The writing and the directing are so much better in this episode. Even the acting is better.
The kiss between Mary Ann and Logan is adorable.
The romance between Mary-Ann's dad and Dawn's mom is soooo cute, omg. But if the writers for this entire series don't stay on for the second season or the seasons after, I'm gonna throw my own damn tantrum.
The ending doesn't seem believable to me. Zhi He doesn't deserve Da Shu, and the story between Fen Ni and Qin Hao feels way more fleshed out than the main couple.
I really wanted to like this drama. It has two of my favourite Taiwanese drama people: Winnie Chu (director) and Ray Chang (actor). However, no matter how much I enjoy watching the works of these people, this show falls a bit flat.
The script tries to stuff a lot of plot points into a 20-episode TV drama. Considering it tries to cover two main couples and a couple of other side couples, there just isn't enough space for all of these characters and their respective side plots to fully develop for the audience to enjoy. Instead, story arcs that should run naturally two episodes or more are stuffed into one episode only. For example, did we really need the entire arc of Zhi He's parents and their relationship with her and Da Shu? Not really. Her father didn't need to die either. And even if he did, they should've at least extended this show to a couple more episodes so other characters have breathing room for their own stories. Instead, they crammed his death into two episodes. It made his death insignificant, especially considering how much time they put into fleshing out the parents' relationship with Zhi He and Da Shu.
Acting from all the actors are fine, but Sonia Sui knocks it out of the park in several episodes. Her acting is incredibly nuanced. It doesn't require much for her to display her character's internal emotions. The music and cinematography in this show also help lift this show a lot too; they help distract you from the alcohol product placement that happens in some scenes. Another standout feature is some of the outfits these characters wear. There were so many times where I was distracted by what Sonia Sui or Gillian Chung were wearing. (Those earrings! That top! That hair!)
All in all, this show garners a solid 70% rating for me. It's the plot-heavy script that drags this down.
100% here for Tony Yang wearing a dress and trying to climb over a steel gate. Absolutely adorable.
I hate it when Asian dramas insert excursions to see family in the countryside. These sort of episodes are always so tacky. I'm excited to see the House & Fenni subplot progress though!
Sonia Sui is easily out-acting everyone on this show right now.
I feel like Zhihe's decision to announce a divorce was a bit impulsive. I mean, sure, we heard from her perspective a lot, but she also didn't do a great job at communicating either. Idk, at the beginning of this show, she was such a charming character, but she's become so dislikable in the past few episodes, it's hard to be on her side.
On the technical aspect, I really don't understand why the mainland Chinese broadcasters felt the need to completely replace Gillian Chung's vocals – including the breathing noises she does when they're leaving the government office. That's a bit overdone imho.
Zhihe's mother is a atypical manipulative mother, what the fuck. I can't believe she poked holes into their condoms, and the show presented it as a "comedic scene". If it wasn't for the fact that they had the divorce countdown graphic up the following scene, I would be way angrier about this and I would have instantly stopped watching. That sort of move is utterly despicable.
Damn, Dashu must really suck in bed if Zhihe is taking sleeping pills after sex because she can't sleep afterwards.
You can notice some of the actors trying hard not to break character in some scenes, but good lord, Ray Chang is just so goddamn good-looking, I don't mind looking past that minor detail. (But his suit pants are a bit short for him, eh.)
The vocal acting replacement they have for Gillian Chung's character is going to drive me nuts throughout this drama series. Surely her Mandarin couldn't have been that bad that Sohu felt it needed to be replaced for mainland audiences...
All the side plots are more interesting than the main plot with Angie and Yi-hang. I'm more interested in the story about Sophia and her ex-husband, as well as the development between Ding Ding and Ling Gui.
Really was not expecting that LGBTQ+ plot twist! So cute.
I fast forwarded all the bonding scenes between Angie and Yi-hang. They could have been edited shorter and they would still have the same effect.
I can't tell if it's the writing or the acting, but Asian romantic comedy dramas always feel very clunky to me. They're always super over-the-top, where multiple characters in the show will ignore the actions of an obnoxious Mary Sue character while the rest of them act realistic. It's like watching two characters' completely different cinematic worlds try to merge together to form the TV show's story in the most cohesive way possible.
