Bai Lu is my favourite actress and one of the best actresses. This woman never fails to ace whatever role she plays. So excited for this ❤️ lets see what happens to next epsiode .
how she always takes on new challenging roles to grow as an actress. Every drama has been successful as well. 🥰❤Every time when Bai Lu films a new drama, she enriches herself as well. She learns new things, violin, horse riding, guitar, singing, dialect, etc. In some interviews/videos, we know that the practicing/preparation time is almost the same as the filming time. She practices so hard to meet the standard. She actually can choose the project not so demanding, but she intends to choose the project that is meaningful to her. Really admire her and support her!
Only Chinese actress who can act and Looks damn natural exactly knows how much to do without being over the top and cringy.Queen Of Versatility Bai Lu
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Bi Ruo Shan is so pessimistic it’s annoying. This could have been done in 24 episodes but now they’re going to throw stupid plot points in. It also makes no sense that no one knows they’re together when literally all of them work in the same industry and see each other constantly.
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WORST PAIR
THE MAJOR DRAWBACK IS THE CHEMISTRY PHYSICS OR GEOGRAPHY BETWEEN THE COUPLE.DYLAN WANG IS AN AWESOME ACTOR BUT HE CANNOT BE AN ARROGANT CEO - IT JUST DOESN'T SUIT. IF NOT FOR HIM I THINK THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN AN AWESOME ROMANCE BETWEEN THE CEO AND THE AMBITIOUS GIRL.
THE STORY IS OKAY BUT TOOO SLOW THAT I WANT TO QUIT WATCHING CHINESE DRAMAS AS A WHOLE BUT IF IT WOULD HAVE BEEN FOR ANOTHER ACTOR I THINK THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN AN SUPER HIT DRAMA.
THE SECOND COUPLE AND THIRD COUPLE WERE AND ARE AWESOME. THE ROLES COULD HAVE BEEN CHANGED WERE YU YOU COULD HAVE BEEN THE MAIL LEAD AND GUAN JI IN YU YOU'S ROLE AND DYLAN IN GUAN JI ROLE OR JUST DROP DYLAN AND BRING SOME OTHER TALENTED ACTOR. DIRECTOR AND CAST PRODUCERS DID AN UTTERLY FLOP SELECTION .
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Sorry it's a fail ....
I am a big Wang Hedi fan & excited to see him working with Bai Lu .... Cast looked good....However the story is soooo boring.... Lazy, Lazy, Lazy writing....
The is boring, repetitive garbage of a drama.... The production team screwed over this cast....
Where to now? ....
Wang Hedi needs to go back to his root. This style of lead is not for him, it's for no one.... Wa g Hedi is full of energy and Fighting Historic dramas is where he is at home eg. Unchained Love, Love between Fairy & Devil, Evernight 2.... Get back to this theme....
Female leads, look you don't need a big female lead name, plenty good actresses out there eg. Zhang Rounan, Zhang Miao Yi so a Zhao Lusi or Yang Zi not required.... Just need right female lead with a script you are at home with.... That's how Wang Hedi recovers....
Bai Lu is fine, Kunning Palace drama doing well ....
