A Romance of the Little Forest

If you are looking for rom-com this will be the nice choice

When I see the reviews of this drama I was very excited to watch and I am not kidding this is the best decision I have make. This drama is literally so funny to watch i couldn't control my laugh this drama have a good comic timing . This is one of the drama that make get hooked after the first episode.
The story of this drama is so cute my personal favourite couple is Jin xi and Li taintain and main character also. The romance in this drama very soothing and loveable. Overall a pack of family, romantic and funny drama. If you want to watch a romantic drama in which girl chases a boy then you choose the right drama. At last this drama is one time watch you can watch and enjoy.
Hope this review helpful for you....😊

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Vin Zhang (Zhuang Yu) This actor, I will be honest, had bad feelings for him because of "Eternal Love". I could not watch any drama he did after that, how silly of me. That meant he played with extreme raw talent and he was believable in playing the character. it took me two years to watch anything he made. I had to grow to love this actor. I decided to watch and am backtracking to watch other dramas that I miss because he is now one of my top Korean Actors. I love this side of VZ in this drama. The botany scientist was very convincing. It shows his intelligence and that he can play different characters.

Yu Shu Xin(Yu Mei Ren), is an actress I just started watching and may have watched her in other dramas but Love between Fairy and The Devil is where I noticed her talented acting. The only thing about this drama is why I dropped a point off the storyline because the producers or screenwriters had her acting like a child continuously and I know from watching Love between Fairy and the Devil, I believe that is not her. I don't know why they made her look like her character was a spoiled child. I still gave it a 10 because I know that both main leads have great talent. Wow both are beautiful looking! Thanking all the other actors/actresses on the set and the team. I felt like Episode 35 was not the end. I wanted to see more. I am going to rewatch this again, one day.

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Love the main character interactions

I started watching this because of Yu Shuxin. When I started watching, I realized that the main male character was K.O in Love o2o. Zhang Binbin

This drama is a fairly simple romance story. The love story of 2 geniuses in the field of Botany. One really likes plants, and the other likes birds. Meiren, who is very cheerful, turns out to have trauma with her appearance. And Zhuang Yu who falls in love with any side of Meiren. The appearance of the 3rd person doesn't really create a big conflict. I like it because I don't have to worry too much about the character's relationship breaking up. I'm more frustrated with those whose communication is quite complicated.
I'm quite fascinated by Zhang Binbin's smile, because his role in Love o2o has minimal interaction. And here we can enjoy Zhuang Yu's smile when he starts to fall in love with Meiren.
And the way Zhuang Yu proposes to Yu Meiren is very epic. I like it
I like the OST. They both also fill the OST together. And I like it too.
Quite like the CG quality of the rare birds.
Those who like botany will definitely like it.
I think one day I will rewatch this drama.

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anything for my love esther

If it wasn’t for the second lead story, this would be a 5/5 stars. They just took up too much space to be honest, and it was very annoying. The main couple were chef’s kiss though! I loved them: they were fun, cute and entertaining to watch and especially in the last episode… sigh… I nearly shed a tear, too cute (yes, despite Esther Yu’s baby voice, you get used to it… why her character had to act like a child sometimes… that’s something else). Anyway, now I lowkey want a botany professor who likes no one but me. Meh. *cries* (edit a couple of days later: the opening title is such a bop, I can’t stop listening to it, it makes me so fucking happy<3)

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Great Romcom Chemistry Buried Under Too Much Second Couple Screen Time

A Romance of the Little Forest is a cute typical romantic comedy about a cold, dedicated professor and a bubbly fashion blogger with a secret Ph.D. whose paths cross again years after he unintentionally broke her heart.

I think this drama deserves a slightly higher rating than what it's currently sitting at, and I'll tell you exactly why — and where it falls short.

