Il commissario Montalbano - Un diario del '43

A 1043 diary. I liked this one. It had again a nice plot, various angles, a complex story. It’s not exactly difficult to find out ‘who did it’, actually that’s the easiest part but also, in a way, the less interesting, and one keeps following the story looking for the real reason, for the real explanation of what happened in 1943, for the real identity of all the characters involved, victim included. 

So, I really liked this one. 

Another thing that stands out is that they finally acknowledged the death of their doctor Pasquano, the forensic pathologist of this series. This one was the third movie without him, if I’m not mistaken, but it might be the fourth. In the last series they said he was busy elsewhere but the actor had already died. I appreciated that. This season, they said in the last movie that he was on vacation, quite weird since he (the character) had never before taken a day’s leave, and in this episode they said that he died, and the wife said that he had been ill for some time, there was the funeral and they mourned him eating cannoli together (I remember the episode when Montalbano stole one or two from his office..) and I liked that. It was well done, a dutiful goodbye. Even if I’ve heard that this one might be the last episode of this series, it was still a good thing to remember him like this. 

On to the story:

When some old site is demolished, a diary of 1943 is found. Nicolò Zito brings it to Montalbano after reading it. It was written by Carlo, a young man, basically a boy, 15 years old or little more. He had been raised believing in the ideals of fascism and Mussolini, and didn’t like how the war was ending, and he was planning something tragic using granades that a certain T. had procured for him... but then the diary ended without a finale, without explaining what he did. 

Montalbano meets John, whose real name when he lived in Italy was Giovanni Zucconi. He ended up in Texas (I don’t exactly remember why, right now, they say it at the beginning and I’ve forgotten already) and married a girl there. He planned to come back to Sicily with her, but then a lawyer informed him that his parents had died in a car accident and he had no more reasons to leave America. Now he’s alone, so he came to see Sicily one last time. 

The episode’s ‘real case’ starts with the death of Todaro, an old man. Shot with a IIWW gun. Montalbano starts thinking it might be connected to the diary, but of course also follows the usual motives, questioning the family.

He had an estranged son, that he pushed away after a tragic incident. His older brother died after saving his life, and his father could never accept it. The old man also has a granddaughter who now runs his company. There’s the maid, who speaks of many girls in and out of the house because the old man wanted to scare her making her think that he wanted to replace her but he wouldn’t really di it (she thinks) and also of a girl that took him away in her car once... There’s the fact that Todaro wanted to donate 10 million euros ( !! ) to the church, to atone for some terrible thing he did in the past, but the bishop told him that he should talk about it with his family first ( !!!!! really?? humph, for real?? yeah sure... ). 

Montalbano also wonders if Todaro might be the T. that procured the grenades. He finds out that something did happen back in 1943, there was an ‘accident’ and four American soldiers died, along with five Italian prisoners - brought along by the Americans to help in the work (I think they were getting rid of the many explosives or something?).

Carlo had a sweetheart, Anita, but she died ten years ago and Montalbano can only talk to her granddaughter who knows nothing about what happened so long ago, grandma never talked about it.

 And now, the conclusion :

Montalbano becomes suspicious when he learns that the granddaughter lied about her alibis, and called an employee so that he would confirm it; also, she’s now working with her uncle, who was never allowed in the company when his father was alive, but they say they didn’t kill him for the donation money that would have bankrupted them; what she did was to ask for her uncle’s help and he knew how to convince the old man, talking to him about his lost son’s love for the company, and they did convince him. 

Montalbano asks Zito to talk about Carlo on tv, looking for information, and a woman shows up saying that she knows him, that Carlo saved her life. Years ago she was an addict, and he helped her and also found her a job afterwards. After the war, he entered a monastery becoming a friar.

Talking about Carlo and Anita, Livia suggests the idea that maybe she wrote a diary too, and indeed she did, and the granddaughter finds him in her stuff. In this diary, they learn the conclusion of the story: poor Anita was raped by a group of American soldiers, and when Carlo learned about it he wanted to avenge her and to kill them, so that’s why he did what he did. She pleaded with him, tried to stop him, but to no avail. 

Montalbano finds him and asks him about his story, and then asks the question that has bothered him the whole episode: is T. actually Todaro? Answer: no, it’s not.

The Zuccotti family had a house and some land, and someone made a lot of money out of it, while the son was far away and knew nothing. Todaro was the one who sabotaged the couple’s car causing the accident in which they died. 

John went to him, talked with him about what he did. Todaro told him that he got a lot of money for what he did, but it never brought him any good: he lost a son, pushed away the other, his granddaughter grew up alone and hardened like him, there’s no joy in his life and he has never forgotten his sin. Now, he gives John a gun, and John shoots him dead.

Montalbano talks to John, and out of compassion lets him have one more day of freedom so he can watch the patron saint’s parade of St George (how to say in English festa di S. Giorgio o festa patronale? mah). The next day, no surprise here, the old man is found dead, he shot himself in the head.  

Maigret in Montmartre - 2017

When young woman Arlette is found dead, Maigret feels bad because she had gone to the police for help but he wasn’t able to get her to trust and confide in him. He says, “I’m the one responsible, but I’m going to find the man who killed her”. 

She worked at Fred’s club; he’s a real pig, but his wife Rosa stays with him because she’s grateful that he never asked anything about anyone’s past (good for him, because it seemed to me like he was one of those stupid men that actually need their wife - he says something about that - and yet constantly risks losing her because he’s an idiot - other than a disgusting pig). This is why Rosa keeps giving girls on the run a job and a safe place, although she “can’t protect them from everything” , meaning her molesting husband. 

Arlette grew up with very shitty relations and people around, poor thing.

When Lapointe sees Arlette’s body, he goes OMG but Maigret didn’t seem to notice.... later he’s almost in tears and Janvier only asks “what’s up?”... I mean, detectives huh? :-/

A countess was killed first. Maigret asks for his wife’s help, “you’re a very clever woman” :-)

Grasshopper sold Maigret to the killer; he’s not killed of course, but taken away from the club. Fred is killed, Rosa is tied up. Marie saw the count’s cruelty, and with the countess they threw him out the window. Oskar saw it and blackmailed them and turned her into a prostitute. The countess paid him but when she was out of money she moved to Paris, with a new ID card for Marie. Rosa tried to stop the killer, stabbed him, and saw him. He killed Arlette because she wouldn’t go back to him. Lapointe kills the murderer. 

At the end, we see that Mrs Maigret obviously didn’t burn his letters; she told him she did because she was crossed that he didn’t show up at the marriage rehearsal, or very late I don’t know, but of course she didn’t. Come on, she couldn’t have. 

ITA Maigret al Picratt’s

旋风少女 Whirlwind girl series 1

I can't understand how this thing can have good reviews. Yes, it has YangYang in it, but that's the only good thing about it, the only thing that helped me bear it till the end, other than my stubbornness since I don't like leaving series unfinished. He more or less plays his usual character, the great guy who talks little but is so good in everything he does.
The worst thing about it is the female protagonist, the character I mean, not the actress. The Qi BaiCao character, to me, is almost unbearable. Yes, she's good hearted, but she's a pouting child really, and she also keeps crying from the first episode to the last, I couldn't bear it anymore, anything happens: she cries a river... I mean, get a hold of yourself! Also, I found her attitude really annoying when she was like, without him I won't go on... this series is full of people going out of their way to help her, and she's like 'yeah, let's throw all that away without a second thought, who cares...' :-/
In this series not two but three characters fall in love with her at the same time! Come on, really? And she chooses one because she thinks that he gave her a particular gift, not knowing it wasn't him? Really?
Other characters:
--RuoBai (YangYang) is her taekwondo instructor. He pushes her to work hard and do better, and he secretly helps her in any possible way without ever telling her, this selfless guy. He has health problems, but instead of taking care of his heart (literally, he has heart-problems) he keeps training her because she won't go on alone, risking his own life so she can win a championship... ehm... I mean, I understand the 'keep fighting' philosophy so dear to Asian writers, I often admire than, but in this case it's different: did he think she would cherish that trophy after his death?
--TingHao is the arrogant rich guy. Luckily he turned out to be a decent human being after all, but I still don't like arrogant rich guys.
--ChuYuan, well, at the beginning he seems such a nice sweet guy, but as the story goes on... honestly I wanted to smack his face more than once. I was specially annoyed at his behaviour towards TingYi who always thought they loved each other, and well, he let her think that. He should have told her very very clearly that he only thought of her as a sister, and he should have made it clear soon. This kind of behaviour, is it really kindness, or is it cowardice? Not doing anything is much easier, no doubt, but it's shameful.
The episodes:
1
Ten years ago it was said that a man used drugs to win a championship, and since then he's the disgrace of his town, the children throw stones at him (wow, good parenting at its peak, children throwing stones at people :-/), his own daughter keeps away from him, everybody accuses him and insults him, all but BaiCao who was rescued by him when she was little and always stayed by his side. She's part of a gym (this is the town of taekwondo, there are gyms everywhere) but she doesn't really train with them because of him. When they banish her, he tells her to go away too because he thinks that being near him is bad for her, and her good friend XiaoYing takes her home.
Her shifu's name is Qu XiangNan
2
She brings food for her shifu, missing him and thinking about him and his teachings a lot. (Is XiaoYing's house attached to their gym?) The other guys in training don't want her. Xiu Da challenges her but she refuses because her shifu taught her that taekwondo can't be used for revenge... so she stays put lost in her thoughts and doesn't dodge when he kicks her and hits her in the head. She goes down and Chu Yan helps her, carries her to his home and medicates her. Xiu Da is about to be kicked out of school so BaiCao intervenes saying that he did warn her first.
3
Some Korean students of Yuan Wu Dao come visiting, also the little brat Jim MinZhu (the daughter of Jim YiShan from the first episode). She's very young but very strong and beats three students then insults them all talking again of Qu XiangNan, so BaiCao of course accepts her challenge, and she wins. She meets Chu Yan again.
Her shifu comes begging the school to accept her in , so she can fulfill her dream and compete, but she refuses to call anyone else shifu because to her it means dad. When he faints, he's taken to a hospital. Too many years of drinking, now he needs rest.
4
BaiCao cooks for her shifu - and when she fell asleep RuoBai put a cover on her and helped with the cooking - but he's already gone, he left a letter saying that she must work hard and when she'll compete he'll come cheering for her, so she starts training with them; there is only one place for girls though, so she must defeat XiuQin first. The institute competition goes on as expected and it's all between them now. She's very strong but she has no defence.
5
Fang TingHao in introduced, the world champion, and he wants to fight ChuYan.
Everyone's mean at BaiCao saying that she cheated, and RuoBai chooses XiuQin for the competition.  She cries (what a surprise) that she won and can't understand why. TinYi fights her easily to show her that she's not so good and she feels very low. She doesn't want to see ChuYan, so he talks to RuoBai about her, but he's still angry at him for quitting taekwondo. RuoBai talks to her, tells her not to give up and she goes back. She finds a book on taekwondo's moves, then she meets TingHao who likes her (which makes it three... )
6
She keeps practising and following the book's advises
7
At the competition, BaiCao leads the cheerleaders to cheer for all the athletes of their gym, and they cheer for XiuQin too and they all win, and it's peace all around.
She tries to read her opponents but it works only with XiaoYing because she knows her well, and not on others. BaiCao starts thinking that she likes ChuYan.
TingHao pretends that she kicked him and hurt him and says she must buy him a meal then he pays the expensive bill and they run, but she insists on paying so at last he admits that he paid already. She gives him all her money and goes away, saying she'll pay the rest (he took the money!!! he lied to her because she never hurt him, he made her feel guilty about it, he played her making her eat with him while worrying all the time because she believed that she had to pay such expensive meal and then making her believe that they were escaping without paying (basically stealing) , and then, he takes her money?!?!?!? what an arrogant jerk - it's easy not to dwell on such trivial matters, when you have plenty of money :-/ )
8
She's mad of course, thinks he humiliated her with her money, which is true. He tries to give it back (only tries, not very sincerely, it would have been enough to explain to her that she didn't owe him anything...) but then he gives her advice and she changes her attitude.
ChuYan treats her bruises but TingYi is jealous and tells her to stop pretending to be hurt to see him.
So she won't go anymore.
An important coach is attending, and they are all excited. TingHao challenges ChuYan again.
XiuQin is hit by a car so BaiCao has to replace her in the championship - who would have thought, what a surprise!.. :-/
9
A bad start, but then she wins. XiaoYing thinks that she likes ChuYan so she calls him to see her and they work together at the noodle shop and TingHao sees them.
10
TingHao goes singing for her outside her practice and gives her flowers and also a flower-petals shower and he asks her to be his girlfriend, but she rejects him.
BaiCao wins again. GuangYa is having a hard time, nobody cheers for her and she's very disheartened, so BaiCao go cheer for her and RuoBai approves so all the girls go too (otherwise they wouldn't have?? ); she wins and they talk.
TingHao lies saying that he knows where her shifu is but offer her to train with him instead.
11
Angrier than ever she cries saying that she hates him and runs out. XiaoYing wants to make big cheerleading hands overnight and has YiFeng help her so he has no sleep and he loses....
12
They go to a karaoke bar to celebrate going into the semifinal and play the marshmallow game (rollingeyes) than she falls asleep and RuoBai carries her home.
TingYi and ChuYan have dinner together, TingHao sees them and gets angry and hits him then she stops him and yells at him. She confesses her love to ChuYan.
The big coach is Qu XiangNan's dead wife's sister, and she hates him.
The next match will be BaiCao against TingYi.
13
YiFeng loses.
ChuYan encourages her and gives her a strawberry rubberband, he says he watches all her matches and puts it on her hair.
TingYi versus BaiCao (and we're back at the first minutes of the first episodes). TingYi is angry that ChuYan gave the band to her. Her shifu runs to watch the match. When she falls she sees him and get up. ChuYan arrives too; she keeps at it, until TingYi hits her head again hard, and all the three guys rung at her, and her shifu too, but RuoBai gets to her and holds her...
She recovers at ChuYan's home and her shifu is there proud of her. She lost but he agree to not going away
14
RuoBai lost badly to TingHao. Since ChuYan left them, they've never beaten the other team, and now RuoBai won't train them anymore. He talks to BaiCao, tells her that he wanted to bring back glory to SongBai but failed...
BaiCao keeps at it, cleaning and practicing, and XiaoYing leads them to cheer him up.
TingHao go threaten ChuYan that if he doesn't accept his challenge and fight him, he won't allow coach Shen to take any SongBai athlete. SongBai is angry and refuses, they are all upset, she's a crybaby. ChuYan keeps defending him to BaiCao. He wants to go but he without attacking. BaiCao goes there earlier to challenge TianHao.
15
He refuses to fight because she's a girl, so instead they have tests. She wins so ChuYan doesn't have to fight him. RuoBai and YiFeng are chosen, but not BaiCao, so he wants to let her have his place
ChuYan tells BaiCao that he's going to America for a year to find a way to help TingHao's mom, and TingYi wants to go with him, even after he says she's like a sister to him. BaiCao buys an expensive pen for him and leaves it outside the door so TingYi finds it (rollingeyes)
16
BaiCao hurries to the airport to say goodbye but she misses him, but meets TingYi who acts mean and lies to her, saying that he only cares for her as an athlete, that he asked her to go with him and also to give the pen back.
RuoBai, YiFeng and BaiCao and all the other best athletes start training with coach Shen.
Two years later, GuanYa is training with them too because Shen is her aunt, and there's also XiaoYing. BaiCao becomes a champion. RuoBai does a lot for her, and XiaoYin is still in love with him.
17
XiaoYin learns now that RuoBai doesn't like soup, and that all the ones she brought, YiFeng had those. RuoBai is very concerned about BaiCao; there's a city competition and only one place, it's her or TingYi. He pays for everything, trains with her all the time, it's all for her...
TingHao takes her out and has people do her hair and makeup, gives her new clothes, it's a complete makeover, like a poor little child in an old story. Then he introduces her to his family as his girlfriend, most of all to his grandfather and then tells her to make it true and train with him, but she's all "I believe in RuoBai" and he hears.

