Rants and Weekly Raves (RAWR) #447
Anne: Happy Tuesday everyone! For some odd reason last week, I got a bug in my head to look up my old writings from high school to around when I was in graduate school. And boy...my high school story was horrid!!! It's like an Asian drama with more unbelievable plots and plots twists then what I'm watching now. Yes, let's just say nothing was rooted in reality. Now...not to say that the later writings are any more realistic, but I think they are better. Maybe I'll pick up where I left off twenty years ago and see what I can make out of these stories. Most of them, the hand written notes on the plot are somewhere either buried with my book collection or with my piano books in storage.
Now, I did still spent a good amount of time watching those short drams on YouTube. I don't know why I'm so mesmerized by them. The abusive plots on some of them are WAY too much. I couldn't handle the ones where the ML was the abusive one. Seriously, how anyone can love someone back after all that is beyond me. I don't care even if it was all a misunderstanding...please make sure the target of your revenge really deserves it.
Let's continue with our discussion on what I've managed to watch these past two weeks.
Mysterious Lotus Casebook
Ok...I did manage to finish this completely, including the "extra", which I still don't understand the point of. After 40 episodes and 5 minutes, here's my summary of this drama. It's a tragic love story about a couple with completely different goals, and an "adopted" son who just wanted his family to be together. Yes, I know this is not a BL drama. And before everyone goes pffft, let me explain why. I've never read the novel, and so I cannot tell anyone if any of the following were part of the book, or if the drama writer/director thought it was funny to put them in the manner that they did.
1) Di Fei Sheng, the "villain" in the beginning of the story, spent the entire drama obsessed with Li Xiang Yi. This intense obsession (and yes, I understand that this obsession is ONLY about the "ranking", which wink wink is another thing I read way pass the line...) basically propelled his goal in his life, to the point that he was looking for any way he can to save Li Xiang Yi's life. Ok...I get the Bromance thing...but this is pretty intense. Not to mention that with the exception of Lin Xiang Yi, he wasn't interested in ANYONE else. At ALL! Hence his problem with his own stalker who ended up breaking him so he could never physically leave her.
2) And I wouldn't have carried this further IF, the drama didn't add this little scene in when Li Xiang Yi and Di Fei Sheng were trying to escape their imprisonment. In order to hide from their pursuers, they hid in the wedding chamber prepared for Di Fei Sheng by his little stalker, who was all set to be married to him. The boys drank the wedding wine. (Yes, it was the only thing in there, sure, sure...)
3) And at one point, Li Xiang Yi made a comment about how Di Fei Sheng would be married to (using the Mandarin phrase for marry when it is used in reference to a woman) his "stalker", and how she would obviously have the bride price (the gifts prepared by the groom and/or the groom's family to the bride during a proposal) prepared. Which is where they found the secret room and the secret to the "bug" thing.
4) Di Fei Sheng and Li Xiang Yi never had the same goals. Maybe they did when they were younger, but Li Xiang Yi has made it very clear all through the drama that he no longer cared about anything he cared for before. Freedom for him was release, which is why no one is surprised that he used everything that could save himself to save someone else. The entire drama was him making sure that everyone he cared for was settled.
5) As for Fang Duo Bing (which I cannot believe is a name he was given, which translates to have a lot of illness), he was, at least, Li Xiang Yi's adopted son. There is a saying, if you watch enough wuxia dramas, that "a master for a day, a father for life"...so there is a lot of emphasis that equates a master as a father. And comparing how Fang Duo Bing was treated by his own biological father versus Li Xiang Yi's treatment of him, the relationship of father and son could not be more obvious.
And circling back to that "extra" scene... I still don't understand the reasoning behind it. Maybe I am the only one.
Love You Seven Times
Of course I started this as soon as I saw it aired! First caution, the stupid synopsis on MDL is of the BOOK, not the drama. Yes, I did read the novel for this one. It was short and I could finish before I continued watching the drama. The BOOK is like the synopsis, in that they caused an issue with their physical fighting that led them to be punished in the mortal realm. In the DRAMA, Chu Kong, the god, after the last major battle had damaged his native soul, and he still had not completely repaired it. And the suggestion was of all the trials that he has completed, the one thing he avoided was the love trial. He agreed that he could try it.
Before that happened, Xiang Yun, in her attempt to prove to Chu Kong, that the division of marriage is important enough that it should not be closed (which was Chu Kong's suggestion), decided to tie a love string and linked Chu Kong to whoever can give her the most money. And since she knew that no ordinary red string will work, she decided to find an ancient immortal artifact to help her. Well...this immortal artifact was accidently opened, and it tied around Chu Kong and Xiang Yun, much to both of their dismays. In this way, they fell into their first "life", as a tiger and a wild boar (this was actually number 4, I believe, in the book). And after that brief love trial, Chu Kong found that part of his soul repaired itself, and he is now more than convinced that this is the path to go.
There are MAJOR differences between the drama and the book. There is a whole story to be revealed about what happened in the major battle year's ago (that never existed in the book) and also some major changes in the side characters' goals and their roles in the drama. I'm not sure if the changes in the drama will make it better. Looking back at 3310 and Ashes, those drama scripts were actually better then the books that they were based on. Crossing my fingers!
And those were the major updates. I did finish Longest Promise, or rather, I should say my husband did, and I sort of caught bits and pieces on the periphery. I don't know why I just could not get into that drama. And ALL of us could have seen that ending coming from the very beginning. Ugh! Another one of those... Oh well... at least I know how it ended. My Lovely Liar, oh oh oh... she's finally caught on that maybe her gift doesn't work on him. And my favorite scene of this show to date is when she wondered how a person who can see through a lie finds a boyfriend. And his answer is to find a very good liar, because everyone lies. I LOVE it! I am really in love with this show. Maybe next week, I'll do a longer post on this. And yes I am a little slow...I just realized that the ML is Seo Yul from Alchemy of Souls... I always wondered why he looked so familiar!
Have a great rest of the week!