I wish people would stop
casually spouting anti-China things at me when I talk about China. (And I talk about it a lot cos I love #CDramas). Although I am not a CCP fan, I am STILL CHINESE and it sometimes feels freaking Sinophobic and hurts, OK?
You complain so much about Nazis but are OK with painting Chinese people in a bad light (namely they are brainwashed, have no agency etc).
Like, stop already.
I am tired of this.
Watching #BlossomsShanghai in the original Shanghainese is SO INTERESTING.
I understand ZERO and yet I understand something hahaha.
I wish I could read the Chinese subs so much. Frustrated lol. It's also great to listen to Hu Ge speaking Shanghainese. (He speaks Mandarin & Shanghainese in the show.) Shanghainese sounds like a blend of Hokkien, Hakka and Mandarin or really off-tone Mandarin.
PS: It's a very gorgeous show. As expected from Wong Kar Wai.
A hilariously accurate representation of my taste. Mostly 😆 However, this graph is not 100% accurate as I went on a documenting spree in May last year when I joined Mydramalist and had been watching #KDramas for some time. In 2023, I watched mostly #CDramas and they were definitely not romance dramas.
I prefer #KDrama romances over #CDrama ones, so I tend to skew there. Also while I tend to pick a show for its fantasy angle rather the romance, but these shows are often are romance focused too.
From MyDramaList's 2023 year summary. This is actually a good reflection of my taste in dramas. (Note the lack of romance dramas lol and lots of wuxias & thrillers hehe.) And apparently 90% of my dramas are rated 7 or 8, and about 8% or so are 9.
Don't know why I am suddenly in the mood for romance. Mature, adult, slow burn, arranged marriage romance, that is. Maybe after the intense, hard scifi of #ThreeBody I want some fluff 😘 Watched ep 1. Love the gorgeous costumes and our male lead actor Wallace Huo is such a charismatic presence. I think I will like this!
This is a PSA that you need to watch the Chinese TV adaptation of #ThreeBody before you the #Netflix version. I have little confidence that Netflix or the folks who butchered Game Of Thrones will do it justice.
At least absorb the unique POV this #Cdrama offers before the Netflix defines your vision of Liu Cixin's books.
You can watch it on the WeTV, Viki apps. The first 2 eps are available on Youtube.
When you watch and realise what that infamous "ship scene" in #ThreeBody REALLY means.
PS: I REALLY liked how subtly they implied the FULL horror of it all in this episode. I don't know how Netflix will replicate the growing dread, and horror of that scene.
What I love about #ThreeBody is that it shows countries around the world working together with China to defeat this threat. They are all equals in this conflict. There was a conversation between our main lead with one of the leaders of a European nation which I found moving. It showed that they were both humans with loved ones to protect.
I have real worries that Netflix adaptation would forgo this cooperative element and paint some countries as baddies.
So a Discord group I am part of asked - what 12 dramas will I recommend people?
So this is a list of my favourite #CDramas and #KDramas. Have you seen any of them?
Haven't been able to decide which drama to watch next. I have the sense that some really good #Cdramas will drop soon and for some reason, I haven't quite been feeling the dramas I tried to start.
I am watching the #ThreeBody#CDrama version and also saw the #Netflix version's teaser. I compared the same scene with the Cdrama one, and I can tell you - I do not have a good feeling about the Netflix adaptation. The Netflix version of that scene lacks the gravitas, urgency and sophistication of the Cdrama version.
I am also worried they are going to water down or completely erase the Chinese perspectives and cultural context, which is really important.
For #CDramas - this may be controversial, but I am tired of seeing talentless traffic actors in dramas. There are talented ones, of course - I consider Xu Kai & Cheng Yi some of them, but there are some so bad and are given leading roles I get annoyed. Why? Because a lot of actors who are second leads are actually better actors. I pretty much dislike how the industry works at times.
Here are my top 5 #CDrama picks for 2023. Personally, I thought 2023 was a great year for #CDramas. I feel that the quality of dramas is going up & the variety of dramas are getting better too.
In fact, it was originally based on a popular manhwa, and it actually has a Japanese anime version.
Show has frenetic energy, an irrepressible spirit and loads of humor. I found myself laughing out loud at so many scenes. I really enjoyed this drama’s wacky, cartoonish vibe, and how it mixes wuxia tropes into the background of modern China. Just such a breath of fresh air in Cdramaland.
The plot is fast-paced, there was never a moment where I wanted to skip. The tone switches seamlessly between silly and crazy to serious and heart-wrenching, and unlike another show, Back from the Brink which failed at this juggling, these moments never felt out of place and were never jarring in this show.
The characters were also unique and I can seriously say that I like almost everyone on the show, including the villains. Some really surprised me because I really ended up caring for them.