Rainbow's End by Martha Grimes

I liked it, it’s a bit long but enjoyable enough and with some interesting characters. It’s the first of her books I’ve ever read, and while reading it I felt I should have looked at her bibliography and started from the first, because there were hints of past cases and of characters I probably should have known already, but luckily she didn’t spoil them for me by saying too much. 

I’m glad that Grimes didn’t fill up pages with long, useless (for me) descriptions. She filled them with dialogues, characters (lots of them) and characters’ thoughts. I can bare that, it makes one ‘feel’ them more. The story is an odd one in the way that almost to the end they keep saying that there is a case but they’re not sure because they have nothing to go on with. There are three dead women in England, in three different places. Angela Hope from Santa Fe fell to her death. Helen ‘Nell’ Hawes and Frances Hamilton apparently died of natural causes... DCI Rush investigated Hope but he has a very small part in it. The many characters are: Melrose Plant, aristocratic who gave up his title, his friends Diane Demornay, Marshall Trueblood and Agatha Ardry, in small but recurrent roles :-p hanging around at the Jack&Hammer pub, and Vivian.  Richard Jury, superintendent, and Sergeant Wiggins. Brian Macalvie, divisional commander. Lady Jenny Kennington, met ten years ago at another investigation. Jury and Macalvie talk at the Rainbow’s End pub. Miss Fludd, new entry in town, Melrose is taken by her. Lady Cray was a friend of Fanny. Carole-Anne is Jury’s neighbour. The Cripps (Alice, Petey the victim, little Robespierre, Amy, Aurora, and who knows who else), lots of poor children and their parents Ellie and Ash, and also Beatrice Slocum, secretly a painter and secretly smarter than she lets known; her boyfriend Gabriel ‘Gabe’ Merchant who stays with them because he lost his flat, Bea is just over for tea. Annie Landis, a friend of Nell’s, sick and sad that her son’t gone out with friends. Macalvie: “you wouldn’t happen to have a cuppa, would you?” and she transformed, “she was an Englishwoman after all; first and foremost she could produce a cup of tea” :-)

She told them that the address book they found was not Nell’s because made of leather and “you’d be better off not trying to force the facts to fit your theory” and “wouldn’t it be more sensible to accept the obvious?” : Jury tried not to laugh, Macalvie looked at her in admiration. 

The Pelican pub is where they talk to her son Jimmy. 

Jury goes to Santa Fe, and makes a pact with a girl, ‘Des’ Desdemona, at the airport, to stop smoking. 

Melrose visits Wiggins at the hospital, and sends him flowers from any person he can think of, but forgetting one from himself. He visits the museum where Hamilton died, and Lady Cray, and the Cripps (Spanky is another one?), and he takes Beatrice to a French café. 

In Santa Fe, Jury visits Angela’s workplace, he talks to Sukie Bartholomew who has a shop near hers, Malcolm Corey, half-painter half-wanna-be-serious-actor, scientist Dr Nils Anders who studies the light, Dolores Schell the pharmacist cousin, Mary Dark Hope the 13-year-old sister and her coyote Sunny. He talks to waitress Patsy who remembers them , the women, and he talks to Malcolm’s agent Benny Betts, then to Mary and Nils again... 

Melrose sent a fax at the Blue Parrot pub. He talks to Macalvie then to his friend Polly in  Little bourne and he finally finds Jenny (as per Jury’s request). He visits the Cripps again (is Gloria another one?)... 

Finally, after 500 pages, they realise that all the women smoked, and they were killed by nicotine poison. Angela got poisoned nicotine patches from Dolly and probably gave some to her friends. Jury ‘finally’ realises that Mary is in danger because he told her that Nils is fond of her more than Angela. Mary always suspected her, and so she went to her pharmacy at night to look around, but Dolly came with a gun. Sunny helps her (awww), and Dolly is arrested (who saved Mary? Jack presumably? or Nils? it’s not really clear..) . 

Jury is going crazy not knowing anything about Jenny. Melrose faxed him “She is found!” and nothing more, but he works it out himself and goes there, to find Jenny and Melrose smiling and talking and he becomes jealous with no reasons, and after a few words with them he goes back to London. Upset, he can’t stay in the office and he drives around, ending at the Old Sarum where he meets Trevor, the one who found Angela, and they talk about giving up smoking and Desdemona at the airport, and this makes them talk about Othello, and Trevor says “she never had a chance, did Desdemona. Jealousy, that’s what” and “just goes to show”

And the very last words of the book are:

-Jury was smiling. “Just goes to show”.

The end.... Well, at least he realises he was jealous: going away like that was a very stupid thing to do....

The Dark Hills Divide by Patrick Carman

Not something I’d want to read again, but I was surprised, a nice fantasy story rather catching; I mean, the first few pages were boring, but sticking to it for a while I started to find it interesting. The fact that the protagonist was a twelve-year-old girl made me worry for a while that I might find it “too” childish to bear, but it progressed well into a real story that I liked. To be clear, it is a story for kids, but it was nice nonetheless. 

There wasn’t a lot of magic, a pity really, I love magic, fantasy stories should always have magic, but it had a little bit, just enough to make the protagonist Alexa able to talk to animals. 

My only problem with the whole thing is : Warvold and the convicts. It’s not really nice to brand people  as criminals, I mean physically brand, for real, specially all in the same way, I mean there is a difference between killing a child or stealing a sandwich, but they would all have the same mark on their skin. Also, the way they speak of the whole matter (well, she speaks, the one who narrates the story is an older Alexa), as if they don’t matter, as if Warvold was something magnificent, some kind of god, and there was nothing wrong in treating people like that. 

Details:

Warvold was a traveller and an adventurer until he decided to settle down. He persuaded other people to go live in a place some people considered dangerous. He settled in a valley that became the city of Lunenburg and so many others joined him that there was no room for more. The city of Ainsworth filled up too, and he built another town, Bridewell, all in the Land of Elyon. To be protected from the dangers outside he decided to build a big wall all around the three towns and also the roads that connected them, and also the towns of Turlock and Lathbury - actually I’m not sure that Ainsworth is walled too... anyway, there is a map at the beginning of the book.

He made a deal with Ainsworth and they gave him 300 convicts to build the walls and after ten years he brought them back, minus a few that had died. Now we meet him plus James Daley mayor of Lathbury and his daughter Alexa; Ganesh the mayor of Turlock (the one who said ‘it’s so dry around here the trees are bribing the dogs’ :-p ); Warvold’s son Nicolas, who managed the affairs in Lunenburg (Alexa’s mom manages those in Lathbury). Warvold’s wife Renny died. 

We also meet : Grayson, the guardian of Bridewell’s library; Pervis Kotcher, head of the guards, who hates Alexa because senses that ‘she’s trouble’, since she’s always trying to find a way outside the wall; Silas Hardy, someone they met on the road, becomes Daley’s personal deliveryman. In the library there are also two cats, Sam and Pepper, but she can’t talk to them, she can’t always talk to animals, only when she goes out and finds a sort of mystical stone, and that stone gives her the ability to talk to animals but only while she stays in the wild, not in the city. 

