Hua Yan Jie (2024)

Red Flag FL Seeks Revenge By Pitting Brothers Against Eachother In Love.

This was quite the ride! It absolutely lived up to my expectations for YZX more than Unspeakable Longing did 😅. It kept me glued to my screen each night as midnight rolled around, having me just waiting for the SINGLE episode a day to update. Anyone watching it later now that it's done airing just won't have "quite" the same nail-biting experience.

The Negatives...
This show screams for wanting MORE. Episodes are roughly 10 minutes disregarding opening/closing ost themes and plot points are quickly moved along from one to the next. Often people end up complaining about side character development full length shows so if you are one of those you'd likely appreciate the direct approach of focusing almost strictly on the singular plot line but personally I found myself wanting to know EVERYTHING about everyone... I wanted to know how she grew up, I wanted to know more about the brother's father and the conflicts with his wives, about the grandmother (and slap her), and probably most importantly MORE about the struggle with YZX character Yeting and the Crown Prince.

That said... there aren't really any major dangling plot threads regarding any of these issues, you get told a bare bones story enough to piece together all the backstory you need for the characters and their motivations to make sense. I just KNOW there's more story there that didn't have time to be told though so it was an unfulfilled want.

The biggest reason this becomes a "negative" is because it hinders the romantic triangle to a small degree. Focus is placed on her with one character then switches them back and forth again until I had a harder time believing there were actual feeling between her and Muran than I did her and Yeting. Additional scenes of her alone, conflicted in her room perhaps hashing out her TRUE feelings with her maid might have helped sway the audience one way or another but then, perhaps that's exactly WHY those scenes don't exist?

Which leads me to, The Positives...
First, while vastly different stories, similar to L&BF this show relies on only two songs to convey the depth of varied emotions playing on screen. The majority of the ending OSTs are the female led song with only a few, impactful instances of the male led song. This change-up of the songs is actually one reason to NOT watch the final FULL VERSION whenever it comes out as they will inevitably cut out the end credits and those changes will lose their punch-to-the-gut impact.

Both songs portray a sad, lingering and emotional love full of conflict. Different portions of the songs play different lyrics over various scenes to better convey the emotions on screen at the time, milking those songs for every drop of emotion. Both have been added to my Playlist but I've especially listened to the male sung one on repeat as the despair in his voice is POWERFUL.

The characters here are not "cookie-cutter" and all three display actions going against their conflicting emotional state. Each character has their own self-interests and it becomes addicting trying to unravel WHY they do something when it seemingly won't benefit them and instead will only hurt them.

Our FL is known as "Ban Meng" to the MLs. Her goal is straight and simple in theory, but when does anything simple ever actually turn out such? Her background turns her into a conniving "Green Tea B*tch" type character as she sets out to purposefully manipulate the MLs for her revenge.

Rather than ML/2ML I'm going to label the brother's ML 1 and ML 2 and strictly go off age (older brother/younger brother).

ML1 is the older brother Yeting played by Yan Zi Xian. He is initially portrayed on the screen as cold, unfeeling, and utterly ruthless. He represents overly ambitious Red Flag characters but the story does well as it moves along to paint him as more than one dimensional. He is a Lion.

ML2 is the younger brother Muran played by Zhao Huan Ran. His initial appearance has him portrayed as youthful, carefree, and innocent. The opposite of his brother, he is originally made to represent an unambitious and Laissez-faire, Green Flag character. He is "a Golden Retriever raised by Foxes" type mix.

The revenge ending was short but concluded and wrapped up completely. The loveline ending was longer, devoting 1 1/2 episodes to resolving who, if any one, she ends up with and why.

Final verdict: 9/10 personally

Majority should find it good enough it rate an 8+/10 as it keeps you guessing and the chemistry is FIRE! 🔥🔥🔥

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