Welcome to another video from AvenueX
this is a Sao She video,
which means i'm just gonna hold my gun and start to shoot
at many, many targets
what it feels like to be a chinese drama reviewer these days 2022
around april and may
the amount of mental suffering I have to go through,
trying to find one drama worth sticking to
or worth making a video
on,
Nei Yu Wan Le
which literally means mainland entertainment business is done,
is dead,
particularly in dramaland
Let's start with a drama that actually I have nothing to complain about.
And it's totally my fault that I cannot continue watching it,
which is the drama that has finished airing recently.
When it went online.
I was really happy about it.
I watched a couple of episodes and decided,
no, this is not my thing.
I... I don't wanna die
Qin Ai De Xiao Hai, Left and Right
iqiyi Drama led by Ren Suxi and Qin Hao
probabaly one of the highest production quality drama.
I'd say this year so far i've seen
comparable to other really high quality dramas,
but holy shit the story
as you start to watch,
you know you just feel your pulse and and have
your blood pressure looked at before and after.
It is a super agonizing experience to watch the story
of the main female lead character played by Ren Suxi
The usual sins let's say,
the not so satisfactory husband when they've got a newborn.
And then also on the wife's side,
the type of personality and character she has
this drama will just show you all of it in detail.
Reality, great acting to the point where as I was watching the drama,
i'm like: this is exactly the type of life
that I would want to avoid for myself.
And if I continue watching with this type of story
and with their great acting and presentation,
i'm just gonna get depressed and angry
and mental health destroyed.
And honestly, it's 2022 already,
and it's the third year into covid
And everybody's life is pretty much effed up
compared to before covid.
Unless you're a big pharmaceutical company then you earned a lot of money,
life is already pretty fxxxed up.
I just don't wanna watch other people's
life sinking further down with such good convincing acting
mental peace.
What did I do?
I made a decision to quit this drama and pick up another drama on
mango television that was airing at the time when it started.
I shouldn't have done that
cause the title already spoiled it.
Mei You Gong Zuo de Yi Nian
The Year without A Job
sounding very promising
it's lead by La Mu Yang Zi
and I like her and she's great in this drama.
I watched two episodes and I quit
as I haven't seen what happened later.
I did hear what happened later in this drama
and I was happy that I quit this drama
because later it would just raise your blood pressure even more,
but just by the 2 episodes at the beginning
office politics that eventually kicked her out of her job
and the boyfriend who's been with her for a decade or something
just just started to
do the usual things that make your blood pressure rise up.
and she just walks out on the street and cry at the night and
nobody cares about her and passers by just happened to catch her.
and sent her to hospital and they form a new girlfriendship which is cute,
but i'm like it's another kind of effed up reality
that right now I cannot deal with
how intelligent of me to have decided to jump out of left and right
and jump right into a year without a job.
At that point, you've already spent half of your day realizing
what you've just chosen is likely to kill you at the end of airing
all their episodes.
If you stick through them,
we should go to period drama land for a change of scene
contemporary life too close to us,
too depressing.
I clicked open, who rules the world.
I watched the first 12 or so episodes in one go
and then didn't go back and check it.
And after a while it's now in the 30s or whatever.
Let's just see what happens.
Randomly clicking through episodes and you start
to see really funny things that make you feel.
ah It was actually a clever idea that I quit this drama.
Why did I go back
human photocopier?
With your hand!
I thought it was a chinese fantasy.
Not Harry Potter
people getting stick through by a sword,
literally not even their eyebrows start to frown just even a little bit,
they're just like
Zhao Lusi, are you falling asleep?
are you falling asleep?
She's about to fall asleep when she got sticks through in her chest.
oh And then she also thought it was a good idea to stick a cannon ball.
With a sword.
I have to do this for everybody involved in that production
for the directors,
for the actors,
for everybody onset who were able to actually film it
and not laugh their stomach out
being able to stick through it without making every shot
a gag reel shot
they're great actors
because with that kind of ridiculous script and plot they can just
so trust in the moment
and actually managed to finish shooting it.
Chinese dramaland has such a bright future.
Clearly period dramaland is not a safe place.
Let's go to min guo
because there's a min guo drama has just started.
Let's just see whether it is better than Yi Jian Qing Xin
last year, Liang Chen Mei JIng Zhi Jie He (Love in Flames of War)
I shouldn't have expected and hoped for anything
because it starts to look like immediately
really from the first episode.
Liu Xing Hua Yuan, (Meteor Garden)
because it is pretty much the same story structure
that just put it into min guo with Chen Duling and Dou Xiao
and, Yeah, Lai Yi, you're here again.
hey~ I saw you in Qie Shi Tian Xia
10 minutes ago and now you're in this one.
I guess there's no escape
mix and match
and all the bullying of the girl at school
by all kinds of other people is like,
Come on! Come on! it's 2002,
it's already 20 years later from~~~~
We literally have the older generation,
Dao Ming Si now acting with younger generation Shan Cai
In this world already.
