Hello, you're watching our AvenueX
where a junkie on good storytelling, shares her thoughts,
knowledge and occasional weird ideas on stories and how they're told.
This is a combination video of two dramas
that's been aired on the same platform.
iqiyi, the first drama that has just wrapped is the punishment
Fa Zui, which i've made a first impression video about.
And then the second part of this video is talking about my
halfway review of a 36 episode drama still on air, Qing Jun
Thousand Years for You.
First, let's talk about Fa Zui, Punishment
after watching the whole thing.
I will give it a one gold mine.
It hasn't fully achieved 2 gold mine.
In my opinion, pretty much it maintained the same level of storytelling
and fitting my expectation.
As the first part when I made the first impression video,
I just have a couple of more observations after i've watched
the whole thing that I would like to share with you.
The strongest reason,
I think still that sustained me through this drama and making me
if in anyway want to recommend this drama to my viewers, would be
Yang Youning's Performance is really one of the best among
his recent years' works that I can think of.
But then let's talk about one thing that I only realized
after i've watched the whole thing and let it simmer for a while
after thinking through it.
I also think it's not intentional,
but it just happened in that way.
You see that actually very often happening in chinese dramas
and probably everywhere really in this world,
which is there tends to still be a very fall back on way
of writing female roles given that this is an anti crime
drama and the policemen and the crime bosses,
they are mostly male
to start with.
You have less women in the play and all the female roles
are used as tools to push the plot forward,
whether they are on the good side or the bad side.
They all each function for one very singular purpose
beyond that you know nothing nearly about themselves
as a person
Jin Yan played by Gai Yuexi
She is the female lead,
because she is working with our male lead all the time.
So they always show up together.
They are partners.
She's the perfect side-kick
But when you think through everything she's done,
there's probably only one or two moment in the whole drama
where you feel a little bit of the weight,
emotional energy of that character.
And then she's a blur and she is already
the female character who's got most of the screen time on.
Then you think about every other woman.
The adopted mother of our male lead a middle aged woman,
at 50s/60s, and you've got a husband, right?
Most of your lifetime who is a very shrewd and clever intelligent,
capable policeman.
And you are a partner to him
to think that you'd be so naive.
If you watch the drama, you'll know, her ideas about the
bad guys and who are the bad guys until the end,
you can't be that dumb, basically.
And then the actual birth mother of our male lead character
played by the very good actress Jiang Shan
Supposedly she's the ambitious politician who sacrifices everything
of her private life for her political gain, climbing the ladder.
But if you are an ambitious woman in that and you're so
ruthless at getting power and you've gotten so successful
to like the vice deputy mayor of the city, whatever.
You'd think you'd be more again,
observant, calculative, shrewd and more of a politician
you know politician.
But she also is so just there to serve a couple of key points of the plot.
In terms of her own capabilities,
you just don't even get convinced that she can climb to that
position if she's really like the way she is in the drama.
And then the worst case is the woman who
is Chang Zheng, male lead's ex-girlfriend.
She's kind of like girlfriend / ex girlfriend.
She's in that quantum zone.
You never quite know exactly what she is
through out this drama to our male lead.
It's just sad that she's like the flattest character
of a female world imaginable, well educated,
pretty, rich, and she's a lawyer.
okay, She went through law school and she's doing well.
So she has to be intelligent.
You can't just be dumb and get through law school.
It doesn't work like that, yet.
She's so dumb throughout the whole drama and naive to the point.
You can't believe that this can happen.
And then her singular purpose really through the whole drama
is to fill time when there needs to be a romantic line.
And then at the end do what she did and
die and help the good guys get that crucial evidence.
Come on.
You're using her so much like disposable devices.
And even with that,
there's hardly any emotion throughout the drama because
how she's written and represented that audiences can feel.
I mean if you compare that to Qiu Tao's role where
he's undercover police eventually also sacrifice himself,
their functions are similar, right?
