Other Chinese dramas

[maggie33]

Memory Lost

I watched all of it and enjoyed it a lot. Bai Yu as Han Chen is very talented and charismatic, but I also really liked the main female character Bai Jingxi and the rest of Black Shield Team.

More behind the cut with spoilers

Cold Face and his nurse girlfriend are super adorable and Zhou Xiaozhuan is a sweetheart. I love that first Bai Jingxi and later Prate keep teasing him about his crush on Han Chen. Especially that scene in season 2, in episode, I think, 8? When Zhou Xiaozhuan is pontificating about Bai Jingxi’s many different qualities and Prate says “I thought God Han was your true love”. Zhou Xiaozhuan answers unperturbed something like “Can’t I love both of them?”. Yes, my mind immediately went to “threesome!”. :)

Also I find it amusing that here Bai Jingxi is sort of the same type of character Zhao Yunlan is in Guardian. She’s a talented, intuitive cop with the lollipop addiction (I’ve read lollipops are here for the same reason as in Guardian – to replace smoking in the book). And both her love interests like to give her food (one even cooks her a lot of carefully prepared meals) and to cover her with their jackets when she falls asleep at work.

Other amusing thing for me was the constant extolling the virtues of the police force. You know, I lived in Poland under the communist regime and read a lot contemporary crime novels then, and in every one of them every policeman was such an upstanding citizen who only lived to serve and protect and who could do no wrong. Forget about any, even lightest, critique. It’s exactly the same here.

Han Chen is a very cool character, if a bit too perfect at times – he’s great at everything he touches at such a young age (if I remember correctly he’s 27 in the present time) and everyone admires him. But, man, his jealousy and possessiveness in season 2 when they got together, was sometimes too much for me. And my id likes possessive jealousy in fiction very much. All that talking about Bai Jingxi belonging to him now, and him acting like a jerk every time she was interacting with Xu Sibai, belittling her for flirting with him, when I saw nothing indicating that she ever thought of Xu Sibai as someone other than a very good friend. But Bai Yu’s incredible charisma saved it for me. So it was more like I did mind it and enjoyed it at the same time. :)

Also rape, so much rape. It took me a while to get through the first 6 episodes, because of that super creepy rape case. When it was finished I thought, ok the worst is behind me now. Boy, was I wrong about that. Because the rape case in season 2 was so much worse. I fast-forwarded a lot. At least the guy in season 1 didn’t torture and kill his victims.

But all in all I liked it and I downloaded it from Dailymotion for an easy re-watch one day.

The whole drama is on Dailymotion with English subtitles. Here's the link.


Granting You a Dreamlike Life

That one I decided to watch for Zhu Yilong. I managed 6 episodes for now and I started a month ago. Zhu Yilong of course is wonderful and beautiful and a joy to watch, but the rest is so, so boring.

But I would give everything for a crack fic when Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei meet Luo Fusheng and Han Chen. Like Zhao Yunlan and Luo Fusheng could have a contest of who’s better at sprawling at the nearest available surface. And I think Shen Wei would empathize with Han Chen’s intense personality and possessiveness.

The drama is on Viki with English subtitles. Link's here.


SCI

Dramas above I watched to see Bai Yu and Zhu Yilong in something other than Guardian, but SCI I started watching because I heard about it in passing and saw a few gifts on Tumblr and it looked enjoyable. I watched the 1st episode for now and eh… I guess it is quite enjoyable. Although the leads aren’t as good and charismatic as Bai Yu and Zhu Yilong, and the rest of the cast isn’t as pretty as in Guardian. :) So I was ready to watch a few more episodes. But I won’t, because unfortunately the episodes on youtube that were said to have English subtitles, don’t have them.

I wish Netfix in Poland had more Chinese TV dramas. They have only 5 or 6 of them, and not one that I would like to watch.

Comments

[extrapenguin]

I know at least 情定三生 has a Zhu Yilong-only cut available on bilibili, though IDK about the show you mentioned. No subtitles, but it's short enough you could technically just scribble into Pleco.

[trobadora]

I actually liked a lot about Granting You a Dreamlike Life, not just Zhu Yilong. But alas, not the female lead, who was incredibly boring.

And yes - Luo Fusheng was absolutely, unquestionably, by a huge margin, the best thing about it. More like this, please!

But I would give everything for a crack fic when Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei meet Luo Fusheng and Han Chen. Like Zhao Yunlan and Luo Fusheng could have a contest of who’s better at sprawling at the nearest available surface. And I think Shen Wei would empathize with Han Chen’s intense personality and possessiveness.

That would be a delight! I've really been enjoying the constructed reality crossover vids for Luo Fusheng/Han Chen, and I wish someone would write a fic for them (in ENGLISH, I mean!), but damn, your crackfic idea sounds delightful. :D

(I haven't seen Memory Lost because it's not really my genre, and also, clean-shaven Bai Yu is a tragedy. Seriously, I don't like beards in general, but he's one of those rare people where I feel like they seriously need at least some facial hair.)

[china_shop]

Hi! You should link this on sid_guardian! :-)

[tinny]

I love Memory Lost! (I came here through sid_guardian)

It is well done and the characters are interesting, and the lack of special effects makes it less cringy than Guardian. ;)

I agree with you on all the rape aspects. I am not quite sure about Han Chen's possessiveness. He does show it, but he also respects her when she tells him there is nothing. (Except for that ridiculously unneccessary fight O_o But I think that was before he talked about it with her.)


I am also watching Dreamlike Life, and I thought it was terribly boring at first, too. Especially since I think that Zhu Yilong does not a very convincing mafia hitman make. *sigh*

But that stupid playboy/hitman persona slowly gets eclipsed by his love for Tian Ying, and by episode 15, I loved it. Eps 15 to 19 are amazing!

I haven't watched the whole thing yet, so I can't say if they fck it up again later or not (same with Memory Lost, btw, I am terribly slow, watching everything at the same time).

[mekare]

I can finally commentbecause I started watching BOTH memory Lost and Dreamlike life. :-)))

Also I find it amusing that here Bai Jingxi is sort of the same type of character Zhao Yunlan is in Guardian.

SO MUCH!!!! That was my immediate thought about her. I lvoe her to bits.

that super creepy rape case

UGh yes. That was hard to watch.

But I would give everything for a crack fic when Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei meet Luo Fusheng and Han Chen. Like Zhao Yunlan and Luo Fusheng could have a contest of who’s better at sprawling at the nearest available surface. And I think Shen Wei would empathize with Han Chen’s intense personality and possessiveness.

Someone needs to write this. maybe you could post it over at naye's plotbunny farm?