Go Ahead (2020)

Overall Warm Lovely Family Drama

I was hooked onto this drama since I watched the drama before its release and started it right away when it aired, but only finished it now because I didn't like the romance element. However, I continued the drama where I left off (at the ep after Zi Qiu and Ling Xiao came back) and was so surprised at how interesting it still was so I kept watching. It turned out that the drama doesn't have that much romance scenes between Ling Xiao, Zi Qiu, and Jian Jian which was such a relief! It was more focused on the family aspects than I expected so I binged watched the remaining episodes. It was totally worth it! I would recommend those who liked the family aspects to continue just to see those parts because it really is worth the watch!

Now some things I really enjoyed:
1. The acting of course! - The family was so real that it didn't seem like that were acting at all! The chemistry is no joke! I especially love Zhi Qiu's acting! So amazing!
2. Some great points regarding family are brought up
3. The OST -such great bgm for the tearjerking scenes T_T
4. The first 12 episodes- such great sibling chemistry between Jian Jian, Zi Qiu, and Ling Xiao when they were young and as they grew up! very fun to watch!

Things that were not so great:
1. The romance between Jian Jian and Ling Xiao - wasn't that hard to understand why they like each other but still weird for me to watch them hug and interact as lovers; the brother-sister vibe is so strong that they could have stuck with that for the entire drama and it wouldn't have made a big difference, it was pretty unnecessary to also make Zhi Qiu thinks he likes Jian Jian (although his reasons for doing so made sense)
2. The ending - felt a bit rushed towards the end to have the story wrapped up for Ling Xiao's mom portion and the conclusion overall; could have shown a bit more although I liked how everywhere ended up
3. Too many complicated love triangles/squares between Jian Jian's friends - was hard and boring to watch

BUT I would totally recommend this drama for anyone looking for a great family drama (you can just skip the romance parts)! If you need another reason, just watch it for Steven Zhang (Zi Qiu)'s great acting!

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A good series about found family, mother issues and realistic adulthood. Not a good romance.

This is a good series with found family tropes. I quite enjoyed it, especially the first half. I love the interactions between the brother-sister trio when they are teenagers, the bickering interactions between the two dads, the father-daughter relationship between our female lead Jianjian and her father Li Hai Chao, and the father-son relationship between Li Hai Chao and He Zi Qiu.

My two most favorite characters are Li Hai Chao and He Zi Qiu. I like He Zi Qiu the most among the trio. I love to see him bickering with Jianjian. He truly loves and cares for Jianjian as an older brother, and always tries his best to protect his family, including Jianjian and her father. He always wishes to become a real family with them, and that's why he mistakes that feeling for romantic love. I love how he asks for Li Hai Chao's permission before making a move on Jianjian. He's one of the lights that I've found in this show. I also love to watch his journey on healing the relationship with his mother. Out of the mothers in the series (I don't include the mother of Zi Qiu's best friend as she is a very side character), she is one of the two mothers that I empathize with and deserves to be forgiven for her mistakes towards her children. I love her happy ending with Zi Qiu and Jianjian's father.

Another light is Li Hai Chao. He is the best dad ever, and the kindest man I've seen. He treats other people, including women and kids with respect. He's so loving, caring and patient towards his children. I love every scene with him in it. He makes my heart feel warm. I've never had a father like him, and have serious father issues, so I always have a soft spot for a nurturing father, and a loving father-daughter relationship.

I also like how the show implies messages about growing up and how difficult adulthood can be, and the relationship between Asian parents and their adult children. I love the friendship between the 3 girls Jianjian, Mingyue, and Tang Can. I think their bonding is beautiful and realistic. I love how they care and support each other through different hardships in life. There are some conflicts between them sometimes but that's how best friends treat each other in real life. They are straightforward towards each other and don't let any boy get involved and ruin their friendship. That's another good thing about this series, that there is no toxic love triangle.

