We really wanna do gl but we can't do it broad daylight.
So we're giving you the clues for you to figure it out.
And beijing is.
Couple of Mirrors is a 12 episodes chinese web drama
on the platform Bilibili
I know i'm quite late to the game,
but I have finally managed to catch up with it.
This drama is produced by the production company
dong yang huan yu which belongs to Yu Zheng,
Unfortunately
and also Bilibili led by Zhang Nan, Sun Yihan
as a 12 episode short drama,
it is really easy for me to run through it.
So this is a final review.
I'll give this drama,
a one gold mine rating on my seven level scale,
but it would be a one gold mine drama that i've enjoyed quite
a bit more than my normal one gold mine drama
As usual, first i'll talk about a few details and what the story is about.
And then the good and the bad.
There are a couple of things that is
quite interesting about this production.
First, it is directed by a director called Li Dachao
who for the longest time actually worked as a kung fu director.
This is not a rare thing in chinese dramaland
You'll see a lot of mainland productions
These days actually having directors who previously worked
mostly for hong kong productions as wu xia fighting scene directors
this drama as it's listed,
is written by two script writers
both are women and one of them is actually the author of Princess Agent,
the original ip novel that got into a plagiarism case and lost.
So if we try to use one word to talk about the background in terms of companies,
writers all that of this production,
that would be
"complicated"
Yu Zheng is currently one of those people in chinese entertainment
business that is not welcomed in many places
for this production.
He didn't take part in the writing or the directing or any of that.
He wrote the lyrics for all three songs
you're gonna hear as original sound tracks.
All those informations aside,
let me quickly tell you what the story is about if you haven't watched it yet,
which I doubt if you clicked open this video
It is set in the city of shanghai at the beginning of Min Guo
period and were introduced to the first female character who
shows up as the main character played by Zhang Nan.
Xu Youyi
she is a well known, famous,
novel writer who is married to a guy who is the
second generation of a rather powerful politician.
She enjoys the fame the money that comes to her privileged lifestyle.
But she also realized, unfortunately,
that her husband is cheating on her.
Through some very intricate,
and interesting accident and incident happening.
Her fate got entangled with another woman who owns a
photography shop and makes her living by taking photos.
But in reality,
she had a much more complicated and crazy past history.
Than you can possibly imagine
they eventually form
a very interesting with quotation mark friendship,
and because of their bond and friendship to each other.
They helped each other out of their life's difficulties.
Now let's talk about the things first that are really well done for this drama.
First thing I really encourage short form dramas from chinese dramaland
because it's been plagued by overrun super long draggy and
watered down content for too long
2021, We've seen quite a couple of very short dramas that have done really well
and have been very well received
and we see the trend of more and more
shorter dramas being made in this way.
And I highly highly appreciate this change.
The second thing I like about this drama is
particularly in its first third of the story.
It has a very strong vibe of a type of classic crime,
thriller mystery,
although it's by no means masterpiece writing
or on screen representation of this genre,
the way it is told the narrative orders of things,
what they decide to show up at what episode and how everything happens.
One after another
showing two different characters'
2 point of views of the same thing.
And arriving at the first climax of the drama
when you realized 2 narrative lines converge.
And oh this is why this happens.
First third of the drama really did that well
Although later in a drama because of how the story develops,
this type of narrative no longer continues.
But at least for the beginning part of this drama,
I really loved how they decided to tell the story.
If you're a big detective drama watcher,
you will be very familiar with how it's done
far exceeding my expectation of a rather low budget,
short form web only drama.
The third thing I like the drama and I think is the main thing
why it is rather well received within the Bilibili community.
They it did cast the right actresses for those 2 roles
whether it is the appearance side of things,
the look of the actresses,
what type of vibes they give you on screen or the way
they act and play the roles or how they come together.
Physically.
They're both very tall and it's rare to come across
two actresses who are that tall in chinese dramaland.
when they come together on screen,
how comfortable they're in each other's presence
all that worked out pretty well
for this type of definitely riding on
on the main two leads relationship drama.
If that doesn't work,
it kind of fails.
At least 50% already.
It's a fortunate thing for the casting choices
of this drama that they did the right choice.
The final thing about this drama that I like is
zheng ti wan cheng du,
general completeness of the story
Both the thriller detective kind of line,
most of the main characters arc although not perfectly done
and then the relationship line.
So everything is kind of taken care of and suggesting there
might be a future second season story of how it develops.
so, as a low budget,
short form drama taht doesn't feature any big stars in any way.
This is pretty nicely completed
So those are the good things about this drama that I enjoyed a lot.
Now let me talk about the things that I think are not
ideal for this drama
first being accurate to its time.
I know it's a fictional story, it's very,
very fictional and there's no way that it actually
happens in any way with that time setting and place.
But if you're putting it at public china, early time, shanghai,
there's actually a lot of things you can
research into even the women's hair style,
their clothing style, what are products that's being available at the time.
