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I really really liked how unflinching this drama is. Like when the gossip is Nan Ya reported her husband for rape and the general attitude is “is she joking?” because none of them can comprehend the concept of marital rape and then one of the students says that of course it’s wrong to beat a woman but if she cheated he can get why the man snaps. And ML is the only one who pushes back about all of that by asking if she is not strong enough to fight back is she supposed to just put up with it all?

And yet he’s not a saintly person but something much darker - the episode ends with the scene where he sees her being beaten and about to be sexually assaulted by her husband and he runs away but to his horror at seeing that (and the fact that he didn’t interfere) is added his freak out self-loathing at the fact that even at that scene he fixates on her bare skin in a sexual way - he’s 19 and intense and a loner and clearly has never had a woman and it is so realistic he can have a reaction like that but for a cdrama to go there?!

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Cdramas are so rarely sensual but this scene my GOD!

And when her wet hair drips on his arm and he just is so hyper sensitized mmmm

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In some ways, it makes me think of jdramas - with how dark it can get and how frankly sexual his attraction to her is. (Sexual and LIKING that she is fighting back against the gossip, sneakily and not at all nicely.)

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I see a lot of people disappointed by ep 15 of QoT/saying it's gone downhill but I got to say for me, it's actually incredibly consistent throughout from ep 1 to ep 15 - a fun, brain-dead, elevated by great acting makjang.

If you want a character examination of a relationship or even a solid, plotholeless piece of nuanced writing, QoT is not that and to me it never was.

I mean, yeah the amount of nonsense in ep 15 is huge - from how bad dude gets custody of her or that apparently it's set in 1824 instead of 2024 since internet and its eternal memory does not exist, but how is it different from the fact that the takeover was able to be accomplished the way it did or the magic illness and magic surgery or that not realistic in any way family or really anything else?

The acting ranges from solid to amazing, the chemistry is great, the budget is sizeable but it never really was anything but an upmarket version of Escape of the Seven or Perfect Marriage Revenge or Temptation of an Angel or other makjangs. Perhaps Secret is a better comparison in some ways - A list actors, big hit, makjang as hell plot. Realism and reality and not a thing in that genre though so I am never phased by all the insanity (but never too invested either.)

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The way this place is shown as unrelenting to anyone even the tiniest bit different, the way the residents revel in gossip - the more lurid the better. So much of it is rooted in incomprehension but as much is in envy - Nan Ya was too beautiful, and ZL was too smart. Anyone who flies too high gets squashed with extra enthusiasm. There is a reason the gossipers relish how his mother celebrated when he got into a fancy university. "Pride goeth before a fall" is their motto.

The whole place summed up.

No wonder he feels so much sympathy for her - she's beautiful and tragic and what not but also - there is a kinship of the viciousness of not fitting in.

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This drama is so beautiful!

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When I realized he was in love with her (even tho I knew from the synopsis!), I screamed into my hands, literally because the way this scene is shot, the way his world acquires color, and the way she's filmed as remote in her own world, and the longing in him AAAAAAA

(Btw, if you want a noona romance, come right in!)

I have loved Tong Yao in everything I've seen her in and ZXC is about the best under 30 cdrama ML working today (he's that rarity, genuinely versatile), so MMMM this combo!

PS Not related but what IS this promo shot for a cdrama airing on CCTV-8 omgggggg

Can't wait to get there...

PS The town dwellers blaming the abuse victim for her abuse: she's too pretty/she must have cheated/must have annoyed him/gave birth to a sick kid (!)/acted too ornery and none of them processing that even if they were true and her fault, it does not excuse abuse is so realistic but so rage inducing. Hope she gets to leave that hellhole, get a nice life and be happy with her decade younger lover.

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I almost never do modern cdramas, but two eps in, Tender Light is AMAZING and is very likely to be added to a vanishingly small number of moderns I love (though it's set in 2000 so maybe not so modern?)

This is dark and grinding in a way few modern cdramas I've seen are. These are unhappy people in a small town, desperate, prejudiced, mean, or a combo thereof. Nothing is slick or easy or Polyanna.

The story is set in motion when a beautiful woman, Nan Ya, murders her husband. She claims he was abusive and this was self-defense as he tried to murder her, and the new detective in town looks into this.

What strikes me so much is how unsparingly the people's attitude is shown. Almost nobody is neutral, let alone sympathetic to her. Nan Ya is too pretty, too flashy, she doesn't fit in but also it is all of course her fault - everyone knows she sleeps with men for money say some (clearly salivating over the possibility,) why would her husband beat her - she had to have cheated or something, he is so charming to everyone else say a bunch of others, "he never beat ME" says an ex, she shouldn't have provoked him say ALL.

