DIS DRAMA DOE

Man this drama was so good from the beginning, but I don’t know what happened for the last 10 episodes – it really flopped back and forth and it was very badly acted, directed, and produced.

The first part of the finale was so good and touching and I was nearly in tears in so many scenes, but wow, the last part of the finale (the so called episode ’23’ and ’24) was just so bad. If you’re reading this and you’re debating whether you should watch or not, well, depends if you’re a veteran drama-watcher or cynical adult, don’t watch it – because the acting, the plot, the development is at best mediocre. If you’re just a drama noobie or you’re just a happy-go-lucky person who loves everything, who knows? You might love this drama.

We start the episode with Gong Min, missing his dear Xiang Xiang. The last time he tried the jade, it worked, so he decided to try again to stab himself to put himself in a near death situation (that’s how the jade gets triggered to send him 2000 years to the present).

Meanwhile, Xiang Xiang misses Gong Min everyday, and waits for him at the bridge, waiting for him to come back.

Gong Min wakes up – turns out the jade didn’t work to save his life. Good thing that his teacher came around to save him from accidentally committing suicide.

Gong Min can’t take it anymore – he can’t stop thinking of Xiang Xiang, and he can’t stop but feel so guilty for leaving Xiang Xiang behind.

So he decided to break the jade once and for all…

Except that last time, it was him that forgot everything when the part of the jade broke off last time, not Xiang Xiang, so I’m not sure how he knew how it’d work, but, drama.

He broke the jade into pieces and it was such a dramatic and sad moment.

Xiang Xiang immediately forgot everything back in the present, and Gong Min even disappeared from the pictures.

Three years later…

Xiang Xiang has become a successful and respected actress in the industry and we see her getting her make-up done and doing a photoshoot for a commercial.

Her and Han Yu Fei also didn’t get back together during these three years – they remained separated, and he was still a player.

… Which doesn’t stay consistent with the plot, because last time the jade was broken, the present changed, and all of Gong Min’s experiences and memories with Xiang Xiang got replaced with ones with Han Yu Fei, so why the change now?

But… drama.

Xiang Xiang gets invited to do a voiceover for a documentary made for Empress Xu. She got invited to do it because she did such a good job at acting at Empress Xu in the Zhao Fei Yan production.

Turns out historians had recently found a love letter written by Gong Min, and they mistakenly thought it was directed towards Empress Xu. Gong Min had written it for Xiang Xiang, and made it out to Xiang Zi.

… WHERE DID MY HANDSOME GONG MIN GO? IS THAT YOU JING BO RAN?! WHAT… HAPPENED?

We get an eerily familiar scene from the first episode, but now everything’s changed. Wang Mang was insistent on usurping before, and now he is determined. He told Gong Min that their best friend relationship had ended when Ying Yue died, and that this was going to be the last time they were going to meet.

Gong Min tried his best to convince him out of it, knowing the history of what happens: Wang Mang gets overthrown after a short period of being in power, and the Han Dynasty is reinstated.

Xiang Xiang does the voiceover for the documentary, but the more she learns about Gong Min, the weirder her behaviour becomes. She empathizes more and more with Gong Min, like she knows him, but everyone around her doesn’t know why.

The filming of the documentary gets moved close to where Gong Min used to live, and Xiang Xiang wanders off.

Xiang Xiang wanders off to the bridge… it’s the place where her and Gong Min used to meet, and where they would have all their very cute moments. It’s very significant to the both of them.

Turns out Gong Min was on the bridge at the same time, and it seemed like that the bridge cleared off when they both got on.

The drama doesn’t really explain what happened, but it seems like that they made eye contact (but it’s weird, because wouldn’t Xiang Xiang, being memoryless and all, freak out at seeing a man dressed in olden days clothes), and Gong Min, who confirms that he saw her by crying.

It’s a really beautiful scene as she walks away, and he sees her walk away and there’s nothing he could do about it.

Jing Bo Ran’s acting is so good… everytime he cries on screen I feel like crying too, because I feel so sad for him.

But I’m still so confused at what happened there, and what had happened… if Xiang Xiang saw him, if she recognized him, why didn’t she say anything? If she didn’t, why didn’t she freak out at seeing a man from the olden days? Why did she just cry?

