Miss Truth (2020)

Could have been good BUT ruined by poor editing, plot holes and illogical actions.

I didn't have high expectations when I first started watching “Miss Truth”. I was just in the mood. A female lead who loves to do autopsy? Sounds good! However, even with low expectations, I am greatly disappointed. The drama started out promising and had a fun first half. But then I don’t know what happened in the second half. The editing was horrible and there were so many illogical things happened. Was the drama slated for a lot longer and then got cut by censorship? Or just bad writing and editing?


Acting
This is female lead Zhou Jie Qiong’s first drama, and she did fine. I don’t find her character too annoying and she wasn’t too bad. Toby Lee probably wins the prize for acting in this drama, and he wasn’t exceptional either. His face and expressions look funny when he’s supposed to be angry. But I enjoy his bantering with the female lead. Unfortunately, Tim Pei is the most disappointing for me. I understand he’s a cold assassin, but he’s completely emotionless throughout the drama. He did not improve at all! Even when he’s faced with the love of his life, he still has dead and bored eyes. The rest of the supporting cast isn’t too good either, and that includes some of the veterans. The minor roles are the worst and watching them act is difficult. The thing that bugs me the most is there’s no subtle acting. You get that “wink wink” acting with the eyes to convey to the audience openly what is going to happen. There are too many occasions like that and I blame the director for it.

Romance
I initially really enjoyed the bantering between Ran Yan (FL) and Xiao (Song). It’s a lot of fun watching them argue and solve crimes together. Su Fu as the second male lead is also the type of character I like. In another drama, Su Fu could be the main lead. Both Xiao Song and Su Fu love noble idiocy and also show their love by doing a lot of things behind-the-scenes for Ran Yan. However, this love triangle lasted way too long and I was tired of it. I just want Ran Yan to decisively pick one guy and stick with it. But misunderstandings and noble idiocy take center stage in the romance department and the chemistry between the three of them disappears. There aren’t enough sweet and cute scenes, and the sad/heartbreaking scenes do not move me. For a romance junkie like me, romance really disappoints me.

Crime Investigations
The autopsies and investigations are my favorite parts. I am sure what Ran Yan said during the autopsies are not 100% true, but these are some fun scenes. The mysteries are interesting and they are all tied to the big mystery and plot about the pearl and treasures. Execution is the problem. If you are worried about dead bodies and gore, the drama doesn’t really show the details of the autopsies.

Plot Holes/Editing
As I mentioned, the second half is just weird. Scenes seemed to have been edited out. I was expecting the drama to show me what will happen next, but instead I was shown the result. There are so many illogical things that happened and many plot holes.
* A spoiled brat villain knew acupuncture? No way she could learn that in record time and all the characters let her poke needles on someone who everyone cares for.
* It seems like a commoner can go in and out of the palace with no problem. Oh, you can even argue with the King and consequences are an afterthought.
* A man can also enter a princess bedroom in the middle of the night, question her about a crime and can walk out unscathed. * The princess barely scolded him and left the room after being confronted.
* With the three intelligent leads gather together, no one thought of preventing assassins/culprits from committing suicide in front of them when so many of them died in front of them?
* The ending of the two leads - can they really see each other like that?

Production Quality
This appears to be a low budget production. It might not bother many viewers, but it bothered me that I see cheap clothing that is oversized and looks super heavy, draped on the actors' and actresses’ tiny bodies. The accessories, sets and ornaments all look very cheap. This has to be one of the sparsely- and cheaply-decorated palaces I’ve seen in a Chinese drama. While I appreciate actors using their own voices, the post production dubbing is inconsistent. There are times I wonder if what I heard is the actor’s internal monologue, or the audio/lines spoken and the lips are not matching.


I would not recommend this drama, unfortunately. Maybe it’s just me as I had a very hard time finishing it and it failed to hold my attention throughout the 36 episodes. The drama did have closure but also left it open for another season. The drama was shot in late 2018 and aired in 2020. As of this review in 2023, season 2 is nowhere in sight.


