DarkZone
Too far from M16
Say "no" to slowburn romances - there is only an obsessive love from the very beginning!
Some of you, who watched at least 5 minutes of this drama, might be surprised for such a high rating - 8.5/10. Well, the story isn't good. It's very cringy and from the beginning it was a hard ride to watch. I was having a hard resisting to drop it after only a couple of minutes. I was constantly telling myself "This is so bad! Why did they even make this drama? Why?" BUT! There is a way to enjoy watching this drama and even want to rewatch it!First of all, the story is awful, really. A college student girl falls in love at first sigh with a yakuza boss and he falls for her very fast without any reason - there is only a lust. They don't know their story, their personalities, their likes and dislikes - just two unknown people meeting each other by accident and felt in love in 5 minutes. Awful, right? It was hard to believe that there was some deeper feeling... BUT! Given that the drama is only 9 episodes with duration of around 23 minutes per episode, okay, I understand. Still, they could start the story with already sort of established relationship between the leads and give us some flashbacks to let us know that the feeling didn't come this fast. There is only lust, smut and skinship holding this relationship. I can feel an obsession vibe very strongly. There is also another reason the director gives us - the two leads are very afraid of having no tomorrow - there is always a possibility that Toshiomo won't be coming back. Each day might be his last. So both leads act like there is no tomorrow and just rush the things. And that's one of the reasons that the drama is different from others - no slowburn romance. Only obsessive love from the very beginning.
The actors playing the main leads, in my opinion, did a good job. I especially liked the subtle little gestures that Furukawa Yuuta made acting as Oa Toshiomo - where he was angry, happy, annoyed, obsessed - each time there was a lot small gestures on his face. It was fascinating to watch. I also felt that all the actors believed in their characters - they did them justice. The acting was one of the thing that made me want to stay watching the drama.
The production quality - guys, I've seen some j-dramas and the poor quality, is the reason I stopped. The production quality is very important to me and it's one of the most important reason I usually skip lot of scenes, fastforward etc. And here the quality was on a very high level, in comparison to other j-dramas. Especially the light effect - omg, it gave me so much laughs, whenever the light was too strong to even let us see the character's face, but all in all, there was a storytelling behind the light choices. A bit of an artistic touch, some fun with good music choices - all these made me feel attracted and fascinated. Whenever there was something on the character's mind they made an interesting choice to picture it - the mind and the inner talk of each chacter - picturing their minds like some other, exotic places. Especially during the smut moments - I didn't understand it at first - how did the main couple ended up in sakura garden? Like WHAT's going on?! Why?! Later I realized - it portraits the blessful feeling they experience, right? And each time after the smutty they ends up in kimono and full make up - is this how they see each other? There are many (not so little) things I can interpret in an artistic way and it's interesting.
This drama was so different from many others. It gave me feels, laughs, confusion. It made me want to watch it thinking: "What the heck is going on? Wait, why? Oh, of course, this is sooo cliche." - all over and all over again. But still a great watch! Truly! I was so sceptical after the first episode, but actually a bit sad after the 9th - is there going to be a 2nd season? Because after some time, that we all need to adjust to the thing that we are watching, I ended up feel addicted to this obsession of the main leads. The chemistry was WOW!
I feel like rewatching it some time in the future, because the drama isn't very long, it's very fast-paced and intense. It gives the vibe... Interesting, sort of.
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Love When the Stars Fall
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A lovely xianxia about pure, respectful love, trust and growth
'The Starry Love' is a lovely xianxia story about pure love, respect, kindness, finding your true self, the importance of accepting your emotions, an art of making decisions and having trust and faith in others. It's hard to talk about this beautiful story, you just have to see it yourself like I did.I've seen many xianxias. Or most likely I gave them a try. Each time I hope it would bring me the same amount of emotions that the unforgetfull classic from 2017 did. I mean Eternal Love - my first xianxia and my most favorite of all the time. Each time I watch xianxia I can't stop comparing it to the Eternal Love - I don't mean the story, but the vibe, the thrilling, the emotions.
I often find most xianxias disappointing, boring, predictable. How many time we saw the classic tragics, reborns, this genre has its own cliches. The Starry Love follows some of them but it also give the freshful punch. And surprisingly, it gave me the thrilling and fun that my beloved Eternal Love did.
The humour! The jokes! The story surprisingly doesn't contain as many tragic, sad moments as most xianxias do. Most of the time it's a heartwarming story, that would often make you laugh and bloom some hope for humanity in your heart.
