FAVORITE CDRAMAS - 2024
This year, I finished 33 dramas (including minis, movies, one variety show, and some left over from previous years). Among those, these were my favorites, including a short "about" summary or an "explain this poorly."
NOTES
All of these are ancient costume dramas, unless noted specifically.
I don't care if a drama has a happy or a sad ending, as long as it's well written.
THE STARS: These are the ones that I not only super enjoyed, but also score great on all critical aspects: plot, writing, character depth, visual appeal, and the ability to capture and hold the viewer's attention. ✅Recommend! THE CHECKMARKS: They're great and I really, really enjoyed them, and they made me squee too🥰 but they're not as technically perfect as the ones above. Still awesome dramas, and I recommend them! ✅Recommend! OTHERS I WANT TO TALK ABOUT: They're not a third tier, or an honorable mention. Generally, they're not that great technically, or missed the list by a botched ending, or something in the technical aspects was missing, but I enjoyed them nevertheless and want to talk about them for some reason. Other than that, they're just listed in the order in which I watched them.
SUBTITLES: Please help stop the prejudice against Mango subtitles. Everything I've watched from them this year has had excellent subs.
ON ROMANCE: Though I appreciate it, I'm not really all that much into the romance aspect of dramas. I say this because I know many people watch them specifically for the romance, and I've seen comments asking how soon the couples kiss. At the end of a drama, I tend to not even remember if they kissed or not (unless it was memorable - either because it was a very good kiss or a very bad one😂). So, with that disclaimer said...
THE STARS
"A JOURNEY TO LOVE" Liu Shishi, Liu Yuning, Alen Fang, He Landou, Chen Youwei, Wang Yizhe
I watched half of this in January and it was broadcast after I posted my faves from last year, so it goes in this year's list.
Premise: Emperor is kidnapped. No one really wants to rescue him. Ning Yuanzhou (Liu Yuning) puts together a team of Ocean's Eleven Ning's Six to bring him back, including an assassin, a crossdressing princess, an angry doctor, a womanizing archer, an engineer puppy, and an animal-loving defense specialist.
"LOVE YOU SEVEN TIMES" Ding Yuxi, Yang Chaoyue
Left over from 2023.
Premise: Seven shorter stories strung together by the overarching plot of trying to recover the God of War's powers and figuring out what happened with a powerful evil fairy.
"BELL RINGING" Li Daikun, Song Fangyuan
Mixture of modern and ancient, but modern is main. Twelve 20-ish minute episodes.
Explain it Badly: The tragic story of what happens when you don't read the fine print when signing a (magical) contract. [I reviewed it properly here.]
"THE LEGEND OF SHEN LI" Zhao Liying, Lin Gengxin
Explain it Badly: The goddess of war has become a chicken. An unfeeling immortal feels. This is catastrophic. But first, he buys the chicken.
"IN BLOSSOM" Ju Jingyi, Liu Xueyi
Premise: Coroner gets kidnapped and subjected to a forced face transplant by jealous socialite who wants her boyfriend. Socialite marries coroner's BF but is killed at the wedding. Coroner, who now looks like the socialite, teams up with former boyfriend (who doesn't know about the face swap) to solve cases.
"UNCHAINED LOVE" Dylan Wang, Chen Yuqi
Left over from 2022, actually.
Explain it Badly: The empire's Most Eligible Eunuch, who everyone wants to bed, and the concubine who really Does Not Want to die with the dead emperor. [I wrote about it more properly here.]
"CALL ME BY FIRE - SEASON 4" Singing variety show
Not a drama, but I'd really be remiss if I didn't include it here. The grip this show had one me! I'll just copy what I wrote before:
Explain it Badly: Call Me by Fire is going to ruin me for normal concerts. What do you mean your show doesn't have singing, dancing, playing instruments, Peking Opera, acting a whole cinematographic mini movie with costumes, flying and dancing on wires, fighting live without doubles, the multilevel moving stage burning, explosions, drowning, trees falling, *WHEEEZE!* and fake rain all at once?! ...That explains it pretty well, actually.
I started watching this for Miyavi and then I was HOOKED.
THE CHECKMARKS
"WHITE CAT LEGEND" Ding Yuxi, Zhou Qi, Ding Jiawen, Zhang Yicong, Feng Man, Anwaer Kuddusjan
Explain it Badly: Catboy detective (Ding Yuxi, of course; he has the white cat role pegged) adopts a golden retriever puppy and four other fools to solve cases and get a government job. And then there's the orange cat.
"DRAMATIC SELF-HELP STRATEGY" Jin Zixua, Hao Fushen
Mini-drama from 2023. 25eps x 10min
Premise: Actress transmigrates into a drama she's acting in ... as a character who's about to be killed because her husband has just died! She must save him, solve the mystery of his murder to save herself, break a time loop, and return to the real world.
A hidden gem. The mystery is pretty well done in this drama, which is super rare, especially in minis.
"NANCHENG BANQUET" Wang Youshuo, Zhao Zhaoyi, Xia Ningjun
Explain it Badly: Assassin loses her memory, becomes a cartoon bunny sunny fake eunuch, the emperor's bad-influence bestie, and her grumpy former target's employee. Everyone's lovely. [I explained it properly here.]
