My thoughts on the ending of "To Dear Myself"
I had a lot to say about the ending, but didn't want to spoil everyone who'd like to discuss the things I've mentioned in my previous rec post (here).
So here's the absolutely completely spoilery post about the ending of "To Dear Myself" (亲爱的自己). And gifs. And more caps.
My detailed review (the spoilery parts):
1) Li Siyu: yay she didn't take Xiaotang! Yay she found out what she wants from her life! (Boo it's not romance. ;)) Unfortunately, she sinks a lot of (other people's) money into ultimately failing ventures, and she never learns that talking people out of their last cent (yuan) is not actually a nice thing to do? I *hated* the capitalist streak in this drama. Everything was about money, and ultimately, they all chose the path with the most money. Probably very representative of modern-day China, but damn I hated it.
Relationship-wise, Li Siyu deserved what she got at the end, and I think she was happy with it, too. Unfortunately, she got it because she isn't a decent person (unlike Chen Yiming), and it never felt to me that she really learned anything useful that made me empathize with her life. I thought she might grow over time, but she didn't, not really. So her ending just kind of bored me.
Chen Yiming and Wang Ziru: For me, the problem with their relationship is that Wang Ziru is shown to be a master manipulator from day one. She gets her way by tricking Li Siyu, and Pan Zong, and the board, and everyone else really. It always feels that she only sees Chen Yiming as some kind of prize. I never understood what she wanted with him, and even less what he wanted with her. The only thing I could come up with is that Wang Ziru - like Li Siyu - is a successful business woman and he has a type. (Unfortunately a type that is completely incompatible with his traditional ideas of marriage.) Or that he was too heartbroken over Li Siyu to truly love again. Neither are happy thoughts.
Of course, it's not all black and white, and Wang Ziru has a personality, too. Apparently a lot of people warmed to her over the course of the drama, but to me it was always clear that she was exactly the opposite of what Chen Yiming wants and deserves in a partner. His main characteristic is that he always does the right thing, and Wang Ziru pretty much never does. And the drama had a lot of scenes that were only there to show how much he still misses Li Siyu, which didn't help at all. So I just hated seeing him together with Wang Ziru. To top it off, Wang Ziru also played dirty in her money-making schemes, and has to go to prison. And it's implied that she's pregnant, too. What a mess. But no worries, Chen Yiming will wait for her. /o\
Zhu Yilong also told in several interviews that he doesn't understand some of the choices his character makes and therefore had trouble portraying him. I have concluded that the relationship with Wang Ziru is the reason for his troubles, because he barely ever shows any emotions after he gets together with her. (He does, sometimes. But 80% of his scenes in the last third of the drama are wooden. It was painful to watch, actually.)
2) Zhang Zhizhi
I was *so* happy she didn't take Liu Yang back. Yes, he showed some improvement, but Zhizhi obviously wasn't happy in that marriage. I was convinced she was going to take him back for the longest time. So the fact that she didn't felt like a major accomplishment at the end - even though it was really just my minimum requirement. :D
I actually thought she could take the other one, Su Lixing, because they really got along well, and their daughters got along well. It would have been a good match, if the writers hadn't decided to make him the same kind of traditionalist ass Chen Yiming was. He also wanted her to stay home and provide for her, when she had *just* gotten used to earning her own money. I do blame her for that a little, too, because she could have said something. She could have just told him what she wanted instead of leaving again immediately.
Okay, there was also the question of whether she really wanted to go to France. But seeing as how very much she was into education for her daughter, I would have expected her to jump on the chance, for her daughter's sake.
I feel like they dropped the ball on Zhizhi's maternal instincts at the end. There's no way she'd choose being a single mom with a stressful career (which was presented as a great situation for a woman to be in - all the learning experiences, yay! /o\) over the happiness of her daughter. No. Way. Especially not after we'd seen how much Yuan-jie - the other single mom - suffered, and how much her son suffered.
So basically, Zhizhi got an ending that was shown as happy, I just didn't believe any of it. At least she didn't take any of the men, because she developed enough self-respect not to. That was a good character journey, and more feminist than I expected from cdrama.
3) Gu Xiaoling
Aaaargh omg where to start. I don't like Xiaoling. She's flighty, arrogant, uneducated, and lies about everything to get a man. She is more emotional than the other two girls, though, so her input in the girls' conversations was actually the most valuable - most of the time.
When Lei Haowen turns out to be a nice and supportive guy who really understands her, I definitely rooted for them. But she sticks to her plan and shoots him down - several times. And this is where it gets ugly, because he doesn't give up. He keeps trying to make money so he'd be worthy of her - first with Chen Yiming's help (he co-founded their company, but it was never actually clear if he put in any work; the only one we consistently see working on it was Chen Yiming), then with Li Siyu's help (and he lets her talk him out of everything he owns). He's a tragic figure, because he's obsessed with getting Xiaoling, and that makes him lose sight of everything else. I couldn't empathize with him, because she obviously doesn't want him, and told him so repeatedly, but he just doesn't stop. This is a trope cdrama loves and I hate - so no sympathy for him. Otoh, she did state clearly that she never wanted to marry for love, so he has a point there. He loves her, but he never asks her to love him back, he just plays by her rules. (The problem being of course that he never gets very rich, even after all everything he tries, so she never takes him seriously.)
