peachblossommoon
Cette critique peut contenir des spoilers
A disappointing showing.
Started watching this because I had seen really pretty gifsets of the show. This is the second Liu Yuning (LYN) drama I've tried to watch - A Journey to Love was the first - but unfortunately, this one didn't take either. I was hesitant to start watching this to begin with, as I've never been fond of Zhao Lusi (ZLS)'s shows. This was no exception, which was a shame.
The story starts very beautifully shot, and it's a brutal beginning for the characters which gets right into it. ZLS' character meets LYN's, and she winds up on his merchant ship. Lots of red flag relationship markers where she literally gets whipped on his watch; and where normally this sort of thing would garner a female character scars on her and whatnot, it was as if it had never happened immediately afterward. I mean, she literally gets whipped on her front; not to mention the whip may well could have caught her on the face. However, ZLS' character immediately then goes running through the streets and to a place she has simply been given the name of in the middle of the night in a port town they have just arrived in some days ago. How does she know where it is? Perhaps the person who gave her the name of the place also gave her very clear directions. This also happens after she has been working basically about 48 hours with no sleep, has been dragging a heavy cart laden with rocks for a whole day after that, and gotten whipped. The suspension of disbelief required iThe s astonishing.
(Let's also not mention how when ZLS' character first gets on the ship, she's told that there are many crew members who stay in a different part of the ship, but then the next day when her little brother Shrimpy goes to collect information about who's who on the ship, there is zero mention made of these other many crew members when he lists off the basically 4 characters on the lower deck all of whom we just met last night and informed us that there are supposedly many other lower deck members like the cook [whom we never see or hear mentioned by Shrimpy during his recon debrief].)
The romance develops... because the story says so, apparently, despite this being their beginning (where she effectively gets bullied and again, literally whipped on his watch). I don't actually know how this happens, where you would develop feelings for someone who decides to watch you get whipped on their ship because them's the rules. Anyhow. They kiss, and then shortly afterwards of that, they announce this to everyone in the crew, and everyone celebrates. It's like LYN's character just changes personalities suddenly, because that's the power of love, or ZLS' character, perhaps. Same with the rest of the remaining crew at this point in the story - everyone has gone from sullen and dour to :D.
The acting is fine. ZLS plays another similar version of the strong, stubborn female archetype I have seen her play in her other dramas like Love Like the Galaxy orThe Romance of Tiger and Rose. There is not much to report on this front for me. LYN is fine, as are the other main characters. The most interesting character was Chloe Xie's Cui Shijiu, whom I sincerely contemplated continuing watching to see what happens to her for. The actor who plays Zhang lang-jun is also fine, although I will note that his name + honorific in the show (Zhang-lang) literally makes the same sound as for the word 'cockroach'.
Sadly, the story is sorely lacking and displays the same 'scenes happen consecutively, I guess' sort of feeling that many of this calibre of Chinese dramas do. I don't know if this is bad editing or if it's the writing; most likely both. In one instance, the last episode ends, and then in the next episode, ZLS' character is kidnapped in some place in the desert. How did this happen? Because the script says so, I suppose. LYN's character starts off portrayed as someone who is moving chess pieces in a carefully-plotted plan, but ZLS' character is simply snatched out from under his nose without him even knowing. Apparently the personality change and becoming interested in someone is directly proportional to how much less smart he becomes. Okay then. There is also a storytelling mechanism of flashbacks in the middle of the next scene to explain something that happened before this scene, so that instead of A -> B -> C, you get A -> C -> B.
Pros: It is very pretty to look at. Again, I had initially been drawn to watch it because of how lovely the .gifs I had seen looked, and the styling is really quite something, notably for ZLS and LYN. However, this did not make up for the abysmal story/scriptwriting, and it definitively lost me when basically all the starter supporting cast were written off abruptly on one such 'this scene happens (and this is happening now even though I don't really see any well-written reason for it to be), I suppose'.
From the comments, it would appear that the ending and the way the story goes after this episode are really just more of the same lack of coherence and good reason, which is unsurprising. Overall, it is my sense that this drama suffers mainly from not knowing what it wants to be and really committing to it; but instead tries to weave too many things into a cohesive product, which it fails at doing, in my opinion. It would have been much better off if it had decided on one or two simple themes, but is instead overrun by the many haphazard aspects it tries to tie in. Additionally, I felt one of the big bads was quite obvious (from what I could tell from other reviews and comments) immediately following the abovementioned 'well, I guess this is happening' scene.
The music was adequate. I was not particularly taken with any particular track.
