Bizarre, but enjoyable and deeper than expected

I enjoyed watching this drama a lot. I started watching because I like that Thai dramas often don’t take themselves too seriously. And the story starts in the most hilariously bonkers way. It takes, however, a turn into a much more serious direction around the middle of the episodes. It is not easy to review this drama without giving spoilers because I think it is best to watch it without knowing too much about it. There is a much darker and bitterer story about power abuse, exploitation, social injustice and political oppression lying underneath the poppy colors and glossy surface of “Ready, Set, Love”, and the drama barely touches the surface of these issues. It is mainly about romance, friendship and simply watching the eye candy actors interact. But it is very well paced and finds a nice balance between romance, entertainment, humor, thriller and tragedy and above all gives food for thought about what could really happen in a world where men are this rare that they are considered ‘national treasures’.

Leia Mais

Deliciously campy uncensored Chinese BL drama

Updated review after watching all 12 episodes - I changed my evaluation to a full 10/10 because I rarely enjoyed something as much as I enjoyed Meet You at the Blossom. It’s a miracle that this drama even exists. I would have watched anything to support a proper Chinese bl drama and am beyond happy that Meet You at the Blossom was truly enjoyable.

It’s EVERYTHING. It‘s hilarious, it‘s tragic. It‘s romantic, it‘s toxic. There’s fun and there’s angst, pain and suffering. There’s palace intrigue and there’s family drama. There are loving parents with dubious moral values and there are monstrous parents. There are related siblings that hate each other and there’s found family that love each other. And everything is told in 12 EXCELLENTLY paced episodes. Meet You At the Blossom is too much and never enough. It’s glorious and wonderful and NEVER EVER boring.

The lead actors are SUPER well matched. Everything about this pairing is perfect - the height difference, their faces, their complementing energies. Lead actor Wang Yunkai is a newbie and gives an incredibly charming and enthusiastic performance. And I want to single out the performance of lead actor Li Le. Judging from his interviews and from BTS videos, he‘s one of the sweetest and kindest people on the planet. He said he was worried to accept the role of Huai‘en because it was his first time portraying a character that has a very different personality from his own but he wholeheartedly committed and gave the most eccentric performance.

And yes, I saw negative comments and reviews and am therefore giving an SA trigger warning for the next paragraph because I am referencing the novel Blooming Flowers, Silent Sorrow (source material for Meet You at the Blossom). Some reviewers are bashing Meet You at the Blossom because there are rape scenes in the novel Blooming Flowers, Silent Sorrow. Is it criticism just for the sake of criticizing or is it critical thinking? In any case, critical thinking should look into the context.
An example from the novel - if a 15 year old half orphan who was educated through torture instead of love and who would usually punish people by cutting their throats chooses to rape someone as punishment (instead of throat-cutting), he may be acting in a morally grey area judged by the standards of his time.
However, the creators of Meet You at the Blossom put some thoughts into how to make its source material work in a visual medium. They made deliberate and significant changes while transferring the novel into the drama Meet You at the Blossom. The most challenging thing we get to see are forced kisses (and I think the stories we consume SHOULD challenge us and make us feel uncomfortable because it helps us leave our comfort zone and broaden our horizons). In general, the erotic encounters of the lead couple are sensual and subtle. There are always little elements included that create a vibe of consent, even in scenes with dubious consent.

I truly loved Meet You at the Blossom and hope that many people will give it a chance.

Leia Mais

Very well told story

This is a great story and it is amazingly well told. I was hesitant to watch it because usually I am not interested in ball games at all but I am so glad I did watch this drama. It is proof that it’s possible to develop a story well over the course of 40+ episodes.

This drama manages to stay focused on the storylines of its two main leads. The second lead and supporting characters are great and they are all played by truly amazing actors. But their storylines never overweigh or burry the primary story but support and nurture it.

The tension is being built up through 41 episodes and everything cumulates in those brilliant last three episodes of the drama. It’s like an artfully woven cloth that unfolds in the end to reveal its entire picture.

It’s a story about friendship, about rivalry, and about the fact that for an athlete success and failure are two sides of the same coin. There are very few scenes that feel a bit over-dramatic and slightly cheesy but they are always balanced out by those unbelievably great and extremely well executed sports competition scenes.

Watch this drama! It’s definitely worth your time. And the final scene will surely make you cry your eyes out.

Leia Mais

Goethe’s Faust as a Fantasy Romance Drama?

Ok, not entirely but “My Demon” definitely contains many elements of Goethe’s famous classic drama “Faust”. “My Demon”, however, is awesome and sweet. A very enjoyable fantasy romance drama.

The acting is very good, and I really mean every actor. There is not a single weak performance and every actor matches the character that they play perfectly. The good cast elevates a story that is probably not that new and innovative. But the story is also well paced. After every comedic passage the tragic twists hit me in the guts.

