The Distance Between Us and Evil is one of the rare high-rating Chinese dramas in the past few years, with 300,000 people scoring 9.4 on Douban.
The screenwriter, Lv Miyuan, has had a hardcore reputation for her work, and was once thought to be well worth waiting for.
However, the new work is "suspected of overturning" played a smash, Douban 7.7 rating, for the net drama is not a good result.
The cuts and seams churned out by the show's three different styles and textures are particularly pronounced.
The first is the old and outdated idol drama formula, with second-ranking director Feng Jiarui, and a large number of familiar Taiwanese old idol dramas on his resume. The drama has a variety of very routine cancer, mountain rescue, bloodshed love routine, calling for suspicion: perhaps from the old routine of 50 cents a catty wholesale?
The second is the manga style of the original work (which was adapted from the "Strong Women's Club" manga), which retains a lot of the cuteness of the secondary characters, and although the logical chain of closure doesn't make a lot of sense, the cuteness and the fun is an advantage in and of itself.
If outdated idol drama tropes are inherently objectionable, there's nothing wrong with the characters' "second-generation manga style," but rather the irreconcilable mix of several different textures.
The third is a sporadic, cold, but warm, look at real life.
I don't expect the screenplay by Lui Mak-won to reproduce the texture of "The Distance Between Us and Evil," but I do expect a little more greed from such a great screenwriter.
In the first few episodes, the occasional touch of realism was a plus, and along with the cute atmosphere, it gave a high quality to the ordinary story, but after 10 episodes, that "sporadic realism" is long gone, and the only counterproductive effect may be that it abruptly contrasts with how awkward the rest of the show is.
It's called Startups, and it's also about three girls who quit their big companies to start one together.
The first few episodes had a relatively more endearing vibe, and the texture control was more online, which in a way covered up a lot of the common problems, making it a "high quality" show.
Unfortunately, it falls apart quickly.
A couple of people started their own businesses and encountered problems that were almost always solved by men who were emotionally involved.
Especially noteworthy is the resort business.
Chen Yihan played Xia Zhi, persuade the resort boss Long Jie to give himself a chance, the original problem of this bridge is still just pompous, false, set, fatal is that these two suddenly came to a life and death sadistic relationship line!
One second they are still talking about their views on the mountains, and the next second the mountaineer heroine is lost in the mountains alone, and Long Jie goes back to save her.
The heroine has a fever and thinks Long Jae is her ex-boyfriend, and after a round of hugging and the old "had to help a delirious person change out of wet clothes" routine, the two become a couple.
The career storyline is already forced, but to add artificial sweeteners that aren't sweet at all?
Even more shocking is that the two good after the boyfriend Long Jie suddenly play missing, and suddenly ran back to Xia Zhi confession.
Xia Zhi desperately trying to meet the deadline to fulfill his wish, but the partners asked why she refused to say anything, causing a misunderstanding.
While the group is arguing, Long Jae's father comes on the line and reveals the truth: "His cancer has returned".
It's 2021, and they're still using this bloody three-piece suit.
They completely rely on coincidence to create conflict points in the plot, and force misunderstandings to create dramatic conflict.
Horrible, after watching this can't believe that this and "The Distance Between Us and Evil", "Who Fell in Love with Him First" is the work of the same writer.
There's the same serious illness, the same chance coincidences, but the coincidences and accidents aren't the centerpiece of these excellent works, they're just small introductions to a lot of thought-provoking content.
But behind the coincidences arranged by The Things They Started is probably a random compilation of old favorites drawn from a stockpile of tropes.
This storyline about being stranded on a mountain, falling in love with the man who saves you, and then having him tragically die doesn't seem to have much of an impact on the main storyline if you cut it out altogether, does it?
However, the main storyline of this business is not much to look at either, as the owner of the project is the love interest, the money is not enough to get a bank loan, and the person in charge of the project is the student who has been secretly in love with Xia Zhi for many years.
Any story can't be separated from chance, but if it relies on coincidence to drive the progress bar, on set-ups and on the finger of gold to resolve conflicts, it's just going to feel old-fashioned and suspended.
The initial characterization of the characters is less about writing them well and more about creating thin personas.
A three-dimensional character with flesh and blood, her strength, weakness, good and evil changes, emotional changes, are traceable, psychological motivation, dynamic changes, struggles, pain and so on, the texture is likely to impress people .
But The Things They Do doesn't do a good job of portraying the characters, and seems to only do a good job of creating a persona.
Xia Zhi, played by Chen Yihan, takes on the persona of a talented, optimistic, love-brain.
In the early stages, her big eyes fluttered so that people couldn't help but feel that she was really a perpetual genki girl, and in the later stages, she made people's heads spin with a flurry of hard acting in bizarre coincidences.
