Kill Me Love Me (2024)

The drama that never was. A fiery and promising start that died out too quickly.

This drama was absolutely brilliant in the first three episodes but lost its spark with each one, and after episode 24, it completely went to the trash bin. We were promised: a red-flag male lead, a badass assassin female lead, enemies-to-lovers, bloody revenge, and intricate politics. What we got: fail, fail, fail. This drama turned out to be a typical historical story about domestic love, sibling rivalry, and simple court politics.

POSITIVES:
- The main leads. They had amazing on-screen presence and brilliant acting.
- Enjoyable OST. At least that one sad song stayed stuck in my head.
- Story wise, an ok watch till episode 24.

NEGATIVES:
- The male lead starts off as a badass, unhinged red flag Gege but after episode 4, he’s reduced to a green flag, vulnerable, broken Gege. Worse, by the end, he’s mostly just a moping, lovesick boy, with the only charming quality felt being his handsome face.
- The female lead is supposedly a deadly assassin who’s spent ten years training for her revenge, and yet she never actually takes it. Worse, she’s off-screen when it finally happens! Aside from a few cool fight scenes, she’s basically reduced to a damsel in distress.
- Enemies-to-what-now. The sexy fire between the leads dies down quickly and their village arc is mostly domestic fluff.
- Village arc. Pure filler for me, It added next to nothing as the leads were interacting almost the same way as they did at the start (after episode 4, since episodes 1-3 feel like a fever dream).
- Meh side characters. A bunch of nothingness really. Ain’t nobody cared about the second love interest (the Prince). The Princess was cute but her getting pregnant by the Grandfather was totally disgusting and literally nobody wanted to see that. The second male lead was just there, doing his best but ultimately forgettable. The second female lead was the epitome of expressionless, and her metamorphosis of being in love with the male lead to suddenly loving the second lead was bizarre.
- Plot. Nothing groundbreaking aside from the plot holes that were definitely there. It was a simple revenge with zero plot twists or surprises. The biggest fail for me is that the writers decide to literally reveal everything, including all the mysteries, in the first three episodes. The main focus was the love story, which felt boring. There were some nice parts where you could see the main leads were healing their traumas together but the domestic and cutesy romance fluff never really hit me.
- The ending. For me, the story ended at episode 24 when the main conflict was resolved and the villain defeated. Everything afterwards was a total waste with a ridiculous breakup and pointless love triangle. I literally ff/skipped through the last eight episodes and still understood the whole story.
- The true ending. Episode 32’s ending was surprisingly well done, emotional and thoughtful. It actually touched me, considering that I didn’t care much about the characters or the story at that point.

OVERALL:
The premise and trailer promised murderous, sexy and angsty vibes with sickly, scheming prince + his vindictive female assassin, and yet the drama delivered NOTHING. It’s like the writers had this grandiose idea, wrote the script for the first three episodes and then scratched it and decided it was ‘better’ to continue with a typical historical cdrama about domestic love, sibling rivalry and simple court politics. Kill Me Love Me? More like Kill Me Snooze Me (to death).

FAVOURITE QUOTE:
"Once a dead chess piece becomes alive, the game has changed."

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Potential but ultimately failed

This drama had potential, but ultimately failed to deliver on almost every front.

📍Characters

Let’s start with the characters. Most of them were flat and one-dimensional, making it hard to stay emotionally invested. Supposedly emotional moments, like the loss of Mei Lin's parents, felt empty, because we never saw who they were or why their absence should matter to us. It was impossible to care about her journey.

Ironically, Luomei, who had very limited screen time, was far more engaging than the lead. She brought more intrigue and depth in just a few scenes than Mei Lin managed in the entire show. I honestly wish she had been the protagonist. The only other standout was the actor Liu Xue Yi. His performance was exceptional and carried several scenes that otherwise would have fallen flat.

📍Story

The drama’s concept was good in theory, but poorly executed. The pacing was all over the place. Early episodes built tension only to deflate it a couple of episodes later, robbing the story of momentum.

What made it especially frustrating was how much potential the main characters had at the beginning. We were introduced to a red flag male lead and a badass assassin out for revenge, characters that actually sparked interest. But instead of developing them further, the drama stripped them of their edge way too soon. They either turned into something completely different or simply lost their drive. It felt like the characters we were initially promised just… disappeared. That loss was noticeable and honestly kind of sad.
The middle section was particularly tedious, almost nothing happened, and we were bombarded with scenes centered on side characters like the emperor and his young concubine, or the villain and his love interest. Their stories added little to the main plot and took up far too much screen time. It was frustrating and felt like filler.

By the end, the story veered into chaos, with characters dying left and right for no real reason. It felt dramatic for the sake of being dramatic, completely unnecessary and devoid of emotional impact, especially since there had been no meaningful development leading up to it. They did wrap up the ending fairly well though.

📍Production

The OSTs were fine, but nothing memorable. The cinematography, however, was beautiful, and the casting seemed promising at first. Unfortunately, these strengths weren’t enough to make up for the lack of compelling storytelling and character depth.

✨️ Final thoughts

In the end, it was a disappointing experience that wasted a good concept and a talented cast on weak writing and direction.

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