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The heartwarming story struggles with its delivery, lacking clear direction
The drama’s main storyline is revealed episode by episode, which makes it difficult for a cohesive narrative arc of suspense to develop. It relies on the audience's attachment to the characters and their growing relationship, only to ultimately leave these elements underdeveloped. Unfortunately, the main relationship never fully blossoms into a love story—at least not on screen. The anticipated emotional revelations and romantic moments are more implied than explicitly shown, which I find to be a very odd creative choice. Even the dramatic revelations about Mu Shengs real identity, Liu Fuyi's guilt and Mu Yao's possession barely have any emotional impact. The rest of the plot simply isn’t strong enough to carry the series on its own, so as the finale approaches, the show regrettably becomes increasingly dull (but is still rather sweet).The chemistry between the main cast is decent and effectively supports both comedic and dramatic scenes. Despite its flaws, this is the first drama in a while that I’ve actually managed to finish!
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It Grows On You
I picked this up for the two male leads as they have both impressed me with their characters in several previous series. The story line was also kind of different so was curious about it. I will say that I dropped it twice before just jumping to episode 5 and fast forwarding until 7 when the plot actually picked up. But it did grow on me.Pros: I really liked the group dynamic and how they were--once formed--very "leave no man behind" no matter what the situation is. Because this was a transmigration into a book thing, the characters could be reborn or healed by unlocking certain elements of the game. Both ML and SML played their parts well and I was happy to see more differences and versatility from them. When they were together with the two female leads (both of whom had their own strengths and abilities plus evolution) and the kid, they really were a force to be reckoned with. I like the different mysteries that they solved on the path of eliminating an evil woman; this was another drama where demons were often misunderstood and way better than humans.
The ML was half demon and actually the author of the novel as well as a series of books which the FL was a fan of and followed but when this novel came out, it was really bad as it was his first book that he wrote when he was a teenager and diagnosed with a disease that could only be treated when he was an adult and his parents fought all the time so he was writing from a place of anger and dejection. So both he and the FL were thrown into the book with her determined to rewrite the ending and him not knowing anything really or pretending not to until the very end. To make it more predestined, they had actually met in middle school where he developed a crush on her (but his first book ended the way it did was also around the time that the FL left the school due to the loss of her father) and as he grew up he basically wrote all of the books for her. As he saw her comments online which encouraged him, he grew to love her even more and after going in for surgery decided to revise that first novel. It was while he was in surgery that his trip happened while for her it was an overnight dream.
Costumes fit each character accordingly, as do the OSTs, sets, and CGI.
Cons: Though it did grow on me; the fact that I couldn't watch the first 5-7 episodes without dropping or fast forwarding due to the beyond ridiculous slapstick humor that didn't land from the FL and the plot not going anywhere was hard. Dramas need to hook you from the beginning and this one just didn't. If it wasn't for the people I really wanted to see in different roles, I probably wouldn't have stuck around though it got a lot better with more episodes.
That ending was a total mess. It's being questioned whether or not it's an HE or OE on Weibo by fans. What were the editors thinking? Did they unscrew their brains for a day or something? The ML filmed the actual ending as he calls the FL's name; he was there! Yet they cut that part and had just his voice say her name and her stare beyond the camera in shock and then smiled as the paparazzi behind her all called his name and said that he was coming. What in the what? They had the kid and his grandpa in the real world selling ice cream at the event location, but they couldn't show the ML coming over to her and at least hugging her or holding her hands? Plus what happened to the second couple? They don't get roles in the real world? They were just left without proper closure creating that ladder to heaven and that's it? Someone help me out here? It's ridiculous! I was very displeased with that and it knocked .5 off my rating automatically. Endings are as important as beginnings; so if they're screwed up, the drama will take a hit.
Would I recommend it? Honestly, this is a good drama if you need something to tie you over between something anticipated or if you're a fan of any of the actors, then sure. All in all, a decent watch.
