*I am getting tired of the Drama Roundup format so I am trying out writing individual posts to see if that would freshen it up for myself.
Synopsis: Born in a military family, our hero (played by Yang Yang) joined the army to prove himself to his father. Despite having the highest score out of all the new recruits during basic training, our hero was still deemed unready by his commander and was subsequently assigned to the squadron responsible over cooking. Stunned when he realized his squadron leader is actually one of the three legendary special force veterans, our hero humbles himself and throws himself into learning how to become the best soldier he can be to serve his country.
Aired: April 2022
Total Episodes: 45
Leads: Yang Yang (You Are My Glory, Love O2O) & Li Yi Tong (Go Go Squid 2 & Court Lady)
Where to watch: Youtube
First Impression (7 episodes in): I will confess that military dramas are not usually my thing so even with the star power of Yang Yang I really wasn’t expecting much from it. The first two episodes took some getting used to, since I am used to Yang Yang playing the aloof cool perfect heroes, so it took some adjustment to see him playing a young hothead cadet.
Much to my surprise, I am liking Glory of Special Forces quite a bit. This one is a coming-of-age story so the majority of the storyline (at least for now) is set in the training camp with a few outing assignments where our hero can show off how much he has grown. The one thing C-drama is quite good at when it comes to these sorts of stories (be it military, police, fireman etc) is creating that inspirational feel, and Glory of Special Forces is no exception. I think the reason this one has been more of my taste compared to others is that Glory of Special Forces has been quite successful in creating not just memorable leads but secondary characters as well. Also, I am really liking the warm humor the scriptwriter has been able to inject into the story. The true test of course is whether that humor will remain or get forgotten later on.
As far as the romantic front, by the end of episode 7, our two leads are still at the getting to know each other stage. Li Yi Tong’s character actually outranks our hero so right now he is just a talented newbie to her. The book this one is based on was very focused on the military side of the story so while I expect the show to increase the romantic storyline for our two leads I definitely wouldn’t go into this one expecting tons of screen time devoted to the romance. However, the story has been interesting and heartwarming enough that I see the romance as a bonus.
Worth Checking out? Yes.
All text copyright @ www.Ninja-Reflection.com
I like this new format. It is punchy, and we know where to go to get the info to decide what to watch.
I like Li Yitong in this… but Yang Yang’s acting is just… yikes. He does better when he plays expressionless stoic characters, with this one looks like he bit more than he could chew. I am not sure if I will keep watching
If you are only a couple of episodes in then I would say give him a couple more. I too couldn’t help but cringed a few times when he did the “hothead” bit…and there was SO much yelling all around, but as the character mellowed so did his character got a lot better.
@Gemo Even though I must say that YY is trying hard here it shows his acting range is pretty limited and didn’t got better over the years. I agree that YY is better for flower vase roles. Even in highly popular You are my Glory his emotional scences were taken from far way or showed his back or a hand in front of his face. So the director knew his limits and dealt with it quite good. That won’t work here. So I dropped this despite LYT doing a good job.