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dangermousie · 23 days ago

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First Half of 2025 Year In Review - cdrama edition...

I normally do these at the end of the year, but I have watched so many cdramas this year, I am going to have to split this in some way. This is only going to cover cdramas that aired in 2025 so far; if I watched it but it was made in a different year, it’s not on the list. As always, very subjective.

DRAMAS WATCHED

(In order of liking from least to most as opposed to pure quality; I am including if I’ve seen enough to make up my mind; yes I realize that’s inaccurate, but that’s my list)

(46) Serendipity - if boils were a drama, this would be it.

(45) A Prime Minister’s Disguise - it's stupid, it's cheap, it's a waste of anyone's time.

(44) Everlasting Longing - more like evelasting boring with some truly terrible acting and nonsense writing (at least they did us a mercy and put two equally wooden actors opposite each other.)

(43) The Seized Destiny - at one point a man wears cat ears. That's it, that's the highlight.

(42) Love Beyond the Curse - dumb even for a vampire mini and that's a low standard indeed.

(41) Destiny and Saving - sounds like a bank branch, would probably be more fun if it was.

(40) I am nobody 2 - I loved the first season but this just didn't click for me.

(39) Filter - I love you, Tan Jianci but not even for you. At one point, FL is a llama.

(38) Destiny of Love: and snoring.

(37) Phoenix's Gambit: Love or Crown - just like its name, couldn't make up its mind what it wanted to be.

(36) Love and Sword - Gao Weiguang is hot. Unfortunately not hot enough to melt one's brain which is what you'd need to enjoy this dumb mess.

(35) Les Belles - More like La Bete. Because it's la bete of a drama.

(34) Eat Run Love - tried to go for Lighter and Princess, Walmart edition, failed at even that.

(33) Love Never Fails - until it does.

(32) Youthful Glory - cute and harmless. So is a bunny and that's at least nice to pet.

(31) Dominion and Devotion - a mini tried to be a proper palace drama which is I suppose praiseworthy but not what I watch minis for.

(30) Si Jin - A girlbossing story that made me decide I'd rather watch a drama with not a single woman than this type of female centric story and also that Jing Tian is a beautiful woman who doesn't click for me and Zhang Wanyi really needs to stop playing the same role over and over.

(29) The Best Thing - fluffy and plotless but oddly soothing.

(28) Blazing Elegance - this is like the trashiest 1980s romance novel imaginable but set in 1930s China. I had so much fun but did I respect myself in the morning? Hmmm.

(27) Guardians of the Dafeng - too goofy for my liking for most of its run but that ending!!!!!!

(26) Flourished Peony - solidly acted but alas the narrative did not grab me and ML really made no sense as a period character.

(25) Moonlight Mystique - main story pointless, the palette vomit inducing but oh the secondary OTP stole the show and my heart.

(24) Bound by Sin - softcore with submissive ML and domme FL. Wild for most of its run until it tries to acquire respectability late in its run.

(23) Such a Good Love - tried to be artsy ended up just boring.

(22) To Love or To Defy - FL is an assassin getting distracted by an honorable prince. The logic is utterly absent but the fun is fun.

(21) Once Upon a Dream - fakecest is the flavor of the day - why date out of the family when your adopted brother is right there, has great hair and dubious notions of consent? This one is very pretty.

(20) The Prisoner of Love - he tortures her, then she tortures him and on and on and on - the usual. Featuring a couple where FL rides off into wedded bliss with the man who murdered her parents.

(19) Stolen Love - someone watched Kunning and decided to write a Yan Lin AU, honest. I liked it but it did get repetitive and FL is kinda brain dead.

(18) Sadistic Love - despite the name, a surprisingly not psychotic love story with fakecest and a lot of gay vibes.

(17) The First Frost - a modern about broken up lovers reconnecting, this was a masterpiece for 3/4 of its run and then made a narrative decision so stupid it ruined the drama for me.

(16) Hidden Love - not the ZLS flufffest, this is full on fakecest delight. FL's two choices are ML who she thinks is her half brother (he turns out not to be) and her actual half brother. As it goes.

(15) A Love Never Lost - I think, if I were objective, this is the best drama this year. It is not my favorite for very subjective reasons but God, what a masterpiece about an epoch. Bleak ending, characters who ranged from complex and controversial to complex and unlikable (still in awe of Li Xian taking on THAT role - Liang Xiang was complex, larger than life, driven, smart and a monster who was a rapist and a betrayer) and the death of Yang Kaizhi (Wei Daxun) a rare moment that made me cry when I rarely get this moved by dramas.