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A Moderately Enjoyable Show That Fell Short
This drama started out good but became increasingly bland as it went on. By the last episode, it was a complete 'wht the fuck?'.To mention the good parts, the costumes are beautiful, graphics are ok ( comparatively), and the acting was, well, tolerable. The ml is the highlight of the show but the fl was just there for me. The second couple held no inerest for me whatsoever, I didn't care whether they got together or not.
Plot was interesting at the beginning. Nothing life changing but it was enjoyable enough to have an escape from the horrors of real life. But the execution and dialogues were mediocre at best.
Some side plots were there, which are also mildly enjoyable. There was so much talk and buildup to the final showdown with the resentful woman but it was all just wrapped up in a very anti climatic way. By then the story was so sappy, I actively wished for the catastrophe of heaven to actually happen, just to the story would end.
If you value plot complexity, good execution and well developed characters, this one might not be for you. When I watched this I was just laying on my bed exhausted from work, so I needed something 'adequate' to set my mind on. I don't think I would've stuck with this under different circumstances. Still a pretty enjoyable drama with a lackluster ending.
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Over rated
First series of Esther Yu, now I'm really wondering why she is so famous with that kind of acting skill?About the series:
1. 1st episode is very boring and not clear of what the series going to lead us to.
2. The next 10 series are quite entertaining with the humor and fast pacing story lines, but then afterwards the stories become dull and boring.
3. It is strange to have a so called "heroine" who can't or never fight at all ==> referring to the main female lead, whose facial expression is very dull and only able to act cute
4. second male lead acting also not great, flat facial expression and no chemistry with the second female lead
Overall, I do enjoy some part of the series, especially the beginning, but afterwards the story lines just draggy and acting from the main actress really lame make it quite difficult to watch.
No offense to Esther Yu hard core fans.. this is purely my personal opinion. I shall see her other work to make sure whether she can act or if this is her character in this series.
But looking at the background of her character, she is not supposed to be a "cute" person, from her modern era character she is not with that cute personality, why suddenly when she become the heroine character in the novel she become overly unnecessary "cute"? (to be precise : tried to act cute, but does not cute at all)
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BEST DRAMA OF THE YEAR
Yu shuxin as ling miaomiao is my fav I love this novel nd when xixin nd xiaoding as miaomiao nd mu Sheng looks so perfect.After a very long I love sone drama nd this is my best cdrama I'm 2024
I watched every Esther drama so far I love lbfd nd I watched so many times nd now this love game in eastern fantasy my fav I watched episodes in. Repeat
Love how miaomiao nd her father bond she missed her father who dead in real world but she got to meet him in virtual world nd their bond are sweetest
Love how to see mu Sheng love meter goes -200 to 20
Nd if ling miaomiao ignore him it's goes high
How xin dies in every move in 1 ep
After watching to many dark story series this is so much refresh nd love to watch
Nd its my fav jouner fantasy when we love this manhua it's so great to see xixin in our fav character ling miaomiao 🙌🏻
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Mr. Grumpy meets Miss Sunshine in a novel/game setting
This drama is about the female lead who is sucked into a demon hunting novel and assigned to play the vicious second female lead. In a game style setting, she must complete her mission of making the grumpy male lead fall in love with her, in order to go back to her reality.The best thing about this drama is hands down the relationship dynamic between the main leads. I can’t even explain my obsession with these two. They just made me FEEL everything. It’s the humour and teasing between them, the angry looks and fights, the way the male lead gazed secretly at her, and all the times the female lead did little things to heal his inner pain. It was like watching the love story between soulmates. Their relationship felt real and progressed so naturally, so I couldn’t help but love them.
The worst thing about this drama is the fact that the romance and game style was totally sidelined in the second half. In fact, I truly felt like someone else had written ep 1-20 compared to ep 21-30 because of the stark difference. Ep 1-20 were absolutely fantastic in terms of romance, comedy and game plot. They made me obsessed like no other and these episodes deserve 100/10 points. However the second half lost its charm completely. The writers decided to turn the drama into a typical xianxia. Suddenly we were introduced to tons of side characters and side plots/backstories that nobody cared about. It didn’t help that the main leads had less screen time and their hot romance completely died down.
