purtroppo ancora non c’è.
Se in un drama cercate un cast di attori giovani e avvenenti, questa serie non è per voi. Ma se vi piacciono gli intrighi, conditi con un po’ di azione e qualche risata, siete nel posto giusto.

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Great start with some plot holes

Overall, the drama was entertaining, but, there was a visible disconnect between the first and second half.

The first half was a comedy telling a story of a modern man traveling back in time and helping his wife in ancient China succeed in business and navigate through family intrigue. Ning Yi reminded me of Forest Gump, a seemingly obscure individual full of great ideas. He used 21st century business techniques to grow the family business and undermine the competition, had an answer to everything, and helped a whole lot of people. It was clever, funny, and very entertaining. The uncle and cousin were funny caricatures and Wu Qihao was a great villain to root against.

The second half switched gears and became more of a political drama. I really did not care for the bandit arc. All the previous villains became irrelevant, and Wo Qihao was fully written out of the plot. The story wasn't as funny and interesting and it completely removed FL from several episodes. The new villains were boring and had no real motivation. Certain decisions made no sense and looked like the writers had no concrete idea how to move the plot forward. The story meant to be darker with more violence and death, but the writing was clumsy and made serious scenes look more lighthearted. Also, some plotlines absolutely did not need to be repeated. Taner was incredibly unlucky being almost raped twice. Here, the writers completely lacked any sense or imagination and force-fed us attempted rape scenes of the same character multiple times, instead of coming up with something new.

Certain arcs had plot holes. At the very beginning, ML used boxing techniques in a fight making it look like he was a skilled fighter. Later on the boxing techniques were mysteriously forgotten and he had to ask the assassin lady to teach him martial arts. She gave him one lesson without actually teaching him any martial arts and the story ended there making the whole thing utterly pointless.

The romance plotline was a minor side story. ML and FL were cute together and had chemistry. But, if you are looking for a romantic melodrama full of passion and angst, this is not it.

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All over the place

I started this drama only because there were quite a few actresses/actors from Joy of Life, and it does have a bit of Joy of LIfe vibe. Sadly that's about it. The first 15 episodes were not that bad, but it went downhill quickly and culminated in a major cliffhanger for the ending. The cast was perfect, with the actors' looks matching their roles perfectly, but the acting in my opinion felt a bit forced. lines were not delivered naturally at all, and the translation on Prime Video was horrid...
Overall drama was all over the place, with few comical episodes followed by serious storytelling, but neither was executed that well.

Hopefully, I'm wrong, but this drama will suffer the same fate as Joy of Life, never to see a season two...

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My heroic husband "season 1"

Story: The same journey as "joy of life". The feeling is the same, if you like joy of life then you will automatically like this drama, although it can't be compared to joy of life. The main character, Ning Yi, already has a wife, this is a plot that may not be liked, because there is no "romantic dating" scene expected hahaha especially in season 2.
Acting: So good. The female actor here is beautiful. I really like Liu Xigua.

Music: this is the drawback, there is nothing I like about the music. normal and annoying haha always skip the ost.

Rewatch: If you have time, go ahead, but the comedy element is not as frequent as in joy of life

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Lots of Joy of Life cast

I think you'll find it even more enjoyable if you were a fan of Joy of Life although the ML and the FL played brother & sister in Joy of life and this one they are husband and wife. Even Zhang Ruo Yun made the initial cameo which I loved! The ML maintains his comedic character and extended the same qualities in this drama. It's not a joy of life of course but if you need a lighthearted drama with a good laugh this one definitely offers that.

The ML wakes up in the past from the future and brings a lot of business savvy ideas. He gathers the support all the $ bought husbands to establish a business chain for thousand year old eggs no less. The dialogue back and forth was very witty. The only portion i skipped was many of the brother of the wife and his dad.

16 ep in the drama took a completely different turn in your political drama. It was still semi enjoyable but there's definitely some sad moments with supporting characters that I wish it didn't go in that direction. Honestly I wish they kept it just comedic through out and not go into this deep meaning of life choices, betrayal, loss over political unrest. There are enough dramas for that. The ending is also like Joy of Life where you know there's a season 2 just waiting years years later to happen.

Strong start with no finish....

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Time Travel: where cliche business ideas make a fortune, and cliche drama plot makes a hit show.

