The Gravity of a Rainbow (Chinese Drama)
For those who are fans of Godfrey Tsao’s 2016 drama Remembering Lichuan, you should definitely check out this one since it’s based on a novel written by the same author so the two shows have the same vibe. It probably helps a lot that Godfrey Tsao’s character in The Gravity of a Rainbow has a similar quiet gentle charm as his character in Remembering Lichuan.
Godfrey Taso’s character is a tall and handsome young professor who will fall in love with his new assistant professor “Rainbow”, our heroine. Despite our heroine’s joy of finding her soulmate, our two leads’ romance hits one obstacle after another when our heroine’s adopted mother insists that her future son-in-law will not be some poor professor burdened with the duty of caring for his sick single mother.
Besides the two leads’ romance, the drama will also follow our heroine’s two best friends’ relationships. If the show was simply about our two leads’ romance, I liked what I saw in the first three episodes to put this on my watch list. However, I am hesitating right now because I am not so sure I am interested in the secondary storylines that based on what I read in the novel…will end up getting really messy and tragic. The show’s official synopsis does give some hope that perhaps the drama will choose to give our secondary characters an alternate ending than what was in the novel so I think I will wait for this one to end then marathon it.
No Secrets (Chinese Drama, New)
The C-remake of K-drama I Can Hear Your Voice, with Lee Bo Young and Lee Jong Suk. While the C-remake did make some changes to the story (ie. the male second lead is not a cop but the heroine’s new boss at the law firm, our heroine is a newbie lawyer instead of a jaded public defender), the general gist of the story with our hero being able to hear people’s thoughts and using his special gift to help/protect our heroine stayed the same.
With this one being a remake, some comparisons are unavoidable. As far as the two leads go, I thought Stephy Qi is perfect for this noona romance…but I am not so certain about casting Ji Han as our hero who should still be a high school student. Ji Han is 26 years old in real life but that in itself is not strange since plenty of actors and actresses play roles that are much younger than they are in real life. For example, Lee Jong Suk was about 24 when he did I Can Hear Your Voice back in 2013. However, Lee Jong Suk has a baby face and Ji Han…does not which is why Ji Han looked great in his previous drama Our Glamour Time as the handsome CEO but not so believable here as a highschooler.
The C-remake’s villain is also nowhere nearly as scary as the one in the Korean original. In my book that is mostly a plus but I can see a lot of viewers might not agree with me.
All in all, I think No Secret can be a decent watch as long as you separate it from the K-original.
Love is Fate (Chinese Drama)
Barely escaping with her life after a harrowing car accident while living overseas, our heroine is stunned to discover that she has somehow gained the ability to see other people’s past experiences through physical touch. Unfortunately, our heroine also finds out the hard way that her newfound ability comes at the cost of agonizing headaches whenever she comes into physical contact with people. Left with no time to figure out her new ability when she finds out that her father is lying unconscious in a hospital back in China, our heroine rushes back home and becomes the brand new CEO of her father’s company. Knowing full well that her father’s sudden illness is most likely not an accident (thanks to her new ability), our heroine can’t afford to trust anyone other than our hero, a stranger she met on the plan…and the man who for some reason can make her agonizing headache disappear when she touches him.
With Vin Zhang as our hero, I was pretty shocked at the show’s poor production. While I wouldn’t say Vin Zhang has achieved the super A lister status, but he has definitely been on a steady climb with a good number of well known shows under his belt the last few years so why cast him as the hero then skimp on the rest of the budget? The poor production aside, the story itself actually seems fairly decent. It might still be worth checking out if you can pretend you are watching a web drama from a couple of years ago.
The Lies Within (Korean Drama, New)
Her whole world shaken by her father’s sudden death and her husband’s disappearance, our gentle heroine has no choice but to join the Nation Assembly in hopes of saving her husband. Li Min Ki plays the detective who reluctantly agrees to his boss’ request for him to handle one last case before his long-awaited transfer to a quiet rural town, but ends up helping our heroine’s quest to save her husband.
This one is intense! I am usually not the type to be interested in crime thriller mixed with political intrigue but this one had me so piqued with curiosity by the end of the first episode that I just had to watch the next one.