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Feb. 2nd, 2022 12:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsI've been wanting to watch Couple of Mirrors since I first heard about it -- it's laser-targeted at me in a number of ways -- but with one thing and another we didn't get around to it until this month.
Q: Okay, what is Couple of Mirrors and why is it laser-targeted at you specifically?
A: It's about a romance novel author who falls in love with a lesbian assassin in Republic-era Shanghai!
Q: Wait, really lesbians?
A: Really lesbians in the source material, a faint veneer of plausible deniability for the live action, you know the drill. A better question is, 'really Republic-era Shanghai --'
Q: Wait, is it not Republic-era Shanghai?
A: I mean, it's for sure Shanghai, but as for time period ... okay, Republic-era China did span 30 years and nothing in the narrative itself ever gives a date; we really did try to figure it out, but this was a losing game. I've put some
This is a pretty standard set of outfits for You Yi and Yan Wei -- maybe not perfect historical costuming, but I, Not An Expert, would look at this and go 'sure, 1930sish, you're going for vibes.'
The beehive/prom dress is a little more confusing ...
But not quite as confusing as You Yi's stint as a contemporary Starbucks barista.
Or whatever is going on with her best frenemy's high pony and mod little buttons.
Meanwhile, Yan Wei's usual Eponine cosplay is relatively timeless, and, obviously, I love it.
But when when she shifts to the prairie dresses and slouch beanies I do start getting some involuntary flashbacks to mid-2000s boho chic.
And I simply do not know what to do with this moment of Appa closet cosplay at all.
Real sidenote, unrelated to temporal confusion, but I don't know anything about why this man constantly wears an ascot under his turtleneck except that I do not like it.
Anyway, eventually we just decided there was a time portal in Shanghai and left it at that
Q: ... okay, well, thanks for that moderately unnecessary detour, can we get back to the lesbians? Tell me more about them please?
A: Sure! You Yi is the romance novelist, and Yan Wei is the assassin. They meet when You Yi's discovery that her terrible husband is having an affair with her best friend coincides with Yan Wei's decision to assassinate said best friend, resulting in You Yi getting accused of the murder --
Q: This is so dramatic! Why did Yan Wei kill the best friend?!
A: Yan Wei is on a murderous revenge rampage because the kid who delivered her milk once a week got killed in a hit-and-run accident. Yan Wei has a very precise sense of justice and a less precise sense of proportion.
Q: Amazing.
A: Absolutely. Anyway, then You Yi offers a huge reward to anyone who can catch the killer!
Q: Wow! Seems like a setup for a tense and dramatic relationship with a lot of secrets and lies and possible betrayal?
A: Honestly, not really! Despite the setup, the 'plot' -- which involves multiple murders and gangsters and staged car accidents and gunfights in the streets of Shanghai, and also far too much of You Yi's horrible husband and boring ex and a detective investigating murders that truly nobody cares about -- kind of exists in parallel to the romance, which mostly consists of Yan Wei rescuing You Yi from peril in between scenes of the two of them hanging out at Yan Wei's house being adorable and domestic.
Q: Would you like to describe the domesticity further?
A: You know, they spend a lot of time cooking together and play with the cat and You Yi redecorates Yan Wei's house and drags a protesting Yan Wei to come shopping with her, and Yan Wei desperately attempts to ensure that You Yi doesn't accidentally trigger any of the death traps she's got lying around the house. Classic 'stoic former child soldier raised on a brainwashing island designed to train the humanity out of her learns to re-experience emotion via romance with an outgoing high femme socialite' rom-com tropes.
Q: ....brainwashing island?
A: Yan Wei's backstory is VERY unclear but definitely involves some form of remote island child supersoldier training and also fighting in a war. What war? See above re: 'when is this set?' We Simply Do Not Know.
Q: I feel like maybe you are trying to intimate here that the plot is not entirely coherent...
A: Yeah, if this sounds interesting to you, maybe don't ... watch for the plot ...... instead, watch for Yan Wei full-body panicking when You Yi gives her a hug and wistfully imagining herself as the kind of person who could figure out how to hug back!
Q: All right, but it's got to end tragically, right?
A: In fact it does not! The show ends with the two of them living happily together raising an adorable baby! Yan Wei is still performing various implied assassinations, which does not impact their happiness whatsoever, although occasionally the detective who's been investigating them -- who also nobly helped get Yan Wei off the hook for the one murder she didn't commit -- pops around to mutter dire warnings about finding evidence to convict Yan Wai for the murders she did commit and then ask about the health of the baby. In like the last two minutes there's a preview for a hypothetical (as-yet-unconfirmed, I think?) season two in which various dramatical things will presumably occur and not stick, but generally they're completely fine, and good for them!!