(14) Kill My Sins - a thoroughly adult story of loss and vengeance, with Liu Shi Shi and Shawn Dou sparking with each other as equally ruthless and equally damaged souls who find kinship (this is a drama where they never even kiss or confess but when they call each other "soulmate" you FELT it.) So good!

(13) Always My General - like some of my favorite web novels made into a drama. FL is a woman pretending to be a man and becoming a legendary general, ML is a prince who loves her either way - so delicious. My fave mini of the year.

(12) The Glory - a Gothic and female-centric tale of vengeance and dysfunctional families, this is a story with characters shockingly manipulative and dark. It made Chen Duling a bigger star and well-deservedly so - her abused, violent and brittle protagonist is the person who the show rests on. It did drag a little in the middle but then came back swinging in the end.

(11) A Moment But Forever - in a year that gave me a lot of awesome xianxias, this one does not disappoint. A depressed and abused philosophy major meets a literal and cheerful engineering major - xianxia style. Liu Xueyi is gorgeous and Tang Yan a delight but what really hits is a surprisingly solid story about divinity, life and forgiveness.

(10) Perfect Match - Jane Austen but frothier, this tale of a widow moving with her four marriageable daughters to the capital where the fifth married daughter lives, this is a souffle with a love story for every taste and delightful bit of sisterly love on top. Pick your favorite romance! (Mine is fourth sister and her judge husband.)

(9) Love of the Divine Tree - it's like someone watched TTEOTM and went "this is how it should go instead." Our heroine is a master who finds feral, hot, abuser demon child and cat hero and decides to give him therapy via a petting zoo and chores.

(8) The Demon Hunter's Romance - just a solid lovely tale that includes some genuinely adult, common sense interactions and characters and a wildly creative take on demons and their stories.

(7) The Prisoner of Beauty - finally released out of the dungeon, this story of arranged marriage between members of feuding clans turned to love is a delight, held mainly by sane interactions and insane chemistry between Liu Yuning and Song Zuer.

(6) Love in Pavilion - do you like gorgeous pain? Come right in. Do you like doomed love in many varieties and incredible visuals and a totally gonzo set up? This is everything Red Moon Pact should have been but was not.

(5) The Blossoming Love - the best xianxia of them all in a very solid xianxia year, this story of a demoness and the perfect saint of the cultivating world goes hard on an incredible OTP and some glorious destroy the pantheon energy. Our Male Lead is not an atheist who does not believe in gods. No, he knows they are real and he WILL end them.

(4) Under the Moonlight - came out of nowhere to own my heart. This tale of a former courtesan assisting in cases in the yamen, a sheltered noble son who gets involved and the upright commissioner is everything - smart and moving and with so many points about class and gender (that is not preachy in the least.) It's realistic in a way most dramas are not and deals with portions of society dramas often don't, but it makes you both think and feel.

(3) Eternal Brotherhood 2: second year in a row a season of this drama misses top spot by the skin of its teeth. This grim, smart feudal-world-at-war and the three sworn brothers who deal with it drama comes back with more hard choices, brotherhood, love kept and lost and some insane cinematography and acting

(1 tie) Legend of Zang Hai - sometimes a huge hit starring a big star IS actually all that and a bag of chips, and this is that rare example. Ostensibly a story about vengeance, this is actually a smart, emotionally riveting character study about selfishness and selflessness, damage, kindness and evil. The script is tight, the direction impeccable and the performances out of this world. Xiao Zhan as the containedly insane focus and maelstrom of all the madness gives a performance I will long remember.

(1) The White Olive Tree - a modern is my n1 drama of the year? The world is coming to an end. The story of a journalist and bomb disposal expert who meet, fall in love in, and are destroyed by trauma in a war zone is a masterpiece. It's delicate, it's hopeful, it's heartbreaking. It also is a vanishingly rare portrayal of trauma that does not have pat solutions or easy outs. It's a romance and a tragedy in the classic Greek sense of the word, especially for the ML whose very idealism and goodness are what make him both perfect and unsuitable for helping and that ultimately take him down.

FAVORITE DRAMA

It's a tie:

The White Olive Tree - for the first time in ever, since I first started watching cdramas in 2007 - my favorite cdrama is a modern. Yeah, I know. Flawless from beginning to end, with literally nothing I'd change, this love story and character story is unflinching in its portrayal of love and trauma. Everyone gives a great performance but it's anchored by a genuinely jaw dropping performance from CZY as shattered idealist Li Zan.

Legend of Zang Hai - that rare beast - both smart and emotional, with gorgeous cinematography and impeccable acting, this really shows the cost and burden of revenge and makes you hope against hope for happiness and healing.

WORST DRAMA

Serendipity - this is what eating a plastic bag must feel like. Dumb plot, terrible look, horrible acting, hideous ML etc etc. Where do I start.