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This review may contain spoilers
Missed opportunity for a great drama
Like most people are saying, I watched this for the pairing of Dylan Wang and Bailu. While they make a visually pleasing pair, I just didn't love this story. I also felt like the weak writing, directing and overall plot put a damper on both of these actor's abilities. We know both of them are capable of better because we've seen it many times before. They could've done a lot better with this drama in my opinion. Shiyan is a robot. The fact that a smart, strong, confident journalist like Shuyi would actually fall for a character like him just doesn't resonate with me. I get it that she was pretending to like him in the beginning for personal gains but he was so completely rude, cold and lifeless in their interactions. Even when he started to do little sweet things for her, it wasn't charming because he wouldn't talk or explain himself at all. Dylan has a great smile. I don't think we saw more than a smirk this whole drama. Also, her antics were cringey and it took forever for them to get together, just to break up soon after and drag that out too. All of the characters they brought in to create jealousy were not entertaining and annoying. Her ex bf seemed unnecessary and a waste of screen time. But the romantic scenes were passionate and well done, better than some other dramas people are saying, but not enough to save the whole show unfortunately. There were 2 side CPs, her best friend w Shiyan's best friend and Shiyan's niece w Shiyan's other friend/love rival for Shuyi/professor. Shuyi's best friend is emotionally damaged and thinks she is clever with men but she's not and it takes her the whole show to admit she loves the guy. The niece relentlessly pursues the professor, like stalker creepy and eventually gives him stockholm syndrome and he falls in love. Didn't care for these couples either although they were all stunningly gorgeous. That seems to be a theme of this show. Let's watch visually appealing people get together and say and do dumb things. The side story with the technology stuff was pretty cool and well done. I don't understand all of it but it seems like they put more effort into developing the career/business aspects of the story than the actual romance. They really took the lemons they had and squeezed them down the drain with this drama instead of making lemonade.Was this review helpful to you?
the stylist....
I wonder why the main female character's clothing style is really unattractive? I know her character was created as someone simple, but that doesn't align with the image built in the drama. Because simple doesn't mean it doesn't look attractive.the color of the clothes is very flat for Bailu's character.
I often find things like this in Chinese dramas and it makes me keep cursing the drama stylist, because I see the male characters' clothes are fine.
Even though the clothing brand is expensive, if the colors and combination are not good, this will make it unattractive on screen. Don't forget Bailu's hair style, why not try to make it look more professional like the other characters?
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Nearly Perfect Series about a Very Un-Perfect Couple
This will take a while. There’s a lot to unpack here.I admit that this is a very polarizing series. And it’s really a shame, as this series has so much going for it: A fantastic cast, great OST & Background music, clever photography and a strong novel to base the screenplay on. But I guess it’s understandable, given how unusual this series is and that it requires the viewer to appreciate it from a different perspective. I find this kind of ironic, as the one constant here on MDL is how members are quick to criticize rom-com’s for being ‘tropey’ or meme-like or, the ultimate insult: a cliché. So along comes this series, closely adapted from the novel, which is anything but a cliché. Sometimes you can’t win though, and sure enough a lot of the negative comments here revolve around how ‘weird’ the leads are and all the familiar plot elements the viewers are expecting…. don’t happen. This series is the typical “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation.
I’ll take a step back here, now that I’ve mentioned the novel. If you get a chance, and you want to understand this series better, read it – it’s readily available on-line. The series borrows HEAVILY from the book and entire scenes are completely lifted from it. The book omits all the corporate stuff and much of the Three Musketeers angle. It focuses on our leads and especially her. FWIW, I feel that Bai Lu did an excellent job of putting a human face to ShuYi: in the book, she is not that likeable of a character. And the same can be said for Dylan, who actually makes him an even worse character because we can see how bad a person he sometimes is. So, essentially she made her better, and he made him worse: both because they both humanized the book’s characters.
Anyways, back to the series. Instead of the idealized and beat-to-death “Cinderella Rescued by the Rich Guy” story, with at least one nearly-perfect “green-flag” character, we get Zheng ShuYi and ShiYan, both of whom are very realistically flawed people.
On one hand, we have the young, intelligent, beautiful and award-winning journalist, a ‘career-girl’ who is totally focused on her professional life, to the point of only having one friend outside of work. At 25, she resists efforts by her parents to socialize with other men, as she feels she’s not ready for a committed relationship. Recently dumped by her boyfriend (I doubt there was that much going on there, given her dedication to her craft) she’s not ready for dealing with ANY man in the near future. And she has a deep character flaw: her inability to tell the truth in settings either mundane or important, no matter who she’s talking to: her parents, co-workers, boyfriend, etc. Despite being self-confident in her professional life, she is extremely insecure, so she keeps much of her personal life secret from everyone she knows. I’ve known women like ShuYi, they ARE real and no one bases rom-coms on them. And yes, they are VERY difficult to have a relationship with.
