Click, it's already episode four
I'm like, okay didn't realize that
keep going,
she's so good as an actress.
If you dig this type of tiny things,
this drama is gonna give you a high dosage of that
and make you very happy
Ai Hen Mei Wei
Delicious Romance is a 20 episode, web drama,
that's been aired on the platform Tencent.
It is led by Li Chun, Zhang Hanyun, Wang Ju
as the three main female leads.
It is directed by Chen Zhengdao and Xu Zhaoren
If you still remember last year's rather well made
A Murderous Affair at the Horizon Tower.
That's by the same director.
And actually the theme song of that drama
shows up in Delicious R omance as well.
A lot of people knocked on my door and say,
go and watch this drama.
It's really good
So I got prompted.
and I went checking this drama,
and I literally ran through the first 8 episodes
non stop.
And I didn't realize I was doing that until episode four.
First give you a rating based on the first 12 episodes
i've watched at the point I'm making this video,
it's gonna be to a 2 goldmine starting from and
more accurate a 2.5 already at this point.
If it keeps at its current quality until the very last episode
it probably would turn out to be the last three gole mine drama of 2021.
For me.
Let me first tell you roughly what the story is about.
It is focused on three female characters.
They've known each other since high school.
In the same class as classmates and their friendship lasted.
For over 10 years,
we come into the narrative of this entire story
at the time setting of early 2020.
When the pandemic happens and how it impacted their life
due to the lockdown situation,
each of them runs into some kind of crisis of their life.
Either they found out the supposedly really nice husband,
they had has been cheating on them or they got fired from the job after
the lockdown when they got back to the company because they happen to be
the only person on their team who is unmarried,
not having a boyfriend and close to 30 years old.
And the HR is like
it makes us feel less guilty of kicking you off the boat.
Or they're so successful at their career and they
work in the same company as their boyfriend.
And because of their success and their higher position in the company,
it just makes the romantic relationship
(艹皿艹 )
I've introduced you to the setup of this drama,
but everything that happens afterwards is just like
so much fun to watch.
Now,
let's talk about in detail why this drama is
so good and I give it such a positive rating.
I really cannot find a worth talking about negative point.
That really means anything if I have to force myself to pick.
If this one thing I don't like about it, what it is,
it would be the look of it,
just like forcing it to happen
type of color,
and sometimes the lens like how they use light and
flares and foreground blurring that type of look of it
and color grading slightly too faded.
And not enough contrast, overall,
look of it is not my cup of tea,
but it doesn't really impede my enjoyment of this drama at all.
I probably would love everything stays the same,
but just the look of it be more like last year,
also december airing drama.
(Dear Missy) with Jin Chen and Li Yitong
That drama's look with everything else that
this drama comes with would be perfect.
This is gonna sounds like somebody paid me to
say good things about this drama
but oh I wish
that could be true for four years and half,
and i'm yet to receive one cent from any platform to pay
me to talk either shit or good things about their drama.
So let's talk about all the good things about Delicious Romance.
Ai Hen Mei Wei
starting from the most basic requirements
for making a good production,
everyone uses their own voice.
It has become important to talk about that.
pathetically enough of chinese dramaland
then pacing of the drama is great.
That is why I said at the beginning of the video,
I didn't realize i've been watching it nonstop until
it's like episode four and I was like
oh hold on.
I've been watching drama for a while.
Click.
it's already episode four
okay didn't realize that
keep going.
I can guarantee you if you start watching this drama
you probably wouldn't be able to stop it either
it's good.
It reminds you of some of the
dramas in united states that are focused on women's life type of thing.
But with a rather light tone.
And a lot of comedy,
it's intentionally designed to be told at that structure
that just makes you want to click into the next one
or not even realizing you've already binged a couple of episodes.
After listening to me,
introducing you to the rough set up and plot,
you may be worrying about,
it's gonna be another rather raising your blood pressure
hard to watch
has a lot of very difficult to deal with themes coming up drama.
And it does talk about a lot of things that
concerns women at that particular age,
living contemporary life,
balancing life and career and all kinds of trouble they run into
But it has a very palatable tone.
And it has a way to lesser its impact by
its own ranting on its own plot setting.
I'll talk about that later,
but don't worry about this drama getting too heavy.
It is not.
If you've watched earlier this year kind of with the same setup,
similar characters,
which was the mango short series Remembrance of things of time past.
Can't remember the english title,
wo zai ta xiang ting hao de
Zhou Yutong, Ren Suxi, Sun Qian, Jin Jing
That drama
this drama is on par with it in terms of how well made it is
as a production and then the depth it gets to,
but it's the lighter version of it.
If you have a tarot card
delicious romance is the upright version of the card,
and then remembrance is the reverse.
So they are essentially the same thing,
but two different angles and kind of energy vibes of the similar theme.
If you've liked that drama but you find it too heavy.
At times.
Delicious rumors is the lighter and less pokey version.
Third thing about this drama that is great is it is filled with
details of reality from script writing point
from the acting
There are just so many tiny tiny moments that
gets instant feedback from the audience,
which would be,
oh i'm like that.
If we start to talk about this topic,
I would react exactly like that person.
oh that moment is so so realistic, even though it's tiny,
and it probably doesn't do anything for the plot.
For example, the three female leads.
They've known each other forever,
so they have completely gotten to the point that they
just don't need to act at all in front of each other.
They go to restaurant, have food together,
which is part of why the drama is called delicious romance.
Although it's not focused on culinary arts,
it does have a lot of eating and food scene
and they're having a conversation about their own life and stuff.
And this waitress comes in with a plate and their food.
The moment she comes into their sort of safe personal space.
They immediately just all shut up and stop talking simultaneously without
gesturing each other and the waitress is like
your food , enjoy it.
