roddy Posted January 27, 2009 at 02:03 AM Report Posted January 27, 2009 at 02:03 AM (edited) A part of the Grand First Episode Project -- See this thread for more info. I accept full responsibility for the the dodgy English name I just gave this one. Watch the first episode online (Ku6), Download (Emule) Episode summaries in Chinese Watched this last night and while I didn't know what to make of it, I think it might be worth a look. So far it's probably best described as psychological drama - the direction and music keep things very claustrophobic and unsettling, and for the first minute or three I thought I'd chanced upon a Chinese haunted house soap opera. It also had a bizarre moment or two more suited to some dubious Taiwanese show (The Crazy Spaghetti Maker's Many Girlfriends or something, I don't know) which just added to the sense of 'what the hell is going on'. So far, we have wifey 宛丹 (played by the other woman in 中国式离婚) trapped in a loveless marriage to up and coming finance-world bloke 庄世博. The biggest thorn in the marriage ointment is 庄世博's younger sister 芷言 (奋斗‘s 夏琳, though I bet you wouldn't have recognized her if I didn't look it up on Sina and tell you), who not only lives with the couple, she arranges her brother's life, runs his baths, manages his career and frets over his health. Oh, and falls asleep in his lap while the wife peers through a door left ajar. Are they? Aren't they? What's causing 庄世博's frequent nose bleeds? Will it stop him getting the CEO job? What's with 芷言's secret visits to the pharmacy? Will 宛丹 move back in? Will we ever meet 淘淘? Has 宛丹's friend got lost on her way to another TV show? I actually want to know, and I'm going to watch more. This one could well crash and burn quickly, but the first episode was intriguing enough for me to give it a bit longer. Plus the director also did 好想好想谈恋爱, and while I never got into it (and it's a completely different feel to this one) it did seem to be pretty consistent. Edited February 9, 2010 at 02:07 PM by renzhe Quote
roddy Posted January 28, 2009 at 01:17 PM Author Report Posted January 28, 2009 at 01:17 PM Finished the second episode - it's still very odd. I'd love to know what anyone else thinks of it. Quote
roddy Posted January 30, 2009 at 10:22 AM Author Report Posted January 30, 2009 at 10:22 AM Up to episode four now, and while it's still holding up it's more of a conventional family / business drama - the two VPs squaring up to each other to take the boss's job, the wife wondering if she's fulfilling her duties adequately. Have two more episodes downloaded, going to see how those pan out before deciding on a further bandwidth investment. Quote
HerrPetersen Posted January 31, 2009 at 10:03 AM Report Posted January 31, 2009 at 10:03 AM How good would you have to understand Chinese to have a rough idea about what's going on in this series? Quote
roddy Posted January 31, 2009 at 10:10 AM Author Report Posted January 31, 2009 at 10:10 AM (edited) I'd say it's fairly simple. Everybody . . . tends to be . . . emotional and . . . talking slowly. Some of the office scenes could be a bit trickier but they're not (yet) central. You get some chengyu and four character phrases thrown around, but not too many. I seem to remember the first episode being a bit trickier as there's a semi-formal party, so some semi-formal language. But I would say that as long as you have an intermediate level, are concentrating, and aren't going to fall over if you can't follow a sentence then you should be able to get something out of it. Also, it's not like the plot is that fast-moving. You could probably just follow it by paying attention to who's crying and shouting at who. There's a link in the first post to watch online - give it a shot, see what you think. Edited January 31, 2009 at 09:12 PM by roddy Quote
HerrPetersen Posted January 31, 2009 at 10:25 AM Report Posted January 31, 2009 at 10:25 AM I just started downloading the first 4 or so episodes on emule. Basicly I just want to get Chinese input - while hoping to just catch some words/phrases - so I guess anything will be just fine. And having a strange atmosphere, like you described for this series, might add to the experience. Btw This is a great project you are running here. Can't believe I missed out on it for so long ;) Quote
roddy Posted January 31, 2009 at 10:29 AM Author Report Posted January 31, 2009 at 10:29 AM Well, I kicked it off, but without input from others I'm just the crazy bloke talking to himself on the Internet. Renzhe's been doing way more than me lately anyway. If you fancy trying to time things so that you're watching this at the same time as Renzhe and me (I'd be rewatching), stick a post in here. Having just finished episode six, I'd say this is so far a bit like 中国式离婚, but with extra office politics and comic relief plots thrown in. Quote