She meets Darius the wolf, who has been divided from his family when they built the wall, because there is only a small passage, too small for a big wolf, but Alexa is small enough. From a tunnel, she hears some convicts speak of a plan to invade Bridewell: they were not put back in prison, they were let loose. They are all “branded with a C for criminals”, and their leader Sebastian is a traitor in Bridewell. Alexa tells nobody and starts investigating. When Pervis is arrested, and time starts running out, she tells him everything, then she tells her father (leaving out that she talks to animals, smart move), so they can plan a way to protect the city. Warvold hid in a book Sebastian’s identity: Ganesh: of course. 

It turns out that only 57 convicts actually attack the city, they are the only ones that are still alive. Yipes and Darius save her from Ganesh, and Yipes goes to call her dad for her. 

The convicts gets divided, 20 to Lunenburg, 20 to Turlock and 17 to Lathbury, some of them were rehabilitated. The walls around the roads were torn down, left only around Bridewell. Alexa can’t understand the animals anymore, and also Yipes because he went to the civilised city looking for her father, and thus lost the gift. He still lives out there by the river though. The cats are dead, they were evil :-/

Agatha Christie's Marple: the pale horse

2011. Not bad, not great but not too bad, considering this was never one of my favourite stories.  

It starts with Miss Marple listening to Macbeth on the radio. 

We see father Patrick Gorman taking a dying woman’s confession, he sends his notes to Miss Marple for safekeeping. She reads it in the morning, and right after that she reads in a newspaper that he’s been murdered. She’s very sad by the news because he was a very good man. “Goodness doesn’t seem to count for very much anymore. It’s an unforgiving world and the city is a long way from country life” says the inspector. 

At the Pale Horse Inn three women perform a ceremony against someone as if they were witches and in a few days that certain person dies. Actually the only murderer is Osbourne, he goes to the house of these people and plants there something poisoned, like a cream, a lotion, some means to have the skin slowly absorb the poison day by day. 

The episode wasn’t bad, but the whole thing with Mr Venables was nonsense. Marple suspected Osbourne because he described the man too well, because he had seen him once... it seemed like a load of nonsense; he only said he saw a scar near the eye when he lighted a match the night of Father Gorman’s murder, which is not “describing too well”; that man was always, constantly at the Pale Horse Inn and yet he only saw him once, casually, not even knowing he was in a wheelchair? Did he never go there, to check things out? Ok I suppose it could be, nobody knew him there, still, described “too well” ? :-/

The story in detail:

Mrs Davis was a market researcher, employed by Osbourne who used her findings to find out what his victims used, so he could substitute something with a poisoned replica. She put together the names of dead people and realised something was off, and for it she got poisoned herself.

She spoke to father Gorman before dying and he sent his letter to Miss Marple before he was murdered. Marple went to the police with the letter, then she went to see the room where Mrs Davis had lived, and she was let in no problem, even left alone in the room, although she clearly was no officer and no relative either. Other times, I guess. 

She opened the wardrobe and saw a note in a shoe. The policemen presumably searched the room, the inspector said they did, but didn’t see something that the sharp old lady saw with a glimpse, after a few seconds... anyway, that’s where she finds the Pale Horse Inn name. She goes there and she sees that all those dead people had been guests at the Inn.. why is that, one might wonder. They didn’t need to be. It’s the people who wished them dead that had to go to the Inn for the witches ceremony, not the victims. Doesn’t make much sense..

Anyway, Marple calls Osbourne to take a good look at Mr Venables, only to play with us :-/

Both Ginger and Mark were there for her same reason: someone had died and they were curious.

The ep was nice enough and well done enough, but the ending kind of lost it a bit here and there, didn’t it? Osbourne was always precise, yet he put Marple’s cream bottle back to front so she could notice and avoid the poison. The whole ending was also pointless because he could have been arrested before, there was no need for those tricks, which served the only purpose of inducing him to plant false evidence in Mr Venables’ house. Personally, I thought to pass for someone he wasn’t to gain access into Ginger’s home and to put there some poisoned stuff was rather more significant, and the whole ending was pointless. 

I liked the casting and the acting and the places, and the kiss at the end when Mark touched Ginger’s face while Marple was leaving, and he kissed her, although I didn’t like how long they stayed on it, sort of ruining the sweetness of it (not entirely, but almost); I didn’t like the expression he made after killing father Gorman, and the things I mentioned before. 

I liked Ginger and Collins, Grey was interesting and captivating. Osbourne was rather interesting too, what a shame for that disappointing scene, still overall a good job. 

Miss Marple-Julia McKenzie

Gorman-Nicholas Parsons

Paul Osbourne-J J Feild

Inspector Lejeune-Neil Pearson

Mark Easterbrook-Jonathan Cake

Mr Venables-Nigel Planer

Mrs Grey-Pauline Collins

Ginger Corrigan-Amy Manson

ITA un cavallo per la strega

The magnificent 7 - 2016

Well, shoot me but I liked it. It seemed a bit weird at first, this diverse cast, but I read on wiki the director Fuqua saying that back then there were black cowboys and Asian workers and everything, so if that's true maybe the unnatural decision was made in the past when they always chose an all-white and usually all-male cast to play the heroes, and not now.
Anyway, being used to the old western, it seemed strange at first, but it stayed with me for... maybe even a couple of seconds I don't know, then I was like, "who cares, Denzel Washington: always a pleasure", and that was it. After that, the rest was easily accepted and welcomed.
It had a few things in common with the old one, of course, other than the basic plot I mean, but it was more modern obviously; still, the soul was the same I think. I like the old one a lot, but I don't think that means I must dislike any remake, there can be two good movies on the same story, I don't see why not, no need to force a "which one was better" at all cost. The era and the actors, everything's different, so I'm ok with both.
I liked that there was one good with knives, and one with psychological problems, like in the old one. I was glad that this time there was no annoying kid, I guess here he was replaced by the Comanche guy, but I liked him alright.
Faraday fought till the end, and already wounded he sacrificed himself to destroy the machine gun brought by Bogue. Maybe he knew his injury was already something he couldn't survive, anyway his attempt was a suicidal mission, it was obvious he couldn't get out of it alive, but at least he completed what he wanted to do and destroyed it.
Goodnight at the last moment decided he wasn't strong enough to face another battle and ran away, but came back during the fight. He died along with his friend Billy, after shooting a lot of enemies to help Faraday reach his destination, they were killed by the machine gun.
Horn was killed too. Only Chisolm, Vasquez and Red Harvest came out of it alive.
I liked the Emma character too: she was nice, she was emotional, maybe unprepared for what killing a man actually entails but she went through with it till the end because she had no options. The actress was really good too, she got to me earlier on, when her husband talked back to Bogue and she had that look on her face, without a word she conveyed the message, what are you doing, you'll get killed, the terror she felt for what she feared could happen, and indeed happened.
She could shoot well enough, because 'she had a father too', and I liked that too.
So yes, I liked it, it was well done and well played. Sure, it seemed a bit awkward that nobody would have anything to say about trusting their lives to a Comanche, for example, but I'm glad it went this way, I really had no desire for internal conflicts. Instead, I appreciated the moments when the seven got each other's back, the moments that showed Billy and Goodnight's friendship, when Horn and Red Harvest went eating (or drinking,whatever) together, when Vasquez got mad because someone had shot Faraday...
Actually Faraday is the only one that looked a bit forced, maybe, too much of a modern guy, I don't know how to explain it.

The basic plot is the same: a village of poor, pacific people gets in real trouble when a cruel greedy man wants their land, wants to buy it for nothing, wants them to work as slaves in his gold mines, and kills without blinking anyone who opposes him. When Emma's husband is killed along with other man, only because he dared talk back to evil Bogue, she's determined to find a way to oppose Bogue at all cost. With a friend, she goes looking for help. She finds it when she meets Sam Chisolm, a sort of bounty-hunter, a US Marshal according to wiki, I don't remember all his references he mentioned. Anyway, he's official. He accepts after hearing Bogue's name, and finds other men for the job. The first is Josh Faraday, who has no money but a few troubles, and spends a lot of time gambling at cards. Then Vasquez who has a bounty on his head, and they sort of make a deal (like, take this job with me and I won't ever look for you in the future); Goodnight, who fought in the Confederate army and still has nightmares about the war, and his good friend Billy, an Asian man extremely good with knives. Also, Jack Horn, a hunter of some kind, and a Comanche warrior they meet on the way.
As they reach the village, they kill all the sheriff's men, all paid by Bogue, and let the sheriff go to inform his boss so that he'll come personally, like Chisolm wants. The sheriff will be killed by Bogue himself, this is what happens when you work with such elements.
They only have a week to prepare. They try to teach the locals how to shoot and fight, they use guerrilla tactics and some dynamite they took at one of Bogue's mine, after freeing the workers there.
After this, it's time for the long showdown. Bogue comes with lots and lots of men. They fight with all they've got, the seven and the locals, and eventually they win. It only remains for Chisolm to revenge on Bogue who, we learn now, destroyed his village, killed his sisters and many others, and almost killed him. Lost in his pain and hate he doesn't notice that Bogue has a hidden weapon, but luckily for him Emma shoots the guy in time to save him. Those who survived can now go back to their lives. The locals have their village back, and the surviving three of the seven go away together.

Chisolm-Denzel Washington
Emma-Haley Bennett
Faraday-Chris Pratt
Goodnight-Ethan Hawke
Horn-Vincent D'Onofrio
Billy-Byung-Hun Lee
Vasquez-Manuel Garcia-Rulfo
Red Harvest-Martin Sensmeier
Bogue-Peter Sarsgaard

Dear Brigitte - 1965

It wasn’t bad, mainly because I always liked James Stewart, although to be honest he looks a bit old for this role. He was 57 and his character had a 18-y-o daughter and a 8-y-o son, plus hearing his wife talking it seems like they married young, like right out of university or something... anyway, it was nice, a simple little movie, but nothing special, nothing I’d like to watch again.

Stewart plays Robert Leaf who is a professor, a poet, a lover of the arts, any arts, and a hater of the science, any science. He is very absent-minded, which I supposed is to add to his artistic-poetic-aura, and one day is world is put upside down when he discovers, not only that his son has no artistic talent whatsoever, but even that he is a maths genius. He’s only eight, but all of a sudden he becomes a prodigy. When his teacher tells them he wants to keep it a secret, he doesn’t like it at all, they even take him to a doctor, who is very surprised when Erasmus tells him that he doesn’t care about maths at all, he’s only interested in Brigitte Bardot :-p ,  but his ability comes out anyway when Erasmus points out, to a bank director, that their count was wrong. Now everyone’s interested in him. Leaf fights against it, while his daughter tries to take advantage of the situation. Leaf rejects her idea of selling t-shirts, but he knows nothing about her friends taking advantage of his ability to make winning bets on horses. Until they are found out. He’s angry and asks the girl and her friend about it. Erasmus shows him how he does it (they give him all the statistics and he chooses one). 

The guy says he only wants to earn enough money to marry her, Leaf asks ‘a few millions?’ and the girl ‘Oh one is enough for me’ :lol:

It’s still not clear to me if it’s ok to do it or not, is it legal or isn’t it? Why was there an officer to talk to him at the university? 

Erasmus always asks for money every time, and he spends it all on stamps: he keeps writing to Brigitte Bardot... he writes to her every night :-p

Leaf resigned, and doesn’t even know that they have no more money, even promises his vain daughter to buy her a new dress (did they try to explain to her that there’s no money?).

Erasmus gives him the money he earned to buy the dress, and then father and son go to buy the dress without the girl... when was that ever a good idea?

He meets another professor or something who lost his job, and together they plan something to ‘promote the arts’ using of course Erasmus to make money... betting on horses... they start with ten dollars and soon have thousands.. 

