Period C-drama Shadow Love with Song Yi and Cheng Lei Garners an Incredibly Low 4.8 Douban Ratings
The month of August has seen two dramas air back-to-back for actor Cheng Lei and in both instances the ratings and reviews are not kind to said drama. Legend of the Female General got Douban ratings of 5.5 which is on the low side already, but his currently airing Shadow Love said hold my beer and got opening Douban ratings of 4.8. Ouch. Female General had a much bigger fanbase adapted from a strong novel but fumbled on the execution. I haven’t watched Shadow Love yet due to lack of time so I wonder what the issue is, weird story, no chemistry, bad directing, all of the above? As much as Zhou Ye is a weak actress I at least find her cute and endearing onscreen, whereas Song Yi is like a wet napkin to me I don’t know why I can’t warm to her visuals or acting. If anyone is watching Shadow Love share some thoughts on it, I’m curious why it’s not working for the Douban reviewers and if it’s actually not that bad.
The pseudo-erotic part of the Shadow puppet is icky but the story and costumes are leaps and bound beyond The Legend of a Female General. Its way better than the Yang Yang drama and the other xianxia with the bad actor/nepo baby ML.
The evil FL is batshit crazy-eyes crazy.
Very watchable drama.
People complain their visual don’t match,she looks too old next to him.apparently it breaks immersion.
These are the same blind haters that claim other actors are ugly. She’s 35, just a few years older than him, and actually looks younger than him.
Well, no. She absolutely doesn’t look younger than him. Let’s not get crazy lmao. But they look about the same age.
Heh … okay, I’ll agree they look the same age.
she looks old beside him?! gee seriously…
Oh no that makes me sad to hear tbh! Except for the weird first couple of minutes of episode 1 (showing us a romantic scene to come before flashing back to the beginning… who approved of this?) it’s been a nice and steady watch to be honest. Granted I haven’t caught up to the latest episodes (I’m 9 episodes in), I’ve really been enjoying the show and look forward to continue watching. Story is fine and makes sense so far and both leads are doing a good job with their characters, especially Cheng Lei who is showing so much more range acting wise with this character than his one dimensional character in Legend of the Female General (not that he had much to work with though). Song Yi is passable and I really like that her female general character is authorative and not being weirdly cutesey like Zhou Ye’s character. I read some complaints about Song Yi’s character’s genreal outfits are too feminine looking but tbh I don’t see that as a problem, she’s an openly female general and from a rich family so why can’t she be dressed nicely? I don’t think it’s necessary for her to be dressed as a man, I find it more important that she has the authorative attitude that befits a general and here I think she nailed it while Zhou Ye’s character made less and less sense until I started to lose all interest in her character’s journey and the story. I finished Legend of the Female General and kept hoping it would get better but somehow it just got worse and worse until I literally zoned out and only finished it because I had nothing better to do. The disappointment was huge tbh and I wasn’t sure if I was in the mood to watch another show about another female general, maybe a lot of people felt the same and brought some negative feelings with them when watching this show? It’s honestly nowhere as bad as Legend of the Female General (story, characters, acting…) so I’m shocked that “Shadow Love” got rated so low tbh… feels rather unfair because so far it’s so much better than Legend of the Female General.
I also felt the same way. TLFG female general character is very unbelievable even if I tried to tell myself it’s just drama. The calling of Dudu in cutesy voice is also quite irritating, not sure why didn’t do better if its voice over. Actually I felt the directing is leaps above in Shadow Love. Some scenes in TLFG, there are no connection between FL and ML acting.
Those women need to start eating if they wanna be taken seriously as general
As if the men playing generals were any less skinny.
Normally I’d agree but Cheng Lei is actually really muscular. I believe him as a general
Yeh, she needs to bulk up, I want to see her doing the push up and weights regime, so that she can REALLY wield an actual,real heavy sword AND he is actually General fit. Has the bulk/physique. Kind of made me think of the Incredible Hulk, only a really aesthetically pleasing to the eye version. Not sure I’ll continue with this, just started because of curiosity inspired by this post BUT he is fit, his body is great (she not so much) so will definitely watch another episode or two, at least.
4.8 isn’t incredibly low, Dilreba has a drama with 2.3 🤣 and she even won Best Actress at the Golden Eagle award for it.
I have this in my watchlist as it looked like a good vehicle for Cheng Lei to showcase a variety of personas- The only negatives I have seen refer to her role not being much like a general at all eg. the ML has better battle plans, she needs to be rescued by the ML repeatedly, etc
It is a good role for Cheng Lei to break out of the cold, emotionless, ruthless persona.
She actually acts more like a general than some others I could name. People don’t understand that real generals strategize, consult with their officers, give orders, take care of their army, etc. — IOW are more brain than brawn. They rarely lead from the front. These people want some assassin warrior killing machine amazon — cause there are so many tall, muscley women in Chinese dramaland. The ML doesn’t make battle plans, at least not so far. SPOILER:
His only battle plan is to react supernaturally whenever he smells her blood, i.e. feels she is threatened. If she tore a fingernail he’d show up to ‘rescue’ her. So, it’s debatable if she ‘needs’ to be rescued all those times.
