early december log

[halfcactus]

ISMM manhua is back with volume 9! umichii sent me a care package (not because of ISMM vol 9 day, it just so happened that she sent it to me this very day haha):

Recently watched

Romance on the Farm
I was mostly watching this to make use of my iQiyi sub that I forgot to cancel and I finished juuuuuuust on time. (I watched the last ~10-ish eps in 2x speed. XD)

26 episodes is a really good drama length!

I feel that that the show was paced well and succeeded in its intentions, though the writing was spread pretty thin. The family conflicts in the final arc got repetitive and lacked the levity that made it fun in the middle parts.

Shockingly the drama called Romance on the Farm did not have too much romance and I think that’s why I managed to stuck with it 😂 It had a surprising amount of plot that tied nicely with each other even though they were increasingly (and stupidly) contrived. I chalked it all up to videogame logic 😂

It helped a lot for me that one of the subvillains was this cool older lady who leads a bandit group that moonlights as a theater troupe. Apparently I like this trope (thanks FF9!); would have loved to see more of their theater personas.

My main complaint is that I never got a good grasp of the FL as a character, though Tian Xiwei played her well. She had this interesting mother-daughter angst at the beginning that just… disappeared and never came up again, as if she competely assimilated with her videogame persona. Weird! But the innovation storylines felt more well-done than other dramas I've seen with similar themes (A Dream of Splendor, New Life Begins), maybe because they weren't as focused on feminist messaging and got to let the characters have fun.

Overall, an easy watch with heavyhanded family drama. The scheming is on par w/ palace harem dramas, but you get the relaxing view of the countryside and small communities. Acting-wise, it did well with the ensemble cast with family members playing off each other. I liked the older women's performances the most, even though they were stressful.


Replacing Chef Chico (2/8)
I only saw 2 eps because my Netflix expired so there's not really much I can say about this.

The show is about a prestigious restaurant called Hain that specializes in personalized service and customized menus for its guests. Chef Chico (Sam Milby), the English-speaking hotheaded head chef (unfortunately the line delivery is bad), falls into a coma, and it's up to his sous chef Ella (Alessandra De Rossi) to step up to save their restaurant and preserve its concept. It has a customer-of-the-day format; the first two episodes are centered on illnesses (cancer, Alzheimer's), and I'm not sure how to feel about it yet.

I don't expect this show to have the space for more complex character and relationships arcs. There's some good banter, but the script is mostly cheesy in a "no one in real life talks like this" way. I'm also not sure how to feel about the location choice + production design for their restaurant—maybe it's just that I recognize that restaurant or maybe it's just that they just didn't put their energy into setting up the look and feel of the restaurant, but the vibes feel wrong. I'm curious about the food they feature though!


The Menu (2022)
There's no cannibalism in this one, just a satirical and non-literal "eat the rich" theme. I guess I enjoyed Nic Hoult as a comically unlikeable character and a comically fitting ending? Other than that it was hard for me not to notice the lack of artistry when I've seen NBC Hannibal.


Creation of the Gods: Kingdom of Storms (2023)
I feel that this really has to be seen in the big screen for me to appreciate the theatrics, because otherwise it feels kinda flat on a computer screen.

I was worried at first that it would have too many characters for me to follow (I'm highly unfamiliar with the lore) but thankfully it, uh, narrows down the cast of characters by killing off the unimportant ones. I found Su Daji pretty endearing here haha.