Even the policeman in charger prior to the new guy wants to treat her as an unrepentant murderer because what self-defense, this looks dumb for his record and also the man is the head of the family, she was trouble etc etc.

Zhang Xincheng's character is about the sole town dweller we see express sympathy - he witnessed the murder but he's also seen the abuse. He's not even saying she should get off or not - as he puts it, the law can determine this - but he sees her as human and as justified and her husband as a monster. He's the only one who does not see her as a flashy weird siren but a woman with burdens - a person. But perhaps it's because he also doesn't fit in - he is also subject of rumors and gossip because he came back from university to retake a year and he can't be gooooood if he did that, can he? Clearly anything away from the 100% norm is judged harshly.

(There are also little touches like his lying to the cop about his timeline and you think it's some big deal but no it's him being in a computer chatroom wishing people across the world happy new year on a board for that, as it gets to 2000, but it's a foreign chatroom and he doesn't want the computer lab owner to be in trouble. It's realistic and dramas rarely do that.)

Anyway, this is vvvvvv good so far. As I was telling @aysekira this is very much BBC prestige show in vibe but very very much a cdrama.

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my stand in episode 1 thoughts, feelings, etc.

OHOHOOO FINALLY. FINALLY I FEEL INSANE ABOUT A SHOW AGAIN. poom phuripan my absolute beloved, i've missed you so fucking much.

the show really eases you into everything and so far i don't mind the back and forth, i think it's interesting to see the direct consequences and THEN the story of how we got here. i don't know if my opinion on that will change later but for right now it's really pleasing me. i also really like this gradual introduction we're getting into everything and the sort of thriller/mystery vibe to it all. it's giving me some very loose/vague manner of death vibes.

i immediately don't like the vibes of tong or wut but i'm reserving any real accusations until later, but i'm def side eyeing them. i've got my eye on you two.

it really took my brain some getting used to to understanding the joe we're seeing is joe's consciousness and everyone else is seeing the joe that was shown in his reflection in the hospital (i've never seen vice versa or many other shows that do this, forgive me) but once i wrapped my head around it i actually quite like it. mostly bc it means i still get to see a lot of poom.

anyway - thus far this has one of my favorite romance tropes; guy who is used to being treated badly/ignored and man who has too much love to give (to someone who may or may not deserve it, judgement withstanding on that rn.) joe is just such a heart eyed fool and i'm so glad to see poom in another role of lovesick, unfairly attractive, dork. it's a role he plays so well and he immediately endears you to joe so fucking much.

throughout most of the episode i was like ooh this is a bummer but the angst isn't too bad. and then. AND THEN.

ming coming over to joe's house and making a move on him, again, from the perspective of behind joe - where he looks so much like tong. the lamenting about him being a virgin and joe offering himself up to him. and then ming turning him back around to face the mirror. this way he looks so much like tong, he can pretend it's tong, and yet at the same time joe's face is right there, reflected back in the mirror, inescapable. i'm fucking eating this up, finally some good fucking food.

idk i'm probably not touching on everything i want to, it's been a long ass time since i've done one of these, but this is just what immediately comes to mind. now time to go make a gifset lmao.

(if you give me novel spoilers i WILL hunt you for sport)

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Good morning to me!

ETA this bts shot of him in that entire costume but looking at his phone is cracking me up so hard for some reason !

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Shui Long Yin promo images for the male cast [x] and mangotv combined moon-silo video set [x]

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Do I know what this drama is about? No.

Do I care what this drama is about? With a cast this pretty, also no.

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Whoever did the wig on the ML of Lady Revenger should go stand in a corner, possibly with a dunce cap.

It’s basically a granny bun on top of his normal hair.

This might be the worst wig I’ve seen in a costume cdrama in a long time and I occasionally check out those three minute an ep monstrosities.

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I don’t normally do modern dramas but I had time so I checked out that spring hometown one.

And then the opener and we see ML is a mortician, with loving close ups of his work.

“No thanks, if I want to see loving close ups of corpses I can watch an old period drama,” decided I and noped out.

I mean, points for creativity but SHUDDER.

Thought of hands than handled corpses all day touching me freaks me the hell out. (But thought of hands of one of those MLs who MAKE corpses touching me does not freak me out because I am an inconsistent person but also because in period setting it’s so so so removed and I cannot imagine Lord Lordeson of Lordtown the best Prince/god/general/assassin of Lordlandia touching me anyhow.)

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This is a bunch of ridiculously beautiful people!

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We are less than half an ep in and the FL and her equally upper class sister are already moving a body.

Low budget dramas are where it’s at!

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The way he swans into her awful father's residence and plops himself and her onto the seats belonging to PM and wifey ahahaha

And he's totally doing it for her, he keeps watching her through the entire scene.

EPIC:

I love themmmm!

Get you a man who will avenge you!