On the way, he also tricks Li Siyu out of a lot of money, which just made everything worse and me like him even less.
Gu Xiaoling starts dating He Mu in the meantime. He is a very rigidly controlled (I'd say neuro-atypical) person, who plans out his life down to minute details. So: the exact opposite to Xiaoling's emotionality and flightiness. But she sticks it out for a long, long time. It's actually painful to watch them together, because she's obviously not happy. She can barely tolerate his presence - but she tells herself that she wants his money and that's enough for her. She never realizes that he's not the type of man she needs - someone who doesn't *care* what she spends her money on as long as she's pretty by his side. So she in fact misses her goal by a mile and never notices.
Of course, then she goes and escapes (while they're in front of the administrative building where they're supposed to get married), and does that in the most insensitive way possible, obviously breaking He Mu's heart. Not cool. (But really not surprising.)
And then she goes after Lei Haowen! She actually takes him back, when she'd told him over and over that she doesn't love him! Wtf. So that was the hated trope again after all, and I hate this one even more. It isn't made much better that she asks him to confess to having tricked Li Siyu out of her company shares, and he has to go to prison while Xiaoling promises to wait for him. Wtf! All of this happens in the last episode, btw, and I have a feeling they had to cut the show short and didn't have enough time to let that story unfold properly. But even if they'd given it five eps to play out, it's still a shitty ending. *sigh*
So... honestly, the endings were terrible. I can't say they completely ruined the show for me, because Zhu Yilong still looks gorgeous in it, and he's a nice guy, and the kisses and the crying are great stuff. So I'm not sorry I watched it. I just don't feel like rewatching things with an ending I don't like, so that's a pity.
And, while we're on spoilery things, I made gifs!
These three kisses in full, as clips not gifs: https://www.mediafire.com/file/h6yh6x9nsnw5s8p/dearmyself_kisses.zip
And all my caps from episode 20-45 (another 2000 of Zhu Yilong's face): https://www.mediafire.com/file/pn1tkm3tz7tsvc0/dearmyself20-45.zip
x-posted from dw (comments:
)
So here's the absolutely completely spoilery post about the ending of "To Dear Myself" (亲爱的自己). And gifs. And more caps.
My detailed review (the spoilery parts):
1) Li Siyu: yay she didn't take Xiaotang! Yay she found out what she wants from her life! (Boo it's not romance. ;)) Unfortunately, she sinks a lot of (other people's) money into ultimately failing ventures, and she never learns that talking people out of their last cent (yuan) is not actually a nice thing to do? I *hated* the capitalist streak in this drama. Everything was about money, and ultimately, they all chose the path with the most money. Probably very representative of modern-day China, but damn I hated it.
Relationship-wise, Li Siyu deserved what she got at the end, and I think she was happy with it, too. Unfortunately, she got it because she isn't a decent person (unlike Chen Yiming), and it never felt to me that she really learned anything useful that made me empathize with her life. I thought she might grow over time, but she didn't, not really. So her ending just kind of bored me.
Chen Yiming and Wang Ziru: For me, the problem with their relationship is that Wang Ziru is shown to be a master manipulator from day one. She gets her way by tricking Li Siyu, and Pan Zong, and the board, and everyone else really. It always feels that she only sees Chen Yiming as some kind of prize. I never understood what she wanted with him, and even less what he wanted with her. The only thing I could come up with is that Wang Ziru - like Li Siyu - is a successful business woman and he has a type. (Unfortunately a type that is completely incompatible with his traditional ideas of marriage.) Or that he was too heartbroken over Li Siyu to truly love again. Neither are happy thoughts.
Of course, it's not all black and white, and Wang Ziru has a personality, too. Apparently a lot of people warmed to her over the course of the drama, but to me it was always clear that she was exactly the opposite of what Chen Yiming wants and deserves in a partner. His main characteristic is that he always does the right thing, and Wang Ziru pretty much never does. And the drama had a lot of scenes that were only there to show how much he still misses Li Siyu, which didn't help at all. So I just hated seeing him together with Wang Ziru. To top it off, Wang Ziru also played dirty in her money-making schemes, and has to go to prison. And it's implied that she's pregnant, too. What a mess. But no worries, Chen Yiming will wait for her. /o\
Zhu Yilong also told in several interviews that he doesn't understand some of the choices his character makes and therefore had trouble portraying him. I have concluded that the relationship with Wang Ziru is the reason for his troubles, because he barely ever shows any emotions after he gets together with her. (He does, sometimes. But 80% of his scenes in the last third of the drama are wooden. It was painful to watch, actually.)
