25 in 2025 Part Four: September — October
Spring in my town is gorgeous thanks to all the blossoms, so it's apt that my Spring viewing highlights were mostly from the land of the sakura.
SEPTEMBER
This Thriving Land (2025) 8.75/10
This was the first C-Drama of its type I've watched: An historical Drama set in relatively modern times (starting in 1926) and providing a more or less straightforward historical retelling of the history of the period. It was a CCTV Drama and the subject matter was inspired. I say that because the story of China's emergence from the chaos and brutality of the warlord era and through into the savagery of the Japanese invasion meant that the ever-present propaganda had the virtue of being largely factual. There was no need for heavy-handed out of place insertions ad nauseam of "China is great, the CCP doubly so" (I'm looking at YOU, Go Go Squid) because the actual, real history makes it hard to argue against the assertion that what China became was better than what it was. This meant the actors could get on with acting. And act they did.
Yang Mi was superb in the lead role, she totally owned it and deserved all the plaudits she's received. Apparently, her performance in this role caused something of a seismic shift in perceptions of her acting ability. It was the first of hers I'd seen, so I can't comment on what she was like before it. I can, though, comment on the actor playing her character's younger sister. I first saw Xing Fei in Put Your Head On My Shoulder, a sweet story that is one of my favourite C-Drama romcoms. A showcase of acting talent it was not. So seeing her in this was a revelation. Her character's arc called for a wide range of emotions and reactions, and she did really well. I hope her next role is a lead with a more upbeat trend for her arc.
That "upbeat arc" comment relates to my only real complaint about this show. The only one of these twenty-five I scored at less than 9/10, this Drama was on track for a ten from me all the way up to about episode 29. The story was engaging, the acting FANTASTIC, the characters all very real. The final 6-7 dealt with the Japanese invasion, so obviously there was going to be a lot of tragedy and suffering, but in my opinion the wrong people suffered pointlessly, and in the most egregious instance the wrong people suffered at the hands of the wrong person. Someone who was really a victim was made into a villain, while someone who was really a villain right from the beginning of episode one got away with EVERYTHING. I know that, to quote the Grandpa in The Princess Bride, "life is not fair", but the sheer relentlessness of the villain's villainy and the fact that they literally suffered ZERO consequences stuck in my craw.
Finally, a note on production values. I don't often comment on these because I often don't notice them. But one thing that stood out about this Drama was the way the peasants all looked like peasants. Dirty, unmade up, skin the colour of actual real East Asian people's skin, faces that showed blemishes and even (brace yourself) PORES. The CCP ruthlessly censor content in C-Dramas, but K-Dramas ruthlessly self-censor when it comes to physical appearance, sacrificing any semblance of reality. For making its characters look very nearly the way they would ACTUALLY have looked, I salute This Thriving Land.
Alice-san Chi no Iroribata (2025) 9.25/10
VERY quiet, VERY slow, bucolic, restful, great food. Almost nothing happens and takes geological time to do so - 1000% my kinda place and my kinda pace. Even by J-Drama standards this was short, but it felt right. The noona-dongsaeng romance element had the potential for major ickiness, but they handled it well, keeping it low key and very slow growth, almost open-ended in a way. The REAL love affair was with the food, presented with soft, slow sensuous passion. A mouth-watering slice of country life.
Nagatan to Aoto: Ichika no Ryourijou (2023) 10/10
The ultimate noona-dongsaeng romance in terms of age: The widowed female lead is literally nearly twice the age of the student male lead! An age gap of some sixteen years when he's only 19 at the start of the story was quite a challenge to overcome. Added to that, theirs was a contract marriage that was completely unintended. The young groom was supposed to marry the FL's younger sister, until she eloped with her lover.;
Given all that, this was not a love at first sight romance, and that was a good thing. At their first meeting, they crossed swords on several subjects, from cooking to language, with the groom contemptuously dismissive of the local dishes and the local dialect, and the bride-to-be giving as good as she got.
What follows is a perfectly-paced story of growth. Growth toward mutual support and understanding, and, VERY eventually, love. Each of them falls for the other long before either realises it, and the magic that brings them together is culinary magic. There was A LOT of cooking in Alice-San, but in this Drama, it felt like more than 85% of it took place in the kitchen of the restaurant the FL had inherited and which the male lead was working to save.
The Drama highlights the mountain-like obstacles facing a woman wanting to be recognised and respected as a professional chef in 1950s Japan. The female lead's resilience drew her young husband to her, and he provided practical support and strong emotional encouragement and affirmation for her. When he wishes her well before a cooking competition in her local dialect, the same dialect he'd dissed at their first meeting, the die was well and truly cast. I was pleased that I picked it up without needing the subtitles to tell me, because it was a very sweet, touching moment.
Given the glacially slow development of the romance, which made perfect sense for the story and the characters, I am very excited to see where their story goes in season two.
Gibo to Musume no Blues (2018) 9.75/10
This is one of a VERY rare breed of Dramas: A Drama I dropped, then tried again much later, and LOVED. I first tried it not long after it aired, but the manga-esque opening episodes were jarring and I couldn't put up with it. After reading many raves about it in the intervening years, I decided to try it again in 2025. I pushed through those early episodes and was rewarded with a beautiful story of found family. A single woman exclusively focused on her very successful career marries a single father, who not long thereafter dies, leaving her a widowed stepmother to a young girl. Why he married her is obvious from the start, but the question of why married him is not really fully addressed until much later. It's something her stepdaughter wonders about a lot, and the explanation is very touching.
The ten-episode Drama was released in 2018 and there were 3 single episode SPs released in consecutive years - 2022, 2023 and 2024. This was a great plan as it allowed for the two lead characters to grow and age realistically, and for the course of the mother-daughter relationship to be depicted in careful, affectionate detail. I am so VERY happy I gave this gem a second chance!
OCTOBER
To the Wonder (2024) 9.25/10
Eight episodes of BEAUTIFUL scenery. There's a lot more to this Drama of course, but the stunning Altay region is unmistakably a major character in its own right. "Rural redemption" stories can be dodgy, and I dropped another C-Drama built around that trope in 2025. This one though distinguished itself in several ways. The first thing that struck me was that it's the first, and so far only, Chinese Drama I've seen in which much of the dialogue was not in Mandarin, or indeed in any Sinitic language.
The respect and support shown for the Kazakh and Mongolian peoples and cultures was a real surprise to me. My inner cynic saw it as propaganda for the benign oversight of the CCP, but the sheer beauty of the scenery and the genuineness of the story pushed those snide asides aside. This was a celebration of non-Han Chinese people, and it was awesome. Throw in some very impressive horseback archery and a heartbreakingly brutal end for one of the key characters in the poster above that caused me to actually almost cry for the first time ever on seeing that particular circumstance, and this visual stunner was worth all the praise heaped on it.
The end, believe it or not, is nigh. It can be found below.
|
PART 1
|
PART 2
|
PART 3
|
PART 5
|
Comments
Post a Comment