The characters are very respectful to each others. Each person has a deep, well-written story. Characters do change. They evolve. They learn to understand themselves and others. The Starry Love is a beautiful story about finding your true self and accept it. Accept the change in yourself. It's about learning what's important in your life. Each characters is strong, even when they seem weak. Kindness doesn't mean weakness.
The love the characters give and receive it's one of the purest and greatest - there is no place for distrust, they have only faith, they believe in each other, they don't part, they will support each other and stay together no matter the price. There is a strong loyalty and trust in each pair. And that beautiful smile from Chen Xing Xu... Did you see it? The way Xuanshang smiled at Yetan - it tells everything. It's pure, honest, full of love. It warmed my heart many times. And also, Luke Chen's hairstyle and all the design - such a hot man! :D Honestly, I watched first 7 episodes or so only for Chaofeng and Lanjue - these characters were sooo cool. I couldn't stop watching them :D And later on our female leads and Xuanshang stole my heart and then I hadn't even realised when I started to being attached to every character.
The OSTs are very powerful and addictive - I'm gonna listen to them for some time... I mean, for a long time. It's strong, yet subtle, it's building its own story and brings a huge emotional impact.You can't stay indefferent listening to it. Your heart and your soul will melt only from listening to these songs.
The CGI is okay. It's a nice quality, nice standard that we can watch nowadays in dramas and some movies. It's a nice watch.
Honestly, I usually get tired of the story around 30s episode - the story gets draggy in most dramas. And here I binged all 40 episodes in 4 days and I wish there were more. The pace was great, all the time. The whole plot wasn't draggy at all. They could add more episodes, and I bet the story would still be interesting and not draggy at all, but... you know, the 40 episodes chinese limit. Ehh... :( I'm gonna miss all the characters I'll definitely rewatch some of my favorite moments (there were many of them!) and keep the story deep in my heart :) It did bring me so much joy and I'm starting to believe that there is a hope that we will live to see some more master xianxias and not only the tragical cliches.
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Perfectly done yin and yang romance
Do you think that the love between sweet, naive little girl and a badass, overpowered devil is possible? Is it even possible to write such a story and make it rational and logical?Yes and YES!
First of all, this is not your typical xianxia about 3 lives, reincarnations etc... This drama will surprise you a lot. Even if you watched many other xianxias, this one will surprise you with characters' choices, story developments and turnovers.
MAIN LEADS:
The female lead - Orchid - might seem like a cute, naive, sweet little girl that could annoy you through the whole drama, might ruin your fun to watch endlessly, but not hear! If you feel irritated by her character at first, bear with her, just trust her. She will grow on you. Orchid is one of the bravest and most loyal female lead that are out there - she knows who she loves, she can make a decision and do everything for her loved once. Her love won't wave. She knows that decisions she make are risky, but she is brave enough to do them. Her pure intentions and love can melt even the devil's heart and that's what she does.
The romance between the main lead is logical. Our Moon Supreme couldn't fall for Orchid if he weren't bond to her through the Heart Curse. The evil he is, he wouldn't give her a chance to live longer than an hour knowing his short temper.
She is a pure love. He is a pure evil. A true love between Yin and Yang.
And it works.
Both main actors did splendid job with their characters. Their acting was perfect. They know at what stage what they character feels, what are their motivation, and they act just splendid through the whole drama. You can see so much through their expressions and their eyes - it tells the whole story.
Supports:
Characters developments is one of the point that made me truly appreciate this drama. Each, I mean EACH character had their own story, motivation, character and character development. No one stay pure good or pure evil, whatever - all characters change through many circumstainces. They grow, they change. They don't stay stubborn till the day. They know logic. Wow.
Visual development:
The CGI is once of the most beautiful I've ever seen in xianxias. The world building is full of variety. Each scene was built carefully and thought well through - you can see it in the details. Some really good concept artists sat down and spent lot of time wondering how this and that person live, what would they have in their room, in hwta environment they grew up, what are their people customs, what is the lighting, etc. If you watch this drama, you spend a lot of time just consuming these beautiful, well designed environment settings. Mniah :)
Music:
All OSTs are beautiful and addictive :) And they know the right moment to play them ;)
Ahh, whatr to say more? Just go watch the drama, if you haven't seen it yet and don't give up on it after 1 or 2 episodes. It does get better with each one.