FAVORITE MALE CHARACTER

Li Zan (Chen Zheyuan), The White Olive Tree - one of the three male performances and characters of the year for me. Li Zan starts the story as a shining light and ends a broken wreck and it's an epic performance throughout - it shows how uncomfortable it is to love a saint but it also shows this saint as human in all his complexity and drive; it makes idealism human - it's intense and haunting and you can't look away whether you are swooning or crying.

Zang Hai (Xiao Zhan), Legend of Zang Hai - I so rarely find actors with such huge and intense fanbases worth the hype, but XZ really is worth it. This performance of traumatized, vengeance-driven but unable to get rid of his soft heart Zang Hai was incredible - so many scenes that just had me jaw-droppingly in awe.

Liang Xiang (Li Xian), A Love Never Lost - Li Xian owns the role of a magnetic larger than life monstrous mover and shaker of the end of Qing. The man is a rapist and a murderer; he's also a filial son, a supremely competent leader and a terrifying kind of an idealist. This is not a role any idol-adjacent actor normally takes but Li Xian is incredible in the role.

FAVORITE FEMALE CHARACTER

Luo Shu (Hu Bingqing), Under the Moonlight - she is so complex, so strong, so haunted. Very much a gender swapped "haunted, tough man with a cause falls for a sheltered kind woman" set up for her and her OTP but what I love even more is she's not defined by romance.

Xiao Qiao (Song Zuer), The Prisoner of Beauty - she made a soft spoken, largely internalized character irresistible. I loved her from beginning to end.

NEEDS TO BE MURDERED

99% of the people in A Moment But Forever - I am Team Apocalypse for that one. Truly awful horrors, whether the torturing selfish immortal sect, the useless deities, the evil war demons who created the worst society possible or the gross humans. Kill them all!

Beast Kingdom people in Love in Pavilion - we would not have the tragedy without them.

And, as last year, City Lord from Eternal Brotherhood 2.

BEST BAD GUY

When Deng Wei's character in Tree, Zhang Bin Bin's in TBL or Liu Xueyi's in Moment go evil, they automatically become 10x hotter and seeing they were already hot to start with...but my favorite is Lord Jiuhuo (Charles Lin) in Love in Pavilion - that man was willing to wreck the world for love and he was epic doing it. My favorite part of LiP.

“HAROLD, THEY ARE LESBIANS” AWARD

And Chen Duling is in this one for the second year in a row - Zhuang Hanyan (CDL) x Chai Jing (Jinna Fu) in The Glory are 100% a couple, with frankly as many couple scenes and set ups as the ostensibly canon het OTP.

“HOW DID CENSORS NAP THROUGH THIS” AWARD

Honestly, any mini would be on this list (have you SEEN the sex scenes in Blazing Elegance?) but if we are talking "proper" dramas, let's go with The Glory, which let all sorts of awful, murdery characters get a happy ending.

MALE LEAD MOST LIKELY TO BE BROUGHT HOME TO MOTHER

No, thank you! The few modern ones she’d not approve of (Li Zan is likely to leave you a young widow and Sang Yan from TFF would never decouple from his girl anyway) and the period ones are no go since few moms would be keen on wild-eyed, bloodied sons in law however hot and long haired they may be.

FAVORITE SHIP

The White Olive Tree - idealists who love each other more than life but that love is not enough to fix them.

Kill My Sins - they don't kiss, they don't confess, they barely touch. And yet the soulmate compatibility and the chemistry just pour off the screen. I was feral whenever they were within two feet of each other.

Legend of Zang Hai - not a ship centric show and sometimes these make the best ships. I would lose it when they even touched palms. They are both damaged and wary (and he's borderline nuts from trauma) and watching them dance around and get their hearts broken and healed was...

The Blossoming Love - taking on Gods in any life and form and so ride or die and sexy and AAAAAAAA

FAVORITE SECONDARY OTP

Many excellent choices this year (the cursed cultivators in The Blossoming Loves, all the secondary OTPs in Love in Pavilion, First and Fourth couples in Perfect Match) but the winner is the haunted, dysfunctional, intense, doomed secondary OTP of Moonlight Mystique. I finished that drama solely for them.

NOTP

Serendipity - I really don't want to waste more time on this toxic dump of a drama so all I am gonna say is they made fakecest, my fave trope, boring!

HOTTEST SCENE

Blazing Elegance - all their sex scenes are insane but also the aphrodisiac scenes in Love in Pavilion take the cake for sheer intensity and the baby making in ep 32 of The Prisoner of Beauty because phew boy!

FAVORITE SCENE

Li Zan's breakdown in the hospital and the aftermath when he tells FL the truth in The White Olive Tree. That scene? Shivers.