Rewatch value for me is incredibly low as I lost interest quite early on, within the first 5 to 10 episodes, and the main reason I made it through to the end of episode 18 was because I was mostly listening to it rather than watching while doing something else for much of the episodes. Rewatch value is rated at a 2 because I might one day decide to continue listening while doing something else to see what happens to Chloe Xie's character, although this is very unlikely.
The story starts very beautifully shot, and it's a brutal beginning for the characters which gets right into it. ZLS' character meets LYN's, and she winds up on his merchant ship. Lots of red flag relationship markers where she literally gets whipped on his watch; and where normally this sort of thing would garner a female character scars on her and whatnot, it was as if it had never happened immediately afterward. I mean, she literally gets whipped on her front; not to mention the whip may well could have caught her on the face. However, ZLS' character immediately then goes running through the streets and to a place she has simply been given the name of in the middle of the night in a port town they have just arrived in some days ago. How does she know where it is? Perhaps the person who gave her the name of the place also gave her very clear directions. This also happens after she has been working basically about 48 hours with no sleep, has been dragging a heavy cart laden with rocks for a whole day after that, and gotten whipped. The suspension of disbelief required iThe s astonishing.
(Let's also not mention how when ZLS' character first gets on the ship, she's told that there are many crew members who stay in a different part of the ship, but then the next day when her little brother Shrimpy goes to collect information about who's who on the ship, there is zero mention made of these other many crew members when he lists off the basically 4 characters on the lower deck all of whom we just met last night and informed us that there are supposedly many other lower deck members like the cook [whom we never see or hear mentioned by Shrimpy during his recon debrief].)
The romance develops... because the story says so, apparently, despite this being their beginning (where she effectively gets bullied and again, literally whipped on his watch). I don't actually know how this happens, where you would develop feelings for someone who decides to watch you get whipped on their ship because them's the rules. Anyhow. They kiss, and then shortly afterwards of that, they announce this to everyone in the crew, and everyone celebrates. It's like LYN's character just changes personalities suddenly, because that's the power of love, or ZLS' character, perhaps. Same with the rest of the remaining crew at this point in the story - everyone has gone from sullen and dour to :D.
The acting is fine. ZLS plays another similar version of the strong, stubborn female archetype I have seen her play in her other dramas like Love Like the Galaxy orThe Romance of Tiger and Rose. There is not much to report on this front for me. LYN is fine, as are the other main characters. The most interesting character was Chloe Xie's Cui Shijiu, whom I sincerely contemplated continuing watching to see what happens to her for. The actor who plays Zhang lang-jun is also fine, although I will note that his name + honorific in the show (Zhang-lang) literally makes the same sound as for the word 'cockroach'.
Sadly, the story is sorely lacking and displays the same 'scenes happen consecutively, I guess' sort of feeling that many of this calibre of Chinese dramas do. I don't know if this is bad editing or if it's the writing; most likely both. In one instance, the last episode ends, and then in the next episode, ZLS' character is kidnapped in some place in the desert. How did this happen? Because the script says so, I suppose. LYN's character starts off portrayed as someone who is moving chess pieces in a carefully-plotted plan, but ZLS' character is simply snatched out from under his nose without him even knowing. Apparently the personality change and becoming interested in someone is directly proportional to how much less smart he becomes. Okay then. There is also a storytelling mechanism of flashbacks in the middle of the next scene to explain something that happened before this scene, so that instead of A -> B -> C, you get A -> C -> B.
Pros: It is very pretty to look at. Again, I had initially been drawn to watch it because of how lovely the .gifs I had seen looked, and the styling is really quite something, notably for ZLS and LYN. However, this did not make up for the abysmal story/scriptwriting, and it definitively lost me when basically all the starter supporting cast were written off abruptly on one such 'this scene happens (and this is happening now even though I don't really see any well-written reason for it to be), I suppose'.
From the comments, it would appear that the ending and the way the story goes after this episode are really just more of the same lack of coherence and good reason, which is unsurprising. Overall, it is my sense that this drama suffers mainly from not knowing what it wants to be and really committing to it; but instead tries to weave too many things into a cohesive product, which it fails at doing, in my opinion. It would have been much better off if it had decided on one or two simple themes, but is instead overrun by the many haphazard aspects it tries to tie in. Additionally, I felt one of the big bads was quite obvious (from what I could tell from other reviews and comments) immediately following the abovementioned 'well, I guess this is happening' scene.
The music was adequate. I was not particularly taken with any particular track.
Rewatch value for me is incredibly low as I lost interest quite early on, within the first 5 to 10 episodes, and the main reason I made it through to the end of episode 18 was because I was mostly listening to it rather than watching while doing something else for much of the episodes. Rewatch value is rated at a 2 because I might one day decide to continue listening while doing something else to see what happens to Chloe Xie's character, although this is very unlikely.
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