I feel that "Go Ahead" is a series about mother issues. All the characters in this series, excluding ZiQiu's best friend, have serious mother issues. Most of them have toxic mothers that lead to a lot of trauma and shape their personality when they grow up. I relate to Mingyue the most. Some people may find her character annoying but it's realistic when she grew up with her parents. I used to be just as annoying as her. My father is an absent father like her father, and my mother is too controlling towards whatever I do in life. She's never satisfied with whatever I do. I was a model student, but I used to be so unconfident and never thought I'm good enough. I pushed away the people that liked me because I was scared that they would stop liking me after knowing who I am. I see myself in her a lot, and I felt so proud and emotional at the scene when she confronted her mother and expressed her suppressed feeling for a long time in front of her. Mingyue's mother is the other mother besides Zi Qiu's that I empathize with. She's a lot like my mother and I understand she just wishes the best for her daughter, although her method is wrong. I was also touched at the scene where Minyue stood up for her mother when her father confronted her and blamed her mother for an unhappy marriage between them. My absent father also did that, and I also stood up for my mother.

That's a few things I love about the series. Now there are things that I dislike. The first thing is the romance between the leads. They got together so quickly after treating each other like siblings for a very long time since they were kids. It feels so forced to me. I don't feel any chemistry between them either. Plus, I feel like Ling Xiao was forcing Jianjian into their relationship. He did a lot of toxic things. He wasn't satisfied when Jianjian had a boyfriend and tried to break them up. He met her boyfriend secretly and asked him to break up with her. This is different from Zi Qiu, because the reason Zi Qiu didn't approve of her boyfriend is that he was worried about him being a pervert and betraying Jianjian. Zi Qiu is just a protective older brother and wishes the best for her sister. Another toxic thing Ling Xiao did was confessing to Jianjian but didn't give her time to think, but kind of forced her into the relationship, and he kissed her without her consent!

Another thing is that they don't seem to consider mental illness as a serious issue in this series. Ling Xiao was severely depressed, but he never went to therapy and relied on Jianjian for his comfort. That's not a good way in the long run. I had depression for years and I know how burdensome and exhausting it is for people around me to be around me for a long while. That's not a healthy relationship. Also, it’s painful to see how Chinese people think of mental illness. It's considered something embarrassing. My Asian mom thinks so too, and she always tries to hide other people about me going to therapy. I know they care about me but it still hurts me a lot.

My biggest issue about this series is about the concept of family. What I love about this series at first is the concept of a found family. However, later the kids forgive their toxic parents after terrible things they have done for them, just because 'your mother is your mother'. I feel like it's somehow against the series' initial concept. Ling Xiao is forced to take care of the selfish biographical mother who abandoned him and never cared about her children, including Ling Xiao and her 2 sisters. I think the best ending for Ling Xiao's mother should be that both Ling Xiao and her sister cut her off.

Next is Tang Can's mother. She's also one of the worst mothers. It appears to me from the beginning to the end that she only cares about her own pride. When Tang Can was an inspiring young child actress, her mother forced her to do a lot of commercials to earn money, and such a young kid has already earned enough to buy her parents a house and a supermarket to make a living. Who loves their kid that forces her to do that? Later it was her who destroyed her daughter's acting career because of her pride. And then she became embarrassed about her daughter and not satisfied with whatever she did, no matter how hard she tried. She never noticed how exhausted her daughter was at every family gathering, but how much her daughter embarrassed her. Then in the end, Tang Can somehow still tried to please her mother, because 'it's your mother, and mother always wishes the best for their children'. In my opinion, this is not a good message for young people nowadays.

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Good beginning but slows down

I genuinely loved this drama in the beginning. I like that it was different from other romance dramas and it was more family oriented about a non traditional family. However, it quickly turned into other C-dramas half way through and it just got too awkward! I managed to finish but by the last few episodes, I was starting to fall asleep from boredom. The story just dragged on and on even though we all knew what was going to happen anyway. The overall acting is great especially from the father character. His character was very well written and I love that it was very non traditional from other C-drama characters. The children were also brilliantly cast.

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WOW!! Just Wow

This has got to be one of the best dramas I've seen. Ziqui character was so amazing, I found myself so invested into is storyline. I wanted nothing more then for him to get a happy ending. I liked all the characters but for some reason his character touched me the most. Everytime he cried, I felt myself crying 😭
Those two mothers really got under my skin for the whole show. I can't even begin to talk about how mad they made me.
The only thing I wish is that we could've got a small glimpse into after Haichao and Heimei got married and what life was like for the siblings after.

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Embrace the warmth and meaning of what family actually means!!!

