Drama Tea<p><strong>January 2025 drama watching diary: Under the Skin, Secret of the Three Kingdoms, Towards the Truth, I am Nobody 2 and more</strong></p><p>January was a month of too much social media drama and Chinese New Year! That means the whole of China would soon have nothing much to do, so a lot of the stations and platforms are rolling out their best dramas during this period to catch this lull period.</p><p>So, with the social media drama, things ramping up at work thanks to the new year and having to prepare for Chinese New Year myself, I just couldn’t cope with deluge. That’s how little my RAM processing power is in January, so I don’t have much brain cells left to watch Chinese dramas.</p><p>Instead, I ended up watching older dramas instead of the new ones.</p><p><strong>Under the Skin</strong></p><p>I watched this drama after seeing We Are Criminal Police, which is considered one of the best dramas of 2024. This probably won’t do Under the Skin any good.</p><p>The acting in Under the Skin was better than the average idol drama and the main character, played by Tan Jianci, an artist who solves crimes, was fascinating enough. The cases are also interesting, and it was fascinating to see how art is used to crack cases.</p><p>But Under the Skin felt like a “juvenile version” of We Are Criminal Police.<br>Of course, we shouldn’t compare these dramas: they are two separate types of crime dramas. However, We Are Criminal Police’s acting, camerawork, atmosphere, and script writing was so, so good. The first 25 episodes was just simply stellar. So, I am a tad puzzled by the hype around Under the Skin. Was it because this was all new when it came out?</p><p>Overall, I’d rate it as a slightly above-average drama.</p><p><strong>Secret of the Three Kingdoms</strong></p><p>It’s like the story, Prince and the Pauper, but set during the end of the Han dynasty right before the Three Kingdoms period.</p><p>This is a very opulent drama compared to many idol costumed dramas today. Made me realise how production values have deteriorated in a span of a few years!</p><p>The acting for most of the case is above average, especially for the main female leads.</p><p>However, the male lead, Ma Tianyu, who plays the Emperor, just cannot act!</p><p>(And it’s also infinitely odd that I happen to be watching his drama when he became the “main character” of a scandal that consumed Weibo in January.)</p><p>Despite that, the story is riveting, and I can easily watch four episodes during the weekend at a go, something I don’t usually do.</p><p>I’m currently at episode 25 out of 54.</p><p><strong>Towards the Truth</strong></p><p>This drama on iQIYI has received so little attention that they didn’t even give it proper human translators to create the drama’s English subtitles. Yes, the machine translated subs are poor, but the quality of the drama is actually really good, with the camerawork, production values and acting comparable to big-budget idol dramas.</p><p>Surprisingly, it also seems to be tinged with a bit of supernatural flavor, which is rare in Chinese dramas. It’s a typical costumed mystery-solving drama that seems so popular these days, but our main character has “special eyes” that enables him to see things nobody can.</p><p>I think this drama deserves more attention and better promotion, but since the latter won’t happen, I hope more people will discover it.</p><p>PS: I thought the relationship between the two main leads seemed very BL-tinged, and I’m not the type to see BL relationships everywhere!</p><p><strong>I am Nobody 2</strong></p><p>I loved the first season, and the first four episodes of season two are high quality, with excellent special effects and comedy.</p><p>However, I’ve paused it because I have so much on my plate in terms of drama watching. It’s only 13 episodes long, so it’ll be a quick watch.</p><p>I will probably go back to it only after I finish Secret of the Three Kingdoms (because my Viki subscription is expiring in mid Feb, I have to prioritise!).</p><p><strong>Other dramas on my radar</strong></p><ul><li>Under the Moonlight: I really want to watch this costumed mystery drama but just don’t have the time to watch it live! Too many choices right now, dear god.</li><li>Flourish Peony: I also want to watch this soon. And since the subs are said to be dire, I’ll wait untill I can have access to better subs.</li></ul><p><span></span></p><p><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/tag/cdrama/" target="_blank">#CDrama</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/tag/cdramas/" target="_blank">#CDramas</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/tag/china/" target="_blank">#China</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/tag/chinese-drama/" target="_blank">#ChineseDrama</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/tag/costumed-drama/" target="_blank">#CostumedDrama</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/tag/fantasy/" target="_blank">#Fantasy</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/tag/tv/" target="_blank">#TV</a></p>