This was arguably Sellers’ finest hour on screen, with his bravura multi-personality performance, playing Mandrake and also the insidiously bland mandarin President Merkin Muffley, and, most egregiously of all, the ex-Nazi scientist inspired by the V-2 rocket scientist Wernher von Braun. Hayden regretted complying and the role of Jack D Ripper was his way of hitting back, just a little, at the red-scare bullies. The house un-American activities committee forced him to name names, with the FBI privately threatening that refusing would mean he would lose custody of his children in his ongoing divorce case. As an intelligence officer in the second world war, he had served with the Tito partisans and in 1946, in a spirit of martial gallantry and admiration for them, had briefly joined the Communist party. Hayden was well qualified for this satirical role. It’s supposed to be bizarre, yet the quiet fear in Sellers’s voice is very real. “Oh hell – are the Russians involved, sir?” breathes Mandrake. Somehow this is most acute when Peter Sellers, playing the stiff-upper-lipped RAF officer Lionel Mandrake is curtly informed by his crazy American commanding officer Brigadier General Jack Ripper ( Sterling Hayden) that the nuclear confrontation has begun – which is to say, Ripper has pre-emptively begun a war to prevent communists sapping America’s precious bodily fluids. But I can never watch it without a bowel-liquefaction of fear. Perhaps this film inoculated our minds with black comedy, absurdified and ironised the horror and made the unthinkable thinkable. Maybe it was Dr Strangelove that really did persuade us all to stop worrying about the bomb. Photograph: Columbia TriStar/Getty Images Was it the worst drama I've seen? No.Absurdified horror … Peter Sellers and Sterling Hayden. In conclusion: if you're bored or really like any of the cast members, give this a try. Also, I did appreciate the drama's emphasis on working hard, not giving up, being brave enough to keep trying. It felt realistic and true to his character, but it was a pain to watch. He was so inconsiderate and he didn't even realize it. It felt realistic, developed over time, so even if I didn't like the characters I could appreciate their relationship. The villainous character was played very well though.Īside from Wang Yi Bo, what I liked is that the romance in this drama wasn't some love at first sight, destined to be together storyline. I always appreciate loyal friends in Chinese dramas because there's frequently so much scheming and backstabbing. I also really liked Gavin Xie as An Qing Huan's best friend.
LOVE STRANGE LOVE KONUSU SERIES
I found his character Zhi Wei to be funny and endearing and despite how spoiled he initially is, he grows up a lot throughout the series and he treats An Qing Huan (Joe Chen) sincerely. I finished the series in 10 days and let me tell you why: Wang Yi Bo. Well, this month I couldn't find anything else I wanted to watch so I decided to give the series another try, and I decided to start at episode 14. I also didn't want to watch the male lead Ding Ren Jian's life unravel. I found the personalities of the lead characters to be way too overwhelming, too loud if that makes sense. I've enjoyed Joe Chen's dramas in the past, but 2016's Stay With Me was one of the worst dramas I've ever watched (and I only watched the entire series because I love Wang Kai - but what was he thinking?). Rewatch Value 4.0 Initially, I made it through episode 9 before I abandoned this drama but later I decided to finish it.