Drama Rating: 7/10 Neck Score: A+++
I knew it was going to be bad news when we caught up and had to wait a whole week for just the last episode. Especially when the second to the last episode slowed the pace down a lot. It just made everything so very anti-climatic. Maybe if we had watched the last three or more in one shot it could have helped, but really, the ending was just anti-climatic.
This show was very watchable though. Curdy and I needed to start a show that we could watch while Lizabreff was super busy and couldn't hang out with us. So we would be less lonely. So we needed to pick a show she didn't mind missing as much. At first we started Rich Man Poor Woman, but we couldn't even get passed one episode. Yuck. Then we tried a Taiwanese drama that had looked interesting but proved boring- The Ex Man. Then, third times a charm, we randomly started this one because we had heard some people tweeting positively about it. I admit, the English name Moonshine and Valentine used in some places was stupid enough that I hadn't considered it before. But don't let bad English names fool you, sometimes the shows are still really good. In the first five minutes we were already hooked. It helped that it has several very nice looking young men.
It is about a tribe of fox aliens who settled on earth and evolved with their powers to look like humans. Then one the high priest's sons, Helan Jingting, who happens to be half human, falls in love with a human. His dad tricks him, she dies, and he spends years finding her reincarnations so they can fall in love again and the process repeats. He is actually trying to solve this cycle so it doesn't have to repeat, but you know details and spoilers. Because he's half human he's actually blind during the day and can only see at night. This limits him more in the present day as her current incarnation, Guan Pipi, doesn't seem to fall for him at first sight any more.
The best part, for me, was that he has these two fox buddies, Kuanyong and Xiuxian who help him out. They are the bestest of friends and fight like an old married couple. They are my favorites. They are also both really attractive. They end up making friends with the best friend of Pipi, Xiaoju, and that ends up being a great friends/love triangle. It's weird and complicated, but I still like it. Any scene with any of those three was the best.
I also really loved Qianhua, who was our female fox. She was bae. She was gorgeous, classy, and cool. I was pretty invested in her plot line, which is why her plot line hurt me the most. I loved the weird chemistry between her and our antagonist, the Left Priest and Helan's brother, Zhao Song. I shipped them so hard and then he ruined everything by being the biggest idiot a-hole of all time. He hurt my bae and I wanted to hurt him. Especially since his being bad really just ruined everything. He had this charisma that I loved but no, he's the worst. But the end of that story line was also anti-climatic, like everything else. But at that point, it was what I predicted.
The show is paced well and has a good balance of plot and humor. There was not a ton of side plots that I hated, or wasted time. Well, I was pretty done with the ex-boyfriend/ex-best friend side plot. But I don't think they spent TOO much time on it. But I could have done with less of it. But overall, it was funny and full of good relationships. The friendships were beautiful. The main couple's relationship was beautiful. I loved how much he respected her and let her make her own choices. Even when he could have made her life much easier.
Anyway, yeah, the end wasn't horrible or anything, it just wasn't one that left you grinning. It was a bit "what the heck" but not so much as to ruin the whole show. It's still very entertaining, and I still highly recommend it. Just make sure that you binge the end with more episodes so it doesn't feel quite as lame. You know, so you can still be caught up in all the emotions like we weren't because we had to wait a full week. But if but for the boys alone, watch it. It is full of pretty.