Completed: 8/6/2023 - Review #338

Leggi di Più

Worth the watch

I'm not really into detective/Sherlock Holmes type of drama, but I do like the martial arts aspect of this one. I find the ML charismatic, and I enjoyed watching his facial expressions/acting. The FL has a strong character, independent and not "whiny" or acting childish like a lot of the other dramas.
The 1st 20 episodes were fast paced and suspenseful, the middle was a little dragging (evil sister kept coming back, boring cases), and the ending was not the best . It is still a happy ending though, but they left it open for a 2nd season w/c may not happen at all.

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Good Story, Well Builted Characters

Its another "Smart-Strong Female Lead" show. Its the first lead character for our female lead, her acting was 8/10 but the main male characters acting is 9/10 in my opinion. You could learn some details when they do investigating.. The plus is both 2 males characters are good looking and did well in their acting. 2 males characters are so into our female lead that the story seems really sweet. However, the romance between 3 of them got shorten in some scenes and I somehow feel confused about the female decision among 2 males. Story lines about investigating is interesting, somehow I felt like the whole show was cut 1/4 of its whole filmed scene to make the story shorter. Over all, its fast beat romance show, interesting, not too much into cheesy romance but has good reasonable romance scene. Would rewatch in free time.

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THE ONLY BEST PART IS TOBY LEE

As I said the only best part of this drama is Toby Lee, he's as an Minister of Justice, a type A man with so much power and authority who loves the 3rd wife deeply but patiently wait for her to come to him. Xiao Song (Toby Lee) is the only one who act good, descent, and reliable while the rest of crews are so bad in acting - it becomes painfully to watch. Ran Yan (Zhou Jie Qiong) needs another 3 years for acting class; wooden, slow, expressionless, she does not know what to do with her hand, and her beautiful face is more like a grimace than a smile. 2nd male lead Su Fu barely has dialog, ep 20 I think he starts to talk a bit more but then as his character supposedly a reserved man. Actually, the story is pretty good, a female forensic examiner that got tangle with series of murders....back and forth love story between 1st & 2nd male choice... an intelligent female that actually need to celebrate - its too bad she is not the right actress to take the part.

From so many actors, Toby Lee is actually do better than the rest. He smiles when he needs to, stern face when needs to be, seducing voice when try to coax, soft eyes when declaring love, all that we can see. No, I don't want season 2, what I want is another drama from Toby Lee and this is the first act I saw in him.

Leggi di Più

Good. It's more than expectations compared to their budget. The story line, characters, and the OSTs are good too.

But boring in the meanwhile as the fl always have to choose between the ml and 2ml.

May not seems to be an interesting story at the beginning, but it directly jumped into the story in the first 3 episodes. Not like other dramas, everything is stable though there are misunderstandings for sure, but no boring “misunderstanding scenes”.

As I don't have any knowledge, I like how detailed they let the fl say when she did the autopsy.

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Goddess of Corpses & All in one Medical Examiner + Great chemistry from the 3 Main Leads!

"If you love her, why did you give her up?" - Xiao Song's Father

Wanna start this review by stating how messy and overly manipulated the entire love and romantic scenes of this story. Honestly speaking, the entire 1st half (Love story part) of this drama was such a trash I wish it never existed or they at least made it less chaotic and irritating. I just hated how they seemed to eagerly push 'Xiao Song' to be the ML where it was supposedly 'Su Fu' in the first place. It's weird how it feels like they're forcing another character to the ML role where it is evident that the original script tells us otherwise.

It was a challenge to watch a love story unfold with such obvious heavy manipulations from the script itself. Like you just immediately knew that something is off... unnatural and fabricated— fake! I feel like I developed anxiety from having to bear through those sequences this whole time.

Moving on, I just wanna dig deeper into this drama by enumerating some of the positive and negative aspects I have observed while watching it.

Romance & Love story - Su Fu was in a tough spot for being an assasin and spy but I just can't comprehend why he didn't even try to explain himself when he loved her so much. Like, where's the sense in that? at the end, he just didn't seize his chances to the very extent. While Xiao Song on the other hand got it all wrong from the very beginning. Forcing and controlling someone you 'supposedly like' to work for you, hurt her physically and emotionally, failling to protect and even bring harm to her and more. God knows how disappointing this guy was (yes 'was' cause he gradually improved).