The Leads

If you're not a fan of Esther Yu, this may not be the drama for you. But I like her, and she delivers an amazing, over-the-top, romcom-worthy performance here. Her character Yu Meiren is extremely chaotic, and every single frame she's in is enjoyable if that’s the vibe you’re looking for in a female lead. She's expressive, she's like a little ray of sunshine, and I thoroughly enjoyed her acting even though it's nothing extraordinary in terms of range in this particular drama. She's just perfectly cast for this role.

Vin Zhang as Zhuang Yu delivers a very believable performance of a cold, unapproachable, single-minded man determined to dedicate his life to science. That is, until Yu Meiren enters his life. If you want a male lead with a face card, who does everything for her when he finally comes to terms with his feelings, you are in the right place. He's still one of my favorite male leads in contemporary C-drama despite one writing issue I'll get to in a moment. And this was truly not the character’s fault.

The Romance

This drama is your typical tropey warm-bubbly-female meets cold-unapproachable-male opposites-attract setup. Don't expect anything new or original. However, it's charming, and the first twenty episodes are amazing. There are so many laugh-out-loud moments that you'll want to rewatch them immediately.

The one thing I wish the writers would have done differently is giving the lead couple more episodes together actually *being* in a relationship. It takes them literally thirty-four episodes to get together properly and officially. But that slow burn is also the part that keeps you watching, and we have to wait for that first real kiss until almost the very end. It does not disappoint, however. When it happens, it burns.

The Slump

Things slow down and take a typical C-drama turn somewhere around episode twenty when Zhuang Yu goes abroad to pursue his scientific and academic endeavors, leaving Yu Meiren behind with matters between them unresolved after pretty much leading her on. For the next three to four episodes, things are boring and slow between the lead couple and you just want to skip them because they’re depressing, so I did a lot of skipping. Once he returns and is back in the picture, things pick up again and we get more of the fun stuff.

Here's what bothered me about that stretch though — the situation between Zhuang Yu and Yu Meiren is up in the air, and he doesn't really try hard to reach out to her after he sees she blocked him on WeChat. He doesn't try to contact their mutual friends, her parents, or even email her. It's not like he was sent to a war zone with no reception. After you finish the drama and get to the final episode, it becomes a bit more clear why he did what he did. But as you're watching it unfold in the middle episodes, it's baffling because things between them were heating up and he just left without a word and didn't even attempt to explain himself. This type of behavior is why women will not take men back. This drama is a few years old, so I’m hoping that this is the last time I’m seen this trick writers attempt. It’s really becoming outdated.

Zhuang Yu does redeem himself at the end, but I think this was the only point where his character didn't read very well and I hated him thinking that if I were Yu Meiren, I would never take him back. That feels more like a writing problem than anything else of course — the writers couldn't think of a better way to create conflict. Or explain better or sooner why he didn’t try to contact her.

I also adored Yu Meiren's parents. Her mom definitely added plenty of laughs.


The Second Couple Problem

Now, the biggest flaw in this drama is Li Tiantian and Jin Xi — the second couple. They have equal, if not greater, screen time than the leads. At a certain point, you genuinely can't tell who the main couple is. Perhaps the producers wanted two main couples, but I'll be brutally honest here: while the story for the second couple is meaningful and very well written, and while Ding Guansen delivers great acting, I just didn't feel the chemistry between them. I think if the producers had cast somebody else, it maybe would have worked much better. I believe this is one of the main reasons this drama has a lower rating than most contemporary romcoms — the second couple takes up too much space without delivering the chemistry to justify it.

The entire drama could have been cut down to thirty episodes, if not fewer, and it wouldn't have suffered at all.

On a personal note: I’m noticing, though the writers in the past few years are starting to desert the second couple subplots altogether. Most dramas that do really well concentrate on a single couple and supporting characters have shorter scenes. People who are only now discovering some of these popular actors and watching their older works are probably baffled with the amount of screen time the supporting cast is getting in the older dramas.

Final Verdict

If you don't enjoy the second couple's chemistry and dynamics from the very beginning, just skip their story. Watch A Romance of the Little Forest for Vin Zhang and Esther Yu's super chemistry and some genuinely great laughs. The first twenty episodes are a blast, the romance pays off in the end, and the leads are more than enough to carry this drama — they just needed more room to breathe.