But definitely emotionally,
with all the buildup and characterization,
you're gonna feel so much more sympathy and whatever
emotional feeling with Qiu Tao's role than Ji Nian
Basically, all the women in this drama are blurry.
and they are not humans, they're just tools.
I'm not saying the male characters are much better written,
like they're all golden, three dimensional roles
no, like the father.
Gangster is just literally Zhong Zhu
I just want the sons and grandsons
and that's all my living existing goals.
You cannot be more two dimensional than that, at least.
Among the male characters, there are a couple of people.
You feel they're more interesting, layered,
okay,whereas all the girls are like,
oh the the assassin,
the pretty assassin
definitely is just weapon to kill people.
She just stupidly follows whatever the the master says
and she's kind of like in love with him.
So sad.
I don't think the script is intentional,
but this type of things is very pervasive and and hidden,
not gonna say it really impact much of the quality of the drama,
but overall this is watchable crime drama.
You probably wouldn't feel you're very insulted
on the intelligence level while you watch it,
but then you wouldn't be very impressed either.
Now let's move on to the second part of this video
talking about Qing Jun, Thousand Years for You.
This is a 36 episode drama that's currently still on air.
As this video goes out,
it should have aired into the 20s number episode
it is led by Ren Jialun and Li Qin
directed by Zheng Weiwen, written by four different script writers.
There is an original novel called QIng Jun Ci Jiao
which supposedly this drama is based on,
but this drama has adapted the origin story to the level that you
really can just consider them as individual stories
not really related.
In terms of the story itself,
it is set at min guo time,
our male lead character is a kind of sealed in a painting,
put into dormant state,
ancient prince who was also a general.
He's been there for 3,000 years sleeping
and got woken up by the sudden intrusion
of a min guo gangster group
who entered this cave, this ancient tomb,
the woman leading that group as the head of the
stronghold in the mountains is played by Li Qin
And 3,000 years ago,
there was a huge war between a human race and a
Ling Zu, like spiritual race. who look like human,
but they have magical power.
The woman leader from the spiritual race kind of falls in love with.
The human prince, played by RJL, and then to save him,
she gave him her Yuan Dan
if you watch a lot of xian xia
you know what that is.
It's like the essence of your existence to save him,
but then she kind of like dies with quotation mark, supposely.
She can still come back.
Then he gets woken up by the min guo girl
who looks exactly like his dead.
3,000 years ago, dead lover, hey, obviously,
otherwise how you're gonna do this story,
i've watched the first 18 episodes of this drama,
and I do have to confess there's a significant
amount of speed through
I'll give it 0.5 gold mine.
It's still on the positive end, but barely,
let's do the usual thing good and bad.
First 6 episodes, I was able to watch it without really speeding
afterwards, I start to get less patient and around episode ten,
something I start to spead through a lot.
So my opinion about this drama is first impression pretty watchable.
As it goes on, it's like yeah yeah yeah but it starts to get
less and less interesting
on the positive end of this drama.
Number one, if you are a fan of either of the leads,
Ren Jialun and Li Qin
this drama probably is easy for you to get in
cause both of them act and perform in the way you expect they would be
early parts is pretty easy to follow and you are unlikely
to spead through a lot
and the second positive, but also problematic thing.
I'm also gonna talk about it in the negative part, is
Both leads use their own voice.
I would always encourage actors these days to do that,
but there's a condition attached,
which is you do it yourself,
but you do it well
qualified as a proper actor or actress
so that will go into the negative parts of
This video
then similar to that is I will mention it in the positive and also
in the negative end of this is
looks like they did spend money on things.
Certain sets, props, costumes looks very good in terms of like
being expensive and definitely cost money.
But then the result it presents falls into the negative parts of my video.
So it's a weird situation.
I'll try to make it not sound like a rant.
I don't actually have that much against this drama.
I just find it's rather bland.
and mostly that is because the script is very
average
on the negative end
Number one, it's very "fake"
That's overall how you would feel about this drama.