As if that's not enough,
you wanna make another min guo drama that looks like this.
and I've heard it's totally different from the original
novel that the drama is supposed to be based on,
which doesn't have any of this kind of
Shite
And also Chen Duling cannot act
Can we agree with that ?
feeling worried about Till the End of the Moon?
Now let's get back to contemporary dramaland
see if there's something that at least can.
Xia Fan,
just something that you run while you're eating.
I decided let's check out looking pretty interesting,
the remake of the korean drama like my boss dies every day.
Thousand times something like that.
The chinese version Love in A Loop, JIu Le Yi Wan Ci de Ni
led by Zhang Yaqin, I really like her, and Bai Ke, he's very fun
I watched the 12 episodes of this drama
and at the end I decided I've just wasted 12 episodes of time
of my life, watching it
because with such an interesting setup of story that
potentially is good for high comedy.
It's just so rough.
The best part of the drama really is the title song
where they do the stop motion animation with those dolls
that look absolutely adorable.
And then the rest of the drama
nothing is more adorable than that title sequence.
The two leads acting are okay,
but somehow they resolved to dub the female lead and not dub the male lead.
I do not understand why that is necessary.
And because she got dubbed by the voice who usually dubs
Wu Jinyan
every time i'm not looking at the screen in my head.
I see Bai Ke and Wu Jinyan acting this drama,
I have to look at the screen and to realize it's not her,
it's Zhang Yaqin
beautiful ~
in this drama, the guy dies so many times in so many colorful ways.
and the drama never actually even for once stopped and
think about how unfortunate that is truly for him.
They take such a light,
such a lightweight angle of looking at this guy,
falling down a bottomless elevator and die,
getting electrocuted,
getting taken away by a tornado,
getting run over by a car every way imaginable dying.
and It becomes such a light and funny experience that the
female lead literally doesn't have any human reaction to it,
like scared, shocked, feeling worried
about like she wants to get out of the loop.
Therefore, she tries to save him,
not because she realizes every time he dies actually dies for real.
They do come back, but he has to suffer.
It's like also the writer doesn't really care about.
This guy has to die so many times,
and they literally would die voluntarily so that they can, I don't know,
get the lottery money.
For one part of the plot, i'm like,
really> you take that that easily?
I just somehow don't quite buy that angle of
looking at death at such a light hearted way.
And then even if you don't think about that part,
the rest of the funny plot isn't really been played
at its maximum potential.
And then the production quality of this drama is really really really rough.
The stylist of the two leads,
the lighting people, the editing, the set
looks cheap and unrefined.
Now let's get to Nv Shi de Fa Ze, which has just started airing,
Law of Lady, Jiang Shuying, Liu Mintao, ok, Peng Yuchang
I thought this one is going to be good, and
A friend of mine who is also in the industry,
watched a couple of episodes and told me uh.
It's pretty good.
I'm like okay I should go and check.
I should after I make this video text her and ask her again
why?
Because I don't get it.
It's not good
a drama about lawyers,
court cases that actually does not make sense in that department at all,
looking at all the cases that happens in this
drama and how these two ladies deal with it,
um you're gonna laugh at so many things they do
that does not make sense
then when you look at the casting choices
very baffling
actress Liu Mintao
she's not not young anymore
and she does look like a middle age lady which is fine,
but why is the actor who plays her father and actress
Playing her mother, looking like her brother and sisters,
then it has such a bad filter
making everybody looking so pale and white.
Look at Jiang Shuying,
she literally looks paler than Nicole Kidman
and the worst part is definitely the Nian Xia (年下）story
with the older woman, younger man relationship
brought to us in this drama by Jiang Shuying and Peng Yuchang
a pairing that just does not work.
I have no problem with older woman, younger men.
oh I like it.
okay If you do it well
I can imagine the Jin Chen and Wang Anyu one
that hasn't even aired yet.
They just finished shooting,
but it probably will work very well
cause he looks like the type of young guy who can impress
that type of lady
when PYC is trying to kiss JSY
it literally looks like a high schooler trying to kiss.
His teacher.
It's so toe grabbingly
embarrassing and weird,
not to mention they actually have no emotional buildup.
Their relationship is purely carnal
I think it was episode two.
Now they start to kiss and have the 419 thing happening.
Why ? Jiang Shuying, your role
A successful lady lawyer of that age, like,
what do you find in this guy that impressed you so much?
I don't see.
Like there's no attraction.
There's no reason why that should happen.
There's actually no point for Peng Yuchang's role
to exist in this drama.
Cause if you take him out,
it doesn't affect any of the main point line, any of the cases.
He really is just plopped in there so that he can have this older woman,
younger men relationship in this drama that
actually doesn't work at all
zero chemistry.
Awkward, the worst older woman,
younger man couple i've seen in chinese dramaland.
