Becky
North Pole
Cette critique peut contenir des spoilers
A most unexpected piece of brilliant screenplay
Up until the last episode, I thought I've be rating this drama either 6 or 7, but that last episode turned everything around. In fact, I'm thinking I would have to do a re-watch of the drama.... If you are not a deep thinker and just watch this drama as a rom-com, you would see this as a soap opera story and the ending as silly and nonsensical. If you are a deep thinker like me, you might realize the additional psychological implications that this drama has been hiding until the last scene. I'm seeing so much hints now, even the poster is suspicious.... isn't it weird that Xia Ran Ran is dressed in complete white while the rest of cast are in black? I need to talk to the director or scriptwriter!!
I like the start of the drama-- a spoilt rich girl with a sad past, was alone in England and had been partying wildly, so she ran out of cash and called home to ask for funds. She was denied and did not have money to pay the apartment rent. Then police received a tip and went to her apartment and discovered illegal drugs, so she was arrested. She did not have anyone she knew in England who could help her, except for the stranger whose mobile number she had thought was her mother’s. She called again and begged for his help. He felt sorry for her and went down to the police station and bailed her out. Without money and her identifications (police withheld this due to the investigations), she had no choice but to stay with this strange man. When she reached his home however, she was surprised that he was staying at the same address that her mother had given her. But where was her mother? And why was this stranger holding the mobile number and staying at the place where her mother should have been? The next sequence of events cleverly turned towards rom-com cliches—labour contract, aloof ML and cute-as-button FL, wild girl turned hardworking student in order to plan a revenge when FL returned to China…. Making me completely forgetting that initial mysterious setup.
And this is one aspect of the brilliance in the screenplay, how it set us up with a mysterious beginning then buried the mystery with rom-com and other developments until the last 10 episodes where the mystery was revealed. And the revelation is well done too, giving little stray crumbs to viewers to guess at the truth, yet not giving us enough to know the full story until screenplay was ready to reveal the truth.
The whole cast acted very well, special mention on Liu Xiao Zhen who played Dan Juan, FL’s sissy BFF. Except for Li Yi Tong…. I find her acting to be quite underwhelming and somewhat disconnected from the drama. BUT my opinion on her acting did a 180° change when I saw the ending….
Throughout the drama, Xia Ran Ran (Li Yi Tong) would occasionally talk to herself and have fantastical daydreams. I have thought these are adorable scenes that director puts in to add more cuteness…. BUT my opinion on this did a 180° change when I saw the ending….
It is a happy ending— everything turns up rosy for Xia Ran Ran, and she married Shao Mingzhe in beautiful fairytale-like wedding. BUT in the wedding scene, there is an exact same sequence that had appeared in the initial 10 eps, in one of Xia Ran Ran’s daydreams…. This very weird ending plus the above 2 points that I have mentioned led me to think that the screenwriter wanted to imply that the last episode is a fantasy of Xia Ran Ran, that she had chosen to live in a fantasized perfect world then face the reality…. The reality would be: she lost the tender, bank retracted back the loan support, they had to sell their home and properties to pay back the bank and maybe barely survived until police completed their investigations and returned the embezzled funds to Company.... Xiang An and Su Mo never reconciled and neither did Ran Ran and Su Mo..... As for Shao Mingzhe, Ran Ran could not be with him due to his mother's objection and she didn't want to sour their mother-son relationship....
Which in a way is logical, considering the amount of bullshit that happened to her, a normal woman would have slipped into deep depression. Instead she fantasized the perfect, fairytale ending to run away from her bitter and lonely reality.... Xia Ran Ran have maintained a cheerful optimism throughout the drama, she was so cheerful that she felt disconnected with reality, which bring me back to the point about how underwhelming Li Yi Tong had played Xia Ran Ran. On hindsight, this style of acting is exactly required to portray someone with depression and PTSD. I had a friend who had a bad car accident shortly after she received her driver’s license, and when we met her just after the accident, my first words were “wow, you somehow looked younger by a few years….” That’s what unexpected shock can do to a person, you might be crying and in shock internally but appearance-wise, you look younger and actually happy.
