This is a drama review of two dramas combined together
because they are based on the same book.
Zhou Sheng Ru Gu/ Yi Sheng Yi Shi
Hi, you're watching AvenueX
where a junkie on good storytelling shares her thoughts, knowledge,
and occasional weird ideas on stories.
and how they are told
Zhou Sheng Ru Gu/ Yi Sheng Yi Shi has both finished airing
on the platform iqiyi
it is based on a book written by the author Mo Bao Fei Bao
called Yi Sheng Yi Shi Mei Ren Gu
which is a contemporary setting,
romantic story featuring the main couple,
one of them in this lifetime do
Remember what happened last time.
The other one was unaware of it.
They meet again, and this time they were able to have a happy ending.
This book was written back in 2014,
rather long time ago.
As i'm making this video right now,
I couldn't sit through both of them fully,
but I did watch over half of each
for the period setting drama.
I watched up to episode 12,
and then I checked the last 2 (episodes)
for the contemporary setting drama.
I watched up to episode 18,
then I checked out the last 2 episodes.
So for both dramas,
I kind of skipped about 10 episodes,
but still got a geist of what happens in this whole story.
First i'll give these two dramas a score on my
7-level scale and i'll give it one goldmine for both.
If you're watching those two dramas back to back
the period setting one
has a better production quality
the visual as a drama production
is stronger than the contemporary one.
On the other hand,
the contemporary story is much less painful to watch in
terms of just how f--ed up our main characters got to be.
So I would say they each have certain advantages over the other,
depending on what kind of audience you are.
And they're both led by two same people
on the positive end of things,
I'll combine these two dramas and on the negative end
I'll talk about each of their problems and why I couldn't sit through
the full length of either drama
on the good side.
It's led by two people who are very pleasant to watch on screen
for a screen couple,
a man and a woman.
Sometimes it just feels like they're supposed to be a couple sometimes.
It just doesn't work like that.
I think luckily for the casting choices, Bai Lu and Ren Jialun
really worked for the story
for both the period and the contemporary story.
The second thing is also to do with them,
but it's more on the acting end
I think they both did a very good job for 2 roles each, really
because reincarnation version of the period drama characters
are slightly different in terms in their characters' personalities
and obviously living at a different time different society,
people will have very different behaviors,
but for both settings the period and contemporary
they did very good job portraying their characters,
whatever is written on the script for them.
They as actors and actress really did a good job
of making that actualized, realized on screen.
So if you happen to be a fan of either of them or both of them,
there's nothing after watching it that
will change your good opinion about them.
Then i'll talk about why individually neither of them could make me
just sit through them fully
for the period setting drama,
Zhou Sheng Ru Gu
which is a tragic romance between a general and an aristocratic lady.
The most significant problems.
I think that hindered my enjoyment of this story is the conflict
between the vibes that the drama is trying to give me,
which is serious,
historical,
but not really being specific about a real part of chinese history,
but kind of implicating on what time that is.
So that heavy,
almost like a serious historical feel of things is in
conflict with all the details that the writer put in,
in terms of why people do the things they do, the behaviors, the motivations,
how court politics works.
look like it's works like it's written by people who do not really understand
how the kind of political military structure works.
so It's a lack of knowledge versus that serious tone of
We really wanna make it look like real history
that just makes it ...
very unbelievable.
For me.
Let me explain that in more detail.
Although this drama changed a lot of the characters of people's names,
so it doesn't implicate real families or powers in chinese history,
but you know it's based on Wei Jin Nan Bei Chao
So i'm dressed in Wei Jin Nan Bei Chao style
which is a mess in chinese history
to make it short.
China was divided into the kind of north and south kingdoms,
but then even in the north,
there are different powers fighting against each other,
the south different powers fighting against each other.
They fight between
one tiny dynasty comes up
and then gets destroyed by another.
So, a mess of time
and a mess of history
during that period of time,
also the so called imperial or the king or emperor.
However, they claim themselves or of an area.
At the same time,
there is a constant presence and very strong presence
of power that comes from what we call Shi Zu
which after Tang dynasty kind of died out in china,
the more commoner rising up to the top of power through exams.
That's possible for chinese people to achieve fully came after (from) Song
and after those dynasties, before that,
the presence of the clans of aristocrats are still rather powerful.
And wei jin nan bei chao is very,
very clan power based.
So even if a place has a king or an emperor,
not necessarily, they are the most respected power.
So with the story zhou sheng ru gu,
it is set in that kind of time,
although it's not been 100% accurate to history
because I guess if it really claims to be it won't pass censorship,
the female lead character Cui Shiyi, "Cui" for example,
they changed the character slightly (崔 to 漼）
by really
we all know it's based on the Cui family, real Cui
which is one of the major aristocrats families
that are in a way posher than kings really
with that set up.
One big problem comes that just as soon as the story starts to run,
i'm like yeah i'm not buying it.
The prince/ general played by Ren Jialun
He is the royal power of that country,
but because Cui family is the clan.
And often having hundreds (of) years of history behind it,
it's very common actually during that period of time,
when the clan families looked down upon the royal and imperial power,
because they think you do not have history.
Your family comes from no linear age
with that history knowledge in your head.
You just can't quite deal with the fact that
a military general prince can actually take a clan family's
and kind of the major trunk of the family.
The only precious daughter as a female student,
the clan family of her family would not really consider
him to be worth literally learning things from,
because it's more like you royal families who fight and got the
power should learn etiquette and culture from our aristocrats.