POSITIVE:
- Top tier romance: off the charts chemistry with natural and fiery on-screen presence. The main leads MADE the drama.
- Top notch comedy. The humour was brilliantly woven into the game plot.
- Game style: the set up was executed brilliantly. Hilarious and accurate to real life playing.
- Flawless transmigration: relatable female lead (hating her job and spending all her time reading fantasy novels) + the perfect twist in the end for the genre.
- Stunning visuals + OST: the CGI, costumes, setting, everything was dazzling and beautiful.
- Enemies to lovers + grumpy x sunshine trope.
- Male lead: the hottest tsundere character. His progress of initially being harsh and a total red flag to gradually revealing his warmer nature was chef’s kiss. A flawed character, he is a hurt young boy who’s deeply loyal to his family and friends.
- Female lead: the cutest character that might initially be mistaken for a typical brainless girl but is in fact a tough cookie, brave and empathic soul.
- Heartfelt relationships: sis-mas, brother-sister, daughter-father and a tiny bit of bromance.
- Ending episode: it touched me deeply as it had a very meaningful message.
- Ryan Ding and Esther Yu: stole the spotlight with their brilliant on-screen presence. I loved the microexpressions during Ryan Ding’s emotional and angst scenes. He embodied his character to perfection and his demon form was beyond sexy to look at. Esther Yu on the other hand had the perfect comedy timing where she shined bright. No cringe, only cuteness overload.
NEGATIVE:
- Ending: the last minute of the episode pissed me off. I blame censorship but still…
- Second half: lost its magic. As mentioned above, the romance and game plot pretty much disappeared. Instead we suddenly got a typical xianxia that nobody cared about. I couldn't emotionally invest in the plot of “the world is ending” when I knew the world was just a virtual game. I also felt overwhelmed with info dumping of like 100 new side characters, side plots and backstories.
- Wooden second couple: they were dry as the Sahara desert and I felt zero emotional connection. Which is a shame as the actors had such great chemistry in Fox Spirit Matchmaker.
- Boring second female lead: she had nothing going for her aside from her siblings' plot line with the male lead.
- NPC second male lead: he literally had zero personality. Some might argue that he was supposed to feel like an NPC but that to me is just boring. The writers in fact tried to give him some backstory towards the end but it felt pointless.
- No kiss scene. It made sense why but it’s still a crime.
OVERALL:
I have mixed feelings about this drama. The first half is a total masterpiece in terms of romance, comedy and game plot. It made me love and obsessed over the main leads like no other. However the second half deviated from that path and the delivery was a snooze fest. The ending was strong, meaningful and deeply touched me but also that last minute flaw pissed me off so much. In conclusion, I still recommend this drama if you want an adorable grumpy x sunshine trope with lots of comedy and stunning visuals (and you don’t mind skipping some boring stuff in the second half). It’s worth mentioning that during airing time, the drama debuted with a solid 7.6 with over 100k+ votes, which made it the highest rated costume fantasy on Douban this year.
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Boring and ordinary
I saw this on Netflix and the teaser got me interested.The first few episodes were interesting but somehow as the story progressed it just got boring.
The writers tried to showcase the friendship and the romance within the friendship, their loyalty to each other but somehow I couldn't connect with any of it. It was all superficial and rushed.
The romance between the ML and FL as well as the 2Ls were meh. It was poorly developed. Perhaps if they added a few more longing glances and soft hand touches it might have helped, at least to strengthen the romance between the characters. Nuances of facial expressions and body languages are important to a story to capture and communicate with the audience. Unfortunately, the story lack such nuances to captivate the audience, well to me at least.
Maybe if they had developed the ML's demon side plot it would've been more interesting. Why did the ML choose to stay as a half human, hiding his demon side? Why didn't he choose his demon half as that character looked interesting?