And this is why I am so impressed with the screenplay. You can interpret this drama 2 ways—a light-hearted rom-com with the perfect ending, or the sad story of a depressed woman who chose to live in a made-believe fantasy at the end….
I like the start of the drama-- a spoilt rich girl with a sad past, was alone in England and had been partying wildly, so she ran out of cash and called home to ask for funds. She was denied and did not have money to pay the apartment rent. Then police received a tip and went to her apartment and discovered illegal drugs, so she was arrested. She did not have anyone she knew in England who could help her, except for the stranger whose mobile number she had thought was her mother’s. She called again and begged for his help. He felt sorry for her and went down to the police station and bailed her out. Without money and her identifications (police withheld this due to the investigations), she had no choice but to stay with this strange man. When she reached his home however, she was surprised that he was staying at the same address that her mother had given her. But where was her mother? And why was this stranger holding the mobile number and staying at the place where her mother should have been? The next sequence of events cleverly turned towards rom-com cliches—labour contract, aloof ML and cute-as-button FL, wild girl turned hardworking student in order to plan a revenge when FL returned to China…. Making me completely forgetting that initial mysterious setup.
And this is one aspect of the brilliance in the screenplay, how it set us up with a mysterious beginning then buried the mystery with rom-com and other developments until the last 10 episodes where the mystery was revealed. And the revelation is well done too, giving little stray crumbs to viewers to guess at the truth, yet not giving us enough to know the full story until screenplay was ready to reveal the truth.
The whole cast acted very well, special mention on Liu Xiao Zhen who played Dan Juan, FL’s sissy BFF. Except for Li Yi Tong…. I find her acting to be quite underwhelming and somewhat disconnected from the drama. BUT my opinion on her acting did a 180° change when I saw the ending….
Throughout the drama, Xia Ran Ran (Li Yi Tong) would occasionally talk to herself and have fantastical daydreams. I have thought these are adorable scenes that director puts in to add more cuteness…. BUT my opinion on this did a 180° change when I saw the ending….
It is a happy ending— everything turns up rosy for Xia Ran Ran, and she married Shao Mingzhe in beautiful fairytale-like wedding. BUT in the wedding scene, there is an exact same sequence that had appeared in the initial 10 eps, in one of Xia Ran Ran’s daydreams…. This very weird ending plus the above 2 points that I have mentioned led me to think that the screenwriter wanted to imply that the last episode is a fantasy of Xia Ran Ran, that she had chosen to live in a fantasized perfect world then face the reality…. The reality would be: she lost the tender, bank retracted back the loan support, they had to sell their home and properties to pay back the bank and maybe barely survived until police completed their investigations and returned the embezzled funds to Company.... Xiang An and Su Mo never reconciled and neither did Ran Ran and Su Mo..... As for Shao Mingzhe, Ran Ran could not be with him due to his mother's objection and she didn't want to sour their mother-son relationship....
Which in a way is logical, considering the amount of bullshit that happened to her, a normal woman would have slipped into deep depression. Instead she fantasized the perfect, fairytale ending to run away from her bitter and lonely reality.... Xia Ran Ran have maintained a cheerful optimism throughout the drama, she was so cheerful that she felt disconnected with reality, which bring me back to the point about how underwhelming Li Yi Tong had played Xia Ran Ran. On hindsight, this style of acting is exactly required to portray someone with depression and PTSD. I had a friend who had a bad car accident shortly after she received her driver’s license, and when we met her just after the accident, my first words were “wow, you somehow looked younger by a few years….” That’s what unexpected shock can do to a person, you might be crying and in shock internally but appearance-wise, you look younger and actually happy.
And this is why I am so impressed with the screenplay. You can interpret this drama 2 ways—a light-hearted rom-com with the perfect ending, or the sad story of a depressed woman who chose to live in a made-believe fantasy at the end….
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