“My Demon” throws quite a lot of things in the mix that can or cannot be believed and/or can or cannot be criticized - rebirths, God/universe, heaven, hell, various religions … Sometimes humans are eviler than the devil himself. Human greed and moral corruptness are infinite and the few pure souls are being crushed.

However, the final episode ultimately proves that we aren’t watching a classic tragedy but a romance drama where good wins over evil - those that are able to love and make sacrifices find salvation. Although, we as the audience have to swallow some sad moments along the way. The ending is VERY sweet - for some maybe too sweet - and entirely glosses over the past deeds of the demon and the perspectives of a relationship between an immortal and a mortal person.

But even if you don’t like the story at all, you can still enjoy “My Demon” simply by marveling over the handsomeness of its two leads, Kim Yoo Jeong and Song Kang, (and their outfits - kudos to the costume designers). These two people are incredibly gorgeous individually but together they are UNREAL - and their unrealness is probably one of the points this drama wants to make…

Leia Mais

Heartwarming drama

Reasons to watch this drama:

1) It’s a feel-good story.

2) Huang Jingyu gets many opportunities to show his comedic talent.

3) Wang Likun is a VERY good actress.

4) She plays a kick-ass heroine.

5) The dialogues between Wang Likun and Huang Jingyu flow very naturally. Nothing about their acting feels forced.

6) Ce Wang and Huang Jingyu make a perfect father-son-duo.

7) Chen Wei (playing Hou Jue‘s housekeeper) is just the cutest.

8) The love story between Hou Jue and Wu Shiyi develops at a slow pace. I have to admit that I found that irritating at times. But their love story evolves in such a sweet and heartwarming way during the last episodes that it won me over.


Reasons to not watch it:

1) There are a few cringe-worthy scenes like e.g. the wedding of Shiyi‘s oldest friend. But I don't want to spoil it - you'll know why once you watch it :o)

2) Some female charakters - mainly the girls chasing Hou Jue - are pretty annoying. They should probably contrast Wu Shiyi and make her appear even more likable but that wouldn‘t have been necessary. Wu Shiyi is likable on her own. She doesn‘t need the extra contrast.

3) The sound quality is not very good.

4) The story isn‘t innovative.

Leia Mais

I’ll admit it - I totally enjoyed watching this drama. And only after reading some of the reviews here, I realized - yeah, the stalking, kidnapping and harassing are highly unacceptable.

Nevertheless, I found both lead actors so hot and charismatic and the chemistry between them so intense that when I watched this series, all of its morally disturbing and offensive aspects faded into the background.

Am I proud that their hotness and natural charisma clouded my moral judgement? No, absolutely not, but I would still rewatch this series.

This is not a drama that you watch for its great storytelling. It’s a horny watch (especially if you include the deleted scenes - easily to be found on YouTube), and if you can appreciate it as that, you will enjoy watching it.

Leia Mais

Too depressing for me

I am probably 1 out of 100 people, but Fangs of Fortune didn’t work for me. And I really wanted to like it - I had been looking forward to it for several months - but unfortunately I couldn’t.

The main reason FoF didn’t work for me is that I could not handle its everyone-and-everything-is-doomed vibe - the story is packed with heartbraking events with very few comedic moments that interrupt all the pain and that give the viewer time to breath. If you are into emotional pain, heartbreak, angst and desperation, FoF will be a feast for you and my following complaints regarding storytelling (pacing and character development) will merely be a little nuisance. But for me this drama was simply too depressing to enjoy.

Storytelling-wise my biggest complaint is about the pacing of this story because something about it was off. There simply wasn’t a rhythm I could flow with - I perceived the whole drama as a mere succession of more or less connected events without narrative arcs to guide a viewer through it.

Apart from that, I also had issues with the character development or better the lack of it. At some point I felt that the lead characters had morphed into a collective of more or less interchangeable units that were all willing to sacrifice themselves for the whole entity. I assume the story provided the moments where those characters reached the emotional turning points where they formed a deep bond of love but for me these moments where either so fleeting that they never stuck with me or they drowned in an ocean of heartbreak. Therefore, the bonding of the lead characters was something that I just had to accept eventually without emotionally understanding it from a storytelling perspective. FoF relies heavily on the self sacrificing trope and the majority of the characters have martyr syndrome. However, I felt that for very few of them their martyrism is based in the narrative.

So, why did I torture myself and hate-watched all 34 and 1/2 episodes instead of dropping FoF eventually? The answer is Hou Ming Hao. He‘s magnetic. I have no better explanation. He pulled my gaze to the screen and locked it there, so I had to watch every single episode of FoF, no matter if I wanted to or not.

And there is one thing that I loved about FoF - the closing credits. This madness of letting the actors, fully in costume but NOT in character, break the fourth wall while performing a happy group dance appeals to my taste.

Leia Mais