When you look at the stronghold that female lead leads in the mountain.
Supposedly they're super poor, they don't have money, right?
They're running out of money.
That's why she went out and trying to basically grab husbands from the town.
If you actually look at the imagery of that place,
it looks quite tidy,
nicely designed.
Everybody is dressed in like not shabby clothing,
it's not dirt covered,
it's not dilapidated, basically.
So does not make sense.
Then the male lead where he has that shop,
and then every other basically posh buildings, you see,
interiors where he shows up whether it's a restaurant or hotel or whatever,
it just looks so extravagantly,
pretty and large.
Yeah, Min Guo
even back then in the posh-est place in china,
hardly everywhere looks like that good.
okay
So it has a fake look.
It really just like screams,
we are a drama, this is a set,
there's a light
Faking daylight whatever it's just very
staged.
Second point probably will get me murdered.
This is to do with Ren Jialun and Li Qin's acting
I mean they didn't act too much below my expectation,
but I think both of them could do better with what they've done previously.
You've seen in other dramas.
This is definitely not their roof,
their ceiling level of acting.
okay, This is
get money get paid and get out
type of drama for both of them
on Ren Jialun's end.
This is not his fault,
but his character looks too similar to every other characters he's being in,
whether it's in a min guo or period drama
At the beginning he's the period drama look for a bit and
it's like totally copying Zhou Sheng Ru Gu exactly like that like.
Straight plucked out of the drama
and then when he is in the min guo look,
it's like other min guo drama he's been in, so alike and even
his facial expressions throughout the drama is just as
every other characters he's done before,
then he used his own voice,
didn't get dubbed by either Zhang Jie or Bian Jiang
The good thing about that is this time he improved
a little bit
as compared to one and only I think or
forever and ever, can't remember, those two dramas are one.
This time he doesn't sigh at the end of every freaking sentence
which is a good thing, in that drama.
You'll hear him talk like
He starts with a "Huh" and he ends with a "huh"
pretty much everywhere,
which is very annoying , in this drama
He doesn't do that anymore.
He doesn't huh anymore, which is, thankfully,
I consider making the his own voice much much more endurable for me to hear,
but then he tends to have problems with a line
that is too long
when it's a shorter sentence.
It sounds okay, when it's a longer sentence.
You see he cannot quite work out the rhythm
where you drag it longer,
where you make it speak faster,
where you put emphasis on
that whole tonal flow as a normal person speaks,
or as a really qualified actor speaks,
you want to make your expression
come across to the audiences' ears
Very easily, your meaning, what your emotion is at the time,
what your motivation is.
And with his own voice speaking,
it's very flat.
He's like his reading lines from a teleprompter.
And it's
evenly spaced out
as for Li Qin, I think her problem is completely on the opposite side is
she's trying too hard to act her role.
The best role she's done and still leaving the strongest
impression would be her princess in Princess Agent,
her aura and her vibe is more suited to the type of pretty but
cold undertone and having a lot of tragedy happened to her.
But she's still very stubborn and strong
that kind of role suits her a lot
and this type of happy, over the top, socially very communicative girl
just doesn't quite fit Li Qin
And she's trying so hard to play it.
Also. She's trying to act the man- woman, the tomboy,
the male masculine version of a woman,
because she's leading a group of gangsters
and she needs to be on top.
She's trying to act the leader all the time and it
doesn't come from a really sustainable and true place.
And also with that is the way she speaks,
she is the polar opposite to Ren jialun
where she tries to emphasize every word,
Too much, her pronunciation and then her tone
is very theatrical
as if I'm doing a monologue on stage
turn it up to 120%.
So when you watch these 2 act,
it's really funny like
teleprompter , theater ,teleprompter, theater
when they're talking to each other,
cut back and forth of a dialogue.
I haven't felt this weird for a long time
in a way it becomes funny.
Because that is too distracting.
For me. Probably if you don't understand manderin at all,
it would work less effectively on you.
But for me,
it's a little bit hard.