Zang Hai emerging out of the tomb in Legend of Zang Hai - the breakdown, the manipulation are epic. The epic Greek tragedy of the Marquis' death.

In Eternal Brotherhood 2, Di Lin arriving to rescue his brothers at Payu; or his kneeling to Xiujia's pregnant stomach, his hands gentle on it, promising to come back.

Liu Xueyi's madness in the hole in A Moment but Forever - LXY is an actor who's often too good for his dramas and this scene shows how good he can be as he's going mad and confronting his inner demons.

The First Frost ultimately fell apart for me, but the scene of teen Sang Yan watching Wen Yifan dance on the rooftop he equipped for her is what swooning over poetry feels like.

BIGGEST CRUSH

We are gonna go in the most opposite way possible: the law abiding, incredibly decent, rather rigid Fourth Husband, Perfect Match and Di Lin in Eternal Brotherhood 2 - the man is ideal husband, a terrifying beast in battle and just all around sex on legs.

BEST SCENE STEALER CHARACTER

Zhuang Zhixing (Zhou Qi), Legend of Zang Hai - the sole decent person in that family of monsters, he stole my heart and his arc OMG!

BEST COSTUMES AND WIGS

Costumes: Legend of Zang Hai - real embroidery, and costumes that look real.

Wigs: I am gonna be weird here and say Kill My Sins.

MOST EXTRA OUTFIT

Honestly, most have been fairly sane but Feud should fix it.

FAVORITE SECONDARY ML

General Yun in Eternal Brotherhood 2 - Si Yilin x Ka Dan were my n1 OTP in s1 and yet the man's honor and willingless to risk his life to protect Ka Dan without expecting anything has got me almost switching ships.

MOST BLATANT INNUENDO MOMENT

It hasn't aired yet but we all saw that poster for Feud, with Bai Lu fondling Zeng Shunxi's enormous...sword:

FAVORITE 2025 CDRAMA SONG

Chen Xueran's Moonlight Dance from The White Olive Tree. You have no idea how much I listened to it.

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MVP OF THE YEAR

Song Zuer, who beat her tax allegations (already a miracle) and came back with two awesome dramas.

ACTING SURPRISE

So many great performances, but I am gonna go with Chen Zheyuan in The White Olive Tree. He's been solid in so many awful dramas but I never knew he could be such a revelation

NEEDS A SEQUEL

The Demon Hunter's Romance - not really but would be fun. And EB2 likely since I cannot see how they will wrap the novel's story in the remaining number of eps.

NEEDS SCISSORS TAKEN TO IT

Serendipity - in addition to all its other sins, this simply cannot support 40 eps.

TOO MANY SCISSORS TAKEN TO IT

Surprisingly none, I think dramas have adjusted to the 40 ep limit.

TROPE THAT NEEDS TO DIE

Same as last year - the emperor cannot be irredeemable. WTF, China, you are a communist country! Though they are nibbling at the edges this year. Also fake feminism - I am all for girl power but not when it’s ridiculously anachronistic for the period with no explanation at all. And finally NO MORE TRADE DRAMAS PLS PLS PLS

FAVORITE TROPE WE’VE SEEN A LOT OF

Men (and women) knowingly fighting for a doomed cause because otherwise they’d cease to be who they are. Or if we are being shallow all the beautiful men in chains.

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT

The First Frost: it was so exquisite for about 2/3 and then the Hong Kong arc happened (and was not in the book; the adaptation was faithful so far so nothing heralded it) and ruined the whole drama. It negated the development, the themes, the characters - it made me dislike both leads and the way the narrative never addressed it made the whole story utterly fall apart.

BIGGEST GOOD SURPRISE

The White Olive Tree, Under the Moonlight, A Moment but Forever, The Demon Hunter's Romance - this has been a year of surprises, so many of my top dramas weren't on my radar at all.

2025 DRAMAS I HAVEN’T SEEN THAT I MOST WANT TO WATCH

I have honestly watched everything I wanted so far.

BEST NON-2025 DRAMA I’VE WATCHED IN 2025

Do you think I have the time? Ahahahaha

MOST ANTICIPATED

Love in the Clouds, Legend of the Female General, Moonlit Reunion, A Dream within a Dream, Hidden Shadow, Shadow Love, You Sheng You Ya, The Princess' Gambit, Feud, Fated Hearts, Love and Crown

#cdrama #2025 - midyear review #a love never lost #kill my sins #xiao zhan #the prisoner of beauty #the white olive tree #eternal brotherhood 2 #legend of zang hai #love in pavilion #the blossoming love #love of the divine tree #always my general #the demon hunter's romance #lists

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