First Episode 41 - 我们俩的婚姻 - The Marriage of Xia and Qin

A part of the Grand First Episode Project -- See this thread for more info.

Sohu HDTV - Youku - Verycd for Emule

NOTE: The episodes on Youku are not in the correct sequence, even though they are named sequentially.

While walking out on her wealthly, cheating boyfriend at a cinema, 夏小宁 accidentally drops her mobile phone. It is picked up by 秦岩 who coincidentally has exactly the same type of phone and believes it to be his - to the point where he even answers a couple of calls saying that the person has dialled the wrong number.

Returning home, 秦岩's sister's french boyfriend has arrived in China, with the purpose of taking the sister back to France to get married, much to the displeasure of 秦岩's mother.

In the midst of trying to sort out that problem, 秦岩 also realises the phone he picked up is not his and returns it to 夏小宁, and they gradually start to see more of each other, leading (in later episodes) to romance and marriage.

I've watched a few episodes of this now already, and in terms of family dramas would rate it slightly below 空镜子, but above 双面胶.

Will give this one a shot, have added a Verycd link.

I have to admit that I was skeptical about comparisons to 空镜子. The title and the first couple of minutes didn't really do much to reassure me.

But you're right, it's much deeper than your average soap/romantic drama. I like both of the main characters, because they aren't typical. They're both introverted and unusual in their own way.

I'm interested in the whole story about the foreign boyfriend, I'm waiting to see how that plays out. The best scene is when he shows his family photo to her mother to try to bond and show his human side and soften her up. He doesn't realise that it only makes her feel more lonely and abandoned, as her own family is gone, and the daughter wants to leave to go to France.

In general, most characters here are isolated in a way. A strong first episode, I'll watch some more.

Just watched the first episode, really liked it. Nice also to see a plausible foreign character who's not just there for comic relief. Won't follow this one at the moment as I have two shows on the go already, but may well come back to it.

Yeah, he genuinely seems nice (in the first episode) once he is given a chance to explain himself. But the language barrier really creates a barrier for him, and he seems alien from the point of view of the family (especially the mother) and even other people.

He seems weird because he's incapable of communicating. This is something the show makes explicit, which is interesting, and the reason I'd like to see how it plays out. Also, he is the first foreign love interest I've seen in a Chinese show who is not American. The French also adds to the language barrier.

The mother character is also interesting. She keeps complaining about the distance, but you do get a feeling that she would only ever be happy with a Chinese son-in-law.

I really like the character of the French husband. He comes back in later shows also speaking and understanding a reasonable amount of Chinese. When watching the first episode of this, I couldn't help but think of all the threads asking about why the parents of their boyfriend/girlfriend couldn't accept their relationship. It provides at least some answers to that question.

I've just figured out that the main guy is 李亚鹏, I knew he was familiar from somewhere.

From now on, I will see Guo Jing every time he's around

I've now finished this. Overall it's not bad, and I think my earlier assessment was not too far off, not as good as 空镜子, but better than 双面胶.

I'd quite happily watch this, but I can only see .rmvb's available for download, no .avi's, which means I can't play it back on my TV. Good to know it's worth finishing.

I've only watched a couple of episodes, but I really like it and will finish it when I get around to it.

Roddy, is there a technical problem you have, or do you have some sort of specialised avi player plugged into your TV? Could a batch convert job solve your problems?

I have a DVD player with USB port which can play DivX files as long as they're not HD or using some odd codec, but can't handle .rmvb at all. I could convert the files I suppose, but I'm not necessarily all that fussed. I could buy the DVD set, but then I can't watch it on my laptop if I need to, as it doesn't have an optical drive. So basically, there's no pleasing me.

Being me I did watch all of the episodes and I must say that what I thought may turn into an interesting show was quite disappointing.

It was all about them fighting. Basically the problem was the mother and the wife but honestly you never knew who was really in the wrong. It seemed that the wife was never really 过分 and the mother was but you felt sorry for both at the same time. Then you just start getting pissed that they can't work it out and be sensible like any normal person.

Anyway, my advice is save the disappoint of the whole thing. Ha ha.

I liked the French guy. The only good foreigner (in a good part I mean) I have seen portrayed yet (but I've only watched 10 or so series so...)