Then the other thing on the story level about this drama,
I find it's not very attractive.
Is first you have like supporting roles that are annoying,
not likable at all and they take a lot of screen time
This is the common problem these days for Chinese dramas
I'm talking about this guy.
Just don't want to see him.
He's annoying as a character.
He's not in any way helping the story
and he shows up all the time
I wanna get rid of you
just don't show up, why are you here again?
Then you can feel the writers don't really care
about a very logical smoothly worked out character development line
and people ,different people come together as a story.
They don't really pay much attention of.
We're creating coherent character.
They are more focused on.
We want this plot to happen.
We want a big quarrel between them.
However, we can make them more exciting.
We just make it.
We don't care how you arrive there.
We don't care about the process.
We don't care how you make the characters consistent
and make the story flow,
logical and making that thing happens organically.
They just want it to happen.
So they make it happen.
They want the shot,
basically that looks good of the supporting role
with a gun pointing at our male lead's head.
And the male leads is like,
we want that shot, the camera move in, slightly slow- mo,
that sounds effect,
making him look cool for like what 10 seconds.
And then you know he does something to make it irrelevant
for the other person to challenge him
without thinking about the logic
where that scene is happening in the story
physically in that location
and how it arrives at there and why it would even happen,
because you're clearly doing it for the camera
that we know in your story's illusion.
There isn't a camera.
okay, We are watching it.
We don't need you as a character to be aware
that you're showing it to the camera,
how cool you look like
you get the thing?
But for this drama,
they don't care about that at all.
They just wanna make whatever pivotal moment
we want to get on camera happen.
How that happens
does not matter.
This drama has a lot of those moments.
And once you link them together,
it creates a very incoherent picture of all the roles
So you don't know who they are.
After i've watched 18 episodes,
I still don't care about any of those characters's fate
and whatever happens to them
don't give a shit.
What else can I say about this?
oh, There's another observation.
Since in the first part of this video,
we've already talked about the whole gender thing.
When you realize what's going on.
This drama also has a little bit at the beginning of it,
which is, because it's a female gangster leader who
goes to the town and force a man to marry her.
It very artificially flip the gender role.
So all the characters in this drama would
use the words that's traditionally on women,
on our male lead character,
because now he is supposedly the concubine of their female lead.
It's a fake way of basically saying girl power,
because you're using the Patriarchal society structure,
pull it up,
implant it on the other gender.
The thing that's funny about that is
because it's a fictional story of min guo
and you know in min guo
like this type of thing just doesn't really happen.
Therefore, even though the female lead is acting
as the jerk of the world, basically she's literally grabbing people, right?
And force them to marry her,
becoming her slave essentially,
because it's a woman doing that and you know it's fictional
and you know there's nothing in history that works like that.
Therefore, audiences just look at it as comedy and fun.
And that is the reaction of most of the people watching the drama.
They just look at it as a comedy
So we let it slide like that.
Just imagine thought experiment.
You switch the gender role.
If in this story,
it is the guy who goes down to the town as
the leader of the gangsters and just grab
one woman at his will and force her to marry him
as the wife or a concubine.
Imagine how many hate comments and and and all kinds
of criticism and probably public denunciation,
of this drama and characters and everybody involved in this project,
is gonna happen on internet.
But somehow like you switch the gender role,
then it's just funny.
Yeah, these things, yeah when you see in dramas,
you know, you stop and think and you're like
yeah well that's um ~
I don't expect
this type of drama to even think down that route.
They probably are completely unaware of that.
and that's what makes it interesting.
For you to observe it happens in dramas like this.
And then you see how general audiences' respons is
and then you stop and think and you find it's actually
really weird and awful,
but then it shows you know like really what is going on in this world.
So in that respect,
if you can see it from this drama,
the drama has a little bit value for you apart from entertainment.
That will be the end of this video.
Thank you for watching AvenueX
i'll see you in my next video.
Meanwhile, live long and happy drama watching.