On the other hand, we have the equally intelligent young CEO, who broke away from his father’s company to make his own mark on the world. He is as insecure as she is; but with him, it comes in the manner of being self-centered and very introverted. This behavior, especially manifested in his lack of communicative skills, has hindered him in both his personal and professional growth. His reputation suffers because of it, as common wisdom says he deserted his father’s firm when it was going thru hard times, when in fact, he made sure his brother-in-law was competent enough to run that company before he left. He too is self-confident in his professional life; too much so, as this comes back to bite him as his lack of communication skills can’t back up his actions, which alienates the public, his investors, and the elders on his board who are gradually losing confidence in him. He too is coming off a relationship (with an actress) that fizzled out because he was unable to keep up with her needs on a personal level – his personality simply can’t handle such things. And he has a dark side: We will see how intensely jealous he is and he also has a cruel streak. He even acknowledges this near the end of the series to the main female antagonist when he warns her in Ep 32 that he is “not a very good person”. Shi Yan is anything but the typical ‘green-flag’ young, rich CEO boyfriend. He is a force to be reckoned with and must be treated with extreme caution.
So, we have a romantic comedy bringing together two very different, flawed, realistic people. Who have neither time nor interest for romance in their lives. Both of whom are consumed with furthering their careers and have little to no life outside of work. This has brought them success in that aspect of their lives and emptiness otherwise.
And because they are realistic people, they make mistakes in dealing with each other; LOTS of mistakes, the worst of which are committed by her. In fact, their relationship begins for the wrong reason: her desire for revenge on her ex-boyfriend by dating and marrying the man she thought was the uncle of his new girlfriend (all this based on a confused premise on her part). While the TV series soft-plays this aspect leading up to the breakup, it is more dominant in the novel. The fact that she is continually dishonest as to why she was attracted to him creates doubt in his mind and mounting guilt for her. This eventually dooms their relationship, much as she feared.
Another common criticism of this series is that it’s a ‘slow-burn’ but I argue that it needs to be – it’s about 2 people who accidentally fell in love despite their differences and inability to be open with each other as True Love requires. (In fact, “Accidental Love” was supposed to be the series title [as the book was named] and not the more generic “Only for Love”). Although he falls for her first, he correctly mistrusts her because of her inability to be honest, and she is so full of doubts about everything that she can’t open herself to him, even though she knows she should.
So we see two people who probably shouldn’t have anything to do with each other, becoming attracted to each other and trying to form a relationship with a lot of bumps along the way, thanks to their insecurity, mistrust, and inability to effectively communicate with each other. They make mistakes, stupid decisions, and listen to bad advice. Their love affair sometimes resembles ‘blind-man’s-bluff’ as they feel out each other and their mutual feelings. And this is why this series is so special and different. Because this is how life is and how people in the real world behave and try to find a mate to love and live with. It’s devoid of all the fantasy-people that populate most rom-coms who gloss thru life and go from meeting to marriage in 16 episodes. Our leads need time to tell their story.
Whether or not they should have been together is up to the viewer – there’s no right answer here. More to the point is the question of if they deserve a “happy ending” to their story. And I’ll be honest, I do love a ‘happy ever after’ ending in my rom-coms. But those stories and characters are not like this one. We’re constantly told that communication is the key to the leads in any love story, and that is certainly NOT the case here. Frankly, I don’t think they deserve a Happy Ending. They’ve done nothing to deserve it and both are too immature or just-plain screwed up to make a functional relationship that would last. Given how much richer the series is vs. the book, I would have written the series differently and made their breakup in Episode 27 long-term. They would have parted ways and lived their own lives, although he would still carry a torch for her and keep tabs on her career, despite knowing he shouldn’t. I would time skip and move 15 years into the future, on the eve of her 40th birthday. We see them now, somewhat older and presumably wiser too. While in the intervening years she would go on to marry and eventually divorce Jackson Yi, she would be left with nothing to show for their marriage. While her career would continue to flourish and she advances up the ladder at Financial Weekly, her personal life would wind up as empty as it was after she broke up with ShiYan 15 years prior. He would concentrate on growing Yuanchang, until his Brother-in-Law retires and he then merges Yuanchang back into his Dad’s company and becomes the CEO of Mingu Bank. His personal life would be non-existent, much to the distress of his family.
