Vá em Frente (2020)

What makes family?
*This show has trigger warnings for anyone who has experienced abuse or struggles with suicidal ideation*

There are two mysteries to the plot focusing around blood ties v care/happiness ties. The second mystery led me to give a 1.0 for plot.

One, will the younger generation reunite in adulthood and be able to carry on a healthy lifestyle and relationships despite their struggles growing up (*yes* and resolved easily).

Two, what about the adults who traumatized and abused them growing up and to the 'bystander' parents who didn't fully intervene? (resolved horribly and rushed at the end).

This drama perpetuates the myth of 'rock bottom' that someone can have a magical realisation that they have become someone who hurts the people who love them and magically turn around and be safe to take care of a teenager.

It is well established that Ling Xiao's mother has always priortized her dramas and her issues over the well-being of anyone else for decades (perhaps even before the trauma of losing a child - given the story about the card game, and the 'aunt's' own commentary that Ling Xiao's mother has always been this way).

What's worse, is that she aggressively harms and lashes out at people, wanting them to be as miserable as she is, including her own child. Not only does she do this spontaneously, but she premeditates and coldly seeks revenge when Ling Xiao tries to seek independence repeatedly. Even in the end she attempts suicide after thinking about it all night again switching the focus on to her.

This is not a safe person to parent a teenager, and I can't believe they all just waive off Ling Xiao's little sister back to Singapore with her mother and admonish her to study hard.

I just couldn't get over that this was the BIG MYSTERY and the last issue to be resolved - what to do about Ling Xiao's mother, and then it was all just chalked up to PTSD (for what it's worth- PTSD does not at all appear to be what this woman has) and lessons learned and sending her back to Singapore.

I did like that the show insinuated subtly that the younger generation was very clear on who were there 'true' care/love family and who had earned that and who didn't. BUT I can't get over the explicit message: to tolerate, tolerate, tolerate, and maybe one day they will come to a magical realisation.

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Family yes, love.. nope.

The show revolve around 1 sister and 2 brothers that are siblings by name but not blood related (i'm not gonna elaborate on how they met). I actually enjoyed myself a lot as i get to explore the background stories of the 3 siblings and also how they became a family together. The show did well on showing how they bonded and also the different personalities of everyone.

However, this show will only be getting a 7/10 from me (highest) and i will probably not be rewatching.

(1) The show went downhill when romance is involved. I am not against the plot of any love involved between the siblings but I don't felt it in any way throughout the show as brother-sister love is being prompted more than actual romance. I guess it hitted me badly when it kind of change to romance direction. It didn't seem like the brothers actually "fall in love" with Li Jian Jian but more like overprotective brothers that can't bear to see her with anyone else. I was thinking the show would be better if it ended with Li Jian Jian not choosing anyone. I just CANNOT watch the kissing scene at the end... it's just awkward.

(2) I cannot stand Song Wei Long's acting.
This is not the first show i have watched with SWL and it's actually third one already - and one thing for sure, his acting didn't improve since then. The stiff facial expression, "act cool" vibes, and how he expresses himself is just not there. It's just not enjoyable to watch him act or relate to his character in the show.

Nonetheless, Tan Song Yun (Li JJ), Zhang Xin Cheng (He Zi Qiu) and Tu Song Yan (the dad) steals the show for me!

FINAL VERDICT: it's worth it to watch if you want something heartwarming, simple and explores family relationships.

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It is a good show, but could have been better overall.

So this started off really promising and magical, and throughout the entire show, the cast was fantastic. However, as great as the first 30 episodes were, the last part kind of suffocated all of the magic out. They put the main three characters ("the siblings") on the back burner big time and went into so much depth and spent so much time on the side characters that it kind of ruined it for me. I wanted to see the three main characters interact after they develop and settle into their new relationship dynamic, but once they sorted it out it, we rarely see them again except in relation to the side characters. The ending was also really rushed in regards to tying up loose ends. This drama felt like two different dramas the first half was fantastic and set to be a personal favorite, but the last half was about entirely different characters. The show would have been better if they cut out one of the friend's storylines, and tied up one of the mothers' stories earlier so we could have enjoyed the main characters towards the end. I don't understand why her two friends, the guy's friend, her shop workers, the sister, and the mothers had more character development and conflict than she did as an adult.

I would still watch it if you haven't as it isn't bad, it just isn't as fantastic as the beginning.

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All I want is to be Loved

This is a fantastic series. It fulfills the hypothesis of the story in its’ entirety. The series deals with real societal issues without dodge anything. It illustrates how parental actions can truly and deeply affect a child and their surrounds, especially when adults do not own up to their own mistakes and blames the child(ren). It shows blackmailing and manipulation of a child to their adulthood by a parent, which runs parallel to the parent that wants to care and does care for the child to their best ability. In this series, a mother emotionally blackmails and traumatizes her son, while a father within his own capability joins forces with another single dad to give his son all he can. The care of both fathers is admirable. The story is neatly weaved, which makes the display even better. The other angle which is shown is a divorcee scared and chasing life until she realizes her biggest mistake was running away from it and abandoning her son. The series also deals with stigmatism of two non-official adopted children relationship the extends beyond siblings. This shows that sometimes adults and the best of adults fail to recognize the seriousness of a child’s decision at the very moment it is made. It teaches us not to assume that everyone in the relationship feels the same way. Loved the fact that Ling Xiao not only followed his heart but fought for it because his love and courage are one in the same, Li Jian Jian. The bonding between the different characters is absolutely amazing. Sometimes we tend to ignore the obvious, like when Ling Xiao bought a lace bra for Li Jian Jian. A “brother” adopted or not, will not go out and by his sister a bra. Everyone in the room missed the elephant in the room completely. The development of their romance is subtle, sweet, and funny.