rob07 Posted January 31, 2009 at 12:25 PM Report Posted January 31, 2009 at 12:25 PM Just finished 奋斗, so I guess I'm looking for something else to watch. Roddy, would you recommend this over 子夜? Quote
roddy Posted January 31, 2009 at 12:34 PM Author Report Posted January 31, 2009 at 12:34 PM To be honest in terms of quality there's not much between them. I'm watching them both in parallel, and not finding myself favoring one over the other. The daft subplot in this may annoy you more than it does me. For that reason I think I'd probably tend to recommend 子夜, but if you'd prefer something contemporary rather than historical, with strong female characters rather than strong male ones, and significantly shorter at 22 episodes compared to 36 then 锁春记 could well be worth a look. 子夜 also looks better, but I'm not sure if that's the fault of the production or the files - I'm downloading .avi's from verycd. Quote
renzhe Posted January 31, 2009 at 12:36 PM Report Posted January 31, 2009 at 12:36 PM Basicly I just want to get Chinese input - while hoping to just catch some words/phrases - so I guess anything will be just fine. If this proves too difficult, don't forget that there are 40 other shows, and they have a difficulty rating, so you can pick something more suitable. Quote
HerrPetersen Posted January 31, 2009 at 01:35 PM Report Posted January 31, 2009 at 01:35 PM Yeah - I already found the difficulty ranking; downloaded like a berserker for the last two days at my parents house (at my apartment I only have 128kbit/s downstream). Quote
renzhe Posted January 31, 2009 at 01:38 PM Report Posted January 31, 2009 at 01:38 PM Awesome! Don't forget to drop a line into the relevant threads after you've finished watching, even if it's just to say it was crap. I've downloaded this one and will watch it this weekend. Quote
renzhe Posted February 1, 2009 at 12:32 AM Report Posted February 1, 2009 at 12:32 AM 奋斗‘s 夏琳 OK, you've convinced me to watch it! This show is really strange. I've never seen something like it. Basically, it's a family drama, but it has frequent wild mood/genre swings that completely throw you off. It feels like a family drama, but every now and then, the camera work or the music or the special effects make you expect an alien ship to drop into the living room. At one time, it unexplicably turns into Smiling Pasta (the actress responsible for this is, I think, one of the stewardesses from a previous gangster show), and often, it makes you think that you're watching a JFK assassination movie, or at least makes you expect that Freddie Krueger is lurking behind the couch. But despite all of this, it doesn't fall apart, it just confuses you for a couple of seconds, before promptly coming back to being a normal family drama. A very strange experience indeed. Oh, and the boom mike technicians had a field day. Imron will love it! Other than this, the show is OK, not brilliant, but not bad either, apart from the music, which is excellent. There are enough open questions to keep you interested and the language is lower intermediate and not difficult to follow. Quote
imron Posted February 1, 2009 at 06:40 AM Report Posted February 1, 2009 at 06:40 AM This show is positively schizophrenic. I don't see myself watching any more episodes. Quote
roddy Posted February 1, 2009 at 08:50 AM Author Report Posted February 1, 2009 at 08:50 AM What amazes me about the show is that it is schizophrenic (and incidentally after a few episodes some of the characters reveal their own mental health issues) and yet I keep watching. I don't particularly enjoy the bits set in the TV station and at points they're downright annoying - one minute you're watching a marriage crash heartbreakingly onto the rocks, and then what might as well be the Benny Hill theme starts up. But 马伊琍 and 咏梅 give some pretty fine performances (anyone who thinks 夏琳 in 奋斗 was a case of a feisty young Chinese girl playing a feisty young Chinese girl wants to take a look at this) and I do want to find out how the wife-brother-sister dynamic plays out and where it takes the hints of troubled childhoods and mental illness. The sub plots I'll admit are either pointless, or as yet inexplicable. I wouldn't blame anyone who skipped through the TV station bits, and so far nothing that has happened to that set of characters has had any impact on the main plot - although there's scope for that to happen, with 胡川 appearing in both lines and if I remember correctly the presenter girl and her mum spotting one of the vice-presidents visiting his mistress early on. Wouldn't be surprised if the main plot was deemed too short / too depressing, and they had to pad it out. At 22 episodes it's short for Chinese TV already, and that's with all the nonsense. Quote