I know it's just me if you do not know anything about those things,
then it wouldn't be such a hindrance to your enjoyment.
But unfortunately, I do know.
So I can't quite get into it.
Also.
It has a lot of those scenes
that are about powers such as
out male lead's student.
One of his student soldier woman
talked about how poor he was
when he was younger in his teenager years
got casted away to the border of the country and only
having 30,000 well trained soldiers following him.
Have you read any military history,
period, time, cold weapons time
with iron and knives sabres
And that type of thing and horsepower
30,000 well trained soldiers.
Wow.
Nobody would consider that as a small army,
especially if it's well trained
when that detail comes up.
I'm like ah
this script writer has no idea about what they're talking about
or they have that campfire scene
at the male lead's military camp
and then there's a eunuch unique that comes
from the imperial court that came to visit.
They know this guy is on site.
He's walking around at night and they're having this open banquet
and again it is the student of the male lead comes up and say
Our shi fu has this bone structure that is Mei Ren Gu
That's the title of the original novel and which is a beauty's bone
and it's so rare
it's rarer than an emperor's bone.
And i'm like, okay,
if you wanna talk about that in private
and when you know you're not like in public,
just with yourshi fu in enclosed space, that's fine.
You're talking in front of how many people public kind of place,
and then the eunuch is walking around your site.
He just came from imperial court like,
what? why?
to say that out loud?
Do you want your shi fu to get killed or murdered or whatever?
so these kinds of things keep showing up in a period setting ZSRG drama
that otherwise gives you a very serious vibes about, for example,
how polite and how people are careful about their postures
and etiquette and entire vibe is very serious historical.
I know it's a romantic story, but you see,
like it just doesn't come together properly.
It got a little bit too...
For me to keep watching,
because I feel is it's not researched or the writer
just do not know what they're talking about.
Why don't you find somebody who know what they're doing
Do it
Is there just nobody looking over the producer director and the script and
just just see like there are a lot of things that does not make sense.
It kind of killed the drama for me.
So that's why I stopped Zhou Sheng Ru Gu
but I did go see the epic jumping off the city gate scene
cause like you have to watch it and it's well filmed,
then the contemporary version Yi Sheng Yi Shi
one short sentence is
it is too bland and boring.
It's just 2 good looking people.
They meet because they're fated, right?
immediately there's something going on,
get engaged and kind of didn't get married until the end.
But everything just is so like a journal
like a bullet journal, day one,
wake up at eight am
ate this for breakfast
went out for a walk,
meet this person
like the entire drama feels like somebody
wrote down everything that happens in their life.
Overall, it's very mushy.
Everything is just lukewarm, sweet,
gentle,
sustained.
If you ever tried ketone diet and successfully
got into the state of burning ketones.
Instead of glucose of your body,
you'll realize you suddenly become very
Stable.
You don't have like a lot of emotional ups and downs.
You don't feel suddenly dreadful or suddenly elated.
You can sustain that very flat,
but efficient level of production throughout the day.
I've tried it once and then decided not to do it for too long,
but I did do it for a couple of months and I know exactly what it feels like.
The drama reminds me of that.
It's all good, nothing big problems happening,
but then nothing else happens either.
So having 30 episodes for me is just too many hoops to
jump through for a story that hardly really progresses.
It kind of just happens
every day of their life together.
All the details.
I mean some people may like it very much.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that.
I'm just saying personally,
that's why I have to double speed certain parts,
and then I just didn't wanna watch the middle after 18
couldn't continue any more 10 episodes
until I got back to the last 2 episodes,
just trying to see how they tie up the period time setting
reincarnation story into the contemporary life.
Did anyone feel just these two
Shi Yi and Zhou Shengchen
are so polite
to each other.
I just don't see how real lovers are always like that,
just so gentle and so considerate and so polite to each other all the time,
making me again,
not quite believing in their relationship.
I really think the contemporary drama should not be named Yi Sheng Yi Shi
It should be named.
You Qian Zhen Hao
It's so good when you're rich
in the original novel.
The fact is contemporary ZSC is so rich and powerful and
clever and well educated
it's even crazier than what the drama has done.
The book setting is pretty ridiculous.
It really feels like a high school or even middle school
kid wrote a fantasy novel for their ideal man or whatever
that just has the best set up possible in this world.
Let's just say I am not a fan of setting up your main character as
the best looking the most clever also happen to have incredible wealth.
It's just so convenient and easy,
because when you're that rich,
you really just don't have problems almost in your life.
Apart from somebody who wanna take that wealth from you.
okay
So that may be the problem, but everything else.
If we have a problem, If we come across a difficulty,
normal people probably would have to struggle.
And then because of that,
it has dramatic tension and funny things or interesting things happening.
But for these two, because the guy is so rich,
they can just snap the fingers and problems go away
happily live our romantic relationship life
that will conclude my review on ZSRG and YSYS
I still think there are watchable dramas.
And for certain audiences,
they will be very enjoyable
acting part
really don't have a big problem with it.
It mostly just is to do with the scripts itself,
the pacing, the drama itself really
stories fail to make me believe in it.
Hopefully it's been useful or at least entertaining or I don't know whatever.
Hopefully it hasn't raised your blood pressure too much.
Thank you for watching AvenueX
i'll see you in my next video, meanwhile,
live long and happy drama watching.