halfcactus

SO MANY UNCOMPLETED THINGS THIS MONTH

The Justice (2021)

[Livetweet thread here]

This is the Republican era drama starring Zhang Xincheng and Cai Wenjing and needless to say it went off the rails after it reached a certain point halfway through (I watched the rest in fast forward :P). The show is set in Shanghai (where the central bank was recently established) during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The first 30 episodes are very much banking and industry storylines, and the last 10 episodes are war and invasion and character deaths (everyone you expected to die died, ie. everyone whoever was knowingly involved in anything shady).

When the plot escalated all the characters simply lost their agency and I'm primarily upset about the women: Liang Jie's character, Bell/Xiao Lingdang, was reduced to nothing but a plot point and her relationship with her love interest. Cai Wenjing's character, Wu Lizi, was still really cool and efficient, but I wasn't really a fan of how she was sanitized (after being punished with infertility in an unsubtle parallel to botched assassination plans) so she could survive. The writing for her character did end up fine? I just didn't like how much they emphasized that she has 100000000% let go of her revenge and resentment of her father's murderer and was only focused on his legacy of setting up a good bank. I liked her best when her declarations were more ambiguous! She was a really interesting character who drove the first half of the show, so I actually don't have regrets watching this.

Cheng Yizhi, Zhang Xincheng's character is just... very annoyingly perfect and unblemished (except for one brush with blackmail-induced embezzlement). It's a shame because ZXC actually looked nice in his many, many outfits throughout the various story arcs (you can see some of them in this douyin video!), but the character was too annoying and nonsensical for me to watch. It was also a big role for him because I think the timeline of this show spanned 10-20 years.

I did enjoy the distorted and one-sided father-son relationship between Cheng Yizhi and Huang Ruhong? Like, obviously HRH was a terrible person and murderer who wanted to destroy CYZ's morale so CYZ would come back to inherit his drug empire. But he also seemed to genuinely love and support CYZ (and was very vehement about only destroying CYZ only as much as he needed to, and never more than that), which I thought made it so much more interesting than the central romance relationship between CYZ and WLZ. At least CYZ didn't even really have to participate in this father-son relationship, so his cryptid-ness did not affect it. XD

CONTENT NOTES: war, many character deaths towards the end, violence, murder, drugs, etc

Our Times (2021) | dropped

We groupwatched 6 (out of 36) episodes of this, then dropped it because it was too stressful for at least 2 of us. /o\ It's the latest drama from Sugarman Media (Qihun/Hikaru no Go, Dear Missy, My Huckleberry Friends) starring Wu Lei, and featuring appearances from familiar faces such as Ji Li, and Bai Chuan's actor from Qihun. The show follows the development of computers and technology in the 90s and is about two IT students (roommates!) in Beijing who get roped into the computer/sales industry. And also... the stock market??? We did not get far enough to know the scope of the show lol.

Wu Lei plays Xiao Chuang, an overconfident and charismatic force of chaos who has the street smarts and the financial power to land on his feet in any situation. This is the first time outside of Nirvana in Fire (where his role as Fei Liu wasn't exactly a challenging one) that I've enjoyed him! I find that he usually plays these angry and very masculine teenage boys that I'm not interested in, but in Our Times he feels so much more animated and actually has a personality. XD The cheery smarminess, and action movie reenactments, suit him very well.

The other main character is Pei Qinghua (played by Hou Minghao), Xiao Chuang's genius roommate/best friend/underclassman, a very honest and righteous Shandong boy who just wants to work in academia but gets thrown into the sales world against his will.

The show likes to play with the differences in their personalities, blatantly foreshadowing role reversals with comparisons to capsized ships: Xiao Chuang full of bluster, bluffing, and big gambles to reel in big results, and Pei Qinghua relying on his technical knowledge, grit, and methodological approach to hopefully secure one small sale at a time.

The storytelling is similar to Dear Missy in that plot and logic are secondary to character and relationship moments. It's a style that worked well enough in Dear Missy which didn't really have or need a plot, but I'm not sure it works for Our Times which is steeped in a very particular context and time period and moved by their developments.

Squid Game (2021)

This is very much not my type of show—the only way I could watch it was through multitasking, fast-forwarding, and turning the volume down. This is a very plot-driven story with great characters, fun moments, and various angles of criticisms on society and capitalism. I love the girls so much! And I cried very hard in episode 6 in spite of fast-forwarding through most of the episode. XD The final episode compresses what are meant to be big revelations all in one rush, but sets up the opportunity for a sequel in a way that reminds me of the first season of the Liar Game jdrama! Which is also about playing a secret game to get yourself out of debt. None of the twists are shocking, and the ones involving the main characters are very logical, which I enjoy.

