In this episode of Shuttle Love Millennium, both Qi Long and Zhi Gang start to become more familiar with and make steps toward accepting their place in their new time periods.
Recap
We start off with Zhi Gang attempting to cook, but he is mystified by how the electric stove refuses to be lit via match. Instead, he chooses to go chop his own wood and start a fire. Upon seeing this when she returns home, Wang Lin laughs and shows him the miracles of new cooking technology and fast food. Then she asks him to prepare his Blue Moon restaurant’s signature dish–at this point she is starting to believe that he is actually Zhi Gang and not Qi Long. After he prepares a delicious meal, her newfound belief is confirmed.
Later, Wang Lin gives Zhi Gang the notebook she found in his pocket. He asks her to read its contents to him after they realize that the notebook contains simplified Chinese characters–which were put into use about 20 years after the period he’s from–and not the traditional characters he’s used to. We then cut to Shanghai 1936 where some of Mr. Wang’s cronies are moving boxes into a warehouse. The mysterious symbol on the cover of Zhi Gang’s notebook is the same symbol as the tattoo on the cronies. The boxes contain produce, but underneath are smuggled guns that look suspiciously like modern day guns.
Meanwhile, Zi Yi leaves again and tells Fei Fei to take care of “Zhi Gang.” Fei Fei is determined to “cure” Qi Long and return her beloved Uncle Zhang to normal, while Qi Long is determined to jump back through time, taking inspiration from Harry Potter and other pop culture sources. Fei Fei tries a bunch of different things, including medicine made from fried centipedes and acupuncture, in her efforts to cure Qi Long. Qi Long finally “admits” to being Zhi Gang in order to escape the gigantic acupuncture needle. But things are not all fine because he has run out of medication for his inhaler and needs some soon. Fei Fei reminds him that he has money he deposited at the bank, and that he can go by medicine at one of the Western pharmacies in the city. We watch as he heads to the Bank of China with Fei Fei, while in 2016, Qi Long and Wang Lin do the same.
Thoughts
This episode was a huge improvement over the last one in terms of my enjoyability. We finally get most of the annoying aspects of each character that I disliked (Wang Lin and Qi Long) out of the way. Instead, we just get some nice comedy, and any sort of plot that involves traveling through time will provide a lot of comedic situations.
I really like the parallels we see between the two different time periods in terms of Qi Long and Zhi Gang’s similar experiences of defamiliarization but also a kind of deja vu. The director also puts together a lot of cool shots that put these two different time periods in visual parallel.
At this point, very convinced that Fei Fei is Qi Long’s grandmother, especially after seeing the preview for the next episode (!!) And I also confirmed that Mr. Wang and Wang Lin’s grandfather are played by the same actor. What is the link between them and why does Mr. Wang have 21st century guns? What does he want with a ledger that contains anachronous simplified characters?
It’s been a slow start, but I’m glad I’ve been giving this show several chances, because things are starting to look good.
The Drama Llama 