Growing up and parenting, they both are extremely tricky. Life has endless troubles ready for us to deal with. At times when the world makes you feel like it is crashing upon you, having someone to shield you from it, having a shoulder to lay your head on, having someone to hold onto , to wipe away your tears and reassure you is the greatest blessing one can receive. This drama taught life lessons with the cast bringing their characters to life. Relationship require patience to work also taking turns in complementing eachothers flaws. To all the tears and smiles brought by this drama. The drama is priceless and surely it is gonna be an ageless drama too. If this drama isn't in your watchlist, it definitely is a loss.

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A family oriented drama

This drama deserves a million stars. The forty episodes will not get you bore...Every scene will give us the moment to cry, laugh and love. The characters really played their part. The main leads. Song Wei Long as Ling Xiao and Seven Tan as Li Jian Jian were both a versatile actors. I love them both. Also, even Steven Zhang played his part well. The music also will inspire you to never give up in watching this drama. THIS DRAMA is totally worth to watch.
I really love how Song and Seven played the characters in Go Ahead so well. I guarantee that this drama will give you another view of Chinese Dramas. It's worth your time.
I will continue to support every cast :)Jiayou!

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if a drama was able to get me to reflect on myself this much...you know it's worth a watch

Story: Okay so in terms of the story, it would have gotten a full10/10 from me if not for the draggy story midway through the drama. At some point mid way through the drama, I kind of lost my focus on the drama? I think it's because of the characters took too long to resolve their problems. Another thing is that the sibling to relationship development felt extremely rapid for me. I think I would have preferred if there was a scene that straightforwardly shows us all that they really have decided to date? Now for the good parts...Usually, I'm not a big fan of dramas taking up like half of the drama to show the past and rush through the character development and plot development. However, I find that the screenwriters and director of this drama did really well in including the main characters' past and how they each develop. As for the ending, honestly I was kind of upset at first. I didn't want Chen Ting to be forgiven so easily after she kinda chose to run away from her problems but after my 30 minute drama withdrawal syndrome session, I came to realize that, like what she wrote in her suicide note, she loves her son, but she just doesn't know how to love properly. Although the ending did not show it, I hope she's learnt how to not only love her son properly but love herself as well.
Acting/Cast: Y'all I'm not even joking when I say that I have never watched a cdrama where ALL of the characters(main, support etc. even the damn waitress) acted so well. I'm not gonna say much about JJ, LX, ZQ as well all know how great the character development and acting from Seven, Weilong and Steven are. The one character that has made me cry for the most is probably LiBa. The way that he raises these kids and treats them and TEACH them, like we all need to applaud for that. Growing up in an asian household where you are pinned by so many expectations and pressured to be perfect in every aspect, LiBa made me wish that growing up, I had someone who didn't expect me to be 100% in everything and didn't pressure me to do things I didn't want to do and instead supported me in my passions. Most importantly, someone who stands up to another person to defend their own child. Moving on, we're not here to talk about my sob story. I'm glad that LiBa had his own happy ending rather than a happy ending where it's the typical as-long-as-my-child-is-happy-i'm-happy-too, it's true that if JJ, LX, ZQ is happy he'll be happy but I wanted him to have a life besides his children, if you know what I mean. Other than that, all the characters(HeMei, MingYue, TangCan, MingYue's parents, TangCan's parents, ZhaungBei) also preformed just as well and was also able to show us character development despite being supporting characters. Shoutout to Chen Ting and Cheng Zi for being so HATABLE and somehow is able to make me forgive them at the end anyways (Forgiving ChengZi was understandable but ChenTing? man, i definitely did not expect that comin). Guess that just goes to show how well the actresses preformed.
Music: The amount of times I cried just listening to the intro song...honestly, I can't tell if I'm just an emotional b*tch or it's just really really sad. (Especially around when LingXiao and ZiQiu had to leave in highschool)
Rewatch Value: honestly, the only reason why my rewatch value is so low is because I don't like rewatching dramas in general. I lose all the excitement and adrenaline since i already know what's going to happen. Just my preference though!
Overall: Great drama, awoken the depressed asian black sheep daughter of the family within me. Definitely wished I had that type of family growing up but also made me appreciate the things my own family does for me every single day. Y'all, if a drama was able to get me to reflect on myself this much...you know it's worth a watch...just sayin...

