Every turn feels well written and then well performed.
It cannot pierce my tough skinned heart any more
Go and watch this drama you'll know
Yue Guang Bian Zou Qu
Moonlight
It's a 36 episodes web drama
that's being aired on the platform iQiyi in china.
The drama is based on a novel called
Chu Li Lai Le ( Chu Li has Come)
Chu Li being the name of the leading female character
and it's led by Ding Yuxi and Yu Shuxin
the drama has already aired past half-way point
and i've watched 19.5 episodes at the time
i'm making this video
based on the episodes i've watched
i'll give it a one gold mine rating,
but like a pretty high one gold mine rating
recently I have been giving that rating
to most of the dramas i've seen somehow,
so it's an overall quite enjoyable drama
because it still has half way to go.
I'm reserving that two gold mine rating until later.
As usual, I'll first introduce you to the story roughly and then the
good things and the things that
left something to be desired.
First, a very brief introduction.
This is a story that is evolving around the publishing industry.
Our family character played by Yu Shuxin, Chu Li
She is an aspiring editor,
although she totally studied something irrelevant in her university,
she's a fresh graduate from university and she went to
shanghai the big city to look for a job
in the story setting.
There is a publishing house called Yuan Yue She and
it has been her dream since she was much younger,
she has read everything that comes out of this publishing house and read
their magazines and their books and wanting to work there no matter what
So you know what would happen?
Right?
Eventually she really did end up working there
as for our male lead character.
Zhou Chuan play by Ding Yuxi
He is a popular young author,
the architypical type of young author who are very popular.
having a big fandom
writing fantasy genre in the Chinese
more like a web novel-ish world,
but he does publish paper backs in the story setting
because otherwise the setting wouldn't work.
And this is definitely a contemporary romantic drama
with a little bit comedy sprinkled in it, overall,
very lightweight.
it's a joyful story for you to watch,that type of drama.
And now let's get into the discussion of good and bad, .
good point, number one,
this drama is a production that has an overall quite
acceptable quality as a contemporary romantic drama,
which usually means it doesn't include epic sets or fighting or cgi all that.
It's just very metropolitan normal human life setting
within the entire general of dramas like such.
This one is relatively well produced.
So that includes the shots set up, the framing,
the cinematography, the music, the editing,
everything looks kind of done, really, really professionally.
There is no extreme crazy lighting
or a lot of post skin smoothing
and then color adjustment to make everybody just not look like human.
The overall looks realistic enough,
and then it does have that little bit romantic touch to it,
but not overdone.
So on the overall production quality and it aesthetics,
I have nothing to complain.
The second point, the drama gives you a very relaxed and natural feeling,
although it is a romantic story with a lot of
coincidence is happening all the time.
But it still gives you a very realistic feel.
It feels like real people talking,
real people acting due to many different elements working together.
For example, everybody use their own voice.
I'm very happy about that.
Some of it, I think it's live recording because you can hear a lot of
environment sound that just sounds like really recorded on set.
Sometimes the sound will suddenly switch.
And you can tell they've dubbed a part of a line,
but with the same actor,
maybe just to erase the noise and some
recording problems that they've got on set.
So it's a mixture of on set recording an adr
Somehow this is a point that's worth praising
these days in chinese dramaland
Also the acting style of most of the actors
all veering towards the let's be as normal
as relaxed as real people would be looking like and talking like.
As we can
Ding Yuxi and Yu Shuxig,
they are both very good at relaxing to the point that
they really look like real people in front of camera.
And so going with that style of acting really
helps making you believe their characters,
although pretty much every actor featured in the drama
main or support are good enough.
I really would say it is the male lead and
the female lead who stand out most
and it also 95%
fulfilled my expectation after watching
last year's I've Fallen For You led by Yu Shuxin
and then The Romance of Tiger and Rose led by Ding Yuxi
I had a good idea about what type of actors they are
and what type of performance they tend to deliver.
I pictured what it would look like with these 2 acting.
And then I would say 95% of my expect station has been delivered.
So it's a good thing that I didn't get disappointed at all,
but also didn't surprise me.
Both of them are pretty decent actors of their age range.
And in this drama they do deliver me a very convincing human
interaction between two people who kind of have a little bit
feeling towards each other.
These days it's really not a secret that for
a lot of chinese contemporary romantic dramas,
it's just so intentionally written for the highlight moments
like pushing you on the wall or suddenly fall on the
ground and kissing each other and all those ...... moments
that you so expect
very tropy style of acting.
Some of those moments do occur in this drama too.
But because of it's done by these two actors
plus probably the director on the side,
they really do give you a feeling like if
this scenario do happen to real people,
it will look like this.
So I highly appreciate the collaboration between these two.
And there are a lot of little, tiny tiny sugar
that are worth digging out of their interactions.
