My Little Happiness

Put Your Head on My Shoulder 2, the slightly inferior sequel!

I did not think that a Xing Fei + Tang Xiao Tian pairing could work, but this drama proves my preconceptions wrong. Daddi's (Chinese actors and their self chosen English? names, gawd) visuals have been significantly upgraded, perhaps he has gotten a bit more mature too in the past 2 years. Anyway the leads had great chemistry and their romance really delivered.
I always liked fluffy romcoms with weak love triangles and this one is right up my alley. I've been more than sufficiently entertained really.

Comparing this drama with Put Your Head on My Shoulder makes a lot of sense. Not only because of the lead actors' reunion, but also because the plot structure of the two dramas is strikingly similar, or at the very least the way the love triangle situation is handled is almost the same. (One weak triangle in the early episodes and another in the second half, both easily resolved) MLH has two big shortcomings in this comparison. Firstly the setting is much worse, the whole hospital and law firm environment leads to a few minor annoyances, annoyances the other drama did not have. Secondly MLH is 6 episodes longer & in my opinion it's just about 6 episodes too long. There is quite a bit of repetition & artificially stalled progress between episodes 16 & 26. Also the ending episodes were not nearly as good, they weren't bad or anything, but drama faded into boredom a little bit.

The second leads had decent chemistry too, but I found their story somewhat unnatural. Also their conclusion is lacking. So much effort has been spent to explain their backstory in the early episodes, how they wanted to stand on their own feet etc, but ultimately besides them ending up together their story feels somewhat unfinished. What did they end up doing with their lives? Sure they did the store renovation, but then fastforward a few scenes and they are traveling around the world spending the money of their parents!? *shrugs*

I think this drama is the second one I've seen just THIS MONTH, that featured volunteer doctors visiting the site of a major earthquake, the surgery during an aftershock scene is also something both dramas had in common...

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Overall this is still an above average cdrama in the fluffy romcom category. There are no breakups, no forced separation and all conflicts and the complications are easily resolved, the OTP romance is great too.. 8/10 seems fair, I might even do a rewatch someday.
With that said, if you have not yet seen Put Your Head on My Shoulder, you should start with that drama first.


edit: I did a rewatch. I still enjoyed the first half a lot, but the second half was even more of a letdown than I remembered. (Way too dragged out, annoying second couple relationship and quite a bit of boredom) Adjusting the score to 7,5.

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warning spoilers

this is really a good drama sweetheart lover grew up fell inlove got married have kids , so classic yet so good to watch from the i have watched this series 5 time since 2022 , it is just addictive , honestly i most liked it because the male lead is a surgeon ( my dream job) liked the storyline they get along well it dosent feel like they are actig wich i loveeee if you love sweet drama with a plttwist and a very very very happy ending then you should watch this , for me this chinese drama opened a lot of doors for me one is that i knew what i wanna do when i grow up wich i am working hard to achieve and second it was the reason why i am in love with chinese drama now soo happy that i watched it

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sweet, warm and charming.

First off, thank you for not making the FL silly and love that she dresses nice.
I had put this off for a long time now and finally watched it and enjoyed it.
It’s kinda slow burn but their kissing scenes made up for it.
Her best friend is so annoying and immature though. Like how many times is she going to cry?
I kept wondering how old she was to be acting like that.

Love Cong Rong and Wen Shao Qing dynamic, they were cute on screen and love their chemistry. Again it is slow burn but they weren't shy with their PDAs.
It was sweet, warm and charming. Love the ending and matter of fact, it was a perfect ending for me for Cong Rong and Wen Shao Qing.

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A Brony's dilemma - When "cute" is just CREEPY

I'm a proud Brony. I love sweet, fluffy, chocolate box romcoms. I am also a late middle-aged male with basically zero tolerance for misogyny, chauvinism and patronising patriarchal propaganda. Finding dramas that deliver the sweet fluff, without the Neanderthal nastiness is not easy. It's not impossible, as my "Evolved Male Lead" list ( https://kisskh.at/list/LAlZ2Z21 ) shows, but it is not easy. Sadly, this drama is not one of the success stories.

I am really not a fan of the kindergarten Kismet trope, and this drama shows that troublesome trope at its worst. To celebrate a man controlling a woman and considering that he has the right to do so simply because she was his childhood crush 20 years ago is creepy not cute.

