Xiao Nan Feng (2024)

Visually stunning, Tragically beautiful.... Unsatisfying ending

If you a fan of mystery thrillers, then this is a must watch. It's got a similar feel to "13 years of Dust", "Bad Kids", "The Pavillion" so on....

Well directed & perfect casting! The synopsis already explains what the story is about, so I won't recap that.

What I loved:
Entire Cast:
1. Young Nan Ya matches the mature Nan Ya. I loved that they didn't use the same actress trying to play down. Obviously, you can't really fake youth and all that collagen. Young Na Ya had the innocence slowly lost.
Mature Na Ya is played by Tong Yao who to me has a 70% resemblance to Zhang Zi Yi's facial features, but she definitely has her unique beauty and acting style. Physically, the natural makeup, lighting, camera works captured her best angles & every curve. She's definitely got that mature beauty that younger boys can fantasize about. Acting, I think she nailed the character Nan Ya perfectly.
2. Zhang Xin Cheng playing Zhuo Luo. He's one of the few talented actors that can play young mature characters that tend to internalize all emotions and explode one day.
3. Ye Zu Xin playing the cop that returned to the town. Nan Ya was his first love and there are definitely regrets in his gaze.

Actual Story: Everyone is intertwined. There are secrets, jealously, lies, betrayal, love, lust, obsession, every human emotion possible. However, it's not for the faint of heart as there are some serious disturbing subjects.

Set/lighting/makeup/production quality: Visually stunning. The small-town feel is uniquely beautiful.
Poetry & Music: It's very artistic. The music elevates every emotional scene.

Decent pacing until ep 14 then felt slow. Ending...... Hate it....... A moment of "Did I just spent 28 x 53 min episodes for this kind of ending? ...... Tragic on its own.

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Dark

This is definitely not what one would call a romance, as it is a dark investigation in to a woman's past and present it a not so tender light... Surrounded by slander, murder, psychological harm and more slander. Either one of these would be awful but put all in to one drama and most of what you see is pain and obsession.

While there are a few moments of tender light, as well as extremely sensual light, most of this drama is dark and sad. The type that makes you wonder how much more can a person take, how mean can people be?

The female lead is a mazing bot in character and acting. The male leads character was well performed but not as amazing as the female lead and the other male leads character was so well written, a combination. of adding fuel to the fire while simultaneously drinking away ones regret...

The cinematography was stunning,, my only complaint is that they dragged it out a bit to much, and added unnecessary twists as well as just a few too many recaps to male me up the score.

If they had just cut out out some parts in the middle and maybe added a scene or two to the en then I may just may have given it a 9 or 9,5,

Also there is very little, preaching, china propaganda, and ehat I would say more or less anti healing element instead of healing acknowledging that some parts of life are just dark, inexcusable and awful. And has several really good quotes from poetry and life...

A drama that will not restore your faith in humanity, but may restore your faith in C-dramas... If you ever loose it that is.

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Realistic story, Realistic acting, Unbelievably and exceptionally good

Tender light is indeed the best mystery drama of 2024. When I started watching, I didn't know it would be such an interesting but heartbreaking drama. The way the story was depicted is awesome, and that's not all, it was directed and filmed excellently.
The acting and story were very realistic.
I've watched quite a number of mystery dramas. But tender light is just different.

The realistic acting and realistic story are what makes this drama different and unique.

Tender light is based on domestic violence, and society prejudice. And unfortunately, that's exactly the type of world we live in. Their are many women out there who suffers from domestic violence, specifically the abuses from their husbands.
Furthermore, the society, neighbors etc, people who knows nothing about that victim, will begin to judge her, speculate about how she must have cheated on her husband to deserve all kinds of violence from him. That's the kind of world we live in, its full of judgmental people. And that's exactly what tender light is all about.

Nan ya suffers from domestic violence from her husband, and there's the crooked judgmental society, passing inhumane comments on her when they know nothing about her. She's obviously the one suffering from the violence of her husband, but they just chose to ignore it, instead of helping her, all they did was judge her for being a flirt. It's indeed sad and unfortunate that that's the kind of world we live in, a world full of judgmental people.
But it's good to know that she has someone like zhou luo to help her.

I love this drama because it depicts the happenings of life, and more so because it shares light on what wives go through at the hands of their lunatic husbands.

-Edited
Just completed tender light, and I just had to edit my review cause the ending was a sad one. Nan ya didn't reunite with zhou luo even after the series made it known that her cas was rejudged. So I'd say the ending was twisted. But aside from the ending, it's a good drama to watch.

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my favorite series of all time

I have never written a review about a series. Even if it was so good. But here I am......
I never thought i would say that a cdrama is my fav of all time bc usually when i watch a cdrama al i get is bad cinematography and bad acting and worst of all a bad writing with the most cliche story.
But Tender Light is different, this cdrama single handedly outdid all the shows i watched with the most intriguing story line where u keep being curious about whats gonna happen next as each episode keeps getting better and better.
The acting is top tier, the romance is everything, the cinematography is BEAUTIFUL
i wish we wouldve seen more nan ya at the end but its okey I AM SATISFIED with ending.
All in all THIS IS THE BEST SERIES EVEEEEEER.

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More than just a thriller or mystery

A bold and realistic drama. As a show about domestic violence, I have to praise the way it shows the total spectrum of the problem. From how archaic divorce laws harm women, how abusers manipulate public opinion, how women are attacked for being themselves, the possessiveness of men, the general lack of any kind of justice from the police, it doesn't leave much out. As depressing and bleak as it is, there is so much that is true about the way this drama depicts our world, unlike the usual escapist fantasies we normally watch.

