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where a junkie on good storytelling shares her thought knowledge
and occasional weird ideas on stories and how they're told.
This is my final review on the drama Love Like the Galaxy,
Xing Han Can Lan / Yue Sheng Cang Hai
First part 27 episodes,
second part 29, in total 56 episodes.
If you watch it on Tencent and pay extra money,
you already have seen the end
if not by the end of this week.
It's still gonna be there.
The funny thing is if you go on china's internet
and search this drama on the china's google, baidu,
the first part and the second part of this drama
actually have two different entries.
I'll give it a final rating at 1.5 gold mine
personally is just not my type of drama.
So I don't feel very emotionally invested
in any of the characters or story itself.
If you happen to have a totally different opinion and feeling about it,
that just means we're not the same person.
Now I will look at the drama as a whole and then talk about
what I think is good about this drama and not so,good about this drama
each having about 4 points.
So first, on the positive end,
this drama is pretty consistent.
There is no significant ups and downs,
peaks and valleys of its performance.
It doesn't have the problem of some dramas
where certain episodes are really great.
And then the other episodes are like crap.
This is a very constantly performing drama.
If the earlier stage of this drama is satisfying enough for you,
then the later stage probably would also be satisfying for you,
even a slightly better climb as the story becomes heavier,
more serious, moving to the last stage of
everybody resolving their big conflict.
It gets better
that leads to the second point.
I think the drama's better parts are in the later parts.
and as the characters fate got to the more
and more critical life and death situation,
you do see more very exciting scenes and moments.
The super heightened dramatic moments that we watch dramas for
will come at a higher frequency as it moves towards the end.
So it becomes more and more watchable and entertaining drama and.
I think that's always better than the other way around.
The third thing is overall as a period setting,
although not really based on any real historical characters or events,
but kind of referring to things
having an element of period romance idol drama.
This drama is not a bad drama.
There are pure crap drama in chinese dramaland
Those ones I would consider total waste of time for anyone to
watch and it's an embarrassment to the entire industry's history
and standard to be there, those dramas.
This is definitely not one of them
within the young popular actors led period dramas.
If we think of that as a category,
whether it's a based on reality drama like this
or a more fantastical magical story,
this drama probably stays at the middle and slightly higher
than middle quality among all the available period dramas
of similar design,
certain sequences, certain episodes, and certain moments.
I may even go back and just check it and reloop it again,
because some of it is really nice.
4th point, i'll isolate one specific person actor out
of this whole drama and talk about her specifically.
In my first impression video.
I talked more about Wu Lei
This time I wanna talk more about Zhao Lusi
the earlier parts of this drama where
everything was still mainly comedy and funny.
And she is the lively bubbly girl.
That was her comfort zone.
And she's played it so many times and now
pretty much she can switch it on default.
I think the more interesting part of her character and
also her acting comes much later in the drama.
When basically everything when tits up
and she no longer is the happy girl she used to be
and there's no way that she can go back to that state
and she becomes heavier and heavier and more and more muted.
In her actions in her expressions,
her energy level becomes much much more tamed.
And as an actress,
when I watch her when she's in those state
and playing that stage of her character,
I find her much much more captivating,
maybe due to what Zhao Lusi outwardly appears to be
this super happy looking.
She has broad smile.
She has a lot of flesh and collagen on her face and plumpiness.
And she's always played very happy characters.
From day one.
Probably people cast her for that reason,
thinking that you know she can do it.
She's done it before, and she can do it this time as well.
I just have the feeling that it's not her best suited type of characters.
She might be actually much much suited for playing cold
undertone characters
characters who do not resolve to extremely
outward movement and expressions, using her body language,
big expressions,
comedy relief, all that.
I think she's so much better suited to play the
polar opposite type of characters she's known for.
And she will be much much more effective at doing those roles
It's just my opinion.
Now, let's talk about things that are not so ideal about this drama
Number one.
Can you guess what i'm gonna say?
It's a very basic thing.
And I think 90% of my audiences will be able to guess that
too long
for this story,
there are a couple of characters repeated same plot points that just happened
multiple times that I think can be cut down and wouldn't really affect much.