The scene which ended my ability to tolerate the OTP actually links nicely with the reason I started this drama, and illustrates the difference between the right and the wrong way to do cute. I started this drama because I really enjoyed Xing Fei in "Put Your Head on My Shoulder". That phrase is an invitation, offering closeness, comfort, affection - IF the invitee so chooses. The drama of that title did manage to deliver cute romance without creepy controlling overtones. To simply PUT a sleeping person's head on your shoulder without their knowledge or consent when they only met you two days ago and don't know you at all, as happened in this drama, is not romantic or cute. It's creepy, controlling and stalkerish.

After realising that I was simply not comfortable with the regressive setup of the OTP, I penned my hopes on the initially more promising secondary pair. Sadly, that to very quickly degenerated because of a theme which is all too common in PRC romcoms - namely, that women quite simply and literally NEED men. They are depicted as incomplete without the protective support of a man. No matter how skilled they may be in whatever field they operate in, all of their efforts are at best incomplete, and at worst utterly futile without the approval and endorsement of, and often also needing the rescue by, a male. And of course, they need to openly and cravenly acknowledge this innate inferiority.

Having just watched the truly excellent Korean drama "Run On", which featured grown-ups falling in love while behaving like grown-ups, and which celebrated all parties involved retaining their individuality, intelligence and independence, I was reminded that life is too short for bad dramas. If Life is like a box of chocolates, then my quest for chocolate box romances without poison candy goes on.

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Typical Chinese Drama Annoyances

In a lot of ways, this seems like the stereotypical Chinese drama. Supporting characters asking a lead if they like the other lead constantly, rich, annoying best friend character, one lead “stalking” the other when they should really get the point, et cetera. I will say though that I like Cong Rong, Wen Rang, and the little bit of Qin Chu that I saw because they all have some sense of appealing stubbornness to their characters.

I was excited to see Deng Yu Li in the series, who was fantastic in Somewhere Only We Know. Xing Fei definitely brought some Li Ting Ting/Xue Tong vibes too. It was just a shame that this series had too much of the elements I find irritating in Chinese dramas.

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Candy floss served in an expensive dish

My little happiness is like a straight road, without any bumps, potholes, twists & turns, and that's what makes it bland. When will the makers and the audience wake up to the fact that Romancing is not about all sweetness and fluff. There has to be an equally compelling story line too. Honestly, too much of sweetness and cute moments also make a romantic story dull and boring, and this drama exemplifies it.
Childhood friends separate due to circumstances and fate brings them together after many years. Our ML Dr. Wen Shao Qing is a neurosurgeon in a top hospital, and our FL Cong Rong is a law intern who happens to land in the same hospital to complete her internship project. ML doesn't pay much attention to FL until he realizes that she is the same childhood friend that he has been waiting for so many years, and this realization takes place with the FL introducing herself. All these years, he just goes under a huge tree and waits on her. It doesn't occur to him to take advantage of the advanced technological help that is at his disposal. He suddenly falls in love with her and starts showing extra care towards her. All this time, I was wondering, how come the ML's name didn't jog any memory of him being her childhood friend. or may be she is used to address ML as FATTY(ML was fat as a lil boy). OR MAYBE SHE DIDN'T CARE TO LEARN HIS REAL NAME. Anyway, this marks the beginning of the cheesy and over the top sweet flirty scenes between ML and FL. The so called famous and dedicated neurosurgeon becomes OH SO DEDICATED LOVER. He waits for her at the bus stop to pick her up. Coddles her like a little fragile baby. Coaxes her to have breakfast with her each morning. MIND YOU, all this happens while FL is unaware of the fact that ML is her childhood sweetheart. Well , she soon learns that the same handsome doctor(ML) is her childhood friend, and soon after this revelation, they start a relationship full of KISSING, HUGGING, HE LEANING OVER HER, GETTING EXTRA COZY at the drop of the hat scenes. UGGGGHHHHH!!! It was so much that I felt one of my tooth decayed due to the cavity caused by over the top sweetness. Not to mention, staring in the eye scenes(they were too many). There's a limit to everything, but WAIT, the worst of all is that she signs up to volunteer to help at an earthquake affected area, so that she can be with the LOVE OF HER LIFE (ML). At this point, I just lost it. I mean, C'mon man, she didn't care about her cousin who also went with the medical team to the earthquake affected area. She was just concerned for being with ML, making the whole RELIEF HELP MISSION look like a joke.

Well, enough with the ranting, the only thing that got me glued to the show, was the chemistry and romance of the Second lead. I am usually not the one who ships for the 2nd leads, no matter how good they are. But here, I literally watched the show for them only. Their relationship doesn't start with romance. It rather starts with tiffs and arguments, but gradually it builds up and leads to love and romance. They are the spicy couple of the show, unlike the main leads who are just burying faces in each other's necks. Some people have commented on their height difference. I don't care much for the height difference. It's just that there are various other elements that the makers didn't focus much on.

