Skip to main content

Snookered

The Chinese drama series Amidst a Snowstorm of Love attracted me because way back in my youth I used to play billiards quite a bit (and was pretty good at it, too.) That should be a warning upfront as well; if you don't enjoying watching snooker or other pool games you are definitely going to be bored by this one. In addition to that, this thirty-episode series is a slow-burn slice of life romance that may not move as fast as everyone likes, but has a lot of lovely moments in it.

An up and coming billiards player, Yin Guo (Zhao Jin Mai) heads overseas to settle her brother at college and compete in a local nine-ball tournament in Hel (the location of the city is definitely in Finland.) Before she can start training, however, a sudden snowstorm leaves her stranded with Lin Yi Yang (Leo Wu), who appears to fall in love with her at first sight. Yin Guo and Yi Yang have a nice budding little romance that continues after the storm passes, but eventually she discovers her boyfriend was once a famous (and notorious) professional billiards player who was considered a genius, but left the sport when he was very young after a fight with a referee, who just happens to be Yin Guo's mother.

I liked the subplots in this drama almost as much as the romance; all the characters are interesting and their stories just as absorbing. Yin Guo's older brother is especially cool when he makes a 360 degree flip to help his sister with getting acceptance for her new boyfriend (who happens to be an old friend of his.) You also get lots of group dynamics and nationalism, but it's appropriate and not annoying as the usual stuff. Some of the games kept me on the edge of my seat, especially at the end. All of the settings are pretty much mundane and yet still manage to be very attractive.

The few problems are so minor they're hardly worth mentioning. There are probably more billiards games than anything else, and that can be boring if you don't care for the sport. In preserving the Chinese ideals of female moral character Yin Guo does resist intimacy a little too much for someone otherwise so in love with her guy, but that gradually stops. I think the reverence for Yi Yang's former teacher and mentor, Mr. He, will seem over the top to Westerners, but it's probably close to the real deal in the East. This is a slow and lovely romance amidst one storm and a lot of pool. Available on Viki.com.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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

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

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