Skip to main content

Three Make a Family

At just 24 episodes Unforgettable Love is surprisingly on the shorter side for a Chinese drama series, but they pack a lot into every hour. It's also a psychological drama and an odd-couple type romantic comedy all in one, so that was different, too. I watched this one because of Wei Zheming, the lead male actor, who is hilarious as well as interesting, even if he does play the same type of role all the time.

The series premise surrounds the psychological trauma of CEO He Qiaoyan (Wei Zheming) and his young nephew, Xiaobao (adorably played by Sun Sicheng), both of whom were in car accidents some years back. As a result of losing his parents in the traumatic accident Xiaobao does not speak. The five year old has become a real handful lately as well, so after a fateful meeting Qiaoyan decides to hire Qin Yiyue (Hu Yixuan), a child psychologist, to see if she can get Xiaobao to emerge from his silence and stop being such a brat. Yet his idea of hiring Yiyue is to offer her a contract marriage so she'll live with them and manage Xiaobao full-time. He has no idea that she is his exact polar opposite, as well as a clumsy but forthright person whom chaos and calamity follow constantly.

The little actor who played the young Xiaobao is really the star of this series, and did an amazing job with his role; he's alternately hilarious and miserable, and really pulls everyone together with his issues. There was a big support cast, two secondary romances and a lot of plot lines to follow, but I liked everyone and had no problem keeping up. Yiyue's best friend and roommate Yang Ruowei (Sheng Huizi) is so gorgeous you'd think she'd steal the spotlight, but instead she plays a really convincing BFF, and has a touching backstory. She's just as interesting in her romance with Qiaoyan's wealthy best friend Wen Gu (Yu Yijie, who also did a fine job in his role.) Romantic rival for Qiaoyan Lin Wei (Shi Qingyan) and Yiyue's senior from college Ning Fang (Wu Chongxuan) have less stage time and mostly deal with Wei's trauma, but in the end there's a promise of romance between these two.

Problems were not as numerous as they could have been; the production handled the usual product endorsement and government propaganda very well in this series. The main conflict was a bit too complicated, and yet it and the other conflicts were all solved rather easily. There were a few too many excuses thrown in to keep the leads from being together. All of the actresses are too thin (again) but none of them were constantly wailing about how fat they were, which was a nice change. I think the wardrobe department went a little overboard with dressing the wealthy men in this series; they often looked like lounge lizards or pimps, especially with all the jewelry. Yet on the plus side the wardrobe did fantastic with dressing the female characters, with the exception of Shi Qingyan, who looked almost ridiculous in some of the over-designed things she wore.

I think I might watch Unforgettable Love again, just to enjoy the main romance, which despite all the problems is really excellent. Available on Viki.com.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.
Post a Comment
Read more

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to
Post a Comment
Read more

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.
Post a Comment
Read more