Because I watched this when I was having my first bout of COVID, I am admittedly a little more affectionate towards it. I desperately wanted something happy to watch when I was sick, and Wonderland of Love delivered happiness in spades.
Still, this was an idol drama that punched above its weight. There were shockingly surprising flashes of brilliance in Wonderland of Love.
Like, in episode 30 and 31, it demonstrated that it could rise above its idol roots to become something more. I swear, I felt like I was watching a movie in those episodes.
But, it is still very much an aggressively idol drama where our two leads are prettied up to such a big degree that I can’t take them super seriously as war leaders.
There’s also pathetic villains, plot holes, convenient solutions. They really diminish the drama and it could’ve been a really, really good show if they had sustained the cinematography, emotional gravitas and storytelling of episodes 30 and 31.
At the end of the day, whether you will enjoy Wonderland of Love, depends on how far you can ignore its flaws and go along with the flow. It is best for people who like the drama’s tropes: brotherhood and star-crossed lovers.
To me, the story that really impacted me the most was not the whodunit, but to watch the effects of corruption on a once-great dnyasty.
For quick context, this takes place towards the waning years of the Ming dynasty, and Ripe Town is like a focused view of how corruption affected one village and her people. You get the idea that this decay, multiplied many times over throughout the whole country, was what enabled the Manchus to take over and for the Qing dynasty to begin.
With the rot infecting the justice system, the entire foundation of the empire was going to crumble sooner or later as good men are sacrificed on the altars of deceit and vengeance, to the detriment of the entire civilisation.
This was such a surprise drama for me in 2023. I’ve long resigned myself that the Cdramas of old, where cinematography can be beautiful and like works of art, are gone.
These days, it’s all about “let’s just make a minimum viable product, push it out quickly, rake in the cash and move on”. Why bother with setting up the lighting properly, or giving our characters appropriate costumes? Let’s just cast traffic actors even if they don’t fit the role!
But here, not only do they shoot the dramas beautifully, the set, the costumes are characters of their own. The village building’s moss-covered walls, the characters wear clothes made of rough linen and even have patches of odd-coloured fabric to show that the dress has been mended over and over again. There’s dirt on people’s faces, and the lighting is appropriately moody and overcast.
Ripe Town gives me hope that there are still some people in Chinese entertainment industry who are still willing to invest the time in making good dramas, so here’s hoping that more dramas of this calibre will be shown in 2024.
Mysterious Lotus Casebook is about honor, courage and doing your best to live and rise above bitterness and hatred.
It’s a classic wuxia tale of brother, chivalry and honour. If you love stories about heroes going on adventures in the jiang hu, you will like Mysterious Lotus Casebook.
If you want to hear my full thoughts about Mysterious Lotus Casebook, you can read my review on the blog or the first Drama Tea podcast episode.
Of all the dramas I’ve watched this year, A Journey to Love has the best designed characters who develop organically. The female characters are especially well-written, especially Yang Ying, who grew from a scared, sheltered pampered princess to a fierce lioness and budding political strategist.
What I am actually impressed with is that even bit side characters like Official Du and Emperor Wu turned out to be well-fleshed characters that we end up caring. I loved how every character, no matter how small, got a character arc.
However, it tried to squeeze in too much at the end, and the vague-ish ending didn’t help matters either. Seriously, what happened? There are some parts that I wished they had cut out such as (ahem) Li Tong Guang’s airtime so that we could make more room for a proper fleshing out of the resolution.
It is tragic, however, that due to the many negative comments on social media, many people would give this drama a pass. Because A Journey to Love was a beautiful journey.
It’s not a perfect drama for sure, but I’ll talk about the drama in depth in my next podcast episode which would most probably air at the start of January 2024.
Tang Lian, from The Blood of YouthTechnically, it started in 2022 and finished airing in 2023, so I will include it as an “honourable mention”.
I wasn’t enthused on its video-game vibe and “finger fu” fighting scenes, but the drama had solid casting, interesting characters and great storytelling. Out of curiosity, I watched the original donghua and loved it too.
Worth a look!
>> I’ll be sharing the review of The Blood of Youth by the end of this week. Stay tuned!
100% delightful to see our prince squirm with jealousy and insecurity when faced with a love competitor👇 who has an absolute God bod, can outdrink him & has a "history" with his wife 😂
Alen Fang is absolutely delightful in #TheLoveByHypnotic. I can see why they picked him as Yu Shi San in #AJourneyToLove - not only does he have comedic chops, he can act his socks off during serious scenes.
Currently alternating between apocalyptic hard #scifi (Three-Body) and fluffy historical #romcom (Love by Hypnotic) because why not amirite. This is what I call a well-rounded TV diet.