Suddenly Erasmus receives a letter from France! It’s in French so he asks his dad to read it to him. She writes that she loved all his letters and asks him to go to her to meet. He wants to go, but his father thinks it’s too far away. The professor/doctor or whatever gets angry when Erasmus refuses to give him another horse until he can go see BB, but then he apologises and tells them that they can take the money from their ‘foundation’ to take the boy to Paris; after all if he stops they have no way to go on... so Leaf takes the boy to Paris. They meet her, and it turns out that she knows his poems... she gives them chocolate, they take a picture, (Leaf is astonished by such technology as a polaroid...) and she gives him a puppy, and kisses him on both cheeks, then they go back.

A lieutenant comes to tell Leaf that the man he thought was their accountant is actually been arrested. Leaf pretends to know nothing with the doctor, and Erasmus says fromage because he keeps thinking of BB saying cheese when they took the picture, and the doctor bets all the money they had, and then Erasmus says he didn’t choose any horse this time (guess he suddenly ‘woke up’ from his daydreams), but what do you know, somehow that horse wins anyway. The doctor takes all the money alone, planning to go away with a girl, and he’s about to be arrested but Leaf knew about him and involved the university in the foundation, so they take the money instead. 

The end... just like that.  

ITA Erasmo il lentigginoso

The living daylights - 1987

The least known of all the Bond movies... well, Timothy Dalton may not be as charming as Sean Connery or Roger Moore, but besides that it’s not really all that different from the old Bond movies. There are all the usual ingredients: the silly action scenes, the explosions, the chases, Q and his gadgets, the useless blond girl, the fantasy that every female on the planet would fall to his feet and beg for his time, yeah sure, keep believing that , as well as the usual luck of the hero, since the only reason he makes it is once again because he’s lucky and the bad guys are not as much as him. 

He’s ordered to help a Russian general escape to the UK to collaborate with them; he’s told there will be snipers trying to stop him, but he sees a pretty girl, a musician, and doesn’t kill her, only stops her.

He says it’s not because she’s pretty but because he saw she was not an expert sniper and got curious about her. The general seems frightened of everything, making you wonder how he became a Russian general... he tells Bond’s superiors that someone they know, general Pushkin, is planning something bad, I think he says that Pushkin wants to kill all their assets, then the place is attacked by a Russian assassin. The only good thing was that the other 00-agent actually put up a good fight, but of course he lost. The Russian guy managed alone to put the whole place in chaos and bring general Koskov away with him, alive...  the security here was stupidly easy to fool, I must say. 

His superiors want to kill Pushkin because of what Koskov said, but Bond is against it. He wants to investigate the girl, Kara, he finds her and learns that she thinks Koskov is some kind of benefactor, her good friend or something, apparently he even gave her a Stradivari cello.... he takes her away, they chase him, and he destroys a police car using lasers (good thing it was a tall car, had he used that on a lower one he would have cut the people inside...), the car has a bazooka to blow up a camion, simply assuming there was nobody inside or not caring, he cuts the ice with the wheel rims so that the bad guys’ car sinks in the water, his car also have skis, and nails that come out of the wheels to speed up on the ice, and a rocket button to increase his speed and jump over...  

Koskov never really betrayed, he is working with Whitaker, a guy obsessed with war and toy soldiers and stuff, and they deal in arms and drugs, and stuff like that. It’s them who are killing the 00-agents one by one, to force them to kill Pushkin. 

When another one is killed, Bond goes to talk to Pushkin (using his woman as a distraction, rather un-gentlemanly I’d say, then he pretends to kill Pushkin in front of people because he says that as long as he’s alive they won’t find out what Koskov wants. 

She calls Koskov who lies to her about Bond and she believes him, she drugs Bond and Koskov comes to take him away, both of them actually. They take him away alive, she regrets what she did and starts helping him. Koskov hands both of them over to the Russian police, Bond frees himself and she’s all “we’re free!!!” and he’s like “we are in a Russian base in the middle of Afghanistan...”, the only funny scene in the movie, but it cracked me up :lol:

They also free the only other prisoner there, who turns out to be a leader of the mujahidin group that is fighting against the Russian, so he helps them afterwards. 

Bond’s big plan is to leave her there and go fight alone his battle, which doesn’t seem to me a very brilliant idea, to leave a Russian girl in the middle of a group of male soldiers fighting against the Russians, for soooo many reasons... anyway, she won’t let him go away alone and follows, and they help too, and Bond plans to blow up a plane full of drugs using a bomb, but then Koskov sees him and he can’t get out so he flies the plane. She wants to go with him, takes a jeep and drives it inside the plane... better to stop the bomb now, but the assassin got in too and they fight. Bond left Kara to pilot the plane, and for some reason she takes matters in her own hands, who knows what she wanted to do, but she almost gets Bond killed when she opens the back of the plane. The two guys fight, Bond wins (the guy got hold of his foot but Bond cut his shoelaces and the other falls down); all the drugs flew out but not the sack with the bomb, but he stops it with two seconds to spare....

There’s a scene where Bond throws said bomb down onto a bridge to help the mujahidin rebels, I think, but it was painful to see that bridge fall down, not many months after our very own bridge here went down....

They lose fuel, the plane’s engines stop, they are going down, so they launch themselves out in the jeep, landing very easily as if it was nothing. He goes to Whitaker, still playing with his toy soldiers, but rather serious in his own way, he gets out of it thanks to his usual luck, then Pushkin arrests Koskov.  It’s all over now. 

Kara is playing, doing a concert, and the mujahidin leader comes to greet her like old friends, but she leaves them to go to her dressing room where Bond is hiding, and there’s the usual kissing and Bond-like finale. 

These action movies do not age too well, watching it now, specially for the first time, it is rather boring.

ITA 007- Zona pericolo

Hazzard - 2005

I didn’t like it ... Well, there were all the characters of the series, there was the car which is the main character of course, there was the narrating voice, there was the usual ‘lost sheep/over conversation, the shootings, the chases, the jumps with the car... and yet it was boring and waaaaaay too stupid. The main problem were the Duke cousins and the huge amount of stupidity. Bo acted like he was constantly high on something, Luke was a playboy as silly as his cousin... the scene when they pretended to be Japanese scientists and the young guy believed them only because they had the nameplates was really too much, indeed. The fact that Bo doesn’t know what coins or cities are in Japan is just a little detail among this silliness. Beats me why he called a bald policeman ‘Yul Brinner’, does he think that’s an insult? ‘cause it’s not, you know....  ok I know, some guys always make fun of bald men... as if having hair makes them automatically more handsome than the others, how stupid that is...

Back to the movie, I also didn’t like all the speeding without watching the road... Rosco was more bad than clumsy, Enos was there only to reveal everything to Daisy after she shows up in a bikini, and Boss.... well Boss Hogg was played by Burt Reynolds... I mean, really? That almost made me support the villain, come on, what does he have to do with Boss Hogg???

The plot is this: Boss Hogg wants to turn the Hazzard County into a coal mine, so he takes the Dukes farm and plans to divert everybody’s attention so that nobody will show up in court to oppose his idea. Of course nobody would have known anything about it, and his plan would have maybe worked, if he hadn’t taken the Duke’s farm so far in advance, making them curious as to the why....

Basically, the only good thing of this movie was the car, the general Lee is always the general, but the rest was 👎 

Luke-Johnny Knoxville

Bo-Seann William Scott

Boss-Burt Reynolds

Daisy-Jessica Simpson

Cooter-David Koechner

Pauline-Lynda Carter

Fantastic beasts and where to find them - 2016

I liked it. It was really nice. I didn’t fall in love with Newt, I must admit I simply accepted him but could feel very little for him. But I liked the fantastic beasts, and the story, and Queenie, and yes, Jacob. The first scene with Jacob, I was very doubtful, he’s not exactly handsome, sorry, and seemed rather boring, plus there was the obvious and overused expedient of swapping-cases, since Jacob and Newt had identical suitcases. That was so obvious, so predictable, but later I excused them; they needed a way to bring Jacob back in, and I accepted that because I came to like this character, the way he looked at the fantastic things around him, that look or marvel was endearing, and I started to like him :-) So often in this kind of situation the stranger would start yelling ‘what’s that?’ and would keep screaming and being very annoying, but he didn’t, he watched with marvelled eyes and was like ‘yeah, sure’ towards everything he saw :-)

I was never very fond of Tina, I could only tolerate her because after all she was a good person like Newt, but I liked her sister Queeny :-) I don’t always like such flirty characters, but she was one of my favs here, she was sweet and nice, I liked how she moved, her gestures were like ethereal, her hands moved in a charming way, everything about this character was lovely. She could read minds, but it wasn’t annoying like sometimes it can be, it was nice :-) 

Newt comes to America to free a giant fantastic beats (a kind of gryphon?) and maybe also to look for other animals, he studies them and protects them. One animals breaks loose in a bank because it  loves shiny things (this creatures, whatever it’s called, was lots of fun, I loved it :lol: ), and there he meets Jacob who wanted a loan to open a bakery but they denied it to him. Tina wants to arrest him for violating American wizardry rules, because they have strict rules about hiding from no-mag people, but she’s not well seen in her department, she was actually expelled or something, so nobody really pays her much attention, specially since there is no proof since he exchanged cases and instead of animals he has cakes now. When they find Jacob who has been attacked by another animal, after he opened the case, Tina takes both to her home. Newt takes Jacob inside his case (I have a question, how can the case move around when they are in it??). 

Newt shows him the many creatures inside, he even has an obscurus, without a human body. Jacob doesn’t want to sneak away after the girls were so nice to him :-) but he doesn’t want to be obliviated, so he goes with Newt to help him retrieve the animals. (To catch the little thief he destroyed a shop, it was painful to see that beautiful chandelier falling down...). I liked Newt’s motto, “worrying means you suffer twice”, quite right actually :-D Tina catches up with them once they catch a huge beast. She brings them back, inside the case, to a magical congress, after a man running for senator (I think) was killed by an obscurus (or obscurial? I’ll have to read the book...). Newt (who is the little brother of a war hero, thrown out of Hogwarts because of an accident with a beast), and is worried when they take his case, worried about the creatures more than about himself. Newt and Tina, and Jacob, are put in prison. Apparently obscurus are created when some people try to suppress their magical powers and sometimes create one who takes control and can hurt people, eventually killing the host too, usually very young. Graves works for the mag police or something, and sentences both to death. Queeny senses about it, she saves Jacob first from being obliviated, then she retrieves the case with his help. Newt’s creatures help him escape, and of course he takes Tina with him. They reunite with Queeny, who has them all enter the case and then she walks out of there. 

They look for the other escaped animals. Graves meanwhile has been asking troubled guy Credence to find a specific child, with an obscurus inside, and bring him to him. Credence, like many other children, has been adopted by an evil woman of the worst kind, those preaching against evil like she preaches against witches, but at one point she goes too far: she’s always been evil and Credence never rebelled when she beat him, but maybe now he’s afraid she’ll take it out on little girl Modesty, because finally we see an obscurus killing her. We still don’t know it’s him, they planned it for long time to make us believe it was the little girl, but what matters is that the evil woman is finally killed, thank you obscurus. Newt and the other three catch the snake-like creature (who changes size to fit into the available space of whatever it finds) and also the ape-like creatures that was like babysitting it. Those are the last animals, put back into the case. I loved how Jacob looked comfortable in there surrounded by those animals now, while Tina looked around in wonder :-) 

Newt was once in love with a Lestrange girl, apparently, Neeta? Leeta? 