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Fine watch, but a bit disappointing... I wish they would give us 2 season
This is a good and entertainment watch for a short drama. It has nice quality, good vis-dev and interesting plot. The concept of parallel universe in comic universe isn't anything new, but it's still little used and has a great potential. Within such a fictional world when an author can set any rule and doesn't make them any logical, you can push the story how far you like. That's why the concept is interesting - the plot is unpredictible because it doesn't have to stick to true world's rules nor logical sense. I wish they would push it more in this drama. When I started watching it, I really hoped for more ridiculous, surprising turn-overs and I wouldn't mind plot wholes. Sadly the story writers decided to play it safe. There could be more fantasy elements and comedy - instead writers focused on the fast paced plot development and it didn't give justice. I feel I didn't get the thing I was looking for in this drama.What's more to say... The pace of the story is good. It looks like a drama with fine budget. Actors did fine job. Characters were interesting. It's an entertaining drama to watch in around 4 hours. Not too long, not very short, just fine. In my opinion, there are still things that the story might use for the plot, to show us more. If they were to make 2nd season, I would definitely watch it.
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Puppy love, cute and fluff in a peaceful world
For me, this drama is a special gem.First of all, the story might not look like it deserves the rating 10/10. I hardly ever give such a high rating to any drama - dramas tend to always lack something. Even a masterpiece stories tend to drag so much, that I would lost the interest in the last episodes and just rushed to the ending. This is were this drama was different to me. I enjoyed each episode and each moment so much from the beginning till the end, that I would happily come for more - no matter how many episodes.
I've felt in love with simplicity, feel-good content, pure love story which happens probably in some perfect world without evil existing. Ou main leads are very lucky people which happen to have it all and everythings go their way. It's too perfect to be real, but after watching so many dramas full of angst, nerve wracking romances, I gladly enjoyed this peaceful content.
Let's begin with the music - oh boy, when I started watching the first episode, the opening song and visual effects were the things that caught my attention - it was energetic, harmenous, well produced. The song made me fall in love with it right away and I didn't want to skip any openings from them on. I love all the soundtrack from the drama - even the subtle Tchaikovsky's violin played by main lead - such beautiful notes.
The visual effects, the colors, the camera work were all great.
Let's talk about our main leads...
Liang Chen is a very succesful artist. Even though she is very popular and well-known, somehow she can still has her normal social life. Everyone supporst her and her choices, which is so different from what we usually get in dramas about stars. It looks like Liang Chen's universe is a pretty peaceful place and nothing really wrong could happen to her. It's naive, but I'm glad they made the story so calm. It's a healing drama and thank you for that :)
Lu Jing is a very smart, loyal, cute puppy who loves only Liang Chen from the very beginning. He is a popular boy, but in his heart there was never a place for any other girl. At first I felt like there was a thin line between his pure, kind intention of simply loving and adoring female lead and... turning him into a psycho fan. Lu Jing's love feel a bit like obsession, it gives this sort of vibe and I was a bit nervous, how this character would changed, if he was a second male lead turned down by female lead - I could easily picture Lu Jing turning into a psycho, thanks to his obsession, really. Thankfully that wasn't the case. Lu Jing is the main male lead, his puppy love turns into a real thing and he is all lovey-dovey cute sweetness fluffy boy that would do anything just for his beloved.
The drama does have loop holes and some inconsistent moments, but I'm gonna pretend these don't exist. I enjoyed the peacefullness and fluff of this drama so much, that it really earned a special place in my heart. I really need more such dramas and I hope China will provide us with similar contents more often in the future. Please do so.
I'm definitely gonna rewatch this drama some time in the future to enjoy the energy, the chemistry and the fluff all over again.
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Deze recentie kan spoilers bevatten
Too much fluff has killed this drama... or not?
Okay, too much fluff has killed this drama. It is great to watch, it gives a very nice warming feeling, but after watching such a peacufull, fluff, sweet story you finally get the feeeling of being... like sated? Another sweet scene and another one, and another one... it might be a fine drama to watch between the episodes of another drama that is too overbearing. This one is just a nice content. Fan service. The plot goes like: two people falling in love and there is no evil second leads nor scheming person, just everyone in their world is nice and good, and there is no hatred, no angst. You can't live in such a peaceful, good world for too long because... it gets boring. I skipped some episodes, and skipped many scenes because it was obvious that they wouldn't change nor introduce to us anything new. Predictable.It is a good drama to watch, if you want to feel: loved, cared for, safe, stable. It gives an illusion of reaching something perfect.
