#reaction posts

Chen Yanyun joining the ranks of dramatic cdrama men. Wife says she wants a divorce, guess I'll die. Or in his case, get shot with arrow in a bad spot, bleed a lot, so as to be extra pitiful to the wife.

And then she hits him on his wound, lol.

So yes, as I’m sure you’ve heard, this show is very queer. But what is so interesting about it that having so many queer characters allows the show to explore a whole range of queer experience. They can also explore many different coping mechanisms for being queer, and/or black,  and living in the forties. On which note, the show also did a great job in finding a balance between celebrating the character’s lives and experiences, but also acknowledging everything standing in their way. Stealing Home, the sixth episode, is just heart breaking.

I loved the complexity and generosity that’s allowed to even minor characters. Max’s mother is trying to force her daughter down a path that’s wrong for her, yes, but she is doing it because she is terrified for her daughter and wants her to be safe. Charlie is a decent guy and he and Carson genuinely love each other. Best of all Bev, the chaperone, who could easily have been set up as the villain, is protective and supportive of her charges, gaming the system to try to help them. More of Bev’s backstory please.

Similarly, the show allows otherwise sympathetic characters to display the prejudices of the era – in particular, Clance, the sweetest, loveliest, most endearing character you’re ever likely to meet, also recoils from Uncle Bertie and calls him a freak.

The dual story lines of Max and Carson, with the two meeting only occasionally, really works – obviously as a vivid illustration of how segregated their world is, but both storylines hold attention and the switching back and forth between them is handled really well.

And oh yeah, there’s some baseball in there. Non American here, who knows nothing about baseball and cares less (sorry), but despite relying on various sporting cliches, the Peaches journey as a team is compelling. The resolution of the final game was corny, yes, but the GOOD kind of corny, and it did make me cry dammit ( I am not immune to the whole ‘we lost but we won by losing’ thing. See also Cool Runnings.)

HTTYD, Hiccup is around 15 years old, and we get this...

The first real tease/foreshadowing that Hiccstrid was going to happen.

And it only took somewhere around 3-4 years to get this...

Otherwise known as THE HICCSSTRID MOMENT WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR SO FREAKING LONG FOR. LIKE...

Really good movie! Was thinking yesterday and continue to think - just, good, and they’re really good with/at how they do reveals, and the flashbacks (which continued in the end), and good at mixing the humor and the other parts and having it work. And very good fighting scenes! (really in particular noticed the reveals and the flashbacks and how well they were done.)

Love Katy and her character things!! (Also wow I had not known Awkwafina was in this movie and I saw her and was just like omg Awkwafina!!). Wenwu is very good. His arc and basically everything with him is very very good and well done. Love their aunt* and things with her!

(Also kept thinking/saying, well they definitely wanted to make a martial arts movie! (and from my view at least did a good job!))

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I think the weakest part of the movie was the ending part, actually. It was still very good to watch! But it felt like it did not get enough time, and there was a lot that feels like it didn’t get set up in a way that made it work - and that it could have, it just didn’t. And the time is just a really strong feeling about it I think - there was just so much there that felt like it needed more time devoted to it than it got. (And they added a new moral arc thing like, right before the final battle, which is one I wasn’t happy about**, and then - just - didn’t actually do anything with it and dropped it?? That was very strange.) 

But it felt like there was a lot that just - needed more exploration and more being brought to a close and - really as I said just more time. And I really wish it had gotten it! And similarly that there was some major stuff that really needed some ‘here’s how this works’ in some form to make it fit together. And I think the movie really managed to - not have this have a disturb-the-viewing-experience-a-lot effect, and compliments to them on that skill, but it still really felt very there to me and I think I’ll be thinking more about it having finished. And again it feels like it really could have been fixed. (And if it took that I wish they’d shortened some of the earlier fight sequences to give the time it needed to this!)

***

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I think I’m going to have more thoughts and feelings on the treatment of Xu Xianling****.

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(I feel like I have now devoted much more space to criticism than to praise, which might create the wrong idea of my feelings of the movie. Which, would not be accurate at all, I think my more critical thoughts are just easier to put into expanded words and thoughts here, while my positive thoughts are just very - it was good. This was good and this was good and this was good. And overall my feeling is - it is a good movie, this movie is good, the experience of watching it as a movie is that it is good - which I don’t have better or longer words for but it’s very true! 

And I definitely think that this shows, with Black Panther, how really good things can be when things like this are done and done (at least as far as I can tell) well.)

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I have a bunch of thoughts and feelings about Black Widow and contrast and immigrant things. 

Spoilers below this point!!

*and I’m so glad she didn’t die!

**the one about killing people, which like - is ever possible to do well, I think Avatar did it, but in general I don't like it and I think usually it’s not done well at all and I was very unhappy when it just suddenly showed up?

***it got a cool use and the subversion is neat but I was totally expecting a showdown with the masked guy (and maybe a reveal about him?) and possibly with Razorblade and did feel disappointed it didn’t happen!

I’m finally getting around to putting them all in one masterlist so you don’t have to search through the tag! Go me. These all contain ALL THE SPOILERS, as you can guess.

In order of our watching them: 1. Episodes 3-7 2. Episodes 8-10 3. Episodes 11-12 4. Episode 13 5. Episodes 14-15 6. Episodes 16-17 7. Episodes 18-19 8. Episodes 20-21 9. Episodes 22-23 10. Episode 24 11. Episode 25 12. Episodes 26-27 13. Episode 28 14. Episodes 29-31 15. Episode 32 and the first 15 minutes of episode 33 16. Episode 1 17. Episode 2 18. Episodes 33-34 19. Episodes 35-36 20. Episodes 37-38 21. Episodes 39-40 22. Episodes 41-42 23. Episodes 43-45 24. Episodes 46-48 25. Episodes 49-50