Category Archives: Reviews

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Series Review: Chinese Variety Shows

Along with being a C-drama and C-movie fan, I also enjoy quite a few Chinese variety shows as well. Most of these shows involve celebrities competing against one another or facing some interesting, sometimes potentially embarrassing, situations. Rather than reviewing them individually, I thought I’d give an overview of a selection of the shows that I am currently enjoying or have started checking out. Hopefully you’ll find something here that you may enjoy.

For non-Mandarin speakers, most of these series are not subtitled, but there are some that you can still enjoy despite the language barrier.

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Series Review: Age of Legends (Cdrama, 2018)

Age of Legends is a crime drama about scheming drug lords, the police who try to catch them and, caught in the middle, a man trying to remember the last eight years of his life. Revenge, secret identities, murder plots and really bad karaoke abound in this drama which is careful to balance the love story with the story of a man who aspires to be a Chinese Pablo Escobar.

This is the first modern C-drama in a while that’s really impressed me. Despite some rather melodramatic episodes, overall the first 19 episodes have been pretty fun and exciting for me. And after having watched some dramas this year where actors I’ve loved in other shows have underwhelmed me in more recent series, I was really happy to see William Chan and Sandra Ma’s characters actually engage me and keep me interested.

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Discussion Post: What do you think of Bloody Romance’s Finale?

Looks like the dark horse of our summer dramas line-up is Li Yi Tong’s Bloody Romance. I have read so many good words that I’m ready to jump into the wagon; you know, when time permits! But since I did a discussion post for first impression, I thought it’s fair to make one when the series wraps up, which it did yesterday.

Give a review of the series fellow fans, what you like/dislike, what worked for/against, acting, ost, etc.

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Movie Review: Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings (Cmovie, 2018)

Mark Chao, Kenny Lin Gengxin and William Feng Shaofeng reprise their roles as the crime-solving trio from Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon in this sequel, directed by Tsui Hark (who is quickly becoming my favorite Chinese director). Joining them are Sandra Ma (“Oh My General”) and Ethan Ruan (“Legend of Fuyao”) in this mystery involving magicians, sorcery and an Empress eager for power. It’s a fun, summer flick with laughs and plenty of action.

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Movie Review: Animal World (Cmovie, 2018)

Animal World (动物世界) reunites the OTP from “Sparrow”, Li Yi Feng and Zhou Dong Yu, and also features Michael Douglas (Ant-Man) as a mysterious loan shark. Based on a Japanese manga called Kaiji: The Ultimate Gambler, this movie is a live action version of part 1 of the manga about a man forced to participate in a bizarre betting game on board a ship to get out of debt. Despite the frenetic trailers and what appears to be some visual influences from Deadpool, it’s actually more of a drama about how money or a lack of it can challenge people’s morals and motivations.

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Movie Reviews: Legend of the Demon Cat (Cmovie, 2017) and Detective Chinatown 2 (Cmovie, 2018)

I visit the China Film Insider website ever so often to read about the latest movies and last month had read an article about how currently the most popular movies in China are those with “buddy love” storylines. I’d been noticing lately that a lot of the movies and series I have started to prefer as well have had a strong bromance and could see why they would do well.

Good examples of the bromance element can be found in Legend of the Demon Cat and Detective Chinatown 2. Because both movies are basically buddy cop murder mysteries and had a lot of common elements, despite taking place in different time periods and being different genres (historical drama versus modern comedy), I decided to review them together.

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Movie Review: The Wasted Times (Cmovie, 2016)

One of my favorite Chinese movies, The Wasted Times, is now on Viki so I had to review it. I watched this last year during a trip to China and was really drawn in to the story as well as the incredible cinematography so I was eager to watch it again. It’s a dark drama about a Chinese mob boss and a Japanese national, which starts just before the Japanese invasion of Shanghai through to the end of the Sino-Japanese War, and stars Ge You (To Live) and Tadanobu Asano (Thor: Ragnarok).

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Colourful Bone: Series Review (Cdrama, 2017)

Heyo~~ long time no write ^.^ Our wonderful captain has asked that I write a series review since quite a few people have been requesting it, and I’m happy to oblige.

Colourful Bone or 艷骨 is originally a webnovel by Mengyan Dianxia. Although it is said the drama is a novel adaptation, a large chunk of the story has been changed.

I was meant to have this up at the end of January, but with Chinese New Year and the influx of new dramas, this has been sitting in my draft box for the longest time. I can’t harp on about it enough and Kappy can attest to this @_@.

WARNING! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS!

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