rob07 Posted February 2, 2009 at 11:17 AM Report Posted February 2, 2009 at 11:17 AM After reading Roddy and Renzhe's reviews, I felt compelled to watch the first episode. I suppose the thinking is that if you are going nuts and/or worried about your husband sleeping with his baby sister while she poisons him, it is probably every bit as scary as if Freddy Krueger really were behind the couch, so why not use the same sort of music and camera work as you would for Freddy? Based on one episode, my guess would be that the point of the Smiling Pasta bit is to put the manic into manic-depressive. It may be valid artistically, but I had the same reaction as Imron did, I didn't like it. Having said that, watching one episode was quite an interesting experience, something a bit different. Quote
roddy Posted February 2, 2009 at 12:27 PM Author Report Posted February 2, 2009 at 12:27 PM Right, I've now watched up to episode 12, which puts me halfway through, and so far I have to say it's getting a thumbs up. I have no idea if this is because it's genuinely good, or I have miserable taste, but there you go. The Smiling Pasta tributes have calmed down a bit now that the two stories lines are coming together - not unpredictably hubby and the wife's friend are having a bit of a romance. Less predictably, it's actually being quite well done, and I found myself really feeling for poor 世博 - his marriage ends, the not unattractive 丛碧 takes a reciprocated interest in him, and his scheming sister puts the boot in. I'm currently reading 芷言 as representing all that is wrong about family pressure to success distilled into one miserable nutter, and am actively willing her brother to run from the boardroom singing I Want to Break Free. It certainly has its daft moments, even in the main 'good' plot - we're meant to believe that their mother, who died in (rough guess) the early to mid 1980's, had the dying wish of 'raise my child to be a 金融家。‘ I can't help but feel that's a lot of pressure to put on a kid when the ink's still not dry on the reform and opening up documents. Overall it's a bit white-collar, it's a bit household and family, it's a bit . . . mental. But if I enjoy the remaining ten episodes as I enjoyed the last few, it might be my favourite Chinese show yet. I suspect I've been watching so much Chinese soap lately that I've effectively entered an alternate reality. Join me. Quote
roddy Posted February 4, 2009 at 04:05 PM Author Report Posted February 4, 2009 at 04:05 PM Finished! About halfway through the Smiling-Pasta-Tribute actors get folded into the main storyline and the silly bits stop. This means it's unrelenting, dark, disorientating and melodramatic for the full forty minutes of each episode. Some characters are given brief moments of happiness, but only so hope can be quickly snatched away. Characters die, reveal deep psychological trauma, have their entire lives collapse, and get arrested. On their wedding day. It is not a light-hearted romantic comedy. That said, bar some intrusive direction (stop playing with the focus!) and slight flaws in the story - the cause of 芷言's trauma is just a bit too neat - I've got to say it was worth the watch. The performances are solid right the way through* with 马伊琍 and 咏海 doing some great work together. The guy playing 庄世博 also comes into his own as he tries to break free of his sister's grasp and enjoy himself a little. And while nobody gets a happy ending, they do all get an ending of one sort or another - I don't think there are any plot lines left hanging. I'm hesitant to recommend this. However I can say that I rarely find myself sitting down and watching large chunks of television in a row, yet finished this in little over a week, and have been knocking back five episodes daily the last two days. *pretty much everything I say does not necessarily apply to the Smiling Pasta bits Quote
imron Posted February 4, 2009 at 04:48 PM Report Posted February 4, 2009 at 04:48 PM To be honest I don't really understand the appeal. After watching the first episode, I also skipped ahead and watched bits of the last episode. The whole "it was all the laowai's fault" was enough to convince me not to waste any more time with it. Quote
roddy Posted February 4, 2009 at 04:59 PM Author Report Posted February 4, 2009 at 04:59 PM Yeah, that was one thing I didn't like - making that the way her brother got to study in the US just seemed a bit contrived. It's not a major plot point though. Well, the fact that she was somehow traumatized is, but what actually happened is only revealed in the last episode. There's no 'the foreigner did it' theme running through the series. I'm also quite happy to accept that this show is in fact no good, and I have rubbish taste. Quote
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