The plot and the story didn't make sense.
I like the acting of the ML. That's one plus points for me here.
Also Cui Cui was so cute. Other than that, nothing really fantastic here.
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Drama that made me purchase WeTV VIP and express pass after a year of boring Cdramas
**If LBFAD, New Life Begin, and Fangs of Fortune had a Baby — Love Game in Eastern Fantasy**The last full length Cdrama that I watched completely was Love You Seven Times which I forced myself to watch because I loved the universe of LBFAD. My legit last foray into full length drama was My Journey To You because again I like Esther Yu in a different role and Zhang Linghe was ok in LBFAD but alas I got bored because even though MJTY was gorgeous it was just too dark and brooding for me. What turned me off from Cdramas is the very formulaic storyline that gets repeated for the nth time with different cast, crew, and production team. But after reigniting my fondness for Esther Yu, and watching the clips, I was finally able to go back to watching Cdrama through LGEF and yes I bought WeTV VIP and Express pass after a year of Cdrama hiatus.
**Love that Heals and Comforts**
LGEF may not be about some heroic love of the couple against the world like in LBFAD. Heck even Esther Yu and Ding Yuxi never kissed or had any passionate hugs in the whole 32 episodes, but their chemistry is just there — something warm, fuzzy, and comforting. In general I felt like the main theme of the drama is about Love that heals and comforts — love between romantic partners, friends, family members, even love for humanity in general has the ability to heal wounds and can comfort the most jaded people. The story also touched on self love which LBFAD barely went into. Every episode was unique in showing different types of love even the obsessive type.
** Story on rollercoaster with multiple savepoints**
This aspect of the drama is both its strength and weakness. Strength in that every episode is exciting even without the need to watch out for the skinship between Esther Yu and Ding Yuxi, because every episode have something that will make you cry or feel the feels. Even though the story is a bit predictable, but the dialogues and the way the characters showed their connections and relationships just made sense and made you relate to them giving justice to the Ensemble cast. There is also several mini “stories” in the drama with the first 24 episodes (if cut can be a story on its own) having a sensible overarching plot. The added episodes and plot points just added to the extensive world building in the drama connecting the book and real life. Even the songs in some episodes are neatly tide back to the beginning/end.
The con for this is that because there was a lot of exciting plot points per episode/arc, we kind of lost focus on the OTP which is Miaomiao and Ziqi. So if you’re expecting something similar to LBFAD or LYST, you will be disappointed. Even the supporting couple had more skin ship and more concrete “labelling” of their relationship than the main couple. Likewise, in the later part of the drama, the multiple save points and resets were becoming a bit too taxing. Because one moments you already cried and is happy that finally they have their happy ending and then the story then says booyah we still have a problem and then the cycle of grief and exhilaration repeats. The final ending is expected but I think the best explained one among all the book/game to real world transmigration story there is.
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Traffic actress with an awful acting quality
this drama use too much marketing to gain viewers, and it drive me to watch as I thought the drama must bee good the more when I saw the score was 8.6,, but after finish watching half of the whole episodes, the score is overrated, the story line just soso and the female lead too much over acting and annoying, but I love the Male Lead, he look good, his acting on point.. I made a research about the cast and found that said the FL is a traffic actress who often use billion marketing to boost her popularity, and probably the marketing I was seeing maybe from the FL side, so im not surprised then why the score is high but doesn't match the quality of the drama,, It seems like recently the quality of the Chinese drama industry has been undermined and ruined by traffic artists who doesn't have good acting qualities.. It's awful,, I wish c-drama back to it sense with the right actress/actors, good storyline and stop using traffic actress with awful acting qualities to gain viewers.Was this review helpful to you?
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A really perfect first half, that makes up for second half's shortcomings
A solid fun filled drama, with an underlying mesage of self love and romantic love in its purest form.This drama tells the story of Ling MiaoMiao, who was suddenly dropped into a parallel game universe of the novel of her favourite author Fu Zhou, as the vicious SFL. In this historical game world, she needs to complete two major tasks which include, helping to defeat the villain and winning the heart of the hostile SML, set up in the novel as MuSheng.