Heart wrenching when Ling Xiao spills the entire turmoil of his life, heart, and soul and she hugs him asking are you sick. This scene truly demonstrate how damage Ling Xiao is by his mother’s actions.

The two fathers, He Zi Qiu, Ling Xiao, and Li Jian Jian could not have survived without each other’s love, support, and care.

The entire team, not just actors and actress, is t be congratulated for a phenomenal job, congratulations!

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Watch this before you die.

From the very first episode, the presence and absence of families was highlighted. The show focused on how relationships can change based on hasty actions. Blood relations do not matter but are forced to matter at the same time.
The reality of asian households was so perfectly shown that I could relate to every single one of them. The love between the bunch of friends was deeper than most of their families.
Not only the main characters but the supporting ones too had all my love. Parents. Family. Friends. We know them so well.
Tan Can's and Mingyue's problems and confrontations with their parents moved me to the core. But in the end, no matter how upset one gets, they love the ones who raised them. I have never seen such a realistic portrayal of the relationships betweens parents and children.
The truth about mental difficulties people face due to familial pressure was something I never expected to see. Props to the writers and producers.
The cast did an outstanding job. I have utmost respect for them as actors. Especially Steven Zhang and the actor who played his Ba. The actress who played Qi Mingyue was just as amazing.
I wish this drama never ended, I could keep watching it forever. It's one of those dramas that seems boring, and too sad for your taste from the outside. In reality it's a gem.

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Overall Warm Lovely Family Drama

I was hooked onto this drama since I watched the drama before its release and started it right away when it aired, but only finished it now because I didn't like the romance element. However, I continued the drama where I left off (at the ep after Zi Qiu and Ling Xiao came back) and was so surprised at how interesting it still was so I kept watching. It turned out that the drama doesn't have that much romance scenes between Ling Xiao, Zi Qiu, and Jian Jian which was such a relief! It was more focused on the family aspects than I expected so I binged watched the remaining episodes. It was totally worth it! I would recommend those who liked the family aspects to continue just to see those parts because it really is worth the watch!

Now some things I really enjoyed:
1. The acting of course! - The family was so real that it didn't seem like that were acting at all! The chemistry is no joke! I especially love Zhi Qiu's acting! So amazing!
2. Some great points regarding family are brought up
3. The OST -such great bgm for the tearjerking scenes T_T
4. The first 12 episodes- such great sibling chemistry between Jian Jian, Zi Qiu, and Ling Xiao when they were young and as they grew up! very fun to watch!

Things that were not so great:
1. The romance between Jian Jian and Ling Xiao - wasn't that hard to understand why they like each other but still weird for me to watch them hug and interact as lovers; the brother-sister vibe is so strong that they could have stuck with that for the entire drama and it wouldn't have made a big difference, it was pretty unnecessary to also make Zhi Qiu thinks he likes Jian Jian (although his reasons for doing so made sense)
2. The ending - felt a bit rushed towards the end to have the story wrapped up for Ling Xiao's mom portion and the conclusion overall; could have shown a bit more although I liked how everywhere ended up
3. Too many complicated love triangles/squares between Jian Jian's friends - was hard and boring to watch

BUT I would totally recommend this drama for anyone looking for a great family drama (you can just skip the romance parts)! If you need another reason, just watch it for Steven Zhang (Zi Qiu)'s great acting!

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Good... almost great

Disclaimer: I watched the first 20 eps in full while the rest was mostly watched in the background.

Nonetheless, I think this drama was pretty good and worth checking out. It has a family and romance focus. I did not love the idea of the brother-sister relationship turned romantic relationship; just not my thing, but it wasn't too hard to overlook it. Originally from the opening and ending theme songs, I thought this drama would center mainly around their highschool years, but thankfully, that wasn't actually the case, and it breezes over pretty quickly. I mainly stayed with this drama for its family storyline rather than the love story though.

I think the acting was great. However, Song Wei Long's acting was lacking a bit compared to his fellow actors; sometimes his acting just didn't feel natural. My absolute favorite duo in this drama was Steven Zhang (He Zi Qiu) and Luna Yuan (He Mei [Zi Qiu's mother]). As well as the child actor for young He Ze Qiu. They never failed to make me emotional and cry for them. As for the music, "Yu" by Shen Yicheng was a banger for sure. It always came in at the right moment and made me cry. The rest of the songs were good too but not that memorable. However, the reason why this drama is not a perfect 10 for me is that there are things that could be changed to make it better, and it didn't even captivate me for the whole 45 eps.... which isn't the drama's fault necessarily; I just have a terrible attention span.

