Remembrance of Things Past (2021)

A Look at Real Life

This was a pretty well-told story about an important issue facing many societies worldwide. Mental illness is often the elephant in the room, but it touches so many lives. I think this story portrayed that sentiment very well. In twelve episodes, I hoped there would have been more time to develop the personal relationships between the three couples and not just their friendships. A lot of time was wasted on the young couple who eventually called it quits in such a bittersweet way. As much as I disliked the female character and liked the male character, theirs was a fitting end for them. I wish more time had been spent on the development of the lead couple and especially the second couple. A lot was just taken for granted in that last relationship - but there were more complexities that could have been explored.

I liked that what villainy there was, was not the main focus of the drama. The friendship that the girls had, the things they misunderstood, overlooked, took for granted - are all understandable when relationships happen. In hindsight everyone sees things they wish they knew before. This story certainly proves that.

The relationships with the parents were also quite realistic. I liked that the main emotion underlying all of the characters and their families (and even their friends) was love. At the end of the day, these are the relationships that most people want and cherish, and this story showed that.

I wish we could have had a better follow-up at the end - so much is just left to the viewer's imagination, and that was short-changing the commitment we had to the characters. For a 12 episode series, a great deal of time was wasted which would have been more valuable at the end, but hey - I'll take a happy ending any day.

Leia Mais

Wow! Superb Drama.
This Cdrama was on my list mainly because of Zhou Yu Tong.
Surprisingly, from ep 1 all the cast already got my attention. All of them has superb acting! Very raw and natural. They were perfectly casted for each role I must say. Acting is on point. No character was left behind. Each of them stands out. Each character is important.
Even supporting /small characters were great.

ZYT always left me speechless with her excellent acting. Can't forget her rooftop/crying /drunk scene in ep2 how many time I have rewatched it.

Plot is amazing. So much have been tackled in a 12 Ep. drama. Spice of life, ordinary people's stuggles in daily life, Relationship, romance/ Friendship, Home, family, work, depression etc. So much emotions and So much to ponder from this drama.

The chemistry of friendship between the 4 girls is so genuine. I also like how filial they are to their parents.
QiaoXiChen chemistry with JianYiFan is so cute, simple and true- i like how they settle their relationship problems , very smart and logical.

XuYuan and ShenZiChang - they are so cute.  just heartbreaking as well to see them on the last ep. I like how they sort out their relationship. It was so clean. (Spoiler)

HuJingJing- we all want to have a friend like her.. Always there when you need a friend. Just sad how she ended up. Depression is serious- that even who looks like a bubbly person (outside) like her suffered from this.

Music/ BGM- perfectly suits each scene.

Directions/Script/Production crew /Camera works: Wow.
Scenes were well executed and showed on screen.

I can still say more but I leave it up to here.
Highly recommended Cdrama for sure.

Leia Mais

a not so simple slice of life drama that is well worth the watch

First I want to let people know that there should be a warning of some kind before you start the drama if you are depressed or suffer from SI, this is not a show you can probably safely watch. I think it could be very triggering for people if they have zero clue that there are multiple scenes dealing with those issues and not really any warning that it's going to happen before they start watching it. Literally the first scenes of the first episode starts and the final scene of the first episode ends with that issue.

This drama really was a small clip of a year in the life of these people, it made me feel like we were a part of their friend group by the end of the series. Very well done and I really felt connected with their lives, emotions, dreams, and pains.

Each episode is about an hour and 15 minutes long, but to me they sped past incredibly fast, so much that I needed to pause and take it all in instead of bingeing it rapidly like I normally do. There are only 12 episodes but there is so much story packed into each one that it feels like you've watched a movie and a half by the end of each episode.

There was only 2 things I felt could have been done differently. The first episode or two included some flashbacks that were a little confusing and I wondered it the whole show was going to be like that, jumping forward to the present and then a scene later jumping back. It wasn't like that, just they needed to fill in some of the background and that's what the writers chose to do, it did feel a little out of place at times but thankfully that feeling only lasted a brief time in the overall drama. The second thing was in episode 10 or 11, there was big fight between two different couples that was basically occuring at the same time. The director chose to jump from one scene to the other, one couple to the other. The two couples were fighting about different things, so it didn't make sense to me why they kept jumping so quickly back and forth. I had a hard time connecting emotionally with the feelings of the couples because I was trying so hard to figure out what was happening between each set. I think this probably didn't feel jarring or out of place for those who speak the language, but for those of us who have to read the subtitles and then look up at the character's faces to gauge the emotions ect, it felt there wasn't enough time to read and then look and then suddenly we were at the scene of the other couple. Maybe it was just me that had that problem but I did have to pause the big arguing scenes to break it down and figure out who was mad at who and why and if they were or weren't justified...that was a little bit that took me out of the drama and more focused on the editing choices.

Even with the heavy topic and the 2 editing decisions I might have chosen differently, I still have to give this a VERY high score and also highly recommend that you give it a try. It's worth the emotional investment in my opinion.

Leia Mais

A disappointment

I was not impressed with this drama and found it boring and depressing. I didn’t care for the characters except for the boss the one female lead fell in love with and his assistant. The two older female leads were dull and not the least bit feminine. The young one was a greedy, immature, materialistic, gold digger. I don’t understand the rave reviews I have read here and haven’t found any redeeming qualities in this drama. I can’t really identify with any of them. I guess opinions about this drama are geared to the culture you come from and can better identify with the plight of these characters. It must be getting a lot of high praise for a reason, but reason eludes me.

Leia Mais