In this show, it's Eugenie Liu who I have problems with. She acts over-the-top, yes, but compared to other Asian shows I've seen, she acts consciously over-the-top in character, and I think it's this that takes the show away from me. There are some shows where actors exaggerate their acting, but there's a nuance to it that makes their characters still feel genuine and authentic. Eugenie doesn't do that. Comedic acting is a different skill that I find not a lot of Asian actors are good at. But hey, maybe it's a problem with the writing too. It's so tacky, maybe Eugenie just can't do much with it.
Jasper Liu is charming as always though. I'm hoping his character can balance out the annoying-ness of Eugenie's character later on in the show.
This episode is so slow, good god. It drags on and on about Rainie Yang's life in Taiwan, and how conflicted she is about her current situation. This episode is a whopping 90-minute long, and that's all it goes on about. It doesn't help either that her boyfriend - played by Kenny Yen - is legit the most naive and whiny boyfriend ever.
That entire scene where he tells the "prelude" of how he met her was so creepy. He took paparazzi-style photos of Rainie Yang eating in the convenience store in front of his office (with an actual DSLR camera!) for nearly a month before he had the courage to go up to her. Creepy as fuck. And he called his photo-taking as "romantic". How can anyone call that as romantic?! What the heck.
The editing for the fast-forward time cut is done poorly too. I didn't realize that the episode had flash-forwarded to Rainie Yang's imagination until her child suddenly appeared on screen. That episode construction was messy.
I feel like they tried to work far too many plot points into this last episode. It goes from Yo breaking up her engagement with Ryusei to Yo and Ren moving out together -- all within 45 minutes. There's also a few awkward fade-to-black frames inserted in that felt really unnecessary. The two leads have great chemistry together, so I think they could have extended this one more episode. I mean, we spent eight or so episodes in "conflict mode" (with Ryusei as the perpetrator), so having just one episode as the "conflict resolution" makes the series finale feel really unsatisfying.
Maki making an appearance in Shanghai was really unnecessary. Her flying all the way to China added nothing to the overall story line.
The amount of time it took for Yo to teleport from Tokyo, Japan to Suzhou, China is worthy to be in the last two seasons of Game of Thrones.
Damn, they've really dialed up the love triangle in this episode. Those angsty looks from Ren...
I can't believe Maki is back in the picture again though. Ugh. When will she leave the main story line?! Also -- I've said this previously -- the actor for Ren is infinitely better looking with glasses on.
Maki's New York City cousin is hilarious omfg. The way he went out of his way to pronounce all the English terms in this clear American accent. "I SUE YOU!" What a joke, bwahahahah.
Ishida Ren needs more scenes where he's wearing eye glasses. He looks so much better with them on!
Man, this is such a slow-paced drama, especially for the mystery/crime genre. Not sure how much more I can sit through. The two leads have good chemistry, but it's not enough to sit through scenes that could be edited to be way shorter.
The two leads have great chemistry with each other! Similar to Ariel Lin and Bolin Chen in the original Taiwanese drama. My only complaint though is that I wish they styled Jin Shiarsu's when he's acting as an adult just so he would look a bit more mature. His high school appearance and his adult appearance are too similar.
I'm going to take a guess here and say that his best friend Fu Ziyu is actually the Flower Cannibal imposter.
Slightly better than the first episode because they've finally finished setting up the characters - yes, it took them 1.5 episodes to introduce the characters and their relationships - and they're finally moving forward with solving mysteries and saving their community. Let's see how the rest of the show turns out.
My main complaint about this first episode is the way they've introduced the two leads together for the first time. Their first face-to-face interaction was addressing Jenny's Maslow's hierarchy of needs - survival during a thunderstorm, and then their second face-to-face interaction was about the flavour and quality of homemade fried fish. That's one hell of a jump. I get that the show implied that Jenny had been in the house for weeks before these interactions, but to the audience, she had only been in that house for a couple of days. Their interaction with each other about the homemade fish was far too casual and far too genial for a relationship that's had only a couple of face-to-face moments so far. It also really took away from the mysterious aura around Simon the first episode had been trying to suggest with the torture scene cuts.
Anyway, I think this show isn't doing a good job so far at balancing the "love cute" vibe of Chinese idol dramas with the mysterious crime drama vibe they're also trying to implement. I'll still continue watching for the time being just to see if this show turns around.
Dylan Minnette (Clay), Brandon Flynn (Justin), and Alisha Boe (Jessica) are easily the best actors among the "teen" cast members.