Graves thinks it’s Modesty too, he thought Credence was a wizard with no magic or something, but now he shows some, breaking down walls when the guy finds Modesty. Credence becomes angry, he really thought before, that Graves was his friend, that he cared about him but he doesn’t, he only wanted the obscurus. Now he unleashes the obscurus’ power breaking havoc in the city. Graves chases him like a precious thing he wants to own and control; Newt and Tina go after it to ‘save him’ instead. The human police try to shoot it, because that’s the only thing humans know how to do; the battle ends up in the subway, with Graves trying to get Credence on his side, and Newt and Tina trying to help him take control of that power and stop. The magical President comes with all her men and kill the obscurial and Credence together (when she says it, I hear obscurial, when everyone else says it, I hear obscurus...). Graves is angry that they killed him, she orders him to be arrested, he attacks them, Newt stops him with the help of his creatures, Tina takes his wand, and Graves reveals his real face, he’s actually Grindelwald (which explains why we hadn’t seen him until now). He says “do you think you can hold me?” then they take him away. Now the president thinks their community has been exposed and there’s nothing they can do, but Newt frees the huge fantastic bird and gives him the thing used to obliviate, and it takes it to the sky, making it rain upon the whole city (what about people inside houses?). 

Wizards walk around to make things alright again, all the things destroyed , the streets, the buildings, they put everything right again, then it’s time for Jacob to be obliviated too. He understands, and walks willingly under the rain after saying goodbye. They are sad to lose him; and his goodbye to them, his goodbyes with Queenie, are the touching moment of the movie, the only one that actually brought me tears. They were very cute and touching, and the actors good. 

(Can mag-people be obliterate by the rain as well? Why is Queenie using an ‘umbrella’ ? Just to cover her hair from the rain?)

Jacob forgets everything and goes back to work in a factory; Newt purposefully bumps into him to exchange their cases, giving him one filled with the snake-like-creatures’ eggs, very much valuable (pure silver or something?) so he can use them to get a loan, or directly sell them to open his bakery :-)

Newt has to take a ship to England, to take the case out of New York as ordered by the President, but he sort of promises to come back to see her and bring her his book when finished.

Jacob’s bakery is going quite well, and he makes his break and pastries in the creatures’ shapes, not knowing himself where those ideas come from, and Queenie comes in and smiles at him...  :-)

The end :-) 

Well, the law says that he had to be obliterated because there can’t be no-mag witnesses around, but in theory the law also says that mag people can’t be friends with no-mags.... I guess she just doesn’t care, and as long as nobody spies on her... :-)

Newt Scamander-Eddie Redmayne

Graves - Colin Farrell

Tina - Katherine Waterston

Jacob Kowalski - Dan Fogler

Queenie - Alison Sudol

Credence - Ezra Miller

Henry Shaw Sr - Jon Voight

Grindelwald - Johnny Depp

ITA - animali fantastici e dove trovarli

炼爱 love test - 2016

What a terrible movie, really awful. It’s badly written, badly acted, badly shot, it’s really hard to find something good about it, if forced I can only think of the roses and the red dress. The scenes go all over the place, the man is despicable to her most of the time, the woman is either sobbing uncontrollably or sleeping, only after an hour of movie the plot is explained, but it’s still awful. 

We see a man and a woman after their wedding. She’s all happy but he immediately starts treating her badly, insulting her and humiliating her while she sticks to him with adoring attitude repeating that he loves her...  when they finally explains what happened in his past to make him act like that, we learn that:

his older brother was in love with her and asked her to go to his house or he’ll kill himself. She doesn’t love him and has already tried to reject him before, but after hearing that she says she’ll go to talk face to face, but while she’s running there, a car has an accident trying to avoid her who crossed the street running. They don't know each other, but the man is her now-husband. She takes him to the hospital. She tries calling to explain why she’ll be late, but nobody answers. He's already jumped off the roof, so now both his brother and her best friend, in love with the guy, blame her entirely. 

Her husband hates her but also loves her after all, so he keeps a picture of his brother in their bedroom to remind himself, and then asks for a divorce. She wants to explain, but doesn’t tell him because she thinks that knowing he indirectly caused his brother’s death would be too much to bear. 

So she signs the divorce papers and then cuts her wrist. He comes home to get the document, and sees for the first time the gift she had been trying to give him for some time: his watch, the one that got broken when he had that accident, and he was told by the doctor that the girl that was with him had taken it to be repaired (so why did she wait so long before giving it to him? who knows).

He finally understands and goes to her and rushes to the hospital. His brother had been in a coma for like three years, I think, and now wakes up and explains that he had depression, that it wasn’t her fault if he jumped off a building to kill himself... 

... I mean, it's not like it would have been her fault anyway, is it??!?

And just like that, everything’s behind them and they get married again...  

Terrible, really awful. 

Also:

Why is it that the picture of his brother is that of a baby? He didn’t want her to recognise him? Why? 

Most importantly, why in this kind of stories people always revenge without knowing a thing of what happened? I know that when the pain is too much one would do anything rather than face it, and to put blame on someone else is a way as good as any other, but as time passes, they should at least try to find out if they are hating the right person, for the right reason... to dedicate one’s own life to revenge simply because you ‘think’ that things went in a certain way is simply stupid. And evil. A simple ‘sorry, I misunderstood’ can’t be enough. 

一千零一夜 Sweet dreams - 2018

Some things were very good, others were terrible. I enjoyed it for a while but I would never rewatch it. After watching the whole thing, I can say that it has a very badly-written finale, that the male protagonist is annoying for the first ten episodes at least (made me wonder what the hell was she seeing in such a jerk), that a side-story is dragged too long ( the whole MoNan-theme was never-ending and patience-consuming really ). I noticed the usual 'we-care-about-the-important-characters-unimportant-people-matter-nothing' theme, that is common around the world but seems to be specially true in Chinese dramas.

Despite all this, I kept watching because I liked the female lead, (although in the first half of the series she cries really badly, maybe because she's supposed to be more childish, I don't know, but she makes a e/o sound that she drags like a terrible wail...), I liked the actress and I liked the character, and there were episodes that I liked a lot. The happy scenes were lovely, although they were not many. 

The best thing about the show is that he turns out to be a fragile figure, a man with a troubled past, and she's his rock, she's the one who saves him and helps him. The most heartwarming part of the whole thing was when he was in a container full of smoke and she rushed in saying that he doesn't have to be afraid because she's there with him, and this time he didn't get sick because she was with him (he has psychological problems, gets sick and color blind whenever he sees fire, later described as a fear of being abandon again, like when he was little).

Negative: some cheap tricks were incredibly over-used. I understand that some things like car accidents are good tricks in dramas, but here there were too many! The car accidents were at least three, the 'I leave you because I love you' were at least two, and I was very disappointed because for a moment I had hoped she wouldn't be like that. Accidents and general troubles were so many that sometimes it felt like I was watching the same episode in a loop. 

I spent so many words on this because I really liked the idea at its core, the strong female lead who pursues her love with all she's got, and the male lead with psychological problems that he tries to hide and that needs her much more than she needs him. The fact that he was fragile inside, that nobody knew his real self, and that the girl was determined and unbreakable was really appealing and romantic, I loved that and I loved the few happy scenes (and the lalalala music).

It's a real pity that the rest was so ... well... disappointing. 

The other characters: MoNan falls in love with her too, how boring, why is that, just because she was the first girl that ever hugged him? He hates Bohai, why, simply because someone 'told him' that his mother had caused his father's death? What proof did he have? So he does despicable things, and yet I'm supposed to understand him and like him?? At least at the end he confessed, thank you, the hell with 'you didn't have to' and 'we've already forgiven you', what's that all about? He had to, indeed!

Baoni: she fell in love for the first time in her life, and she was completely gone, we basically lost a character because she didn't do anything other than follow him around like a puppy,  wagging its tail while watching him with adoring eyes... I know love can be blind, but while he was being so despicable, her attitude was a bit too much.

Zhou: a hateful character for half the show, they missed a chance here because they made her a hateful, utterly annoying character for the first, like, 25 episodes, and then later, in just one episode they changed her completely, her old obsession gone and forgotten, like it never was, just: poof. 

It would have been nicer if they had done it: starting out liking Bohai, then appreciating day by day the things Chen did for her, relying on him more and more, until the day she realises that even if she thought she was still in love with Bohai she was actually thinking of Chen whenever something happened. It would have been nicer.

JiBin is just a character to use and discard at ease apparently.

I almost forgot, I liked the actress that played her mother, she was fun! Also, the one playing her 'rival' :p they were good, I liked them :)

1- Ling LingQi loves Bohai, her idol is an important figure in the ‘arranging flowers’ business... and I do apologise, don’t really know the right words here.

She tries to enter some kind of school or work-stage to get near to him; she fails the first time, cries a lot, but doesn’t give up, keeps studying and tries again.

He must prepare an American wedding, the bride is being difficult and he doesn’t know how to solve the situation, so is troubled. 

Both of them have sleep-bracelets, that are supposed to make you sleep well or something. Apparently their sleep-waves have identical patterns so their dreams merge together, very very rare occurrence, or something like that. Anyway, she enters his dream. She knows him, but he doesn’t know her. She helps him defeat a dragon, and gives him the right idea on how to solve his problem (which is? did he paint the white roses to make them pink? Like the cards in Wonderland?? Only for him, it actually worked? )

At the end, she sees the castle where the wedding happened, and recognises it from her dream.

2.

She helps him again against the dragon in the dream.

She does the test again, but a woman thinks she’s just a fan and lacks sincerity, and even if her works has merit she won’t admit her. She has failed several years now, and that woman then tells her not to come again! She is so upset she doesn’t notice Bohai passes by her...

She tries to apply for ‘selling the flower bouquet’, and is about to get hired, but that woman again fails her :--/  but a guy sends the pictures of her bouquet to Bohai and he likes it so she’s hired. This time the dream helped her, because she thought of what he said to her to personalise the bouquets. She isn’t a florist but at least she’s there. At night, she takes off the bracelet so she doesn’t dream of him, and it seems like he couldn’t sleep at all :-p 

When she learns that since he is the president and she works at a small shop she’ll probably never see him there, she feels so sad.

3

She gets a call from the bracelet company who explains to her that she might enter the other person’s dreams, but she says she hasn’t, she had no dreams, but now understands what happened, and even if she can’t meet him in person she’s happy she’ll meet him in dreams.

He’s working overtime, and she can’t fall asleep until late at night, when he finally sleeps too, and enters his dream.

(Ok, do they do it on purpose? I wanted to take my mind off Guardian, and this girl every time she’s in a dream she sees the dragon she goes 龙 哥 ...I mean, really? I know he’s not actually Shen Wei, but it’s bound to make me think of him, don’t you think?? Come on! p.s. I know this whole thing seems silly but I don’t live such an exciting life and so these emotions tend to stick to me, just that, I’m still sane)

She knows she’s in a dream, so she can fight, she can fly and save him... after she’s attacked by the dragon she asks him to save her with a kiss and then kisses him shamelessly :p so she keeps working hard during the day and at night she dreams “with” him (honestly I’m surprised she keeps wearing her pajamas, I thought she’d changed into something a bit nicer now that she knows everything).

Bo has trouble at the company (when he meets President Fang and they have tea, how small is that teapot?? Wow, I’ve never seen one so small..)

The dream world is strange, she knows she can do dream-stuff, but it always works in different ways: she asks for rain, and it comes down a fish (instead of saying it out loud, she should make written requests, maybe it wouldn’t misunderstand :lol: )

I think someone wants to buy his Flowerplus stores company, or something, and this troubles him deeply. We see that his back is burnt, which might explains why he keeps having nightmares involving a dragon.  She comes again to his rescue, this time with sword, flying unicorn and a hint of armor, and they defeat it. He finds another investor and save the company.