Often they come together.
And there's one scene
and there are actually
many steps of what they go through.
my intention, your intention clashing and moving to the second stage,
leading up to the third and fourth.
That really gives you a quite delicious journey of watching through
two young people playing that game of attraction and stuff.
Every turn feels well written and then well performed.
I cannot get more specific unless I wanna spoil you.
So you should go and explore that yourself and you will understand what I mean.
Now let's talk about a few things that are, let's say,
not ideal for this drama
First.
Although this drama overall is very enjoyable,
very natural feeling still just turn on your logical brain and
you'll realize there's so much coincidence that makes these two
destined leads of the drama finally meet and it
depends on your tolerance of how much coincidence
you can deal with before you feel like.
Yeah, but I don't believe that and it mostly happens at the begining
at the set up and laying the foundation part of the drama.
So once you get over that, it gets better,
but you have to deal with the fact that the girl
wants to work at this publishing house.
She didn't get an appointment for an interview at all.
She just walked in there, with herm luggage
and just happened run into a dispute between this publishing house.
Another publishing house representative arguing
about something who holds the copyright,
and she happens to be the person who remembers
the correct date of publication and stuff.
So she injected herself and helped her prospect future employer.
That's just so unrealistic.
And then it happens to be the other person is the female 2nd
that she is kind of in competition later in the drama.
And there are more coincidences such as she did end up
working there and the first person she has to sign up.
An author is our male lead
and she has been having internet dating with
somebody for like over 3 years and not knowing it's actually this person
because they use different names,
and different, accounts and stuff.
And then another author she has been a fan of for years happens to be
the male lead's best, tightest friend who would enter his home
without even like knocking on the door type of friendship
and our female lead did end up living with our male lead
very soon into the drama.
So you do have to deal with all those things.
It's okay.
But what are the possibilities of that happening?
And then another thing and happens and...
It's heaven trying to put these two together.
That's the only way you can explain it.
So I am not extremely annoyed by it,
but it feels very lazy
things that can happen with two young people living under the same roof.
It's nothing new
as somebody who's watched hundreds and hundreds of dramas.
By this point, it cannot pierce my tough skinned heart anymore.
The second thing that makes me feel by the end of this drama,
it still wouldn't be super popular.
Like it will be okay,
people probably wouldn't complain about it.
They will enjoy it, watching,
but I doubt it's gonna get the attention
as much as last year's Tiger and Rose got
Because this is overall very normal drama,
it has very standard setup.
It has, let's say mundane
conflicts, people do have conflicts,
but it's not dramatic enough
and it's 36 episodes ,with this type of drama,
I think the ideal length would always be around.
20 or 24,
the central conflict is not anything refreshing, special, super engaging.
There isn't a big carrot dangling at the end of the story
promising you that you're gonna get a big bangat the end.
And when you think about a lot of popular dramas,
mostly there needs to be a big carrot dangling.
People need to know it is there
whereas this type of very daily,
sweet life encounter moment interaction,
drama that are enjoyable things to watch,
but not really having huge dramatic plot,
turning points and stuff.
It's unlikely to create huge buzz
And I am slightly worried about it being 36 episodes.
I don't know how much of that sweet interaction that I
can keep watching without getting a little bit bored or
without literally feeling like I don't need to chase this drama at all.
I can just wait till it airs finishes and then jump in
and click open a couple of episodes and see what cute things has happened.
Not saying a very daily life focused drama cannot be very good.
There have been many classics in asian dramaland
but for those super successful ones
they usually have very deep observations of the human condition.
Think about some classic korean dramas and this
is definitely not where this drama is going.
It is is not attempting to do any in depth digging at any particular subject.
So my projection of this drama is it still will run
pretty smoothly till the end
just waiting for the whole drama to finish running
and cap it and say it is a pretty enjoyable, romantic, idol
contemporary drama and that's it.
Have you been watching this drama?
Do you enjoy watching it?
Has it met your expectation?
I would say pretty much for me,
it has
and there are some very cute songs that's sung by the 2 leads
both of them are very decent singers and some really,
really cute sound effect.
These days, a lot of contemporary even period dramas like to use that in china.
I don't know like what started this trend
When awkward, funny,
pause or any of those moments happening on the screen.
Weird sound effect starts to happen such as a
door being jammed like .... or animal noises.
Sometimes it's sheep,
ma, ba,
sometimes it's crow
Sometimes in this drama,
it's cats
because there are many.
Go and watch this drama you'll know.
I mean they're cute
but every drama uses it
since when did this become
a trend of using really weird sound effects?
I'm just curious, like,
when did people all decided to do that?
That would conclude this video my half way review on the drama.
Moonlight, Yue Guang Bian Zou Qu
thank you for watching AvenueX
i'll see you in my next video.
Meanwhile, live long and happy drama watching