Unrealistic, absurd and problematic scenes - This drama got it all for you. From the Crown Prince and Princess attending a banquet without much entourage. Followed by the overhyped 'Drunken state' reaction they had for the FL so they try so hard to keep her from drinking alcohol only to be disappointed because she just puked a little and got a bit more aggresive in doing her autopsy. Up until her infuriating father who chose to blame and disown her even when things has been cleared up and more. It was... draining.

Fighting scenes are actually good. Lots of angled cuts just to hype the action scenes but they were still able to execute cool and amazing sword, archery and brawl fights.

Crime scenes and Problem solving cases are very detailed, well thought and satisfying. You'll immediately know how much research they did just to make it fit perfectly to whatever crime they're trying to show and achieve. I also appreciate the crime scene visualizations whenever they're investigating a crime. Made it more easy to understand the whole scenario without having to recollect and remember what actually happened in the past events.

Supporting characters were also interesting. I love the BL touch from Bai Yi and Sang Chen. Hahaha~ + The FLs Master and Maid Servant brought so much content to make the whole story more light, funny and enjoyable. Let's just ignore her entire Ran Family members. They were all trash aside from her biological Mother.

P.S. There was a teaser at the end of the last episode for a possible Season 2 and I hope it would never happen. I just had enough! >_<

Story - 9.0, Would've made it higher if not for the disappointing manipulations they did with the 2 Male characters, cause if ruined the 1st half of the show. Thank god they were able to save it. Problem solving is great so does the mind-boggling crime set ups and preparations.

Acting/Cast - 9.0, I'm quite satisfied with the Main Leads specially Tim Pei (Su Fu) because even when he constantly look grim and serious you can clearly feel and see the emotions from his eyes and movements. Jie Qiong (Ran Yan) and Toby Lee (Xiao Song) executed their characters greatly as well and I just love their lovey-dovey-teasing moments a lot. I just wish some of the Supporting and Side character never existed. They ruined the experience for me.

Music - 9.5, At first, I find the music used as typical and ordinary but as time passes by I was able to fully grasp the emotion and truly enjoy each one of them. + They were all played on the right time and perfect moments. I was never bothered by their placement and usage.

Rewatch Value - 7.5, It was good but I just won't rewatch it again. I'm only being nice by giving it this rating because it wasn't bad but i'd rather watch other shows than to rewatch it. Heck! I don't even want the S2 to be produce no matter what.

Overall - 9.0, Problem solving, Crime cases and Fighting scenes were actually great but beyond that just felt forced and completely fabricated. I also hate how they keep on challenging the Main Leads love and trust by constantly trying to make them misunderstand each other. Huh! That was effin' tiring y'all. Would've been nice if they didn't made the love story look so manipulated. It was still a good watch specially for the crime-investigation parts.

IF you find my review helpful please let me know.

Leggi di Più

I really love the chemistry between su fu and ran yan I was hoping that he will have yan ran in the end that they will reconcile even though i know that he is just the triangle in the story.my heart broke when they just end their story just like that huhuhu. Su fu he really stand the character of an assassin
I hated the episode when ran yan and xiao song re united coz they make ran yan desperate they set aside her strong and her fierce character. And i hated how possesive xiao song here he bullied ran yan..
How i wish Tim Pei will have a lead role like this character in the future. Love him

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Although there were some poorly made edits, I thoroughly enjoyed the drama.

Despite some enjoyable aspects, the drama had several glaring issues with the poorly written script and bad editing. The transition from one murderer case to the next was poorly executed, and the love change of mind of the female lead was poorly executed as well. Although the main storyline was intriguing and kept me hooked, the overall execution of the drama left me cringing.

Frankly, I found myself caught between two vastly different scriptwriters - one who kept me thoroughly engaged, and the other who made me cringe with poorly executed scenes. Unfortunately, the drama took a downhill turn due to the script's many ridiculous and bad choices. Funny on paper, but cringy on screen. Intriguing on paper, but poorly executed on screen. Too many cuts/edits that left me frustrated. Some casting choices were also debatable like the stepmother.

Despite these issues, the second male lead captured my attention with his handsome and mysterious persona. While the other male lead was a good actor, I didn't feel any chemistry between him and the female lead. The decision to go with more veteran male leads was fantastic! This was probably the main reason I kept watching.

