Rants and Weekly Raves (RAWR) #360
Anne: Spent the weekend playing MarioKart, or rather I watched the other adults play while I try to keep my 5 year old calm as he wonders why his "stupid" car isn't turning correctly. I have to remind him that driving with one hand while jerking the wheel one side to another isn't really the best method to keep your car on the road and not crashing into walls. Gosh I hope this isn't a foreshadowing of his future driving skills. And I also saw part of the new Paw Patrol movie...I think this production company decided to take a page from the Chinese Fantasy genre. Everything was super BRIGHT and all the colors somehow looked weird. I do again have to apologize for my lack of drama watching this week. I also stopped grouping the drama by country of origin due to the limited shows that I watch.
Do I chance it?
At the latter part of last week, One and Only popped up on my iQiyi account.
It starts one of my favorite actors, Allen Ren, and it's costume! I was excited for all of 10 seconds. Because that was how long it took me to read iQiyi's synopsis, which ended with these words "...and sadly died after leaving Cui Shiyi his last words." Really? Just gives away the ending right here huh? Or is this a trick on the audience? I HATE tortured dramas, and this entire show is nothing but them pinning for each other and never being able to be together. I don't find these love stories compelling. It's just sad and depressing. There are enough depressing happenings around the world, I do not need to subject myself to this. Rise of the Phoenixes was enough, thank you. On the other hand, I do see that it's getting fairly good ratings and the shows is slowing calling to me. Let me know if anyone has seen this and whether it's good enough for me to dip maybe one toe into the murky pond, whose depth I cannot see.
Sweet Teeth
I started this based on nahaluk's recommendation, and I do have to say that I am certainly enjoying it so far.
It tells the story of Zeng Li (the librarian) and her two best friends, Wu Ying (the model/actress), and Ma Yiyi (the doctor), in their quest to fine their loves. The 3 girls also own a coffee shop near their university. It reminds me a little of Le Coup de Foudre and True Colours, the slice of life type dramas that mostly deals with everyone situations. I don't understand the translated Enlight title, because it really has nothing to do with the Chinese title. But regardless, the theme that tied the FL and ML does have to do with teeth. Ai Jing Chu is a dentist, who ended up with Zeng Li as his patient, because our FL's mother dragged her to get braces, convinced that her slightly crooked teeth is the reason why she doesn't have a boyfriend. The braces sequence gave me goosebumps. Every time I see her braces, I run the tip of my tongue over my top front teeth. I swear I could feel the metal piece rubbing against the insides of my mouth. Shudder. And when her wire broke! I had to take a break. No, she should NOT have been that calm. Besides the traumatic experience of these scenes, the rest of the show is very relaxing.
Queen of Attack (1 and 2)
I believe I talked about this a few months ago. It's a very low budget short drama that is only about <10 minutes per episode. I thought I come back again and talk about this because season 2 just came out.
In the first season, our FL (Liang Wei) transports into her favorite "drama" and proceeds to be "despised" by her emperor husband (Jing Qing) and gets assassinated 12 times. No matter what she tries, she always dies. She accidently stumbles into a way to survive past her ordeal and basically makes it her mission to not "die". What she didn't know was that it was her husband who had been killing her and continues to try to kill her. Of course our CP falls in love at the end. She goes back to the real world and he somehow appears there to join her.
The second season, Jing Qing suddenly disappears in the real world and Liang Wei again finds herself traveling back to an alternative world/reality. However, Jing Qing doesn't recognize her, and she is no longer the righteous empress, but the villain. A female emperor with a harem of pretty men. And her Jing Qing is a general trying to find ways to kill her. I only saw the first 5 minutes, but it keeps the comedy that made the first season successful. I am quite excited to start this soon.
Medical Examiner Dr. Qin: Silent Evidence
This gets better as the main story unfolds. And I am almost done with the drama (Episode 27 out of 30). The uneven comedy gets smooth out and takes a background to the crime solving and the mystery of Dr. Qin's father, who disappeared from his life when he was very young. The cases are all somewhat linked and the over arching villain covers everything, and this format is very similar from what I remembered of the other Dr. Qin shows. But my favorite character is still the female detective Lin Dang. I like everything about her character. Now granted, some of the logic is a bit flawed. Please tell me how does one survive this?
Not only does she only ends up with some minor injuries on her head, but she is then buried alive. It looked like it took them 12 hours to get her out...forget the fact that she survived. But her cell phone had power the entire time. All in all, it is an okay drama that is not the best in the Dr. Qin series, that honor goes to Zhang Ruo Yun.
Love & the Emperor (repeat recommendation)
I talked about this show when it first came out last year, but it didn't have any subtitles. I don't know how many readers of this blog were able to watch it. But recently, it just popped back up on iQiyi again, this time fully subbed. Our FL (Li Xia) is a graphic artist at a game design company, who is in love with her boss. But her boss not only doesn't return her feelings but is actively using her to test his new game, The Emperor. During one these test sessions, she gets "stuck" inside the game. Not only does the game not give her an avatar that is slim and pretty and of high rank, she gets the role of a palace maid with a very prominent scar on her face. I do not remember too much about the details, except that she is a great cook and ends up meeting the emperor who was disguised as an eunuch. I remembered the show being quite funny and cute. I might be re-watching this to just remember why I like it so much.
Have a great week everyone!