Yong An Meng (2024)

Solid entertainment with a few good laughs

I went into this drama with very few expectations as it pairs Jeremy Tsui with yet another, much younger actress with very little acting experience. The slapstick-type initial trailer didn’t help at all because in the meantime I had started reading the novel and I really hate it when scriptwriters change the whole tone of the source material.
I was therefore very pleasantly surprised by the first few episodes that were mostly serious and showed an FL whose acting wasn’t on par with everyone else, but at least tolerable. The heart-clutching and fainting spells were hilarious and just at the point when I thought that they were getting a bit too much, they stopped.

The pace was really good right from the start, getting the viewers into the mystery around the collapse of the West Canal and whatever wider conspiracy was brewing. The secondary couple looked charming and perfect for each other and for once, both Lu Yan’s attendant, Yang Zong and Shen Zhen’s maid were allowed to be clever servants. Although, poor Yang Zong had an unfortunate talent to show up at the wrong moment and disturb “couple time”. I was really impressed by the actor’s comedic talent!
Another support actor absolutely worth mentioning was the one playing Shen Zhen’s father who had impressive screen presence and made the most of his few short scenes.

The initial villain of the story, Li Di played by Liu Hai Kuan had the delightful intensity of a character that we all love to hate. Sadly, his plot line was just dropped in the middle of nowhere as the story moved towards the mastermind behind it all. All the villains had a proper motivation for what they were doing, other than just being evil because the script said so.

Compared to the novel, the conspiracy was one of the weakest points of the drama. It could have been so much more complex and intriguing if they had used some more material from the novel instead of giving wasting time on this totally nonsensical amnesia plot in the last episode. Although this plot gave us the opportunity to see a sterner version of Lu Yan which Jeremy Tsui portrayed in a very nuanced manner, it felt rather superfluous.

Another weak point were the dreams which never really served any purpose. While in the novel the ML uses these dreams to gain intel on what his enemies were plotting and to develop counter strategies, this role of the dreams probably fell victim to censorship rules. Therefore, if these dreams as memories of a past life had been replaced by some nightmares that showed the ML’s fear of losing the FL it would have caused far less confusion among the viewers.

I was pondering a long time how to rate this drama. It had solid acting overall with the FL being the weakest link by a mile (although she wasn’t terrible) and the story avoided many of the usual lame tropes, it made me laugh and kept me entertained. The many fight scenes were well choreographed and executed and the ending was decent as well. Normally, this would have been an 8.5 in my books. However, in light of recent events that offer us a glimpse into just how much Jeremy Tsui must have suffered, both emotionally and intellectually, at having to film yet another idol drama with a trainee actress (who got first billing just to add insult to injury) and to counterbalance the hate-rating of a few obvious non-viewers, I am going to rate this a solid 10.

Lees verder