Similarly, Lin Xinru's Gongye Xiaoniao is also very routine, and the romance she encounters from the tenth episode onwards makes people want to swing a sledgehammer to smash the routine: she and a young painter look at a store at the same time, and the painter rents it first, and then says, "If you go out with me, I'll back out of the lease.
Immediately after she found out that the painter had been wrongly accused of plagiarism, she helped the painter solve the problem and became the painter's agent.
Not to mention the fact that "everyone has to pack things and love together" in this drama, the "female domineering president and young wolfdog" trope has been shot in such an uninteresting and tasteless way that it's already very catchy.
Then I thought to myself, "Why haven't you given up on the show?
I think it's because the three girls are kind of cute together.
(But I can't keep up with it even if it's cute)
I like the little details of the relationship more than the drama of the three of them fighting.
Mei Mei adults sit down after the office to give everyone a pen, took a fancy to Gongye Xiaoniao, Gongye Xiaoniao very disgusted thrown back, are not important bridge, but the overall atmosphere is cozy and lovely.
Although all three personas are conventional, they are cute together.
It is also unexpected that the "Mei Mei", Lin Mei Ji (played by Jane Man Shu), is actually the most interesting one.
When she was on the show, she seemed to have a lot of unlikeable flaws attached to her, such as the suspicion that she was using her beauty to get resources for herself, and that she would never say "I" properly, but rather "others".
When she introduces herself to anyone, it's not "I'm Im Mi-ji", it's "I'm Mi-ji".
This is a smart, hard-working, sweet, positive character.
She likes Qiu Ze's Zheng Yi Nan, but Zheng Yi Nan likes Xia Zhi and has rejected her many times, but she is able to turn "pestering" into a passionate thing.
The other side rejected her, sent her a good man card, "you are a very good girl", she is very confident and happy to nod "hmm".
The other side said "don't waste your youth on me", she shouted "I have unlimited youth" hahahahahaha.
Before the appointment with Zheng Yinan, standing in the doorway to cheer themselves up;
Before attending the company's important meeting, pulling the other two girls while shouting slogans while doing square dance-style pumping action.
These are all very caricatured and exaggerated features, but Lin Mei Ji, who wasn't very likable at first glance when she came on the show, has become the least "blurry-faced" of the trio.
In a show that focuses on three female characters, I initially thought Qiu Ze's character was just a tool.
He plays the heroine's schoolmate, who is responsible for her obsessive and absolute crush after her boyfriend leaves her behind.
Keeps her ex-boyfriend's unwanted cell phone and messages her every year on her birthday under false pretenses.
In such a clichéd idol setup, there was one moment that really struck a chord, when the two of them confronted each other on the spot after his heart was revealed.
Chen Yihan's character says, "He still loves me, why else would he text me every year.
Zheng Yi Nan was so stoic, he didn't say (that's what I sent).
This subplot is emotionally impactful, despite the fact that the character's reasoning for "being physically punished for confessing as a child and not daring to do so as a grown-up" is pretty bullshit, and despite the fact that the two don't look like a sister and a brother in the story, at least this holding back moment captures the weight of the love, the longevity of the love, and the intolerance of the love.
The character, also, has been fluctuating between "an honest man who adheres to his ideals" and "a profit-seeker who is about to be swallowed up," making it hard to tell whether he's staying pure or going gray;
The character has been fluctuating between "an honest man who adheres to his ideals" and "a profit-seeker who is about to be swallowed up.
Frankly speaking, the first two episodes of the show were very comic book-like in the way they portrayed the injustices that Xia Zhi encountered in the workplace;
She was backed up by a special assistant who admired her and was always ready to back her up, which didn't really convey the horrors of the black workplace.
On the contrary, Qiu Ze's workplace scenes in the first few episodes really captured the heartache of a low-level employee.
It was also his few difficult moments that reminded me of Lawyer Wang Pardon in "With Evil".
But the overall texture of the play is clearly far worse, and every time he's told his difficulties, he seems to be quickly given shortcuts.
Another problem with the show is that the clues are scattered. From the perspective of the three female leads, the story radiates to Zheng Yi Nan, who should already be at the border here;
but then the show writes about his family, his ex-girlfriends, and the more it spreads, the further away it goes.
In the trailer, the ex-girlfriend seems to be joining the three heroines in the next episode, so the radius of the story is kind of rounded back;
The most outrageous thing is that, because of Xia Zhi's flat and uninteresting character, I'm starting to think that the ex-girlfriend is more suited to take the lead role in the script?
The mom and dad (played by Li Liqun and Lan Xinmei), who appeared more often in the first few episodes, are also a more adorable ambience.
Even if you just make a cute set story of fighting monsters and upgrading, it's acceptable to maintain a good cute atmosphere;
but the story is a bulk concoction of outdated sets, with intermittent texture-cutting bridges, and the more you watch, the more people want to vomit.
Chinese women's workplace romance "four unlike" drama, the road is still far away.