This drama starts strong, the beginning episodes were incredible! The comedy and romance had me giggling. The directors knew the audience short attention span, a key advantage in this period, where we have so many cdrama being released; so it does a great job of hooking the viewers from the start. Being dropped right in the middle of an action scene with little to no explanation, but a FL running around trying to figure her way out and dying multiple times during the game "trial" period was quite funny and kept me glued to the screen. You'd think it's a short length series with the way it began and how fast paced and enlightening the story was set up. To make it even better, Episode 7 is a defining moment, that ultimately makes the viewer to never let go of the drama (you have to watch up to that episode to understand what I mean).
OK let's move to the Pros and Cons.
PROS :
• Main Leads - The story set up such entertaining leads that everyone comes to love. ML might come off too antagonistic in the beginning which might be offensive to some, but that's just how his character was created in the game. HOWEVER, within a few episodes he will turn out to be one of the MLs you will cherish in drama land. Both leads were deeper than they seemed, you will find yourself rooting for them in their journey. We also have 2 other leads and a cutie little bamboo shoot CuiCui, who stole the heart of not just the viewers, but the leads themselves.
• Acting - Esther Yu and Ding Yuxi are good actors, and they gave their all in this script. Esther's cuteness, great comedic timing and relatable bubbly vibe held it down effortlessly. For Ryan, when it comes to delivering different emotional scenes, as well as looking as if he is head over heels for the FL, he nails this and even goes the extra mile! He was a definition of "the eyes speak louder than words." Then, there was CuiCui who was also good as a child actor.
• The comedy was gold.
• Favorability score - It was one of my favourite things in the show as it intensified the romance - The roller coaster of having it go up and down, with the main excitement being how one could already feel the tough cookie ML was in love with the FL even at a low percentage.
• The chemistry was insane! It will have you kicking your legs in the air with excitement. Esther and Ryan have acted previously in the romance drama 'moonlight', therefore, reuniting again meant the chemistry will be taken up a notch. As mentioned above, even when the favorability score was low the chemistry was already too thick.
• Great premise and plot - I might be a bit biased here, but I really love this kind of plot, even in short length dramas. So I was glad to see this plot in a full length drama.
• The drama breaks all the nonsensical character tropes we normally see; for eg No FL and SFL rivalry, we had a beautiful sismance with both ladies very protective and supportive of each other.
No triangle (I hate triangles)! The supposed love rivals got the hint and moved on and in turn the FLs were all about supporting and not being cruel to other ladies. We also got sort of a bromance. One of the love rivals, the Marquis was a nice guy who genuinely liked the FL and never manipulated or forced any situation on her as we do see in some tropes. Finally, we had the perfect balance of ML (Green flag and grey).
• Cinematography, visuals and styling on point. I must commend the makeup team for the beautiful work they did for the 4 leads! The MUA especially for Lin MiaoMiao was chef kiss, this is hands down my favourite look of Esther and Ryan.
CONS (aka the second-half shortcomings):
• Too many side plots were crammed into the second half and we had multiple themes such as "end of the world--revengeful woman--consort dowager--half brother--demon reveal--amnesia--modern day plot--CuiCui grandpa--Fuyi's background--mother's friend'' and every other imaginable side plot all at once. Then, totally neglecting the romance, which was not supposed to be, as the name of the drama is titled 'love game' in eastern fanatsy.
• Editing and too many cuts - If a drama episodes are reduced, it's only right to reduce the number of plots as well or at least space them out. Rather some scenes were cut and we were left with some unresolved matter, and this was glided over as if nothing happened (Yes, I'm mainly speaking about that damned bracelet, legit the most hated item)!
• Thinking the second leads were like npcs, but in the second half they gave us too much of their scenes with almost zero romance for the leads. Unfortunately, the second leads' situation didn't really hook me, I wasn't buying what they were selling.