And certain characters can almost even be completely
cut out and wouldn't really affect much either.
So this story,
if I had the choice,
I probably will cut it down to 45 episodes,
because that way you will have a more condensed plotline
watching it wouldn't feel like such a drag.
One of the things that makes this drama hard to watch for
me is it drags out too long
over close to 2 months time span
you gradually just lose patience.
The second thing is
I think most of these supporting roles in this drama are written too shallow-ly
they almost only have one function in the story and
it kind of just goes through the whole drama as that.
For example, the emperor is literally the classic greek play,
god who descends from heaven and solve all the problems
for ourmain leads.
For example, 5th princess,
she is just
the bitch
the greatest bitch you can imagine to have in a story.
And the only thing she does is to make female lead's life difficult
and they do it multiple times repeatedly.
We need somebody to do the plot filling
they are not really treated
respectfully by the script writer as individual persons.
They are not the main characters of their own story.
They only exist as tools and all of their
functions are filled with tropes that you expect.
This type of character would be doing
to solve this kind of problem
or creating this kind of conflict.
So the story can happen.
And they do exactly what you expect
to the point that they actually
disregard certain reasonable logic
for people to have certain actions.
Re emphasize that again, for example,
the Yuan Shen character at his early stage
and the mother character. Early stage
later, they all got "washed white" in chinese internet term,
which means they all turn to the good side and good people,
just because you wanna create that arc and contrast
of one character between their early and late stage,
because you know where they're gonna arrive at,
which is the good part.
Therefore, you manually forcing them to act in ways that
does not make sense earlier so that they're annoying
how the mother character is literally like hating her daughter,
disregarding her feelings and putting her down constantly
is a little bit beyond reason.
You hardly ever met your daughter
after you gave birth to her, you literally left.
You never like spend a moment with her.
So what could be the precondition for you to just by default
Whatever she does is wrong
and you claim you love her,
but then you do that to her.
If that happens, which is totally fine in a story,
give me a reason.
For example, when you gave birth to her,
you almost died.
You suffered so much.
So psychologically don't like this daughter,
or she has grown up to resemble somebody you hate
any of those family members.
You have that you don't like
I mean that could be a reason too
just think of something.
I know reality sometimes works in absolutely illogical way,
but it's a script, it's a story.
And in stories, you have to explain where things come from\
in a ways. scripts and stories have to be more logical than reality,
and also usually the things that don't make sense in reality,
actually make sense.
It's just you don't have all the information.
Therefore you think it's not making sense.
The third point relating to the second point.
So this drama has on one end,
the traditional idol period romantic drama vibe
male lead, female lead,
a couple of other pursuers of the female lead.
They all vibe in that,
and it's clearly casting these actors to do those roles
for that purpose.
Then wars, founding a dynasty, court,
all those power struggles in the court
that affects our main characters' life.
That's on the almost more serious historical.
Think about nirvana in fire in a way.
I don't think the scriptwriter is good enough to actually do either
of them to the extreme
pushing it to the best possible version.
It just ends up being.
Bu Shang Bu Xia, Bu Zuo Bu You,
Not Up Not Down, Not Left Not Right
You cannot quite clearly say what exactly is this drama
Its high romance isn't so effectively high romantic,
then its court, war, revenge,
all the Count of Monte Cristo storyline also isn't like driven to the limit.
And they just feel the story is stretching beyond its capability.
I'll just point out one thing which is the emperor character
every time he shows up.
And every time things happen relating to how he
deals with court and politics and different powers.
I just laugh.
I can't take this drama seriously
in this drama.
He is the founding ffather of his dynasty
Our story starts after very short
like one two decades when he got his throne
and everything is early stage of a dynasty just about to settling.
There are still people who are not so yielding to his power.
And there are rebellions going on here and there.
So that would be equal to emeperors like Liu Bang
like Tang Tai Zong or even Li Yuan, His father
or Zhu Yuanzhang in chinese history
who started a powerful dynasty.
Can you honestly say if you've read any human history
that a founding emperor who grabbed power from other people
faught his way through wars and battles
to become the first emperor of a dynasty
Is anybody like Bao jianfeng portraying the type of emperor
way too kind and funny.