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A bumpy ride for me

Copied from my Viki account:

This series was overall just okay. The acting was excellent in many areas. I thought Esther Yu shined the brightest when she got to play the comedy up for her character. Vin Zhang seemed to be genuinely holding back laughter in some parts. However, the storyline and themes were a bit disorganized. The set up was kind of messy and unclear, which I'm sure is in part because some things seemed to be lost in translation. It hit a bit more of a stride toward the middle, though. It was stronger when it focused more on topical issues of beauty, intelligence, and the unfair standards and assumptions people can make about others—especially women. I felt like the narrative romance between the two main characters would have been stronger if the series focused in more on those issues as they related to Yu Meiran. They should have let Vin Zhang's character be more fallible in this respect to make the overall message stronger. Basically a missed opportunity.

But I think C-Dramas tend to suffer from these binary gender assumptions/roles a lot; there's an effort to challenge it, but so many times the writing falls back on this idea that 'men are smart and strong. women are dumb and weak'. Seriously, if I had a dollar for every time I heard a character say 'women are this way and men are this way'.... And even if you do have a 'smart and strong' female character, they become 'maiden-ized' to give the male lead opportunity to play his role as the chivalrous romantic partner. That's when I think they take an interesting premise and interesting characters and make it boring and lose the plot.

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Too Youthful

This show is pretty good, and romantic. It shows everything you want in a normal Chinese drama about older characters. But, because the character are in their late 20s/early 30s, I thought it would be more mature. It was aimed for people around my age, late teens/early 20s, and it was shown in the characters' personalities. But towards the end, there was some character development and the characters became more mature and relatable. I would definitely suggest this show to someone who likes high school and college dramas.
The music, however, was very good, I have already downloaded the soundtrack. I always look for a catchy or tear jerky soundtrack, and this was both, 10/10!
I give it a 7.0 as the overall score.

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missed opportunity with the leads

The premise really started out nicely. But as the series progressed, the main point or storyline got lost.

The series is quite long with 35 episodes, but it felt like the main couple just started their real journey towards the last two episodes. May I also add that they stopped acting like teenagers around the last episode only?! Truly, what a missed opportunity this show was. The main couple really had chemistry and it was a pleasure to see them interact on screen. But their interactions are always so limited and felt lacking towards the end.

It was sad that the secondary couple got more exposure and more couple development than the main leads. While their story wasn’t as exhausted as the main leads, it was still a better told story than the leads…

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In my opinion, the drama was interesting and very enjoyable to watch. I really liked the focus on botany and animals (especially birds). I’m not usually interested in that kind of thing, nor have I watched any dramas with a similar theme, so it definitely felt fresh and intriguing. I liked how we gradually got to see the male lead’s perception of Yu Mei Ren change over time. The chemistry between the main couple was absolutely wonderful. As the drama went on, I was worried that this chemistry would go to waste - there hadn’t been a single kiss for so long that I started thinking maybe one of the actors had refused to do those scenes. Thankfully, we finally got the kiss scenes, and they were beautiful. I also liked the contrast between the leads - he was calm and composed, while she was more wild and full of life. Over time, though, he learned to embrace a bit of her “craziness,” while she learned to be calmer and listen to others. I was also really happy when, at the end, we saw the main heroine’s brother meet a girl who could become his love interest. Those kinds of details are often skipped, and such characters usually end up alone - so I really appreciated that addition.
Another huge plus for me was the parents. There’s not much to say about the heroine’s parents - they were wonderful, and I watched every scene with them with a smile on my face. But the male lead’s family was a pleasant surprise. Usually, wealthy parents in dramas are portrayed as cold and calculating, caring only about social status or benefits from a relationship. But in this case, his mother turned out to be a genuinely kind person who, instead of opposing their relationship, was actually nice to the female lead and even thanked her.