Mystery shows often portray police officers as just, always seeking the truth. Personally I find the genre quite boring, the real world is often more interesting than the simplified stories and characters in dramas. But here, it's clear just how inept and uncaring the police often are towards victims of domestic violence. Personal biases lead cops and the rest of the town to believe that Nan Ya deserves what happens to her. Most people are willing to buy the negative things they hear about others. The law itself is cold and uncaring, and this isn't a show with any heroism from the police.

I was deeply impressed with Zhou Luo's character. He's so flawed, he has a possessive streak, he's childish at times, he really feels like what a young guy - a 'good' guy - would be like in a conservative country. Zhang Xin Cheng killed it here. Overprotective and borderline creepy MLs are a dime a dozen in dramas, but here we have one that actually feels real. The negative stuff that comes with this isn't airbrushed away.

As for Nan Ya, she's the most incisive and decent character here. She cuts Zhou Luo down to pieces multiple times, and rightfully so. Her intelligence really comes through. Personally I wish the drama had another episode or two, with more time to let her character shine. I struggled to buy her side of the relationship with Zhou Luo at points, I thought it needed a bit more screentime. Too much of it was from his perspective, but it's her side that's more interesting, more moving. I feel like I heard too much from him and too little from her.

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This is a drama that’ll stimulate both your mind & soul

Tender Light is a beautifully written mystery thriller with lots of social commentary. Yes, this drama was telling you a story but had a talent of making you feel like you were actually inside of the story and you were a side character quietly watching things as they go along. From the cinematography, to the character building, story building, into the way that they executed the flashbacks, everything was just SO. WELL. DONE. So, the cast, the writers, and the directors all did their BIG ONE. You can tell that there was just SO much care and time taken into this drama and that everyone involved genuinely, from the bottom of their heart took it seriously. And that’s not some thing that you can say about a lot of dramas out there.

But, with all that being said, Tender Light is a ALMOST perfect drama. You might be wondering; what stopped it from being perfect? For me, I’ll have to say the final episode. Episode 28 like all of the other episodes, had great pacing and was just really well written overall…. Except for the last 20 minutes of the episode. The drama starts to kinda go into uncharted territory, and did something that it hadn’t done for the entire series up the that point… “telling us the story instead of showing it.” Let me explain further. The use of exposition in a story isn’t a bad thing, but it only becomes a problem when you’re essentially just telling the viewer/reader the entire story instead of showing it to them. As I mentioned earlier though, this has never been a problem for Tender Light, it’s consistently done a good job of immersing us into the story until the finale. The problem with this episode is exactly that. The finale episode was supposed to wrap up all of our unanswered questions on what TRULY happened on the night of the millennium. This is where everything is supposed to reach a head, and all of the reveals supposed to happen, so because of that; by NO circumstances should the finale have had ANY exposition in it, especially considering the fact that we’ve never really had that before. Now I know with Chinese dramas things can get really tricky because of the censorship rules, for example the relationship between Nan Ya and Zhou Luo. From what I’ve gathered from people who have read the novel, their relationship actually had a lot more presence in the actual story, and it was more of a slow burn. Also based off of what these novel readers have said, it seems as though a lot of their relationship had to be cut out because of the censorship rules. So like I said, I understand how censorship can change the way screen writers are able to tell the story that they want to tell. And I also understand that it could be possible that the show was only greenlit 28 episodes when in reality they probably wanted more in order to properly tell the story. I understand both of these things but, I can’t help but think there was still another way to I guess, “counteract” this problem. Let me give you an example; and be mindful of the fact that this is on the basis that what I said earlier, about there being a possibility that the show was only Greenlit 28 episodes wasn’t the case. because in the event that this drama wasn’t restricted to just 28 episodes, this should’ve been given one more episode to properly wrap things up. The 28th episode should’ve ended right after Zhou Luo says to Fang Lu, “That’s not what happened.” That would’ve been a really cool cliffhanger. Then the 29th episode should’ve started with the flashback of what actually happened that night. Then, instead of the screen just fading to black, and them telling us what happens to Nan Ya and Zhou Luo, they would’ve been enough time to properly show it instead of tell it. And I think with that difference, that would’ve made this drama a 10 out of 10 for me.

So, because of that and that alone, I can’t give this drama a 10 out of 10 in good faith (my true rating of this drama is a 9.8/10 which just shows how close this drama was for me to getting that 10), but I have no doubt in my mind that if that was not the case, this would’ve gotten a 10 from me regardless of it’s bitter sweet ending.

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Stellar acting for a stupid storyline

First of all the acting in this drama and the music are awesome. Even the side characters always delivered a perfect performance.

The story on the other hand is pretty bad and the way the story is being told is very one sided.
The directing is sometimes very weird with very strange camera angles.
The time skips are pretty annoying and sometimes its hard to tell when a time skip happened.
The story in itself is pretty disgusting. And there is not a single character to root for.

ML has gotten barely any screentime.
FL is a mysterious person. She has been through a lot and has been a victim to a lot of crimes. A lot of people have been arguing that whatever she does its justified. I disagree but make a picture for yourself.

Overall the show tales too much time to give any useful information so people can paint a bigger picture. After 14 eps the drama is very draggy and boring.

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