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All I want is to be Loved

This is a fantastic series. It fulfills the hypothesis of the story in its’ entirety. The series deals with real societal issues without dodge anything. It illustrates how parental actions can truly and deeply affect a child and their surrounds, especially when adults do not own up to their own mistakes and blames the child(ren). It shows blackmailing and manipulation of a child to their adulthood by a parent, which runs parallel to the parent that wants to care and does care for the child to their best ability. In this series, a mother emotionally blackmails and traumatizes her son, while a father within his own capability joins forces with another single dad to give his son all he can. The care of both fathers is admirable. The story is neatly weaved, which makes the display even better. The other angle which is shown is a divorcee scared and chasing life until she realizes her biggest mistake was running away from it and abandoning her son. The series also deals with stigmatism of two non-official adopted children relationship the extends beyond siblings. This shows that sometimes adults and the best of adults fail to recognize the seriousness of a child’s decision at the very moment it is made. It teaches us not to assume that everyone in the relationship feels the same way. Loved the fact that Ling Xiao not only followed his heart but fought for it because his love and courage are one in the same, Li Jian Jian. The bonding between the different characters is absolutely amazing. Sometimes we tend to ignore the obvious, like when Ling Xiao bought a lace bra for Li Jian Jian. A “brother” adopted or not, will not go out and by his sister a bra. Everyone in the room missed the elephant in the room completely. The development of their romance is subtle, sweet, and funny.

Heart wrenching when Ling Xiao spills the entire turmoil of his life, heart, and soul and she hugs him asking are you sick. This scene truly demonstrate how damage Ling Xiao is by his mother’s actions.

The two fathers, He Zi Qiu, Ling Xiao, and Li Jian Jian could not have survived without each other’s love, support, and care.

The entire team, not just actors and actress, is t be congratulated for a phenomenal job, congratulations!

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Good family drama, subpar romance

OVERALL
My opinion may be unpopular, but I find this drama a bit (just a bit) overrated. Still, it definitely feels different from other C-dramas I have seen so far, and the first half is REALLY nice. Watch it if 1) you're looking for a story with great friendship/family ties, 2) you like dramas that follow characters from childhood to adulthood, 3) you don't mind shedding a few tears. Think twice if 1) you are craving a well-developed love story, 2) you have low tolerance for annoying characters, 3) you like mature female leads.

THE STORY
It took me ages to give Go Ahead a try because I felt like it would just make me cry a lot. It didn't. It actually made me laugh a lot more. There is a lot to like about this drama:
- The first half is glorious, of the best I've seen in a C-drama; especially the first five episodes when the main leads are still very young. Serious, dark stuff happen, but it's beautiful and emotional. I just loved it. As the trio begins to age, the drama starts to feel a bit bipolar, like it doesn't know if to have melodrama vibes or comedy vibes and it bothered me sometimes, but it was still fine until about episode 20.
- The parents that take care of the main leads are fabulous. They break all stereotypes and are just so endearing. Definitely my favorite characters of the drama!
- Of course, the dynamic between the three main leads is gold, especially in the first half of the drama. They are family/friends goals!

My problem with Go Ahead is the second half, which feels so sloppy in comparison to the first half. The drama tries to tackle too many storylines at once so it doesn't go deep enough with anything and makes you feel dissatisfied with everything. The romance? Goes from zero to 100. Messed up characters? Also go from bad to good in the blink of an eye. It just doesn't make sense. I also have to say, Female lead is a bit problematic for me. She's just so childish. I'm fine with cute female characters, but mature cute. Age-appropriate cute. Jianjian acts her age like 25% of the time, and the rest feels like she's 10 years younger than the boys. It just...doesn't feel right.

Definitely a good drama, but not as great as it looked like it was going to be.

THE ACTING
Pretty good. I like Seven Tan's acting (regardless of her character) and the older actors were fab. Lil bro was impressive too, but in comparison, Big Bro kind of fell short. Still, nothing to distract you from the plot. I must say though, I felt no chemistry between the leads. Romantic scenes are nothing special too, so really, don't come into this drama for the love story.

THE MUSIC
In general, quite fine. I just like that background instrumental music wasn't super loud and cheap. It was actually fitting. The drama is really a nice production, it's only the script that could be a bit better.

REWATCH VALUE
Not very high. I think it's one of those one-timers.

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