Hai Tang's Rouge Shines Through in the Rain (2019)

Annoying Secondary Characters

Let me go straight to the points. For me, this is an annoying drama. Despite the fact that Deng Lun is one of my favorite actors, the story, dialogues and acting (apart from Deng Lun’s) are definitely lacking. Most of the characters are super annoying, making me want to throw the pillows at the TV most of the time. The story seems to go around and around. The logic of the story and characters is outrageous and unfathomable. On top of that, the dubbing is super bad with lips not synching. Everything is a cliche and predictable. 

Having being so critical of this drama, to be fair, I want to praise its music which is pretty good and I have truly enjoyed it.

If you have better dramas to watch, don't waste time on this one unless you want to watch Deng Lun, or you like Republic era dramas.

Leer más

I gave the story-line a 7,5 because to me it is not completely badly written. There were good episodes which were really funny especially in the beginning (the 1st episode was really great a 9 in my book).
Later on the story-line deteriorated a bit, portraying HaiTang from a smart girl in episode 1 to a stupid superstitious girl afraid of ghosts.
But... when she divorced Yueming after fixing his face, the story-line started to be better again, until the 1st disaster (stealing of the formula).
When that was resolved I started to feel anxious... YueMing who had accused his brother YueXuan without any good proof, sitting at the feast-meal with a bitter expression on his face.
After that it was one disaster after another. All secretly instigated by YueMing, his sister in law (widow of the dead son) and a little bit by Mohua.
No one was good only the family of HaiTang, HaiTang, YueXian, the little sister of YueXian and the father.
The fun was gone, the frustration started. However I couldn't stop watching even with the knot in my stomach!
With each episode I swore too myself I would stop watching, but the acting was so good I kept watching.

But in the end I felt dissatisfied with the fact that characters who behaved badly, for example brother YueMing never got punished and never even apologized to his brother YueXuan for the things he had done.
It felt unsatisfactory, especially since he got a "reward" in the end when he left to "study abroad", while his brother stayed and worked in the business. I guess YueXian will pay for the studies of his brother YueMing who did all those bad things to him and his girlfriend and while doing so also helped the business to get into trouble (losing money to such an extent that the company had to close because there was no money for the workers).
I even started to fantasize my own ending for this brother... him drowning or being killed while he was abroad.

The mother who as a person was a despicable human being and only had eyes for her biological son Yueming (maybe that was the reason he was completely unaware of the fact that he should take responsibility for his actions).
Treating the daughter in law like a piece of garbage and treating HaiTang badly when she was not the wife of her biological son. Also never apologizing properly to them for her bad behaviour.
Always influencing her husband to give Yueming extra chances and always coming up for excuses for his bad behaviour.

I thought YueXuan and HaiTang were too forgiving towards YueMing.
However I liked in general their storylines together even though there were moments where I thought that HaiTang showed a form of stupidity which I couldn't understand. She made errors in judgment, trusting the wrong persons and not believing the right persons.
For example: When she accused YueXuan of killing her mother (even her own brother found it illogical). If I loved someone I would trust them and would not accuse them of murder without any proof. For me it would have been the end of my relationship (trust is important).

The father was too weak, he didn't stand up to his wife, and made big mistakes but he apologized in the end and owned up to his mistakes. He was one of the supporting characters I liked the most.
The General was funny in his greed. Mohua was flawed but also owned up to her mistakes and in my book that was good enough.

Illogical actions like a miscarriage because of using too much musk never heard of it and Google didn't either, Haitang standing up and walking after her "comatose" stay a little bit unbelievable. But I never saw a Chinese drama that didn't had questionable events/facts written in their story-line.

However I still enjoyed the show, but I need to see something completely uplifting before I rewatch this show again.
But I am sure I will.
The music is great, the visual aspects are beautiful. I even admired their clothes, the embroidery... ok, enough. I think it is worth to watch this show if you leave the logic behind.

Leer más