If you wanna go and check out this rama,
my advice is just
don't
to wrap up this video and then make the situation worse
after watching that many dramas that for all kinds of reasons,
this and that just makes my life feel even worse.
I actually test it out a little bit of a drama Master of My Own
And I was so right.
before this drama aired when I predicted because
of Lin Gengxin and Tan Songyu, and the synopsis.
I had that feeling.
This is gonna be another super cringy,
crappy, shock you with its unreasonable setup and horrible lines
and plot drama
that a lot of people are gonna rant about.
I was right,
this drama, I don't know how I should put it,
but basically the only type of people I would suggest go and watch this drama
that actually will do you good is
if you have chronological, low blood pressure
that cannot be helped by anything
watches this drama.
At least while you're watching it,
your blood pressure is gonna be at a very comfortable
place for your health and longevity
for this drama, number one is Lin Gengxin
I really think he should stop acting now.
He should go back to school,
get a professional coach,
sit cold for a while,
sort out the basics of his acting
before he go back in front of the camera
and stop producing crap.
His accent, I find it almost a mental torture to watch this drama,
northeastern accent that just does not fit the type of role he's playing.
And to make it worse, it's not just his accent is terrible.
His lying delivery, he's pacing, where he put the emphasis in
Every sentence is just so wrong and bad
that level of line delivery doesn't deserve to be called a professional actor.
Anybody who does that like that at school, acting school
would not even pass for their end of the semester exam
like this is not acceptable.
And then you look at the script writing.
Somehow I feel I don't wanna conspiracy theory this whole thing,
but I feel they write it intentionally like this
so that the audiences can all get so angry.
Everyone's blood pressure can get raised so much.
Therefore, people rant about it and they get more traffic.
Like that's the only point I can see why they would write so many
characters like that in ways that just like makes your mind go.
How much of a bully, the male lead is,
it's the type of not even trying to hide its real intention,
super super charged gas lighting
that happens in a professional career world imaginable.
If I were Ning Meng, if I were Tan Songyun's role
and then make coffee for this boss all the time.
After what he said to me,
I would have poured that coffee in his face
and happily see him get burned.
And at the same time i'll take off my shoe and then knock
my heel into his skull and better it makes a hole.
That's how terrible this guy's character is to this lady.
And somehow they make this kind of script and film
it and make it a drama and then put it out there.
thinking like this is actually a story worth telling.
And somehow at the end of it
they're gonna get together.
They're a couple, they actually end up together.
I don't understand what is going on these days in
script writers' mind
in drama makers' mind.
so this is the overall experience of a Chinese drama reviewer
watching Chinese dramas around the time of April and May 2022
ha ha ha my life is beautiful.
and the other day I just saw another Chinese
sort of ranter of dramas,
not a big fan of his work,
but there's one new video he just made where he interviewed.
Somebody who's in the industry,
who is actually a producer who makes this type of dramas
like the s+ Tencent dramas that are totally crap.
It's quite enlightening and expected thing.
And I know it's happening,
but you know it's still very hurtful to hear that, frankly,
coming out from somebody like that,
basically they say
they consider the type of project, like Mirror Twin City
Like Pearl Eclipse or like Qie Shi Tian Xia
Who Rules the World
or Qian Gu Jue Chen, Ancient Love poetry
as very successful projects
The only thing they care about is when this drama gets out
how much money we can get back?
Does it increase the subscription to the website?
If it increases a lot,
does it increase the AD income?
If it does
And these projects actually do that,
it brings more people, more subscriptions.
I don't know where it comes from, maybe fandom
you know
and then ads
it generates more money.
So in their mind,
this type of projects are successful projects.
They don't care about the drama is crap.
They think crap drama doesn't exist.
There are only successful projects that makes money
failure projects that don't
such as Imperial Coroner
public's opinion is, it's a low budget drama but surprised us
with high quality.
Whereas from the producer and platform's point of view,
it's a failure project because it didn't manage to make them much money.
This is how it works now.
In content creation,
money comes first than everything else
in China.
I'm not saying everywhere else, but it's in China.
How beautiful
every time I make a video and put it out,
I actually apologize in my heart to all
the potential audiences who are gonna see.
My video
Chinese dramaland produces 99% these days.
Crap,
whether it will get resurrected and get better.
Who knows?
you know If you live long enough, anything can happen.
For now, as a Chinese drama reviewer,
I think the only reason that can sustain in making my videos
day in, day out
day after day and not giving up is that
I'm also waiting for that day
with that little twinkling hope of something may get better in the future.
I'm here
swimming through the sea of crap for you lovely people.
Anyway that should be the end of this video.
Thank you for sticking through it.
Thank you for watching AvenueX,
I'll see you in my next video,
meanwhile live long and happy doing whatever makes you happy.
doing, okay?
And I feel unlikely that would be watching Chinese dramas.
Am I right?