Be Her Resilience (以她之韧): Now Airing
Sep. 27th, 2025 08:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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baihe_mediaRepublican Era drama Be Her Resilience (以她之韧, pinyin: yi ta zhi ren) started airing on 10 September. As of the time of writing, all episodes (24 in total, each approximately 15 minutes long) are available on iQiyi international, with MTL subtitles (I spotted a couple of objective mistranslations already in the time it took me to turn them off) and with the first five episodes being free-to-view. The show page can be viewed here on iQiyi.
The synopsis on iQiyi international refers to the two main characters as 'sisters', but this doesn't give the full picture. While they're very technically adopted sisters, they IMO do not relate to each other as sisters at all, plus the official adoption takes place during a time one of them is temporarily missing, and they are separated as children and reunite as adults. Of course, that's my interpretation and YMMV, obviously.
I have some quibbles with the writing/plotting, which I felt was quite thin generally and downright awkward in places. Unlike Soul Sisters — which I feel is a decent comparator given the length — which leaned hard into its simple, silly premise, didn't take itself too seriously, and (IMO) generally managed to do what it set out to do, Be My Resilience shoots for dark/smart/complex, which in my view it did not have the chops or resources to pull off. I also got the distinct feeling that the more dramatic/shippy scenes had been developed first, and with an eye on 'will this look good as a Douyin clip/as part of a shippy edit', with the rest of the plot shoved somewhat artlessly in place as a vehicle to get the story from Shippy Scene A to Shippy Scene B. In other words, I felt the plot was best regarded as setup for the main characters to Emote Intensely at each other.
I also have quibbles with the costuming, which IMO is even more questionable than in Couple of Mirrors. I mean... side cutouts on a Republican Era qipao? Gigantic plastic-looking earrings?? What exactly are we doing here, what is this vibe.
The synopsis on iQiyi international refers to the two main characters as 'sisters', but this doesn't give the full picture. While they're very technically adopted sisters, they IMO do not relate to each other as sisters at all, plus the official adoption takes place during a time one of them is temporarily missing, and they are separated as children and reunite as adults. Of course, that's my interpretation and YMMV, obviously.
I have some quibbles with the writing/plotting, which I felt was quite thin generally and downright awkward in places. Unlike Soul Sisters — which I feel is a decent comparator given the length — which leaned hard into its simple, silly premise, didn't take itself too seriously, and (IMO) generally managed to do what it set out to do, Be My Resilience shoots for dark/smart/complex, which in my view it did not have the chops or resources to pull off. I also got the distinct feeling that the more dramatic/shippy scenes had been developed first, and with an eye on 'will this look good as a Douyin clip/as part of a shippy edit', with the rest of the plot shoved somewhat artlessly in place as a vehicle to get the story from Shippy Scene A to Shippy Scene B. In other words, I felt the plot was best regarded as setup for the main characters to Emote Intensely at each other.
I also have quibbles with the costuming, which IMO is even more questionable than in Couple of Mirrors. I mean... side cutouts on a Republican Era qipao? Gigantic plastic-looking earrings?? What exactly are we doing here, what is this vibe.
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Date: 2025-09-28 01:32 am (UTC)I'm kinda curious why episode 15 is missing from iQIYI's international website (since it seems to be on their other website, I'm assume it might just be an error).
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Date: 2025-09-29 09:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-29 09:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-29 09:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-29 10:14 pm (UTC)