If you want to be be really really detailed
and accurate and filled with texture
you can.
But this drama, when it's regarding Min Guo (republic of china)
it really just didn't really bother with much of its
details in all departments plus the language,
the lines,
the specific words people use.
There are a lot of very contemporary vocabulary, expressions that only exists.
Today, like in 2020, 2021
it's so up to date that.
I often got pulled out of the story
because of certain things and expressions people said
most likely due to low budgeting,
they wouldn't have a professional team doing research.
And then once they've researched it not necessarily
having all the money to make the props and stuff happen.
The second thing is to do with the two main characters and writing of them.
I think it's a rather uneven story writing,
although we know this is a two female lead drama you have.
Zhang Nan and Sun Yihan's characters should be 50/50,
but honestly when you watch the drama,
it's more like 70/30
Xu Youyi's character played by Zhang Nan.
She doesn't just have more screen time.
Her story is much more fully developed.
Her character also has gotten much much more attention from the writer
you know her background you know what she's gone through before she
met her current husband
and you know what happened with their relationship.
Everything is pretty much told in very detailed fashion,
whereas Sun Yihan's character
Yan Wei from the beginning till the end.
She first didn't really go through a significant arc, second
You just don't quite know that much about her.
you know she learned her sort of assasin's skill in a fictional war.
It's not explained in the drama exactly what kind of organization took her,
what type of war she went through as a fighter and how
she got back and how like every detail is not explained.
And I tried to figure out if she was on a foreign soil as a teenager,
with machine guns fighting
what that could be
like where
and that part definitely just cuts down the believability for character setup.
I mean she's cool okay as a female character,
who knows guns and knives and has a secret
chamber in her photography shop that pretty much is
taken from all kinds of American superheroes.
Dungeon equipment room, kind of design,
but it doesn't fit any historical possibilities.
So the grounding of Yan Wei's role is very shaky.
It's very fictional.
And it's totally for the dramatic storytelling's purpose
building upon that.
There's hardly any development that happened throughout this drama.
Although I like the actress' performance,
I think she did a good job,
it's totally on the writing side that her
character just didn't receive enough attention,
enough care, enough thought through.
It's almost like she is the tool person for Xu Youyi's role.
She's the person who comes to her rescue and the only help that
Xu Youyi can provide for her is to
make her being more human.
So this particular girl and girl relationship is rather imbalanced,
and their weight to the narrative is also not very equal.
But then I understand because the character set up is so weird,
maybe because of censorship.
and this and that couldn't go too far from reality
when it's already rather far from reality,
which leads to the third point of things that are not ideal is
clearly the ending
the voice over part when they said in Yan Wei's role got
sentenced to prison for 15 years is just to get through censorship.
Supposedly bad people will have to get punished.
At the end of the story that is the rule
and Yan Wei as a character,
she did commit murder.
She has to get punishment,
but it doesn't make sense.
you know when you watch the drama to that point.
There's nothing that can really make her go to prison apart from.
She decided to go into police station herself
which does not follow any logic of the drama.
And with a couple of shots of what happened later,
it's suggesting a future second season.
so, if you've watched the drama enjoyed it up to that
point of the ending
just ignore the voice over.
Think about it they're together,
two girls and they've kind of solved all the big problems in their lives.
Now Yan Wei has a visitor from the past with the white rose
coming back and the the second season should be more focused
on her about her background story and who is coming back
and what kind of threat.
It brings into her life.
Now she has a roommate slash
girlfriend in her life.
So these are the points that I can think of.
After watching this drama,
there's one cute thing detail.
I think most people know, but if you don't,
there is a scene when Xu Youyi was stepping on the
floorboard that got already taken care of,
by Yan Wei
after she moved in.
And it no longer triggers the two huge axes flying in the sky,
she took out her make up
lipstick and drew that emoji on that board with a winking smiling face.
That is the icon of an app called Rela
previously
now is called "The L" which is
queer women community App
that's actually developed in china.
In case you don't know what that is.
So it's clearly suggesting we really wanna do gl but we can't do it.
Broad daylight.
So we're giving you the clues for you to figure it out.
At the end of this review.
I would say this is a rather enjoyable drama,
but you do need to go in with a reasonable level of expectation.
You wouldn't feel the 12 episodes of time
after you watching the drama is wasted.
That would be,
I think a good enough reason to go and
have a try of it
in terms of being gl or gl adaptation.
It really hasn't gone to any extensive level of it.
Although the two actresses in their interviews and stuff are
very relaxed about this kind of topic
in the drama itself.
It is not explicit in anyway.
And compared to the already at a different development stage,
bl drama in chinese dramaland
the gl dramas are very far behind.
It has a much smaller community of people who are interested in it.
And it's barely barely starting to get anywhere.
So what reasonable expectation and a relaxed kind of attitude?
You can go into this drama and you probably will enjoy it,
hope that's been useful to you.
Thank you for watching AvenueX
I'll see you in my next video.
Meanwhile, live long and happy drama watching.