Q: Okay, what is Couple of Mirrors and why is it laser-targeted at you specifically?
A: It's about a romance novel author who falls in love with a lesbian assassin in Republic-era Shanghai!
Q: Wait, really lesbians?
A: Really lesbians in the source material, a faint veneer of plausible deniability for the live action, you know the drill. A better question is, 'really Republic-era Shanghai --'
Q: Wait, is it not Republic-era Shanghai?
A: I mean, it's for sure Shanghai, but as for time period ... okay, Republic-era China did span 30 years and nothing in the narrative itself ever gives a date; we really did try to figure it out, but this was a losing game. I've put some
This is a pretty standard set of outfits for You Yi and Yan Wei -- maybe not perfect historical costuming, but I, Not An Expert, would look at this and go 'sure, 1930sish, you're going for vibes.'
The beehive/prom dress is a little more confusing ...
But not quite as confusing as You Yi's stint as a contemporary Starbucks barista.
Or whatever is going on with her best frenemy's high pony and mod little buttons.
Meanwhile, Yan Wei's usual Eponine cosplay is relatively timeless, and, obviously, I love it.
But when when she shifts to the prairie dresses and slouch beanies I do start getting some involuntary flashbacks to mid-2000s boho chic.
And I simply do not know what to do with this moment of Appa closet cosplay at all.
Real sidenote, unrelated to temporal confusion, but I don't know anything about why this man constantly wears an ascot under his turtleneck except that I do not like it.
Anyway, eventually we just decided there was a time portal in Shanghai and left it at that
Q: ... okay, well, thanks for that moderately unnecessary detour, can we get back to the lesbians? Tell me more about them please?
A: Sure! You Yi is the romance novelist, and Yan Wei is the assassin. They meet when You Yi's discovery that her terrible husband is having an affair with her best friend coincides with Yan Wei's decision to assassinate said best friend, resulting in You Yi getting accused of the murder --
Q: This is so dramatic! Why did Yan Wei kill the best friend?!
A: Yan Wei is on a murderous revenge rampage because the kid who delivered her milk once a week got killed in a hit-and-run accident. Yan Wei has a very precise sense of justice and a less precise sense of proportion.
Q: Amazing.
A: Absolutely. Anyway, then You Yi offers a huge reward to anyone who can catch the killer!
Q: Wow! Seems like a setup for a tense and dramatic relationship with a lot of secrets and lies and possible betrayal?
A: Honestly, not really! Despite the setup, the 'plot' -- which involves multiple murders and gangsters and staged car accidents and gunfights in the streets of Shanghai, and also far too much of You Yi's horrible husband and boring ex and a detective investigating murders that truly nobody cares about -- kind of exists in parallel to the romance, which mostly consists of Yan Wei rescuing You Yi from peril in between scenes of the two of them hanging out at Yan Wei's house being adorable and domestic.
Q: Would you like to describe the domesticity further?
A: You know, they spend a lot of time cooking together and play with the cat and You Yi redecorates Yan Wei's house and drags a protesting Yan Wei to come shopping with her, and Yan Wei desperately attempts to ensure that You Yi doesn't accidentally trigger any of the death traps she's got lying around the house. Classic 'stoic former child soldier raised on a brainwashing island designed to train the humanity out of her learns to re-experience emotion via romance with an outgoing high femme socialite' rom-com tropes.
Q: ....brainwashing island?
A: Yan Wei's backstory is VERY unclear but definitely involves some form of remote island child supersoldier training and also fighting in a war. What war? See above re: 'when is this set?' We Simply Do Not Know.
Q: I feel like maybe you are trying to intimate here that the plot is not entirely coherent...
A: Yeah, if this sounds interesting to you, maybe don't ... watch for the plot ...... instead, watch for Yan Wei full-body panicking when You Yi gives her a hug and wistfully imagining herself as the kind of person who could figure out how to hug back!
Q: All right, but it's got to end tragically, right?
A: In fact it does not! The show ends with the two of them living happily together raising an adorable baby! Yan Wei is still performing various implied assassinations, which does not impact their happiness whatsoever, although occasionally the detective who's been investigating them -- who also nobly helped get Yan Wei off the hook for the one murder she didn't commit -- pops around to mutter dire warnings about finding evidence to convict Yan Wai for the murders she did commit and then ask about the health of the baby. In like the last two minutes there's a preview for a hypothetical (as-yet-unconfirmed, I think?) season two in which various dramatical things will presumably occur and not stick, but generally they're completely fine, and good for them!!
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Date: 2022-02-03 03:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-03 11:00 pm (UTC)