2) Zhang Zhizhi
I was *so* happy she didn't take Liu Yang back. Yes, he showed some improvement, but Zhizhi obviously wasn't happy in that marriage. I was convinced she was going to take him back for the longest time. So the fact that she didn't felt like a major accomplishment at the end - even though it was really just my minimum requirement. :D
I actually thought she could take the other one, Su Lixing, because they really got along well, and their daughters got along well. It would have been a good match, if the writers hadn't decided to make him the same kind of traditionalist ass Chen Yiming was. He also wanted her to stay home and provide for her, when she had *just* gotten used to earning her own money. I do blame her for that a little, too, because she could have said something. She could have just told him what she wanted instead of leaving again immediately.
Okay, there was also the question of whether she really wanted to go to France. But seeing as how very much she was into education for her daughter, I would have expected her to jump on the chance, for her daughter's sake.
I feel like they dropped the ball on Zhizhi's maternal instincts at the end. There's no way she'd choose being a single mom with a stressful career (which was presented as a great situation for a woman to be in - all the learning experiences, yay! /o\) over the happiness of her daughter. No. Way. Especially not after we'd seen how much Yuan-jie - the other single mom - suffered, and how much her son suffered.
So basically, Zhizhi got an ending that was shown as happy, I just didn't believe any of it. At least she didn't take any of the men, because she developed enough self-respect not to. That was a good character journey, and more feminist than I expected from cdrama.
3) Gu Xiaoling
Aaaargh omg where to start. I don't like Xiaoling. She's flighty, arrogant, uneducated, and lies about everything to get a man. She is more emotional than the other two girls, though, so her input in the girls' conversations was actually the most valuable - most of the time.
When Lei Haowen turns out to be a nice and supportive guy who really understands her, I definitely rooted for them. But she sticks to her plan and shoots him down - several times. And this is where it gets ugly, because he doesn't give up. He keeps trying to make money so he'd be worthy of her - first with Chen Yiming's help (he co-founded their company, but it was never actually clear if he put in any work; the only one we consistently see working on it was Chen Yiming), then with Li Siyu's help (and he lets her talk him out of everything he owns). He's a tragic figure, because he's obsessed with getting Xiaoling, and that makes him lose sight of everything else. I couldn't empathize with him, because she obviously doesn't want him, and told him so repeatedly, but he just doesn't stop. This is a trope cdrama loves and I hate - so no sympathy for him. Otoh, she did state clearly that she never wanted to marry for love, so he has a point there. He loves her, but he never asks her to love him back, he just plays by her rules. (The problem being of course that he never gets very rich, even after all everything he tries, so she never takes him seriously.)
On the way, he also tricks Li Siyu out of a lot of money, which just made everything worse and me like him even less.
Gu Xiaoling starts dating He Mu in the meantime. He is a very rigidly controlled (I'd say neuro-atypical) person, who plans out his life down to minute details. So: the exact opposite to Xiaoling's emotionality and flightiness. But she sticks it out for a long, long time. It's actually painful to watch them together, because she's obviously not happy. She can barely tolerate his presence - but she tells herself that she wants his money and that's enough for her. She never realizes that he's not the type of man she needs - someone who doesn't *care* what she spends her money on as long as she's pretty by his side. So she in fact misses her goal by a mile and never notices.
Of course, then she goes and escapes (while they're in front of the administrative building where they're supposed to get married), and does that in the most insensitive way possible, obviously breaking He Mu's heart. Not cool. (But really not surprising.)
And then she goes after Lei Haowen! She actually takes him back, when she'd told him over and over that she doesn't love him! Wtf. So that was the hated trope again after all, and I hate this one even more. It isn't made much better that she asks him to confess to having tricked Li Siyu out of her company shares, and he has to go to prison while Xiaoling promises to wait for him. Wtf! All of this happens in the last episode, btw, and I have a feeling they had to cut the show short and didn't have enough time to let that story unfold properly. But even if they'd given it five eps to play out, it's still a shitty ending. *sigh*
So... honestly, the endings were terrible. I can't say they completely ruined the show for me, because Zhu Yilong still looks gorgeous in it, and he's a nice guy, and the kisses and the crying are great stuff. So I'm not sorry I watched it. I just don't feel like rewatching things with an ending I don't like, so that's a pity.
And, while we're on spoilery things, I made gifs!
These three kisses in full, as clips not gifs: https://www.mediafire.com/file/h6yh6x9nsnw5s8p/dearmyself_kisses.zip
And all my caps from episode 20-45 (another 2000 of Zhu Yilong's face): https://www.mediafire.com/file/pn1tkm3tz7tsvc0/dearmyself20-45.zip
x-posted from dw (comments:
)