And then she goes away
the moment she leaves their safety space.
They started to talk again as if nothing happened.
It's just like a tiny moment that doesn't do anything for the plot at all
but you're like, ah~~that's so realistic.
That's what happens to
everyone.
And each of us have experienced that a lot,
but you rarely see that get reflected in a drama.
It's impossible to tell whether it's the actresses who did it spontaneously,
or it was director telling them we should do this.
It's interesting or maybe the script whether literally wrote it that way,
who knows?
And this drama is littered with those tiny tiny moments.
If you dig this type of tiny things,
this drama is gonna give you a high dosage of that and make you very happy.
Then i
s that the 4th point?
does not matter the number
this drama is filled with comedy
and with the help of editing music.
The way that visual story gets told it just
makes the effect of comedy even stronger.
A lot of the characters,
although not intentionally trying to break the 4th wall
is saying the lines that were just like
slapping across its own face type of thing.
For example.
Wang Ju's character Xia Meng is a higher management,
very successful career woman who works at a streaming platform,
pretty much like Tencent Iqiyi or Youku
So she deals with actors,
she deals with script writers,
she rants about constantly when it's theri meeting looking at a
pilot episode episode of a drama
like all of us
like all the drama reviewers
and you viewers
ranting at stupid plot, character set-up
old fashioned stuff
mary sue
all that and those things are
golden,
but she even has like self commentary which
is super funny in one scene she's like.
Yeah I'm very frustrated,
but these days girls group become actresses.
She came to the public's view because of
taking part in this type of selections,
and then she plays a character who rants about Nv Tuan (girls group)
all that type of thing.
This drama is littered with that too.
Watching the drama, you will also enjoy
great kid actors acting clever children who kind of see
through everything type of scenes
that you wanna watch coming from.
The brilliant actress Wang Shengdi
You'll also see professional working environment, sexual harassment,
plot the absolutely cringy,
speed dating plot
thanks to the mothers who just cannot wait to marry their daughters off.
You'll see the particular different personalities of people.
how they deal with romantic relationships that makes them
do things that is
just so them
and so reasonable and
reflecting so much of the reality of what
a lot of people go through in their life,
and being explained on screen in such an effective and interesting way.
So it's a short, concise,
no wasted moment drama that is just filled
with tiny tiny details that are delicious.
It is delicious romance,
but it's also a delicious drama.
One of the particular scenes I have to point out,
which is insane,
a long long scene that kind of runs cross 2 entirely of episodes.
It happens at a nightclub
when you get there you'll know
And it manages to pull all the main characters into that physical space
and push all their personal relationship plot forward
and delivering you just incredibly embarrassing,
funny and make you cringe, but make you go.
wow that's drama moments,
I just had to clap at the director's ability to
be able to control the narrative of that insane,
long scene and making every character move forward on their plotline
But at the same time,
super enjoyable to watch,
don't know how many days it took them to film that entire scene.
Everybody just get stuck in this space that you can't see
whether it's light or dark outside and then hundreds extras,
insane difficulty of logistics,
continuity,
and just not miss any shot you need to get
and the moments that the actors need to deliver
and how do you figure out all the difficult maneuvering
of people moving in physical space and getting everything connected.
I looked at the scene, I was like,
oh my god,
it's a nightmare to shoot this type of scene
i've done previously
in nightclubs shooting shooting dramas.
I can tell you it's a nightmare,
it's absolute nightmare trying to get a scene done there,
not to mention it's a scene that's literally like what
an hour long
one last thing about the drama itself that I really appreciate is I didn't
expect Wang Ju and as "Nv Tuan"
she's so good as an actress.
If I didn't know you know where she came from,
I would totally believe she got trained in a proper acting
performance academy for years and she's got experience
working as an actress
if all the idols whether you're a girl or a boy, right?
That got into acting is as good as she is and qualified as she is.
I have no problem,
I don't care if you have a tag as as an idol, as a singer as a dancer,
but if you're doing an actor's job
then you should be judged by the standards of
what qualifies for being an actor an actress
all three female characters are very well written, very well casted,acted,
but she definitely stood out just because
exceeded my expect attention so much.
There's an article on douban
if you can read chinese you can go and check out
which is written by Chen Zhengdao
the director of this drama officially on
his account talking about how they made this drama, basically
They said this is a script that they've had for years.
They've had the first 6 episodes of writing
couple of years ago,
and they tried to pitch it to all kinds of different platforms,
but the platforms wouldn't take it.
Because it is very different from the popular,
brainless.
Sha Bai Tian, stupid, pale, and sweet,
romantic stories that the platforms are looking for.
Then the pandemic comes so many stories happens.
You see that on internet every day you hear it from your friends,
and people's life get impacted by it a lot.
So the script writers, two of them,
a gentleman and a lady plus the directors.
They sit down, they have long conversations with like
zoom,
just talking about the frustration and then the things they've heard or seen.
And then it just naturally got to the point where they
resurrected that old script
add a lot of details of what
has happened to a lot of people during lock down
It had a foundation that was made a long time ago,
but didn't get anywhere.
It was like, not it's time,
and then the time changed.
and It got a second life due to what has happened in reality.
And it reflects into the story.
And it pushed it forward,
turned it into a real story.
And this time they're lucky enough to get it made.
And it turned out to be such a great Project.
That's what i've collected about this drama.
And what I wanna say about this drama.
If you need a pick me up energy type of drama that will respect your
Intelligence and your experiences living in contemporary world.
You will not be disappointed by this drama
I hope it stays as funny, sharp,
interesting, self ranting and well designed till the very last moment of it.
Thank you for watching AvenueX
I'll see you in my next video.
Meanwhile live long and happy drama watching.