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I'm a little surprised about all the 10/10 reviews. Some folks wrote overwhelmingly positive reviews to the point that I've expected that this drama would be even better than Reply 88. For the first 10~ episodes it's pretty close to that level, but at the same time unique and perhaps even more endearing. The problem is that this is a 40 episode long drama and episodes 11 to 18~ are straight up boring. There is nothing much there, none of that wholesome family vibe, or much character or plot progression. After wasting 5 hours on filler like that it cannot possibly be a 10/10.

Around episode 20 the drama slowly becomes interesting again, but it never reaches the initial heights.
I for one am okay with the sister dating the stepbrother thing, I can even begrudgingly accept the blackmail with mental illness issue. What is difficult to gloss over though is that they had very few sweet scenes together after they've properly gotten together. I mean there was so much time for that in 40 episodes..

I could go on and on how much I hated mom A and biological dad B, but It's not necessarily a bad thing for a drama to have hated characters. Human garbage can be portrayed on television too, right? But the redemption arc for mom A in the final episode felt completely unnatural and unnecessary. I would have preferred either a more gradual process involving some mutual healing over the course of like 5 episodes, or they could have just had a clean break. So yeah, the plot had some problems here and there, like how every tragic thing happened simultaneously at ep10ish and how not only did He Mei go to P, but her friend also did 16? years later. Those could've been handled much more naturally.

The ending is not that great either. It's way too open ended for my liking. The potential side couple's story is unfinished and as I said earlier, there was just such a long time available to wrap things up.

I love how they resolved the triangle fast and relatively peacefully.

Overall the drama is worth watching, there are some incredibly touching scenes, really unique family dynamics and it's unlike any other cdrama that I've seen so far, but it's not even close to a 10, lets be real people!

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if a drama was able to get me to reflect on myself this much...you know it's worth a watch

Story: Okay so in terms of the story, it would have gotten a full10/10 from me if not for the draggy story midway through the drama. At some point mid way through the drama, I kind of lost my focus on the drama? I think it's because of the characters took too long to resolve their problems. Another thing is that the sibling to relationship development felt extremely rapid for me. I think I would have preferred if there was a scene that straightforwardly shows us all that they really have decided to date? Now for the good parts...Usually, I'm not a big fan of dramas taking up like half of the drama to show the past and rush through the character development and plot development. However, I find that the screenwriters and director of this drama did really well in including the main characters' past and how they each develop. As for the ending, honestly I was kind of upset at first. I didn't want Chen Ting to be forgiven so easily after she kinda chose to run away from her problems but after my 30 minute drama withdrawal syndrome session, I came to realize that, like what she wrote in her suicide note, she loves her son, but she just doesn't know how to love properly. Although the ending did not show it, I hope she's learnt how to not only love her son properly but love herself as well.
Acting/Cast: Y'all I'm not even joking when I say that I have never watched a cdrama where ALL of the characters(main, support etc. even the damn waitress) acted so well. I'm not gonna say much about JJ, LX, ZQ as well all know how great the character development and acting from Seven, Weilong and Steven are. The one character that has made me cry for the most is probably LiBa. The way that he raises these kids and treats them and TEACH them, like we all need to applaud for that. Growing up in an asian household where you are pinned by so many expectations and pressured to be perfect in every aspect, LiBa made me wish that growing up, I had someone who didn't expect me to be 100% in everything and didn't pressure me to do things I didn't want to do and instead supported me in my passions. Most importantly, someone who stands up to another person to defend their own child. Moving on, we're not here to talk about my sob story. I'm glad that LiBa had his own happy ending rather than a happy ending where it's the typical as-long-as-my-child-is-happy-i'm-happy-too, it's true that if JJ, LX, ZQ is happy he'll be happy but I wanted him to have a life besides his children, if you know what I mean. Other than that, all the characters(HeMei, MingYue, TangCan, MingYue's parents, TangCan's parents, ZhaungBei) also preformed just as well and was also able to show us character development despite being supporting characters. Shoutout to Chen Ting and Cheng Zi for being so HATABLE and somehow is able to make me forgive them at the end anyways (Forgiving ChengZi was understandable but ChenTing? man, i definitely did not expect that comin). Guess that just goes to show how well the actresses preformed.
Music: The amount of times I cried just listening to the intro song...honestly, I can't tell if I'm just an emotional b*tch or it's just really really sad. (Especially around when LingXiao and ZiQiu had to leave in highschool)
Rewatch Value: honestly, the only reason why my rewatch value is so low is because I don't like rewatching dramas in general. I lose all the excitement and adrenaline since i already know what's going to happen. Just my preference though!
Overall: Great drama, awoken the depressed asian black sheep daughter of the family within me. Definitely wished I had that type of family growing up but also made me appreciate the things my own family does for me every single day. Y'all, if a drama was able to get me to reflect on myself this much...you know it's worth a watch...just sayin...

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