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Couple of Mirrors
Sep. 26th, 2021 20:13A 12 ep Republican era drama with a heavily implied f/f main pair. I guess it's a bit of a murder mystery, though it's combined with a heavy dash of domestic fluff. I livetweeted it under #coupleofborbs!
Since it's so short, it's a bit difficult to summarize without being too spoilery? But we have the two female leads: Xu Youyi, a bestselling writer in Shanghai who married into a rich, well-connected family, and Yan Wei, an assassin who owns a photography studio. Xu Youyi comes off a bit naive, but I think it's deceptive: she's mostly being quiet to smooth things over because she can't do anything else. Yan Wei is very tsundere. Nearly everyone else in the show is an asshole to varying degrees.
I thought it was strongest at the beginning when they leaned into the whole 'unreliable narrator', using repeated visual imagery to complete the whole story of what was happening. It was very quiet / not much dialog during the beginning, really using those visuals to tell the story! I enjoyed that kind of thing a lot. It was also when they were most developing the setup and characters, so even the secondary characters were still interesting. I liked trying to figure out the motivations of the various characters!
It was towards the end, when it was all about the handful of entitled male characters and their manpain that it weakened. Also, it seems they did an abrupt addition of a cliffhanger to setup a season two? Weird and unpleasant. The cops were boring boring boring, I don't see why we needed so much focus on them.
While the girlfriends being domestic was very cute, I don't think it could have stretched to much more than already was there, so despite 12 eps being really short already... I kind of feel like it would have been stronger if it were even shorter and more focused? OR if there was more plot shoved in or more interesting secondary characters!
Other superficial thoughts: Xu Youyi has such a cute pout + great sajiao! (My mom didn't think the actress was very cute, to my incredulity.) The outfits / styling were very pretty, though probably ahistoric. The cat was very cute.
Overall, I really loved the beginning and middle, and though the ending was weak, I think it's still worth a watch if you're into cute f/f couples, republican era stylings, or mysteries. (And as a not-guzhuang, I can finally talk to my grandparents about it! My fam refuses to watch guzhuang shows lol.)
Rot13 spoilery CW: punenpgre qrngu, puvyq qrngu, zvfpneevntr, puvyq fbyqvrevat (va na haernyvfgvpnyyl ybj genhzn jnl)
Since it's so short, it's a bit difficult to summarize without being too spoilery? But we have the two female leads: Xu Youyi, a bestselling writer in Shanghai who married into a rich, well-connected family, and Yan Wei, an assassin who owns a photography studio. Xu Youyi comes off a bit naive, but I think it's deceptive: she's mostly being quiet to smooth things over because she can't do anything else. Yan Wei is very tsundere. Nearly everyone else in the show is an asshole to varying degrees.
I thought it was strongest at the beginning when they leaned into the whole 'unreliable narrator', using repeated visual imagery to complete the whole story of what was happening. It was very quiet / not much dialog during the beginning, really using those visuals to tell the story! I enjoyed that kind of thing a lot. It was also when they were most developing the setup and characters, so even the secondary characters were still interesting. I liked trying to figure out the motivations of the various characters!
It was towards the end, when it was all about the handful of entitled male characters and their manpain that it weakened. Also, it seems they did an abrupt addition of a cliffhanger to setup a season two? Weird and unpleasant. The cops were boring boring boring, I don't see why we needed so much focus on them.
While the girlfriends being domestic was very cute, I don't think it could have stretched to much more than already was there, so despite 12 eps being really short already... I kind of feel like it would have been stronger if it were even shorter and more focused? OR if there was more plot shoved in or more interesting secondary characters!
Other superficial thoughts: Xu Youyi has such a cute pout + great sajiao! (My mom didn't think the actress was very cute, to my incredulity.) The outfits / styling were very pretty, though probably ahistoric. The cat was very cute.
Overall, I really loved the beginning and middle, and though the ending was weak, I think it's still worth a watch if you're into cute f/f couples, republican era stylings, or mysteries. (And as a not-guzhuang, I can finally talk to my grandparents about it! My fam refuses to watch guzhuang shows lol.)
Rot13 spoilery CW: punenpgre qrngu, puvyq qrngu, zvfpneevntr, puvyq fbyqvrevat (va na haernyvfgvpnyyl ybj genhzn jnl)