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Unpopular Opinion. Not for me.

I don't know if I’ve just watched far too many dramas, having been watching C/J/K-Dramas for half my life, that my taste have somewhat become fastidious in what I watch.

Nothing new. How is it convincing that you find someone you're supposedly been longing for to meet again after so many years and not tell that person that you two have known each other in the past? And it's not like that "past” is anything to be ashamed off or should be a big deal to say, they were literally kids then FFS. I don't know about y'all, but isn't it normal that when a person meets someone the tendency is to find something in common between the two of you? May it be like, "Oh, you're X's XX's XXX's XXXx's neighbor. " or something of the sort. Even if it's just an effort at conversation. And for someone who is a doctor and a lawyer, these two have something lacking in their brains that make them illogical. Unrealistic is inevitable in dramas (because, hey, it isn’t a drama for anything) but can we not tolerate stupidity in scripts so these screenwriters.

Checked the drama info to lookup who wrote the drama to see if his/her other dramas are any good. What the eff. It has two screenwriters even. Two. Two heads that could have written a very good storyline that would substantiate and corroborate the synopsis/plot summary, but no. Further research came up with info that the drama was a “novel” adaptation. Hm.. It figures. But then again, there are a lot of marvellous movies and dramas that were adapted from books. Just.. good books. Books written by proper authors, not mangas written by amateurs.

Again, this is an unpopular opinion judging from the other reviews here who gave mostly 10’s. This is not me just going against the grain for the heck of it. This is for the others out there that couldn’t stomach such a story and characters portrayed as dimwits. Like, how could two professionals, a doctor and a lawyer, be so idiotic and undiscerning? Ok, love makes people stupid but.. how could a lawyer be such a poor judge of character? She couldn’t even tell if Wen Shao Qing is a scumbag and is just bullying her or it’s her that he loves. Why fall in love with a scumbag then? This Cong Rong character is one messed up character. I love me a smart, independent, strong, calm and sensible FLs, I hate dramas that have airheads and pushover FLs. But there’s a fine line between being strong willed and being imprudent and just plain stubborn and thoughtless. The Wen Shao Qing character isn’t without fault either. He is fickle and petty. Is the truth so hard to say? Couldn’t a distinguished professional be a little straightforward and mature? Nothing new. Highly unrealistic. Full of misunderstandings. Adding a lot of kissing and lovey-dovey scenes does not make up for a drama with no substance.

Oh, Dramaland.. why are you so full of push-and-pull, hot-and-cold, misunderstandings, lies, secrets, dishonesty and annoying characters? I get that a drama needs those for the story, but some dramas just go overboard. Some screenwriters think their drama should be a smorgasbord of conflicts and plot twists.

I pity these actors who kinda have no choice but to play these characters. Such a waste of their talents. In the end they end up taking in all the flack from viewers just because they accepted a job. They’re actors, they need to work.

I would only recommend this show to you if you're extremely bored, not picky, have nothing else to do or wanna vent and cuss at someone else (meaning: the annoying characters and scenes)

***Why do I find Daddi Tang more "manly" in Way back into Love than here? He looks different somehow here.

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Un vrai petit bonheur ;-)

Ma liste de dramas chinois n'est pas aussi importante, loin de là, que mes dramas coréens.

Mais sans conteste, "My little Happiness" est devenu un de mes numéros un ! Ce Drama est un concentré de fraicheur de et de bonheur à lui tout seul.

Je ne m'attendais à rien de particulier, et pourtant je me suis laissé embarquée dès les premiers épisodes avec bonheur.

Le couple principal fonctionne magnifiquement bien, et je trouve qu'ils suivent bien leur personnalité tout du long.
L'histoire de leur duo sonne juste, avec des moments forts, complices, et de vrais moments de couples, un peu plus loin de la pudeur habituelle de certains dramas qui peuvent être du coup, en dehors de la réalité de la vie.

Chose rare, le couple secondaire m'a autant tenu aux tripes que le principal. Ca a le mérite d'être souligné !

Bref, l'ambiance légère, mais réel avec quelques rivalités, est parfaite car on s'y croit.

Malgré les 28 épisodes, aucune longueur pour ma part, comme cela peut m'arriver sur certains dramas de plus de 20 épisodes.

Vraiment un vrai petit bonheur à regarder ;-)

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