Winter Night (2022)

Honest bits of gold in a sometimes-befuddled narrative

I really wanted to make this spoiler-free as possible, but there are a few spoilers in this review.

Let me start off by saying this is one of those rare drama where I wanted to hug every single one of our core characters for one thing or another, and in all my drama watching days, I truly don't think that has ever happened. These characters felt real and honest, and I truly cared about each of their plights, albeit in varying degrees. This is very much a character-driven drama.

It's also a drama where I found the dialogue to be so vivid in instances that it would immediately evoke images in my mind as if they were polaroid's. For example, in one of the earlier episodes Zheng Da Qian's father used a pancake metaphor to describe the heart. "Our hearts are like pancakes. You need to open it up before it can hold all the fillings (read: feelings) in it."

Or

When Da Qian asked her mother to paint her toes in the dead of winter in thick, thick layers, so much so, that the polish would remain for months after so that every time she looked at her toes she would remember her mother. Absolutely disgusting visual, but oddly sweet.

Or

When Da Qian and Mu Zi Li were talking about them reuniting decades later when they're old and gray and trembling when they got their marriage license. I pictured them with walkers heading into a city hall of sorts lol.

While on the topic of dialogue and the general script, I just need to give a shoutout to how self-aware the script is and how self-aware the screenwriter wrote our two protagonists, Da Qian and Zi Li. This was not a drama where our protagonists expected to change anything for their present or future life. They were completely aware that this was not their world (more Da Qian than Zi Li for the first half of the drama). That in all possibilities, this could very well be a dream, so whether they woke up or returned, nothing would change.

This was a drama about closure for Da Qian and possibly self-discovery for Zi Li. This made watching their actions almost tangible, more so than watching characters in similar dramas who believe that this fantastical thing they're experiencing is real and they can incur changes to their present or future when 99% of the time we as the audience know that it'll end as a dream or coma. This made the situations in this drama that our protagonists, their families, and other characters were in feel much less abstract and rooting for them to overcome obstacles much more tangible.

Speaking of obstacles, for the most part, a fair number of them didn't feel stupid or trivial. In general, this drama wasn't bogged down by problem after problem. The problems that were presented I could understand on some level. I totally understood the confusion Zi Li had about his feelings for "Baihe" Da Qian after his memories returned. I understood why he pulled away because he knew that he was 100% in love with his world's Da Qian. I understood why other characters thought Da Qian was different, but Zi Li, even without his memories, thought that she was the same as always because she was in fact the same Da Qian he's always known. I understood the brief rift between Da Qian and Mi Lan when her dad was taken advantage of even if he played his own part. The way problems were handled with levels of care from not only the scriptwriter, but also the characters, made wading through the problems do-able.

That's another thing, even if there was a problem between characters or obstacles presented, the characters at the core cared about the others. They'll be mad their father was taken advantage of, but they'll make efforts to find a person they hold responsible as a rag-tag group in the middle of the night in a snowstorm. They'll come back home after experiencing what feels like disappointment after disappointment with a husband who won't try, even swearing it's a good thing if something happened to him, after the husband goes missing. They'll continue to put up the ruse with someone who doesn't want them to know they're dying from last-stage prostate cancer because the last thing they need to do is comfort them. Or they'll trudge through a snow-filled forest for hours to find someone they told to find a place and die because it's something they said in he heat of the moment because they've worked their butt off to find them a job they're just willing to throw away. Or they'll ask to forgo chemotherapy to go home because it's hopeless and all they want to do is be with the person they love.

I've watched a ton of dramas in my years, but I don't think I've come across a heroine with such a deep-level of empathy as Zheng Da Qian (at least in the c-dramas that I've watched). She's stubborn, but also empathized with pretty much every character and actively tried to repair relationships that had nothing to really do with her. This drama required a lot of dramatic scenes from Qiao Xin and she did extremely well here. Her crying scenes were so good and so heartbreaking for me. But not just her, everyone had their moments to completely shine and you empathized with all of the core characters. No character was perfect and that's why they felt lived in and resonated with me so well. So much heart this drama had and some truly beautiful moments.

As far as the romance, it was there, it was good, but it never felt like it was at the forefront of the drama so I'm not gonna put it at the forefront of the review. In fact, there were a couple different developments for potential relationships, but that's not really what this drama is about so going into this expecting some grand romantic plot will probably lead to disappointment.

Before I wrap this up, I also appreciated how both Da Qian's changed things for each other, repairing relationships, With this drama it felt like plot points weren't just left hanging in either worlds (even if we spent the majority of out time in the Baihe world). Every plot point got proper endings even if they weren't wrapped up in nice little bows. Not everything in life is wrapped up pretty.

So often fantastical dramas like this fall under the weight of the parameters of the world that they built, but happily, this did not. The ending made sense. Everything must eventually return to its rightful place. This is not a time-travel drama so this is how it got around Chinese censorship and this already puts it ahead of a lot of it's predecessors in my book. The idea of changing things not for you to enjoy the fruits of your labor, but for another you is beautiful.

As far as the befuddled narrative I mentioned at the beginning, I personally didn't care for the plot line with Zheng Da Qian's ex, no matter how brief it was, it was unnecessary imo. Since this is the only thing that I really feel the need to nitpick, this drama did pretty damn well for me. I did struggle with whether or to I wanted to give this drama an 8.5 or 9 rating and I decided to go up to 9 because of how emotionally invested in the characters I was.

This drama has a lot of heart, characters to root for, and it's goddamn funny to boot!

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