I cannot.
Every character I can think of in chinese history
who's in similar positions as he is was strategist,
super clever, ruthless,
opportunist, cruel as hell were needed
and ambitious.
And they would have that presence that people fear,
no matter like how kind they try to pretend to be,
you are the founding emperor
you're not like halfway through a dynasty
where everything is already back to normal.
And you have never seen outside of the palace.
You've never lived as a normal person.
You've always enjoyed luxuries in your life.
from the moment you are born,
he's not that kind of emperor,
although I love Bao Jianfeng as an actor,
I think he plays a much much (more)
convincing Song Zhen Zong in dreams of splendour,
because it makes more sense
historically that emperor is more like that,
but come on, come on, honestly.
For this drama setting, Founding father of a dynasty
not to mention there are a couple of things written in the script
of what the emperor does that ~~~~~
right from the beginning when
Ling Buyi shows up for the first shot,
after he got a battle won and returning to capital,
the eunuch comes out of the city door and announced
the emperor has this reward award for him.
That thing that has given.
it just shows like,
the scriptwriter doesn't know anything about chinese history.
That's like the default.
the go to thing that you give to a subject
pretty much yielding your power.
So if you give this and that and that officially to a subject of yours,
traditionally in chinese history,
it just means
don't kill me.
You can legally usurp me now
just leave my life,
don't kill me and i'll give throne to you.
It's like unspoken rule, I thought.. cause I haven't ready the original novel
So I thought actually Wu Lei's character is at odds with the emperor.
The emperor is in fear of his power,
but clearly not.
Okay, as you watch it later,
Bao Jianfeng is the cuddly teddy bear who is
out there to help our male lead
He is the safety belt.
He's gonna make sure that not only that our two
leads wouldn't suffer things of real consequence,
which reduces the urgency of the plot.
He would also make sure that they get together
like the fan club head of these two characters.
Everything he does reduces the believability of this story.
I just can't believe it
to me. That's a huge problem.
I know it wouldn't affect everybody.
And obviously it's not required
that you have to know all the chinese history things
to watch is drama
just entertainment
the last point.
I put it on a negative end,
but it's not necessarily negative.
It's more about my questions.
Things that are not solved for me.
Even till the last moment of this drama,
I am still not fully convinced.
She should love him that much or she would love him that much,
or she actually loved him,
just because she loved him.
And the other way around too,
I never get fully convinced that Ling Buyi really, really loved
Cheng Shaoshang that much
as he believed himself loved her that much,
whether she eventually at the end picked him,
because it's her the heart over the head thing
finally winning that over,
or is it because all the things that happened
before that at this point now, like,
honestly, who else can I pick?
They are the Guan Pei 官配, official couple, right?
From the script writers point of view, story telling's point of view,
they're supposed to be together.
I am not convinced at the end
that they are 100% really that much in love
and that inseparable and destined for each other,
it has a tiredness.
I feel at the end of watching their relationship
almost a happy ending without any climatic enjoyment.
Try to imagine myself in her shoe,
whether I would after the gap 5 years time where he's away,
and she is almost like putting herself in prison,
in the palace,
whether it's still possible for them to get back together.
I imagine hormone going away after 3 months,
half a year, a year,
5 years is a long time for ancient people they lived to 30s and die
It's just overall so tired and heavy.
The last leg of the story kind of just got to the ending with inertia.
There's no power heading towards the end and Pong stop there.
It has "ponged" too early and just trickles trickles
trickles to the end and it ends and it's like yeah happy ending,
but you barely touch the line and it stops.
That's my emotional body's feeling.
Watching this drama is ah finally it ended.
okay Good. They're together.
I have forgotten already along the long way of this story,
the excitement of this love.
I feel it's kind of completely burned out before the ending.
So yeah the ending is good,
but
Meh~
Me
Only me, you may feel completely differently,
and I'm just being very honest telling you what I feel.
And I wouldn't force anybody to feel the same way as I do.
That would conclude this video.
My final review on the drama, Xing Han Can Lan, Love Like the Galaxy
Thank you for watching AvenueX
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leave that in the comment section,
i'll see you in my next video,
meanwhile live long and happy drama watching.