Now, let’s move on to the secondary couple. I’m a bit conflicted about them. At first, their relationship was interesting to me, but as the story went on, something started to fade. I stopped feeling the same spark between them, and I think the writers lost some of the potential that was there in the beginning. In my opinion, the storyline about the male character losing his leg was unnecessary - it felt forced, as if it was added just to create a reason for their reconciliation.

Aside from that, there were a few other things that didn’t work for me or felt like flaws:
→ The male lead leaving for a year to the U.S. without even saying goodbye to the heroine was just stupid. On top of that, he didn’t contact her at all during that entire time. Saying that he didn’t do it because she blocked him is a ridiculous excuse. He could’ve done anything to explain himself - written her a letter, asked a mutual friend to talk to her, or called/texted her from someone else’s phone. But he did absolutely nothing.
→ The lack of communication between the main couple. Too many secrets, too many things they didn’t talk about - and when the truth finally came out, they tended to brush it off instead of actually addressing it.
→ The lack of confrontation with Xiao Fang. She was the heroine’s assistant but turned against her because she convinced herself that Mei Ren caused her to get fired (once again, lack of communication). It all ended up feeling like filler material to give Xiao Xue more room for her schemes, but I really wanted to see Xiao Fang’s reaction when she learned the truth.

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Slow burn, fake dating, cute, angsty, giggling the whole time!

I suffered for 20 episodes ?? The fake dating arc couldn't help much either. Then he went abroad for bloody 3 episodes. Though I was obsessed with the way he pursued her when he came back just for her!!! AHHHH!! I LOVE MY BABIES!! I only got the last 3 episodes of them actually together. It wasn't enough!!!!! 😭😭😍😍🤭🤭😫😭🥰🤌🤌😍💙

The whole reason I watched the show was because of the clip of the ML laughing and I fell in love with his laugh. THAT SCENE HAPPENED IN ONLY THE LAST EPISODE!!!!!! I suffered 34 episodes just to hear his laugh 😭😭🥺😭 Although i am obsessed with his smile as well. And the FL is soooo pretty and cute and I just love them together!!😍😍🤌🤌🤭😍😫😭😭😍

His younger brother was adorable and sarcastic and I loved him. I skipped a lot of scenes of the second leads, her boss and best friend. I wanted them not the SMLs so I just skipped most of their scenes🫣😂

The second hand embarrassment killed me at times but I got through it for them. DID I DESERVE JUST 3 EPISODES FOR THAT!!!?? NOOO!!! WHY DID IT TAKE 34 EPISODES FOR THEM TO FINALLY KISS???!?! I DIDN'T DESERVE THIS SUFFERING!!! Also found out from a comment/review below that they cut out a kiss scene from episode 20. WHY??!!?!??? It would have been worth it and then 15 episodes of them together after suffering for 20!!!! But NOOOOOO!! 😭😭

p.s. going to watch that cut scene now lol. OMG JUST WATCHED IT AND I AM OBSESSED!!! WHYYYYYYY DID THEY DELETE THAT!!! IT WAS PERFECTION!!! The passion, the chemistry, I died! They could have glossed over it as her being drunk/sick/ill but atleast we would have been satisfied. It was the best kiss out of the whole drama and they deleted it 😭😫😭🥺

They are PERFECT together! Looking back on it the slow burn was kinda good and I was giggling and blushing around the fake dating trope and it was so satisfying to see him gradually falling for her 🤭🤌😍

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Super cute and low stress - I recommend you don't take the bad reviews to heart

I just wanted to say I really enjoyed this series. I think Ms. Yu did a fantastic job with her role. She is so cute (and beautiful :-) and does a super job being cute and "girly" as we say in the U.S. without making it at all cringey. She really steals the show, I'll look to watch anything she is in. All the actors did a great job.

The story is fun, low trauma, and a good diversion after a long, hard day.

I'd also Like to call out Ding Guan Sen for doing a super great job also. His expressiveness felt so real to me that nailed his role so very well.

My recommendation, if you want something sweet and cute, watch it!

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