"LOVE IN THE DESERT" Alen Fang, Hankiz Omar
A Secret Third Option (Why I liked it): I really enjoyed watching this; it was very different from other costume dramas. From the setting (desert tribes instead of high-society cities) to the soundtrack, to the "This is allowed now?" moments, this was different in a good way. The costumes were so many (about 1 every 2 eps for FL, and a whole bunch for 2FL, + other characters) and every single one of them was top notch; the best I've seen in a cdrama so far.
"LOVE GAME IN EASTERN FANTASY" Esther Yu, Ding Yuxi
Almost a Star: This was a super fun drama. :D It's lighthearted, and the first five episodes are laugh-out-loud funny. Everyone's really nice, even most of the villains - you end up feeling for them as well, and most of them redeem themselves. And all characters are fully fleshed-out, even the mini-villains the party encounters along the way. Esther's costumes are SO pretty, too. [I did a proper review of it here.]
"BLOSSOM" Meng Ziyi, Li Yunrui
Almost a Star: This drama surprised me by doing time travel AND "going against fate" differently. I also liked how, despite looking like it would go in that direction, it wasn't a revenge drama, but the protagonist really tried to make life better for everyone. Good plot, good writing all throughout, good characterization, keeps your interest. The first full-length drama I watch from a director whose minis I enjoy. Definitely recommend!
OTHERS I WANT TO TALK ABOUT
"SECRETS OF THE SHADOW SECT" Hu Yiyao, Lin Zehui
Mini drama. 24 eps x 12 min
Almost a Checkmark. Honestly, I don't remember why this wasn't a checkmark. But I also honestly cannot remember the ending. So maybe that had something to do with it. However, before that, the cinematography and sets were beautiful and the plot was interesting and well-written. The characters were engaging, as well.
"HEART OF ICE AND FLAME" Huang Tingting, Li Daikun
Mini drama. 24 eps x 10 min. Cliffhanger ending.
Ep 24 is a cliffhanger and a hook for a new plot. You can take ep23 as an ending, if you want, I guess. The production value was low, but the plot was good, and the main characters were such endearing dumbasses. The two leads play 3 characters/personas each, and each has their own distinct personality and has iconic moments. ML's main persona (dumb prince) unknowingly marries all 3 of FL's, each for different reasons, and she (in reality a former general) plays along because she wants his heart (literally). Then there's the wizard who's stuck in a snow avalanche but can still send and receive messages. And Chen Zihan, who played Tragicomic Ghost in Word of Honor, plays the mother of scorpions here. TW: If you have a phobia of bugs, probably skip this one.
"BUTTERFLIED LOVER" Rain Lu, Zhao Yiqin
Mini drama from 2023. 22 eps x 20 min
I pretty much try anything from this director because he's honestly top notch. Absolutely stunning works, visually!
Ancient vampires, pretty much. The only reason it didn't rank higher for me was personal - as I mentioned at the beginning of the post, I'm not really into plots that focus only on the romance. But if you enjoy romance plots, I definitely recommend you check this out!
"THE DOUBLE" Wu Jinyan, Wang Xingyue
Almost a Checkmark. Revenge plot and fake identities. For most of the drama, I thought this was amazing, and then I wasn't too thrilled about the ending arc. But the drama was really well done. Visually beautiful, with fun and interesting characters, and multiple, parallel plots, which is something I like. Amidst all the tragedy, it also had two comic relief characters that I enjoyed a lot (the turtle cousin and the attendant who apparently didn't know how to use stairs).
"LOVE'S REBELLION" Zhang Linghe, Jing Tian
Reason to Watch It: Appreciate Zhang Linghe looking 🔥 sometimes evil and sometimes not, and a pretty whale town that reminded me of Kilika from Final Fantasy X (mostly X-2 because of the pastel colors). The characters and their interactions were fun. The villains did a good job being hateable. Pity the frustrating omission of a key fight - what was so problematic about ML's brain-fight with the demon that they had to cut it?? We were left wondering what happened in there.
🔇NSFW Audio! Use headphones while playing video🔇 "MISTAKEN LOVE" Shao Yuqi, Li Daikun
Mini drama. 24 eps x 10 min
A drama that you "watch for the plot" The "plot" = *points at video above* If you watch dramas for the kissing scenes and you don't mind every character being toxic, this is a drama for you.
Really good artistic direction (sets and costumes, camerawork, colors, lighting, music timing, etc.), and honestly the best kissing scenes I've seen in a cdrama (note I did say Chinese drama, and I've only been watching since 2021). And extra kudos to Duan Yixuan for her brave dubbing of FL (note: same voice actress who dubbed Bai Lu in "Till the End of the Moon"). Why "brave?" *points at the video again*😳
"THE STORY OF PEARL GIRL" Zhao Lusi, Liu Yuning
Almost a Checkmark. Would have been a solid Checkmark if not for the last episode. I have nothing against what the last ep told us, but rather against how they told it. It could have been 15-20min long and it would have been stronger for it. I do understand that the dragging was meant as a narrative parallel to how the characters wanted to extend the time they spent together as much as possible (as shown by the very slow soup-drinking and dregs-scraping), but, personally, I lost my patience with the method. Then, on the second half of that ep, it would have been nice if, instead of just showing the meeting from a neutral POV, they'd done it from the protag's POV, letting the viewer experience her emotional turmoil and distraught-ness, much like they did when she was diving for pearls at the beginning. Finally, the very last scene, with the camels, told a story but felt detached; they could have shown an aged version of the character leading into that narration.
I'm currently watching other December releases, but if they make the list, I'll include them in next year's.