Meanwhile I feel like this drama changed - it could be divided into 3 arc:
1 - Gaming - I loved the first 13 or so episodes. They were so exciting!
2 - Parting the ways - I skipped most of these episodes, because I don't enjoy just watching people harming each other without any valid reason - sorry, Yu Tu, but I think if you love someone and that person loves you too, then you want to fight for them and not just leave them forever. That was selfish of you.
3 - Loving couple - so many episodes full of fluff, sweetness, kisses, waaaay too many, but if you feel that you lack love in your life (like I do), you will love that episodes. What a nice feeling! Yu Tu and Jingjing were so confident about their love, they were determinated, they really wanted their love to stay there with them. That was precious! We rarely see so much fluff in the dramas, yet nowadays it gets more popular in China. I enjoy that a lot. I need it in my life. The chemistry was over the moon. And yes, I got bored of that, because I felt satisfied, that I really didn't need anything more. The drama told me to wait for the romance and then we get such a huge part of beatiful romance that at the end of it we are all fed up. And that's not a bad thing! Imo, it's better to get too much and feeling this satisfaction than barely get any and feel frustration.
So overall, that' s a great (ROMANCE) drama to watch and to get bored which was nice.
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Oh boy, this drama is important for BL drama industry...
Well, I gave it a 10, and I don't give 10 easily - out of 236 dramas I've watched I gave 10 only to 10 dramas so far and KP is one of them. The reason: I think that this drama is important for BL drama industry and it will have a huge impact on the future productions. Why? I want to point just a bunch of reasons. (The review might have a slight of spoilers for character development)1. ML is a bad guy and it's working.
We all have seen this kind of plot - bad ML meets a nice ML, they fell in love, then BG stops being bad guy, turning good and his bad deals are forgiven, at the end of the day he is a good person thanks to the good ML... Not here! Lets turn the table - Kinn is a bad guy, a killer, a mafia and he turns our innocent, poor Porsche into a true evil badass that kills without a second thought. What good guys? They are all bad everywhere and we love them, we have to or just drop the drama. This is their life. Kinn can't escape from his evil life. He needs to keep going and since Porsche can't leave him, he decides to give him this bit of a normal life and still accepts his bad side, protects him and supports him along the way.
2. Not healthy relationship but it's working.
I mean Vegas/Pete of course. This relationship, the development of their characters was very hard to portrait, to do it right and at the same time to convince the watchers that sort of relationship is okay, you can watch it. I'm sad that VP didn't get more time screen but the production used their time very good to show us the deep emotions of our leads. Vegas is a very complicated, deep character with huge scars and even trauma. How to turn such a psycho into a lovable lead? Well, he wasn't really lovable... but he made our hearts broke so many times. Oh Vegas... please remember to feed Pete well.
3. Taboos aren't taboos anymore.
Drama isn't scared of hard topics - murders, mafia deals, tortures... Usually when we get mafia drama such topics are either avoided, or our mafia lead turns to be an okay guy and he doesn't use violence or do bad stuff like drugs, kills, etc. KP isn't afraid of shwoing us these things. Thank you, for giving us a mafia which is a mafia through their actions, and not only by their names.
4. Chemistry overload - this is what the desire looks like.
Our MLs love each other very much and we can really see the devotion in their eyes. All the actors did a great job here, they love their roles and put a lot heart into their play.
5. Predictable? Eh, nope.
When you watched many dramas, you can easily predict what is going to happen in episode 3, 6 and 11, right? It's so predictable. Not here! Each time (or rather most of the time) I felt like I knew what would happen it would surprise me and it always gave me nice surprises! The pacing isn't predictable.
6. High production quality - you shouldn't do it so perfectly, 'cause you just killed other dramas.
The music, the color scheme - these artist in the team were amazing! Dude, their know how to do their job and they do it the best! They know what kind of music, what colors and composition use, and how the camera should work during this scene and that scene to make the viewer feels that right emotion and nothing else. This production is so much on a different level.
THIS is how you do the drama! And now that we know that you can do this right, we want more dramas on this higher quality level. I hope that people will watch this drama and learn how to do it. Just do it right. Stop producing predictable crap with no character development and low overall quality. You see, there we got Kinnporsche - a drama about a mafia falling for a regular sweet guy - such a cliche, naive romance, right? And here this fanfic-like-plot turned into a deep masterpiece. Thank you, guys, for showing us that this is possible! I loved it.
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