I decided to sample this show since it drew one of highest Chinese viewership in recent years, is a comedy, and has actors I'm generally positive about. While I didn't have high hopes given the 6.3 Douban rating, I figured there would be enough comedy to make it a spare-attention multitasking watch. And the show generally met that expectation mostly by avoiding the fatal pitfalls of CDramas. It didn't torture me with a sadistic reportoire of romantic tropes, the pace moved along, even if most of the plot was flat and predictable, and the actors didn't make me think I was watching a cheap commercial. My rating and review concerns the first 14 episodes that I did watch, after which the quality supposedly suffers.

The goal of the show seems to be 下饭爽剧 (easy, gratuitous watch where the Chinese viewer is often doing something else) and this was a mass-market focused premium fast food serving that did just enough to draw in a large audience. It's a thoroughly unambitious drama about an ambitious business couple in a historical setting. And peeling away that surface premise, it's basically just grafting the conventional bumper sticker version of business strategy, success, gender equality, and other issues into a historical cosplay. To complement, the show is shot in the telltale style where the emotions/expressions are obvious, the personalities are blatant, and the intrigue is repeatedly hinted and later exhaustively explained by some side character. Doing so ensures an easy watch for the widest possible audience, with the tradeoff of diluting the tension and refinement that are found in top tier shows. In a modern setting, such derivative effort would be widely panned. But when transported back in time, it has a different enough veneer to get by.

And lucky for the international viewer, this show will probably be even more interesting as the different cultural items, strategy, and issues may be more novel. Most of you will probably enjoy it quite a bit, especially the first half. But personally I have difficulty rating it higher as it's far from greatness. Moreover, I typically rate similar and better shows in the 7-8 range.
'To Get Her' is a low budget show with a similar time travel concept but delivers a lot more zany comedy. 'Legend of Undercover Chef' is an absolute riot while serving up plenty of incisive social commentary beneath the jokes. And even 'Egg and Stone' delivers the laughs and perhaps accidentally constructs a more nuanced commentary on gender equality. If this show replicated the 'Joy of LIfe' level of crisp humor, I would have thoroughly enjoyed it. But sadly, even Joy of Life lost its comedic mojo in the second season. As for the actors, Guo Qiling and Song Yi did a solid job in their roles. But these typical idol drama roles are not exactly challenging. And after a few dramas, you start to see their characters in different shows overlapping with each other. Hopefully they can continue to improve on their range, subtlety, and realism of performance.

‒Category Ratings‒
- Overall - 7 (to ep14)
- Plot - 7
- Theme / Message / Impact - 6
- Acting - 7.5
- Visuals - 7.5
- Audio - 7
- Accessibility - 7.5
- Subtitle quality - 8

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Strong start but weak follow-up

I've watched Joy of Life and I think I like this series better!

The main character was a bit disappointing at first as I assumed it would be Zhang Ruo Yin, but his amazing acting and characterizations succeeded to capture my heart. I also really like the female lead and how she is not weak but can stand on his own right (definitely not a damsel in distress type that makes you frustrated). Kudos to the guy who plays Ning Yi, who will be compared to Zhang Ruo Yin (who I've liked since the Dr. Qin series) regardless of what he did, but I surprisingly ended up liking him more than the previous male lead in Joy of Life.

He seems less cliche and perfect and that makes him and his struggles much more relatable.

Romance is really fun and I like the playful chemistry between the two leads. Definitely a must-watch series :)

Sadly, the show lags and kind of loses its point from ep 12 onwards, but I still really really like the start of this drama.

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Feminism - The Academy of Male Virtuousness

I hadn't finished watching this drama yet but what I LOVE about it thus far, is that it's not the usual toxic historical Chinese drama, in which the female lead is a damsel in distress that needs saving and the male lead is perfect and doesn't make mistakes. This drama reminds a little of Mr.Queen (a Korean historical drama that is a remake of Go Princess Go, a Chinese historical drama). The difference is the roles are reversed; the male lead is the stay at home husband who wakes up with amnesia, while the female lead is the business woman. Episode 3, at the 39 minute mark is my favorite. It's the scene at The Academy of Male Virtuousness.

Note: What could have made this drama better for me, is if the actors/characters were between the ages 25-35 and looked like it. I tend to stop watching dramas, if the characters look under 25 because I am in my 30's. I don't want see romance between high school aged characters lol.

I am so glad that C-dramas and K-dramas are moving away from toxic characters. I will update this review after I've finished watching all of the episodes.

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