He wants to supervise the stores, but doesn’t even see her, gets a call and goes straight away.

He keeps thinking of her and the dreams, but can’t remember her face, probably because he never met her in real life, it’s different for her (yep, we know famous people but they don’t know us, it’s a strange feeling).

She goes to the company and gets lost and meets Bohai by chance; he doesn’t know her, and sends her and Mo Nan to clean a storage room. 

Baoni asks Mo Nan to pretend to be her boyfriend so that her ex will leave her in peace :) yep, this plot never gets old :p and he does a good job too, quite impressive :p

LingQi’s colleague messes up some flowers for a charity even so she helps her substitute them with others. Bohai attends too, but he notices the change of course, and when the poor girl takes all responsibility, he fires her...

5

LingQi tries to stop him, tries to help her friend, but he acts heartless. She’s heartbroken, takes off her wall all of his posters and pictures and even the bracelet before sleeping, and wants to resign, but regrets it after talking to her mom. Luckily her friend Mo Nan didn’t hand her resignation letter. 

After learning that she’s single, all the guys keep hovering around Baoni but Mo Nan saves her :p

LingQi now wants to forget him so she accepts a blind date arranged by her ma. When she sees him, he’s totally not like the picture she saw and she hides, by chance sitting at Bohai’s table... he understands her situation, that she’s hiding, and yet he calls a waitress to change table so that the guy finds her and she runs away... for the whole afternoon apparently... even her ma is furious, she thought the picture was real :lol: (her mom is so funny :lol: and what a couple with her dad :p I find angry-ma lots of fun :lol: )

She now tries to avoid Bohai. He hears a bit of her florist-skills and orders her to be made special assistant or something, so now she works in direct contact with him...   there’s a scene where she falls down and he catches her and she’s again ‘heart eyes’ but then he lets her go, he was protecting his work, she almost fell on it :p 

Mo Nan and Baoni are closer and closer, the best of friends :-) with him she’s more relaxed and her true self :) He lies when she asks him about his house (maybe he’s rich and has a big house but doesn’t want her to know because he wants her to think he’s one of them) and says he rents an old apartment for a lot of money, and so to help him Baoni finds him a new place, Qiqi’s family rents him a place :p 

Bo complains that the bracelet is not working anymore because he doesn’t sleep well...

When she gets home, her dad was waiting for her at the shop and had fallen asleep at the counter, and she thinks, ‘I lost an idol but my dad is the man who loves me the most in the world’ and gives him a hug, so nice :-D finally I might add, in these Chinese dramas people never hug, how can they live without hugs? 

Wen, the guy who wanted to buy him out, try everything to sabotage him and sends people to ruin his oncoming exhibition by starting a fire. 

Poor Mo Nan finds a place full of stuff and dust :/ but at least the girls help him clean it up. They have lots of fun together, really nice :-)

7

Bohai is apparently slowly becoming color blind. After the fire is in a crisis and wants to quit, but his two partners try to help him. He’s very angry and stubborn, but finally calms down.

LingQi discovers the truth by chance, that it’s not Bohai preparing the exhibition but another man. Bohai is hard, tells her it was his choice (it wasn’t) and that she’s stupid to keep that idol image to worship, and she quits. Later she says that if he sincerely kneels down and asks for mercy, she’ll keep his secret... instead, he threatens her parents so she has to sign a new contract and go back to work, doing anything he asks, even a maid. So now he acts as a jerk on purpose. 

After a day of work, she puts on the bracelet before going to sleep, planning on take it out on him in the dream. No more prince nor castle or dragon, now they are like in ancient China, martial arts experts, but he’s better (I guess he’s dreaming of being a famous hero or something) so she doesn’t get her revenge.  Mo Nan suggests she makes him fire her, but she’s terrible at it :/ and since he keeps threatening her family she even has to apologise... 

9

Baoni keeps receiving scary packages and becomes scared. Mo Nan finds a way to find out who it is: a girl is in love with one of her followers and got jealous of her flirting, but now apologises, asks her not to have him fired, that she’ll resign instead, but Baoni tells her not to. 

Bohai sees everything in black and white, and a doc tells him it is psychological...

Chen asks LingQi to accompany Bohai to a meeting and stop him from drinking and getting drunk, and she had devised a good enough plan, but of course it didn’t work because she wouldn’t be allowed to pour the wine herself (of course, if you think about it, the whole thing has a big flaw. She brought two jars, one with pure wine, and one with mostly juice. Did they only drink one? And it was enough for two men to get as drunk as a skunk, as they say? Or they drank the second and not notice it wasn’t wine?? oh well, doesn’t matter in these shows, does it?)

He gets drunk and starts acting weird , like stealing a child’s ice-cream-weird, and she has to apologise for him, chase him everywhere and carry him home... and yet he’s angry as hell just because she “let him get drunk” and then she put a bit of lipstick on his cheek, something he can wash away easily?? What’s this?? What a jerk :-/ she has to clean toilets all day, and she gets nothing because she  didn’t stop him from drinking... this is not right, do they treat all girls like this, or it’s not a gender-thing, they just treat like this all the poor, inferior people? :-/ What could she have done, smack him on the head and shout “bad:wine, bad! No drink!!” ?

10

She’s about to have her revenge in another dream, but then saves him from a fire. Now that he knows her, does he remember that she’s in his dreams after he wakes up? 

At a tv interview, Wen planned for him to lose his face, having to do a bouquet thinking that he couldn’t, but he suddenly recovered...

An important client invites LingQi to a dinner with the two of them, and she drinks a bit, (Bohai only water this time), and it seems like she’s about to reveal his secret, but he begs her not to so she only reveals that he’s the drunk one under the mask in the online video... :p but later instead of driving her home he leaves her far away and drives off with her bag.. so she has to ask a girl to use her phone and call her dad, who was getting very worried :-/  To leave a girl alone at night far away from home, what kind of a man is that? :-/

11

There’s a “traitor” in the company, someone leaked to the media the new designs for the new big job, and since only the three partners and LingQi can access Bohai’s computer, they think it was her. She saw MoNan in that office too, but doesn’t say it, won’t involve him believing him innocent, but he’s not, he has motives to go against Bohai’s company. He’s a president too..

The company risks losing credibility and all their clients now.

Everyone in the company now thinks she’s the traitor, and the colleagues treat her badly, only Baoni and Mo Nan are on her side.

12

 A couple of men in the company trick her (?).

Director Zhou, the partner in love with Bohai, tries to force and then ask LingQi to admit to it and point Wen as the mastermind in order to save the company, but she did nothing wrong so she refuses. Zhou locks her in a warehouse, in the dark, and the poor think is scared of the dark :-( and has no phone. Mo Nan looks for her, but by chance Bohai finds her first and frees poor crying LingQi. 

Her parents hear her cry in her room, so dad asks MoNan about it, so they learn everything and try to console her. 

13

LingQi tells Bohai to his face.. well the truth, actually, even if they will fall in love because this is a tv-series so it must happen, it doesn’t change the fact that that’s the truth, only because he has money he thinks he can mistreat people. He may do charity and all, but he’s still an arrogant @#@ who thinks he’s better than others only because he has money :-/

LingQi thinks the real culprit is Wen after all so she follows him but of course he finds out and when his man detains her she screams and MoNan runs to her rescue. 

The client asks for a billion for compensation, and Zhou shows the letter to LingQi and tells her that the company will sue her for leaking secrets and bankrupt her, unless she admits it pointing the blame on Wen. She’s desperate, but when MoNan asks she still denies not giving him away. 

When LingQi tells her parents, they give her all their savings to challenge it in court, since she didn’t do anything wrong.. love..

At the company meeting, when everyone thinks  it’ll be LingQi’s end, Bohai shows the repaired footage showing Wen’s man going into his office, so he’s the one who leaked the info... and she’s absolved completely, and everyone apologises to her.

14

Bohai knows that the video had been altered, they sacrificed a man to save a more important one (yes, a richer one, how did you guess? ... anyway, Mo Nan I suppose).

Bohai knew all along it wasn’t LingQi but played her to investigate further, and now the three partners fear her reaction. Two flee, Bohai tries to hide :lol: when she finds him, he’s really hard and cruel, and later on he humiliates her in front of a client/guest/whatever.

When she uses a seller’s flower like a sword to hit him on a street, they both help her to sell the rest of the unsold flowers. It’s the only time he actually acted like a kind person. 

15

Bohai takes LingQi on a business trip instead of his partner; the daughter of an important man is not satisfied with his flowers because she can’t get a date with them, or something. Bohai and LingQi keep quarrelling a lot, but when she walks alone that night and he sees a shady figure following her he goes back worried for her and stops the guy and he runs away immediately (that was easy..) but she doesn’t see him and thinking someone is about to attack her she uses the protection-spray on him until she realises that there was someone else there before. Because of this, he goes to see the doctor and she’ll have to work for the arrogant girl by herself. Actually, he goes back to enjoy some free time, it seems. 

When a guy takes ice-creams without paying at LingQi’s father’s shop, MoNan comes in and his attitude is strong enough that the guy pays and leaves. Dad is impressed. He is still working with Wen to find out Bohai’s secret. 

LingQi’s mother still dislikes MoNan because she thinks he’s poor and doesn’t want him too close to her daughter, but then she sees a very elegant guy coming out of his house and suddenly changes her mind. 

LingQi tries to make a super-bouquet, even asks to learn more about the guy the flowers are for, and to her surprise she learns that he has already a girlfriend. This miss would like something to steal it from her (not only arrogant but stupid, if some flowers can get him away from one girlfriend, would you really want someone like that? :/ ) . LingQi eventually tells her to her face that she is only an assistant, but that not even President Bo could help her because their flowers aren’t made to break other people’s feelings, and leaves. Since she blew this job and made the client angry, she’s now worried that Bohai will keep his word and ruin her father’s shop, so she confesses to her parents and apologises. Her dad is very sad to lose his shop.

16

It turns out that the Miss really liked the bouquet that LingQi gave her, not for the man but for her especially, with a very nice note attached, something like ‘be your own queen and do not waste time and dignity pursuing who doesn’t love you’, and she writes to the company praising her a lot as a very very good florist. So, she’s not fired. She tells her dad and he hurriedly stops the discount sale :p

The girl that was fired by Bohai now tells LingQi that he took care of her family, that he’s a good person. 

Mo Nan still wants to find out Bohai’s secret, but without involving LingQi. 

Company partner Zhou is very jealous of LingQi, now more than ever, and tries to block her every chance. LingQi dares ask Bohai is she shouldn’t be transferred to be a real florist, and he tells her that she failed in the past because she was doing it for the wrong reasons, and that she must detach herself from him in order to succeed in being a florist. She says she did that already, and only see him as dirt now, but then he makes a move as if he was to kiss her and she raises her face, so he shouts ‘liar”’... that was low.. right on point, but still low.. and embarrassing for her...

Bohai never took any part in floral competitions because he’s afraid he could have another case of color-blindness and be in trouble in public, but MoNan and Wen work together to force him to do it. 

17

Suddenly she has a little power, because he actually risks much more than she does (her father’s shop against his reputation, his company, everything), so she has him buy her a big meal, and can sometimes refuse to do something, and in one case he promises three times the salary to work after lunch.. 

Mo Nan figures out Bohai is afraid of fire. During a lunch-break show, a fire-throwing act impresses him, and suddenly he feels bad, holds LingQi’s hand and can’t see colors anymore. 

He must prepare for the finals, but he can’t see colors so he chooses flowers at random, a very bizarre selection that leaves everyone surprised, LingQi too, but he doesn’t tell her anything. 

She tells him that if he tells her what’s wrong she might be able to help him, but he won’t tell her anything..