The characters were intriguing, and I was particularly drawn to the portrayal of the genius character, who seemed to have some borderline autistic tendencies. The female lead struggled with expressing emotions and exhibiting fickleness in her romantic interests. While the script may be lacking, it could be interpreted as a result of her being autistic or a genius. This is supported by the fact that she demonstrated exceptional talent at a young age, mastering autopsy at just 9 years old, as mentioned by her shoufu. I must say, this all seems quite stretched to me and I am only speculating to explain, or maybe even excuse her character.

The ending was a complete letdown, leaving the viewers disappointed, especially since it was left open-ended with the possibility of another season that never materialized. Do not expect a typical love story. It is a complex and tumultuous triangle of love and misunderstandings that will keep you frustrated, yet still watching to finally watch the mutual love declaration.

Despite the flaws, I still believe that this is a great show. However, the producers should have done a better job with the script and editing to make it a more seamless and enjoyable viewing experience.

Leggi di Più

great

I was excited by this drama because the backstory sounds like a Chinese version of a favorite mystery series "Mistress of the Death" which is also about a female crime-solving coroner. should make a second season to continue the story. I want to see what happen to Su Fu at season 2 of the drama. I think Ran Yan should be with Su Fu at season 2. it will be another great story and movie. I am sure that everyone will like it and excited about it. I will also be very excited about it. I will love it. I hope that they will make a second season to continue with the ending. I am sure it will make more sense to the ending.

Leggi di Più

Captivating and chemistry both main actors are awesome!

after watching arsenal military academy, definitely i wanted to see more of Toby Lee. He is so handsome and good at acting with many ranges of facial expression. as a second lead he was surely memorable in that movie. So glad i was able to watch miss truth. The episodes made me hooked from beginning to the end. and even i'm hoping for Miss truth 2 to come soon! Their chemistry is strong and both are a pleasure to look at and too watch.
The only thing i'm hoping they put more romantic scene with romantic words for this couple. After the hardship and trial they have to go through, surely they deserve it don't they?
the roles are made for them. Especially for Toby Lee. His acting is so awesome/
The supporting casts are good as well, from the shufu, Bai yi, her companion maid..
About Su fu....i would like to see him more on a tender side where he is the master of himself on the next season.
He plays so well you can feel the coldness...he is cool.
Give it a shot, i had great time watching it. that, if you dont mind the sleepless night you will get from bingeing the movie..hehehe...

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Just a review

So...... I just finished this movie and

WHAT I WOULD PREFER TO HAPPEN IN THIS MOVIE:

1. It would be better if she could fight
Since Ran Yan (Female lead) is an independent woman it would be better if she could defend herself instead of waiting to die or be saved by someone.

2. The kiss at the ending
I wanna say wth but since there might be kids so I'll pass

WHY WOULD I WATCH 36 EPISODES JUST TO WAIT FOR A FAKE KISS SCENE THAT COVERS THE MAIN LEADS FACE?!?!?!?! WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY ?????????

3. Some parts might be a little boring
There are some parts that made me skip 10 seconds either because I couldnt stand watching that part or it wasnt that important to watch so it it might be boring...

But.......... overall it is okayyyyy but I'll probably watch the sweet moments that the main leads shared only :(

Leggi di Più

Best romance-mystery period drama I've watched

Coming from a rewatch, I love this drama just as much the second time as the first.

First watch impression: I loooved the love triangle in this one. The romance is shown rather than told and the actions really add to the depth of the feeling between the ML and FL. I loved how their personalities remained consistent, some may find FL too straightforward/stubborn/frank, but I loved that. And Xiao Song (Merman Song) is everything I need in a man. Smart, capable, cheeky, grounded, unceasing in his efforts to protect Ran Yan. All in all, a perfect match.

Su Fu is . . . well, he does a lot of the saving physically, but Xiao Song does it also on an emotional level.

Second watch impression: Bai yi is awesome. I really wish the relationship between he and Sang Chen could have been explored more because I get such lovely BL vibes there, one (Sang Chen) being the clueless one. I know, censorship, blah... but it in my mind they'd make a lovely match.

Summing up: hugely recommend the watch if you like smart leads and acts of service in your romance.

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