On a Beanie recommendation I tuned in. The plot is spaghetti. The costumes are cheap and the acting is sub par. But the ML is ripped and its the eye candy I want right now. Ep 1 delivers some fan service, ‘sayin.
First 10-ish episodes was really fun and campy, but latest episodes has dulled down, with too much focus on cutesy moments. If it continues this way, I would say the low ratings is justified. Hopefully it picks up again when ML regains memory.
I suspected it wouldn’t break 6 but this is lower than expected. I actually like it better than LOTFG since this drama at least attempts to make the female general act like someone who has general-ed before and there are stronger characterizations for the leads and supporting characters. The writing has a good mix of poignant and funny moments. I like the chemistry between the pairing a lot and it reminds me a bit of the chemistry in the kdrama, Love Scout.
I feel like this being the second female general drama to feature a female general who looks so delicate (and Song Yi’s voice makes her sound extra delicate) may be extra annoying to the audience. Even though the FL is intelligent and disciplined and makes what seems to be sound decisions with the information she has, the writing would throw some curveball to wedge some room for the ML to swoop in and help, so it looks like this female general is incompetent.
Also, the first episode was sort of terrible. The first 15 minutes were not cohesive at all and then the ML’s character gets punched so hard, his clothes get blasted off and he falls into a red pool of water. Then for the next few episodes, the ML’s scenes are split between his adult and child forms. The kid actor is pretty good, but it does feel awkward rooting for the OTP’s romance in the ML’s child moments.
Well, after 2 episodes, I can say that the plot is weird and the show looks super cheap, even ugly, minus Cheng Lei and his abs. It feels like one of those corny mini dramas. Too bad for the actors.
I love the novel but the drama is sooo meh. They’ve changed almost the whole story more than Female General. And Song Yi doesnt suit the general character. She’s just too sweet. So disappointed.
4.8 is low but they deserve it. Sorry not sorry.
It only had about 5000 ratings and came out with only a handful of episodes. Clearly the people voting are doing so without any basis for their votes. Let’s see where it ends up at.
It’s an entertaining, sexy, supernatural, popcorn drama. Ryan Cheng gets a chance to shine playing multiple identities, instead of his usual cold emotionless guy. Song Yi is fine as a general who actually does general stuff, like run an army and strategize. There may be too many plots and characters for some people and the pace drags in some places, but the character interactions are fun and emotional. It’s better than some other dramas that have come out lately.
In short..it’s a mess
Well, another drama with a totally unbelievable “general”.
All these skinny girls look like they’re doing ballet rather than martial arts. They would probably keel over even trying to lift a real sword.
And the white-skinned milk-boys aren’t any better!
Time to bring back real actors, with real, unfiltered faces and actual muscle underneath their robes.
I am sick of those traffic kids ruining3very single production and the producers need to be taught a lesson for the rubbish they currently produce. So every single one of those dramas tanking and making a loss is good news to my ears.
The 2020s has been the worst decade for dramas. So few are actually memorable. The 2010s had many amazing dramas by 2015 and yet here we are halfway through the decade with so many watered down fast food garbage dramas being pumped out left and right.
Where are the Zhen Huan, Nirvana in Fire, Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms, Story of Ming Lan level dramas? It’s like they just don’t make dramas of that caliber anymore. The only one that has stood out to me so far is Lost You Forever (though I know the last half is controversial). I also haven’t seen Zang Hai and that may be a contender. But truly great dramas are just so rare now.
I’m following this drama and now at ep14. It is engaging and characters are not flat including supporting roles. As a non Chinese fan,I thought Song Yi is like classic Chinese pretty, surprised some think she is not pretty. She is also thin but at least she’s quite muscular. One more thing I like about this drama is fighting choreography, looks pretty for both leads. In my opinion, this drama is better than female general in terms of storytelling, acting and cinematography
I quit after 2 eps. It’s the FL! This is another C drama again among so many that I tuned in for the MLs I like but dropped thanks to FL’s failure to deliver. I’m on the same page as Koala regarding Song Yi. She is one actress of whom you can’t pick anything wrong with the acting except for…..boredom LOL. All her acting by far is forgettable. She might be solid in supporting roles, but she hasn’t been able to make a splash as a leading lady to wow me.
Once you are miscast, the writer, the PD, the photographer, the stylist, the editor and whatnot, and specifically your charismatic costar can’t save your drama. This is particularly true for the two dramas about female generals aired recently. I’m saying this to the two leading ladies. It’s the acting that is lacking failing the production quality overall.
So far, I only found the veteran actresses Zhao Liying in Princess Agents and Jing Tian in the movie the Great Wall were able to successfully and convincingly show the grit of formidable fighters and female leadership in battlefields, even though they both still exuded feminine temperament. Acting matters.
I’m not a big fan of Song Yi in general. The chemistry isn’t there whenever she does romance. Even the drama she did with her boyfriend felt awkward.