18

He insists on not involving LingQi, who knows why, and has his friend help him, describe him each flower so he can memorise it. 

Baoni doesn’t have the courage to tell MoNan she likes him. 

Bohai is not doing too well, and LingQi finds out everything about his problem. She help him, suggesting they use some technique to make flowers lose their color and make something in shades of grey and black and white (I didn’t see any black or grey, or anything other than a few white flowers actually); the jury likes the originality, but think that technique might be considered cheating, so he tells them all about the big fire 20 years ago, saying that’s his most memorable memory (the theme of the final), and everyone claps but Wen and Mo Nan. The winner is a man from the UK, because Bohai violated the rules not using fresh flowers; anyway, his work has been appreciated and he gets a special jury award and the job with the big client. 

As a thank you, after sending her home with his driver since she’s dead tired, he has her transferred to be a real florist. 

19

She sleeps all day and doesn’t know until next morning Baoni tells her. Bohai sends her a bouquet specially made for her, and she realises who it’s from, and thanks him and tells him she prefers the real, imperfect Bohai to the idol she once worshipped. 

She now wants to win him over, and invites him home for dinner; she sends her parents to the cinema so she can cook a lot of stuff, and they eat together, but then her parents come back early :p she hides him under the table, maybe forgetting what kind of mother she has. As expected, without fail her mom starts talking about her and Bohai...  chopsticks fall on the floor, mom kneels down.. and the secret is out, so she runs out with him :p  they run away, parents run after them, they are found, her parents try to grab them, she holds them back to let him run away... :p

20

Baoni gives LingQi a makeover, she does her hair, makes her a nice dress, gives her lipstick and everything, and when she coms to work she attracts everyone’s attention, but before Bohai sees her she managed to get her hair entangled in some plant and get moisture all over her... then she goes to his gym and makes a fool of herself, but when she falls down he picks her up and she’s all happy, pretending to be hurt where she’s not. 

Zhou is more and more jealous, and to get rid of her she pretends to have a love phone call with Bohai knowing she’s close and can’t help listening, and later makes her go to his house so she will find her wearing only a shirt. Poor LingQi now believes that Bohai and Zhou have a relationship..

21

LingQi returns home as drunk as a skunk, as they say, and her parents have to put her to bed. Zhou confesses to Chen what she did, roughly, that she wants her to give up any ideas on Bohai. 

He buys LingQi new shoes and gives her an important job. MoNan keeps his distance because he’s in love with her and this might be a problem with his plans against Bohai. 

Baoni tries going on dates to forget about MoNan but can’t. 

They need to build the set for the new movie on “A Chinese ghost story” (the videogame in Love020 :D ) but during shooting there’s an accident, everything falls down, it was Wen’s plan. Zhou quickly blames it all on LingQi. MoNan is angry at Wen. An actress was injured and the movie production suffered a big money loss. LingQi says someone altered her orders, that those are not the documents she made, and only Bohai believes her. Zhou insists with him he must fire LingQi and he gets angry at her. 

22

Zhou finds evidence that LianQi was telling the truth, but she throws it away, then she orders to fire her but Chen intervenes, he knows about the proof; it’s because of stupid women like this if women still have to much trouble in the world :-/ Bohai doesn’t love her, does she think that he will once she takes down all other women on Earth? How stupid and humiliating for her.

 Wen sends again a guy to sabotage them ruining the flowers... there was nobody guarding the place, but it was all a plan Bohai and MoNan played together, to expose Wen, and he is arrested.

Still, Bohai suspects MoNan. Talking with a friend, MoNan admits that he now knows his true feelings for LingQi...

23

Baoni returns all the gifts that have been given to her, now only liking the poor backpack MoNan gave her. 

Zhou steals Bohai’s room key and orders a guy to get him drunk. Chen understands in time that she’s planning something, also revealing to LingQi that there’s no love affair between Bohai and Zhou. 

(It’s not clear to me how Zhou planned it. She gave him his room’s key, 1508, and took his, 1507. So he will enter 1508 and find her? How did she get in without the key? )

As soon as Chen enters the dark room, Zhou thinks it’s Bohai, grabs him and kisses him. He reveals himself, talks to her and she cries in his arms. LingQi has to deal with a drunken Bohai, so childish when he’s drunk, and she tells him how she likes him but he falls asleep.

24

He tells LingQi that he remembers nothing of that night, but he does, and speaks to Zhou, telling her clearly that he only sees her as a business partner and trusted friend and nothing else. Chen wants to console her but still doesn’t tell her anything, when it seems so clear that he likes her. 

He remembers LingQi’s words and smiles. Baoni keeps trying to flirt with MoNan but he doesn’t get it; when she tells him she has two movie tickets, he takes them and walks away... she wanted to go with him, not to just give them to him...

LingQi’s dad is not feeling too well so she takes a day’s sick leave to help out at the store. Bohai goes there to see what’s up, covering his face, but then her ma notices him staring at LingQi’s and starts beating and yelling :p so he has to reveal his face, and they invite him home to dinner, and he has fun with them and looks happy. When they meet MoNan on their way out, Bohai is jealous :) and seeing them bickering like that, it was his nicest moment, I’d say.

25

LingQi is forced to confess to Baoni and MoNan about the bracelet. Bohai is jealous but she keeps repeating that MoNan is not interested in her... 

When she falls down a ladder while working, he catches her, they fall on the ground, kind of kissing.. she quickly gets up, he takes her hand and pulls her down again (is he finally connecting her to his dreams?). Four people were looking for them, two because they are jealous, Zhou and MoNan, and they are startled to see them like that, while Zhen and Baoni smile and laugh. 

MoNan thinks of letting Bohai know all about the bracelet, thinking this way he won’t see her again and he’ll have a chance with her, but then seeing how miserable she is only thinking about it, he changes his mind and takes the documents away just in time.

26

Zhou investigates the bracelet matter, after she heard Bohai say he started dreaming about LingQi before he even met her (end of last episode). LingQi wants to confess to Bohai the truth, then she dreams about him saying that cheating and betrayal can never be forgiven, and yet she goes to talk to him to tell him everything, but Zhou interrupts her because she has used tricks to learn the truth and wants to be her to tell Bohai, wanting him to fire her. Instead, he takes her to see a rare flower, where they can be alone, and he smiles, tells her she must never again hide something from him, and then he hugs her and keeps her tight :) so nice.

MoNan sees them together, goes out and gets drunk, and when he comes back home there’s Baoni waiting for him; he sees LingQi in her and hugs her, crying that she doesn’t want him, but doesn’t say her name, so she thinks he’s talking about her.

Bohai is now closer to LingQi than before, and Zhou gets angry when she sees that, but finally Chen tells her as it is, they have known him for years, when was he this happy? She says she likes him, and yet she wants to destroy that happiness? :-/

MoNan wants to give up his plans to acquire Bohai’s company, or something...

27

His ‘friend’ (I like him) tries to convince him but MoNan seems determined to give up that idea.

Bohai smiles a lot now when he’s around LingQi, and when he takes her home he holds her hand, smiling :-) 

MoNan wants to resign, so Baoni decides she’ll talk to him at once. At dinner, she’s all ‘I know you like me, I like you too’, but he says that he does have someone he likes, but it’s not her... 

LingQi is waiting but Bohai is caught up at work; finally Zhou tells him he can go and he runs to her; she fell asleep waiting and knocks down a glass full of water.. on come cables, and soon the whole place is burning. Due to his childhood drama, Bohai is unable to save her. Fire officer are blocking people outside, but MoNan runs inside and saves her ( ... they were all outside, and he had to save her??? come on, what’s this? ). Bohai is desperate and keeps calling her name, but MoNan doesn’t let him in the ambulance. Now he won’t resign anymore, thinking that she won’t be happy with Bohai after all, and he can pursue her. 

When he goes to the hospital later, he hears Baoni telling her that she can’t be sure of his feelings, what is a man who can’t protect her, and that sort of stuff, and he feels stung in the heart... because of this, he refuses her :’( and MoNan hits where it hurts telling him to keep his word and stay away from her. She gets drunk and MoNan finds her and walks her home. That night Bohai puts the bracelet back on, and she enters his dreams and sees that the masked person he keeps fighting is himself, saying he is cursed and can’t love anyone because anybody who gets close to him will burn..

28

She is transferred, it’s a kind of promotion I think, but away from him. He tells Chen that he doesn’t deserve love, that she will only get hurt with him. Zhou is quite happy with LingQi leaving, thinking she might have a shot after all -sigh-

Neither Bohai nor LingQi can function properly now :(

Chen finally confesses to Zhou that he likes her. She refuses him.

LingQi finds new determination to not give up on her love and feels better enough to go back to work in the shop. While Chen goes to LingQi to ask for a bouquet that expresses his love, Zhou asks Bohai to make her a bouquet that expresses the opposite.

Baoni tells the men in the company always flirting with her that she likes MoNan, so they hate him now.

29

In order to better pursue MoNan, Baoni asks a friend to investigate his background...

Chen actively pursues Zhou, but she rejects his every move heartlessly. Bohai keeps thinking of LingQi. When a guy confesses to her, he takes him away and tells him a lot of absurd things to keep him away.. and she hears it all :p

LingQi asks Baoni to flirt with Chen to help him with Zhou :p

30

Chen agrees to the plan and they come to work hand in hand.. and Zhou actually is a bit jealous :)

MoNan goes to meet a man who knew his father, to ask what happened 20 years before when he died, but doesn’t learn much. 

Zhou doesn’t fall for their tricks and spots the truth, though, and she tells him that he’ll never have a chance with him :( 

LingQi goes out drinking with Chen, and Zhou does the same. When they are drunk they see each other and keep drinking together, until the place closes but they fall asleep so the waiter takes LingQi’s phone and calls Bohai to come and pick them up... he roughly wakes Chen up and they each take a girl away. Zhou is so drunk she starts yelling that all those who professed eternal love to her were quickly gone but he tells her how he has loved her all these years, since the first day they met, and they kiss... 

MoNan is the son of the man that was a partner in that company, with Bohai’s mother, until that big fire killed him. 

LingQi wakes up in Bohai’s bed, and stupidly thinks that they kissed the whole night, or something :/

Zhou acts furtively because she doesn’t want the company to know about her and Chen, needing time to adjust, but of course she attracts more attention this way and everyone notices..

now it’s out in the open, but she’s quite content, glad that she saw his true feelings, that they saw each other’s heart and all that, and speaks to Bohai about his own happiness. Now that she’s with someone she’s not bitter anymore and even quite nice :)

Chen goes to tell LingQi that he’s together with Zhou now, and since she had made a bet with Bohai, she now goes to talk to him, to tell him to give it a try...

31

Baoni learns about MoNan’s background, that he is well educated and kind of rich, and starts suspecting that he is a spy. He is convinced that Bohai’s mother killed his father, I don’t know why, I haven’t seen anything that would make it so certain...

When informations are leaked, damaging the company, Baoni suspects MoNan but nobody else has any idea. When MoNan starts being suspected, Baoni lies for him, saying they were together, but then he says that by doing so she risks making it worse, if the lie was uncovered.. poor Baoni, thinks she can’t even be of help...

LingQi asks Chen to get Bohai to wear the bracelet that night, but Bohai notices his plan; still, he wears it anyway, planning to ‘give her an answer’ in the dream, and they separately relive the terrible experience, when as a child he was trapped in the burning house, his ma couldn’t get to him and went away..

Someone booked all the roses before Valentine’s day, but the man seems inclined to sell them to Bohai simply for what he paid them...