CONTENT NOTES: blood and violence (by gunfire and a factory accident in ep 2), suicide and suicide attempt (in ep 2 and during the game), mentions of rape (2 instances that I remember), racism and xenophobia (towards Ali), some gore and squelching noises from a [SPOILER] organ harvesting [/SPOILER] plotline

Symphony's Romance (Nodame Cantabile cdrama 2020)

I genuinely enjoyed the first 2? 3? episodes of this show because even though the characters had different vibes (especially with all of the characters being intensely sanitized), they made sense. But everything after episode 3 has felt really clunky and off-note, ESPECIALLY since they skip all the orchestra scenes so the moments of team camaraderie feel unearned. Even the editing and sounds feel like they went through a really steep downgrade.

I'm a fan of both the jdrama AND Zhang Xincheng, so I want to know where this goes—though tbh ZXC not very compelling in this one after the first 2 eps, and it's annoying how they make him central to everything. But I still like him enough to continue even if it wasn't a Nodame adaptation haha.

One thing I find entertaining about the cdrama is how the opening theme is a duet between Li Zhenyan/Chiaki and his rival conductor (Saeki's conductor boyfriend in the original, apparently!), while the ending theme is a duet between Li Zhenyan/Chiaki and Fang Xiaowo/Nodame. It feels a bit like not!Chiaki is being set up to be in a love triangle with his rival conductor and his pianist neighbor. XD

We're groupwatching this, and if we end up dropping this, I still plan to finish this and relegate it back to background watching, where it belongs. :P

My Huckleberry Friends (2017)

[I'm livetweeting here.]

This is a slice-of-life coming-of-age high school drama based on the novel of the same name (CN title: 你好，舊時光) and although I'm only at around ep 13 I think it's genuinely good! For a show that's not about fandom, it's VERY much about fandom in the 2000s.

I had a really hard time getting through the 2nd episode because Zhang Xincheng's (YES, HIM AGAIN) character was too stressful for me, but nothing bad actually happens in that episode and in episode 6 his actions make more sense! I really liked how the first 7 episodes was about the different ways that trauma manifests, and the different ways to find some healing. Zhang Xincheng's character after that arc... is back to stressing me out, but at least he gets to also be a charming puppy here. And the script for this show is for the most part very good! The character writing is excellent, everyone has PERSONALITIES, which is something I've missed!

I'm especially pleased with Mi Qiao's characterization, in which she is a fangirl in ALL THE WAYS, but isn't defined by her fangirlness! It is just a facet of her personality, as it should be! And while my bar may just be underground, I really like how the jokes about sexuality and BL are received very organically, and not like punchlines (even though they're really funny!).

I think the POV and storytelling are also very, very well done. The framing of the intro scene makes it seem like it's about one thing BUT NOW THAT there have been new developments, I'm suspecting it's about another extremely emotional, extremely bittersweet thing. ;__; There's also this thing where they set up Yu Zhouzhou (the FL, played by Li Landi) and Lin Yang (the ML, played by Zhang Xincheng) to look like childhood sweethearts, but this seems like a narrative that's built only in Lin Yang's head??? Yu Zhouzhou's own childhood was very colorful with a buffet of sweet relationships! It's particulary interesting to see speckles of her childhood self shine through the shadows of her teenage mysteriousness.

Anyway I'll just end this section with these screencaps.

CONTENT NOTES: Grief, deaths in the family, offscreen domestic abuse

Ilya Kaminsky, "Deaf Republic"

This was a short but very very very difficult read. :( It's a poetry collection that's written with the structure of a stageplay, and it's brilliantly executed but extremely heavy and devastating. As the title suggests, it covers the full spectrum of what deafness means to a people, from unified resistance/rebellion to individualistic selfishness and desensitization. It's very much a story of systemic oppression, how it wears you down and breaks your sense of humanity, how violent silence can be. The opening and ending poems tie you back to the present, reminds you how current these issues still are, no matter where you are.

We Lived Happily During the War
BY ILYA KAMINSKY
And when they bombed other people’s houses, we

protested
but not enough, we opposed them but not

enough. I was
in my bed, around my bed America

was falling: invisible house by invisible house by invisible house.

I took a chair outside and watched the sun.

In the sixth month
of a disastrous reign in the house of money

in the street of money in the city of money in the country of money,
our great country of money, we (forgive us)

lived happily during the war.