• The FL was not well utilised in the second half that I started missing her vibe. In the first half she brought the comedy, drove the plot with others etc. However, in the second half she was put a bit in the background.
• The romance was watered down so much between the leads in the second half. In the first half, we literally started with a favorability score and I was anticipating how passionate their romance will be when the score gets high. Also, the ML is very intense in everything he does. So, I expected when he falls in love to be even more intense, cause at 50% we already saw it and at close to 100%, I expected more fire from their relationship. But they glided over their relationship, and all focus was on the multiple side plots.
Finale :
I love that the transmigration setup was much more deeper than what we normally see. The message passed across showed this was definitely not a simple fluff and more about self love in its pure form. My only annoyance with the finale is how they never showed Fu Zhou even for a second in the last minutes of the ending. [SPOILER ALERT, DON'T READ] - He was under a life threatening situation the last time he was showed, and as self love was one of the main theme for the drama, wouldn't it have made more sense to show him, so that viewers can jubilate alongside that he got healed? Yes, I know its his book signing and it's obvious that he is fine as we hear him call out her name from a distance, however, seeing him healthy and smiling would have gone a long way in making an impact, and reuniting our leads.
In general, I enjoyed this drama and I do recommend it, even if you get annoyed with second half, you will always have a smile on your face when you remember the first half. Btw it has a high rewatch value! OK I should stop repeating first and second half atp..
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Light hearted drama with a refreshing start and a few stumbles
*Story*As most of the comments mention, the first half was very strong and well written, despite the decline in quality, I still found the second half to be quite decent (maybe because I watched it once it was finished airing). However, I wasn't a huge fan of the last episode. I get their intention of having Ziqi talk to his younger versions in reality but it felt quite abrupt to me and a huge shift in the story. The ending itself wasn't too terrible since we know that Miaomiao and Ziqi/Fu Zhou meet up, and Cuicui and his grandfather also exist in the real life, but I wish we had a more fleshed out happy ending. Not only in terms of the main couple properly interacting, but also maybe meeting Mu Yao and Fuyi in the real world, especially since Miaomiao didn't really get to say good bye to them at the end.
*Acting and Characters*
For the main couple, I really enjoyed the writing for Miaomiao and Ziqi, and I think that Yu Shuxin and Ding Yuxi were the perfect actors to pull off those roles. That being said, I still am not the biggest fan of YSX's acting. She's so different from her peers in that she does heavy emotional scenes really well, but tends to overact in the simpler scenes. Ding Yuxi on the other hand really shone in this show, I really don't have any criticisms for him because I was really impressed by his acting. He pulled off all the heart-wrenching scenes perfectly but also did well in the ones where he was just supporting Miaomiao.
Their chemistry admittedly went down after they got together but I still liked their dynamic in most scenes, and I like the fact that after going back in time, they defeated the Resentful Woman together!
The side couple were the complete opposite for me. All of original Miaomiao's complaints of Fuyi's character still occurred in our version of the story as well. I found him incredibly bland, and I think the way the actor chose to portray him made it even worse. He was like a piece of wood to me, I can't emphasize enough how much I didn't enjoy his scenes. Mu Yao was great, though I disliked her self sacrifice at the end because we already had her go through an arc where the lesson she learned at the end was not to carry everything on her shoulders alone. Zhu Xudan was great in the role, I genuinely loved her, no notes. Their chemistry... was not great though, I blame it on the ML's woodenness lol.
*Music*
The main OSTs were amazing, especially the ballad for the emotional scene and the fast paced one for the action scenes. I can't remember very accurately so don't quote me on this, but I think there were a few music arrangements that I found a bit out of place (not OSTs but background songs). No huge complaints though, especially since I adored the ballad so much.
*Overall*
If you're looking for a light-hearted drama with really good production and beautiful costumes, I recommend that you watch this show. Keep your expectations tempered since it's far from perfect but I found it a very enjoyable watch overall!
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