32

LingQi searches the internet for information about what happened to Bohai twenty years before but finds nothing, so MoNan suggests consulting newspapers. She learns what happens in the library, and goes to hug Bohai, who tells her that whatever she knows, no matter how much she insists and wait, he won’t change his mind; MoNan sees him yelling at her, and takes her hand dragging her away, and confesses to her. Needless to say, she only sees him as a friend, this is all impossible for her. Next day, she only wants to forget about it and tells him to do the same. Baoni doesn’t need to be  told to understand the truth.

The flowers that guy gave them ‘so generously’ are all bad quality, and ruined the next day (same as happened to his mom’s shop when he was little, soon before the fire). Many want their money back, but when Bohai goes looking at LingQi’s shop, she is selling well. I think Bohai received the good flowers, while all the smaller shops received the bad ones.  

They are relieved that the crisis is over, when worse happens: it’s all over the news, the story of Bohai’s mother, and the rumour that Bohai planned the low-quality-thing with the company that gave the flowers, to put all the smaller shops out of business, stuff like that. Now they media and the small shops are all against him. 

33

They find the reporter that took compromising pictures and plan a press conference, but then someone calls Bohai threatening LingQi, but when he gets to her, MoNan has already ‘saved’ her form a falling vase, and someone (MoNan’s friend) calls him that more will happen if they go on with the conference.. so he cancels it. MoNan tries to convince that Bohai is not for her, but she doesn’t like to hear this talking. She doesn’t want secrets with Baoni so he tries to tell her, but she knows already. 

Bohai tries to make peace with the shop owners giving them flowers at half price, but during delivery they get lost, another trick to destroy him. 

34

LingQi has gone personally to find replacements for the flowers, but the truck she’s in has an accident. Bohai runs to her, calls an ambulance for the poor driver, and finds LingQi, shouting at her that she’s stupid to risk her life for just some flowers. She yells back that she’s willing for love while he’s just a coward... he hugs her now, and says he will never let her go...

Baoni doesn’t want to see LingQi anymore, I guess it hurts to see her. 

Bohai is now happy with LingQi, and takes her hand in the company so everyone knows :-)  When Baoni hears some girls talk bad about LingQi, she defends her strongly :-)

Bohai has now to face her parents, but he easily wins dad over, and mom shows her her concern that she must really love him and be happy and not do it to please them.. so they look like a happy family :-) She shows him her bedroom, and he sees a note and understands something: a few years back he started selling flowers by the street, and things were very slow and not encouraging. Once he threw away a bouquet, and ‘a girl’, LingQi, picked it up saying how beautiful they were, so he started leaving a bouquet every day, until the business got better and he rented a shop. It was his last day there, so he waited for her with a bouquet in his hands, but she didn’t show up. And we are back at the first episode, when she got dumped and stopped to cry in a corner. He was passing by, saw her, and gave her the bouquet. 

35

Bohai follows the car of his ‘enemy’, but only talks to the driver, MoNan keeps hidden in the backseat.. :-/ not very honourable, whatever his reasons :-/

Of course Bohai understands that whoever it is didn’t come out because they would recognise him as someone in their company, and when Chen asks Baoni about the people absent from work, she tells MoNan but he’s rather mean, asks if she wants to threaten him, then tells her he doesn’t need nor want her help..

He knows he has his back covered, in fact Chen finds his alibi verified... so Bohai fires the wrong man.

Bohai and LingQi are so cute when they are happy together :-)

Baoni tries to get MoNan to give up or open up to her, but he tells her to stay out of his way. 

To catch the real spy, Bohai and his partners pretend that his mother’s back and living in a nursing home, and MoNan does go there but at the last moment he’s warned about the trick and tries to run away. 

36

Now that he’s been exposed, MoNan tells LingQi he’s the spy, and locks Bohai into a container later filled with smoke. He’s in shock until LingQi arrives to tell him not to be afraid, she’s there... MoNan tells her the story of how his dad died while mom disappeared. I find him a bit despicable, he may be hurt but there is no proof whatsoever one way or another, he should investigate not rage war. The happy note is that he spared Bohai the pain of having to tell her, which would have been difficult for her to understand and believe. MoNan obviously moves out and into a hotel. 

To cheer her up, Bohai went to the part to dance with LingQi’s mom :lol: then announcing he’s her boyfriend :-) this must be the peak of the show :-D

37

MoNan and his boss (mentor?) William try to expose his color blindness at an award ceremony, but not only he can do a bouquet, he explains to everyone that he did have that problem, but never deceived anyone and is now completely healed... she cured him... awww as long as he has her, he’ll be fine :-)

Baoni can’t let go and keeps around MoNan, but he insists on Bohai’s mother killing her father and that he doesn’t want to see her again. 

38

MoNan threatens Qiqi, telling her to break up with BoHai and he’ll stop, or they’ll be consequences...

he wants to ruin him, starts taking away clients and stuff. Qiqi starts being worried but Bohai seems confident. MoNan doesn’t give up, she refuses again. At night she gets worried and asks him where he is, he says at home, and then she sees him outside ‘her’ place... and they’re so nice together :) 

Another trick brings the company in a big trouble, and LingQi tells MoNan that like Baoni she also was so naive as to keep hope in him, but from now on, they are enemies.

Things get worse but Bohai still appears confident, because at least he has her :) It’s MoNan the most unhappy here, drinking himself into oblivion, and he tells his ‘friend’ that he is worried he might succeed and Qiqi will sacrifice herself to protect Bohai... I don’t know their relationship, the guy seems to be working for MoNan, but also seems to be worried about him...

39

LingQi sees in a dream how important his company is for him, what he has left of his mother, and wakes up in a lot of pain, understanding that he is suffering much more than he let her see because of this situation. She agrees to MoNan’s condition, only asking for one last day of happiness with Bohai.. She can’t do it face to face, so she breaks up with him in a dream :’(

As he wakes up he starts looking everywhere for her, but she won’t be found. As she tells MoNan she did it (but that she’ll never be with him anyway), things for the company go better. Bohai attacks MoNan at his hotel. Later Baoni tries again to talk to him but he’s cruel to her. 

40

MoNan only has his ‘friend’ to talk to openly. Bohai has not gone color-blind, because he doesn’t feel abandoned, he knows that she was forced to leave him, and is determined to win against MoNan to prove her that he can do it and he can protect her, and she doesn’t need to sacrifice for him... 

William drags MoNan lower and lower by the minute. He asks JiBin to investigate him... I hope nothing bad happens to him, I like him...

41

After a mild accident to Bohai, LingQi agrees to be with MoNan if he’ll stop. Bohai now feels abandoned again, MoNan takes Qiqi to the fair wanting to tell Bohai that they are together now.

(I know it’s not the main plot, but doesn’t he wonder even a little bit where JiBin went?? I hope he’s alright). 

So MoNan asks her to marry him in front of everyone and she has to accept. Bohai feels ill again, and William exposes him as a fraud, bringing in the man they used to do his work when he was sick in the past. Chen and Zhou take him quickly away. So, he was not strong enough after all...

42

Qiqi is desperate, William enters the company as the new boss saying Bohai sold him the  company, and nobody can find him anymore. 

JiBin is being held prisoner, to keep him away from MoNan, but he’s so cool he frees himself and escapes :-) and immediately calls MoNan. William worked at the flower-company of 20 years ago, needed money for his sick son, he was the one who planned the low-quality-flowers-scam that was ruining the company; Bohai’s mom ran away because she clearly saw that help was on the way, she couldn’t reach him but there was a man chasing her (William, I think, who had been found out), and she lost him, and William enjoyed seeing their sons fighting each other...

So, no surprise, the big baddie is William, but MoNan too, I know he was raised in hate by the evil man, but he could still choose, and every step of the way he chose the evil path. 

One thing is not clear though, the matter of the child: was that before or after the company crisis? Did they really not help when a child was about to die? Did he plan the scam to raise money for the child or simply because he’s a greedy bastard?

43

LingQi goes back to the company, to keep it afloat while waiting for Bohai to return and get it back.

MoNan feels... I don’t know, but JiBin calls Baoni to help him , and she’s all “it’s not your fault”... well... it is a bit his fault, girl, come on...  but she gets better and speaks well, saying the others feel worse than him and a man who make mistakes should correct them...

LingQi works as the new director, months pass by, she takes care of Bohai’s house, and of his company, but after a year, still nobody knows where he is...

44

The whole year, both Baoni and JiBin have stayed with MoNan, while he plans to revenge on William.  (at least he says thank you to JiBin...) 

 After a whole episode of flashbacks and circling around each other at a flower market, LingQi and Bohai finally meet (because she finds him) and hug and cry. Still, after saying that he’s a useless loser, he says he doesn’t want to go back to a past that contains her... poor Qiqi, after all she’s done..

45

Finally he tells her that he doesn’t hate her, never have, only hates himself, and won’t go back, that he’s a loser and still unable to see colors, no way he could get the company back...

William wants to fire half of the staff; LingQi tries for a long while to convince Bohai then she goes back to save the company. Bohai comes back (Chen Mo shouts at him and then hugs him :-D). He enlists MoNan’s help in defeating William. MoNan goes to Qiqi to make up. 

Bohai and LingQi are together again; good, it took too long...

46

The police find the remains of Bohai’s mother, she didn’t come back for him because she was dead. 

MoNan and Bohai buy enough shares of the company and together with the other remaining holders he is reelected president of the company. Soon enough it turns out they were too much in a hurry, and now the company is in big financial trouble. Since this is known, the creditors force their way in pushing their way through and grab flowers boxes like a barbaric horde, what an indecent scene :-/

Bohai and LingQi cook together, and there is again that happy-moments-music: la-laila-la,laaf la laila  lala  

Bankrupcy procedures are started, and to stop them MoNan goes to the Floricultural Association to confess what he did to acquire the company, involving obviously William, so the procedure is stopped for investigation. 

48

In a dream, Bohai and LingQi realise that his mother put the proof of William’s fraud into a toy that she kept in a safe, which has been found with her remains , so now Bohai can go to the police with actual evidence and they promise to investigate. Now that things are at this point, the big corporation behind Williams takes a step away from him, blaming him alone for all the bad actions, and giving Bohai... I don’t remember, whatever he needed to make it good news for everybody..

Monan doesn’t go to jail, I think he has to pay some compensation and stay out of the business for a few years, but otherwise he’s free, poor but free, back to be Baoni’s poor best friend. 

Aaaaaand... they did it again, to end a show with a disappointing finale:

LingQi wishes upon a flower to marry Bohai and is disappointed when he doesn’t ask right away, then wants him to buy her a very expensive ring (they were in financial trouble since a few hours back...), and then Bohai is ran over by a car driven by William, in a very bad-looking accident. There’s a long scene where a covered-in-blood-LingQi cries at the hospital.

The deaths of their parents are considered accident but William is sentenced to life in prison because of fraud?? What?

MoNan is giving lectures in university and again living in Qiqi’s rooftop, Baoni sticks to him as usual, Zhou is the new director, she had a baby boy with Chen, and we see LingQi all alone, wandering the streets, dreaming at night that she would marry her Bohai and waking up sad because she’s alone... until they meet and we learned that he had to spend a year in Europe but came back earlier because he missed her, and he proposes...  who knows why he spent months in Europe, or why he is working in a little shop...

The end... :-/ bleah. Come on, why did they make a finale like this? The last few episodes have been too slow and boring. Nobody has seen JiBin for the last four episodes and nobody cares about him, MoNan’s sense of brotherhood is to use someone when he needs him and stop caring when he doesn’t, I guess. 

The last episode was all wrong, the dream, the accident, them trying to make us think that he’s dead, the long long scenes (she cries for two minutes! ) the boring ending... 

Really a bad ending. It could have been worse, I admit that, but it could have been a lot better.