Sew many questions.

Gong Min decided to end his life… He realized that he was already considered dead in the past, since he was supposed to die from the arrow-witchcraft event, and since he couldn’t return to the present, he had nothing to live for.

Remember how Empress Xu was pregnant, except Gong Min managed to help her hide her pregnancy?

The child was hidden in another family. Gong Min went to go meet him to introduce himself, and the child introduced himself as Liu Xiu. It was such a cute moment because Gong Min gave him an amazed and awed look because Liu Xiu was the future Han Dynasty emperor.

Gong Min gave him an adorable little bow.

Empress Xu got sentenced to death in the end by poison, and Zhao Fei Yan still became the next Empress. Only now did Gong Min realize that he couldn’t change history – no matter what it still reverts back to the same and Empress Xu must die no matter what.

Gong Min is at the bridge, ready to commit suicide.

It’s such a sad scene that I nearly cry. Jing Bo Ran is so good at acting… When he cries, you can really feel the emotion and understand what’s going on in his mind, his regret, and what was at stake.

Since Xiang Xiang and Gong Min are inexplicably linked, when she was at her awards night, about to win the Chinese version of an Oscar, she starts getting these weird feelings and sadness because Gong Min was about to commit suicide.

When Xiang Xiang was doing her press conference (and the time wasn’t indicated, whether it was after the awards night or during the award ceremony). She suddenly gets actual flashbacks of when she first lost her memory and Gong Min came back to find her.

She suddenly remembers Gong Min, and she runs off stage.

Either those are the shittiest reporters and the shittiest fans or she’s not as famous as they make her as, because anybody that is attending that awards night would chase after her to continue taking pictures or get an autograph… but drama.

She somehow figures out to go to the bridge.

Zheng Shuang looks so beautiful in that dress, but man she is so skinny, even on screen.

Xiang Xiang spots the red bracelet that she once tied on Gong Min floating on top the of the water.

*THIS IS WHEN EPISODE 21 AND 22 END*

At this point I’m like, wow, those two episodes were really good. I wonder what the ending would be? I wonder what’s going to be in the last hour and forty minutes of this drama?

EPISODE 23, 24 START!

Ok the spend the first 5 minutes pretty much replaying the awards night and how Xiang Xiang got distracted by regaining all of her memory. She sees a red bracelet in the water…

And we get this really gorgeous scene of Xiang Xiang jumping in.

Everything is dark and black and white, while we see Xiang Xiang’s crimson dress floating while she swims down courageously, determined to save Gong Min.

… And that’s it.

That’s the end.

What. The. F.

That was literally 5 minutes more. Ok, that’s ten out of the promised eighty minutes, what’s next?

Wow. The producers do the crappiest job of explaining what had happened by having Zheng Shuang and Jing Bo Ran do a voiceover as Xiang Xiang and Gong Min, married, and reminiscing on the situation.

“How did you know that I was in the river?” he asks, and she says “Because I saw the red bracelet”.

The montage during the voiceover are their wedding pictures, and just coupley pictures, insinuating that they lived happily ever after.

Ok twenty minutes down, where did the next sixty go?

… We went over the highlights of the entire drama from the beginning… to the end.

At this point the producers just have fully proved that so little significant things have happened in the past twenty-something episodes that it can all be summarized in 60 minutes.

And that’s it. That’s the end of the drama.

I have two theories about the ending (because it’s so bad that I’m sure it wasn’t meant to be like this):

1) Gong Min Dies: Perhaps it was supposed to only end at episode 22, and Gong Min had committed suicide, and Xiang Xiang only had regained her memory from his death, and all she could do is look on in sadness. I think this is the original ending because you can’t see Xiang Xiang’s face in the water scene at all, so it was probably filmed after the official filming had ended. Still better than the montage in episode 23.

2) Xiang Xiang and Gong Min both dies: Since it cut directly to their wedding photo montage rather than a scene where they emerge out of water, it’s possible that the producers had intended to have a Romeo and Juliet tragedy at the end. Still better than the montage.

Everything after the water scene really disappointed me about the drama… it was so obvious that the producers started with a great idea, pitched it to some investors, but they never figured the ending and they made up the plot as they went and filmed. Definitely not a recommended watch!