Quick Takes: Manage your expectations and you might enjoy Broker, Ni Chang

Luo Yunxi and Victoria Song in Broker. Credit: WeTV, iQIYI, Youku

Broker: A very flawed drama for die-hard Luo Yunxi fans with a kick-ass Victoria Song ... **BUT** ...

If you are a die-hard Luo Yunxi fan, Broker (心跳源计划) might be worth it as it really showcases his talent. He gives an emotional performance as a flawed and tortured anti-hero who falls in love with a woman who changes the entire course of his life. Broker could also be for you if you love your female leads strong, brilliant, independent, and mature. Victoria Song’s portrayal will have you wishing there were more characters like her in Chinese dramas. (I was going to add sensible to the FL's list of attributes, but unfortunately I can not due to her actions and words in the final two or three episodes.)

BUT. And this is a huge BUT. For everyone else? It’s kind of a toss-up. Broker is flawed and messy, and whether it’s for you or not will depend on your enjoyment or tolerance of soapy, unrealistic melodramas and other elements that some people love and others hate: the science talk, the office politics and scheming (only in the early episodes though -- it's great later), the secondary OTP, very tortured heroes/heroines/antogonists (To say Leo is put through the wringer, especially at the end, would be an understatement). As the series progresses, it also flirts increasingly with “dog’s blood (狗血)” plotlines -- until it VERY predictably goes all-in on the makjang melodrama in the final quarter. (A couple of the characters even reference “dog’s blood” dramas, which makes one think it’s a sly nod of self-recognition.)

Personally, I genuinely enjoyed nearly every ridiculous, soapy, melodramatic moment and couldn’t wait for the next episode. At the same time, I have a lot of caveats. I did park most of my usual standards aside and simply went with the flow. I tried not to think too much about details that didn’t make sense; annoying tropes; the rather ham-fisted effort at depicting anti-Asian/Chinese racism; the heavy-handed overtones of patriotism/nationalism; inconsistencies in pacing, tone, character depiction, and story arcs. Unfortunately, these last elements became very difficult to ignore at the end, especially in the final episode. While expected, the execution of the story arc was frustrating -- and almost cruel -- at times.

MUSIC: Like many Chinese dramas, the instrumental background was sometimes too much, but the songs were solid. I especially adored the closing credit piece, Signature (署名) by Azora Chin (尤长靖), and Leo’s haunting theme, It’s Time To Stop (时间停止吧), by ANU.

Ni Chang: Manage your expectations, come for the OTP, and you may be pleasantly surprised

Ni Chang (小女霓裳) is a sister drama to I Will Never Let You Go (小女花不弃) with Ariel Lin and Zhang Binbin -- it's by the same production company, and has many of the same great supporting cast (unrelated story and characters, despite the similarly structured Chinese title). Because of this connection, however, I was fully prepared to 1/ fall in love with the entire cast of supporting characters only to have every single one of them killed off in the final episodes, 2/ see beloved characters completely change, 3/ see villains get away with justice at the end, and 4/ have a rushed and unsatisfying conclusion filled with loose ends, questions, and plot holes. (Clearly, I Will Never Let Go of how they butchered the ending of that drama!) And while I usually don't like spoilers, I freely spoiled myself for this one to further help manage my own expectations.

Perhaps because of all this, I ended up quite enjoying Ni Chang.

The story itself is nothing "special" -- it's your classic survivor/family revenge story -- but I enjoyed the silk, textile, embroidery, skin care and fragrance industry backdrop, even though I also take a lot of it with a giant bucket of salt in terms of historical accuracy.

For a slow-burn love story with very little sweeping/epic romance between the main OTP, Bi Wenjun and Nicki Li still made a really great couple, supported by a lovable cast of secondary characters. While a couple of beloved characters do die, there was no slaughterfest and all of them all get satisfying, happy endings.

Given how notoriously bad C-dramas can be with derailing a storyline in the final half/third/quarter, I was pleasantly surprised how all the loose ends were tied, secrets were properly exposed, traps were logically laid, and villains paid the price. They also gave viewers almost an entire episode to enjoy everyone being happy -- in other words, there was proper closure for everything and everyone (even beloved servants who appeared in only a few early episodes and were forced to say goodbye during difficult times returned and were given happy endings).

Did a couple of the melodramatic action shots make me cringe-snort-laugh out loud? Yeah, but I wasn't taking the show too seriously. Could it have been tighter? Sure. Is it sophisticated and high brow? Definitely not. Could the story have been executed better? Of course. Is Bi Wenjun in it enough? No. (He absolutely needs to star in his own wuxia drama, the brief martial arts he displayed in Ni Chang looked that good.)

Ni Chang is not a drama that will leave you in a show-hole or significantly emotionally engaged or invested. But if you're like me and manage your expectations, you may find it overall, an easy and entertaining watch anyway.

A very pink poster of Ni Chang. Credit: Youku