Skip to main content

Campy but Fun

Out of boredom I'm trying out more Chinese dramas these days, and that's why I began watching My Lethal Man, a slightly absurd but visually lovely romantic thriller that had great ideas and plotting that tried hard to make it all work. If you can overlook about ten thousand mistakes with the storyline, characters and science and just go along for the ride, it's pretty fun, too.

The premise: Shen Manning, an ordinary Chinese art student at university, literally runs into her doppleganger, rich and powerful heiress Zhuang Xin Yan (both roles played by Li Mo Zhi) at school. Because they're as identical as twins, Manning is shortly after mistaken for Xin Yan and abducted by enemies of the Zhuang family. The real Xin Yan rescues her twin, but is killed while protecting Manning during a lethal car accident. Enter Yan Xing Cheng (played amazingly well by Fan Zhi Xin), Xin Yan's gorgeous and rather scary fiance, who orders the doctors to perform a corneal transplant from Xin Yan to Manning to save her sight. When Manning wakes up after the surgery, he demands she pose as Xin Yan and help him infiltrate the dead heiress's powerful family for reasons he won't explain. Although she initially resists (and nearly jumps off a building trying to avoid Xing Cheng), Manning's guilt over Xin Yan's death compels her to agree.

This rocky start was just the first of many thriller farces throughout the series. The Zhuang family is supremely messed up, and it seemed like every five minutes Manning was about to be exposed as a fraud. Yet somehow she always manages to save herself, whether it's eating a fruit she's allergic to, or figuring out an electronic password she couldn't possibly know. She also quickly falls for Xin Cheng, who alternates between threatening her, ignoring her, or kissing her like they're lovers when they're alone. When he's not with Manning he's either intimidating someone, beating the crap out of someone who gets in his face, or demonstrating how cold and indifferent he is (but he's really good at all of it, so you don't care.)

The problems with this series are so numerous we'll be here all day if I list them. I knew from the beginning who the real culprit was, so that could have been masked better. Someone in the script writing department also needs to learn the difference between corneas and irises. Smoke inhalation recovery takes a little longer than 5 minutes, too, guys. The most glaring error is when Xin Cheng's true identity is revealed, and you realize there's actually no point to him using Manning to get inside the Zhuang family when he could have just walked in and told them who he really is -- he has the DNA to prove it, too -- which also could easily resolve the black moment toward the end. Also, there are a couple of plot twists that were pretty silly, including one with Manning's dad that doubled back on itself at the last minute. A couple of secondary characters were absolutely wasted story-wise, including one of Xing Cheng's henchmen, who stole every scene he was in.

That said, the series was really fun, thanks to pretty stellar performances by the two main actors. There's a background myth of two roses woven throughout the story that I thought was beautiful. Everyone in the series is gorgeous, of course, and while all the actresses look on the anorexic side they weren't as painfully thin as some others I've seen in c-dramas. Some of the cinematography was actually very well done. In the end, I have to say I enjoyed it. Available on Viki.com

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Goodwill Gamble #2 Arrives

My second Goodwill gamble arrived; this is one I paid ten bucks for last month. Just inside the lid was a big roll of plastic mesh that I think is for latchhook work. In the auction listing it looked like fabric to me, so that was unexpected. Someone at the seller's end was nice enough to put a note on this pinned fabric. I'll put on my gloves before I take it out to inspect it. The embroidered green fabric turned out to be 1-1/2 yards of sequinned and three-dimensional designer fabric. I'll guess this cost somewhere between $20.00 to $30.00 a yard, and it's in pristine condition. But here's a shot of everything in the lot, which is mostly crafty odds and ends with a small amount of cotton fabrics, a large amount of synethetic fabrics, and some other surprises. The original owner of these was probably a Catholic school teacher; these beads, crosses and medallions are the kind of rosary kits for kids to make at Sunday school or Bible camp (and s...

Love Means This

Invested in a couple of hand-dyed bundles from one of my favorite fabric artists. This one said "Make me into something for Valentine's Day." So I went for a quilted and embellished tote. I kept thinking about what love means to me as I worked on it. Here's the finished tote. Although I was tempted to embellish with beads and pins, I got sick and only felt well enough to do a little stitching every night. As I worked I thought about how often love seems disappointing to us, especially when it fails to live up to our expectations. But now that I've experienced love in many forms, I can say that it's made me a better person than I might have been without it. Love is a precious thing, and should be appreciated in all its forms. I am very grateful for the love of my guy, my child and my friends who have stuck with me all these years. That's you two, in case you're wondering. :) Also finally found something to do with a ve...