That evening, at a Shi Family dinner, his niece, who still works at FW and maintains contact with ShuYi (and suspects her Uncle’s continued feelings for her former mentor) mentions that ShuYi’s birthday is the following day. She tells him they are having a big party at the office and wouldn’t it be nice if he sent flowers and a card wishing her the best? “Hmmph” he replies and we see the wheels turning in his head as his niece looks on. And that’s where Part 2 of the series would take off. Would they be able to reconcile after all these years? Can she overcome her insecurity and be able to open her heart to him and love him fearlessly? Can he forgive and forget and try to reset everything while becoming a more patient and less-jealous boyfriend? That’s where the story should go, I think. Can they really learn from their mistakes, or are they doomed to repeat them again?
Well, given the reaction so far to this series, that would probably be down-voted too. As I said at the beginning of this review, “sometimes you just can’t win”.
And FWIW, I’m not saying this series is perfect. The editing leaves a lot to be desired and a lot of material was left on the cutting-room floor. Obvious scenes are missing, and they had to create a 15 minute special epilog to cover the wedding. Instead, they should have recovered the lost footage, and just gone for a 37-episode series with their wedding at the end. It’s the only negative thing I have to say about this show.
Thanks for reading.
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Just Look at the Leads Visual
The plot was just bad. They do a great job at writing the leads background job etc. but suck at writing character development. I still cant believe that Shu Yi get away with all the things she did to Shi Yan with that lousy apology. They drag the plot for like 4 episode and without any important thing happening beside the sides character relationship which i dont really care. Shu Yi BFF shan shan was just awful at giving advice, and although Shu Yi is really good at her job she just not ready for relationship i guess and instead show us a development of it they only show of how bad she is at it over and over again. when her mom keep matchmaking her she not even explaining things throughfully and it pissed me off lol. Shi yan at first also not being rational with all his doing by not giving shu yi any explanation of not accepting the draft she made. Its a shame bcs i know the actors in this is good at acting but the script is not. kinda waste my time watching all 36 episode because of it. The Leads visual was what made me finish this drama.Was this review helpful to you?
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This is your average CEO sits in his office for 30 episodes. The show does not look as good as it portrays. There were several scenes that made me very mad because of how the characters acted and the show itself is pretty boring. It's all about companies having problems and the main leads trying to fix it.Shi Yan's personality makes me mad. I just can't stand his arrogant person. He thinks that he everyone's deal and is super self centered. I understand that he is a CEO but not everything comes to you. Zheng Shuyi is the complete opposite, when Shi Yan and Shuyi are dating, I feel like it's Shuyi who does all the work in their relationship. It just feels like Shi Yan doesn't care and he puts in no effort at all.
The side casts are not really any better. Shan Shan makes me really mad, it's like she loves Guan Ji, but idk there like toys to each other to play around with. She doesn't care about his feelings at all and pretends she doesn't want him or love when she does everything she can to meet up with him.
This show took me almost half a year to finish because it was just boring and I didn't want to continue to watch it. If it wasn't because the main leads were Bai Lu and Wang Hedi, I would have dropped it a long time ago.
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A FL immature & disrespectful in her love life, redeemed by her good looks & work skills
If you like dramas where the Main FL character is aware of her beauty and flirts with the ML for half of the drama, initially for revenge purposes (she has been dumped by her previous boyfriend for what she believes to be his niece), gets caught in her acting and actually falls for him, while he is aware she’s acting, but likes her nonetheless because she’s a beauty and skilled at her job…then for 1/4 of the episodes, they will be apart because he discovers her lie, that it was for revenge, and understands she was not attracted to him per se, before she could confess her initial lie and true feelings…
When they are finally back together, close to the end of the drama, she resumes her princess pouty behaviour, to which he gives in… this drama is for you.
But even then, She keeps teasing him, and shyly (pretend) runs away when he seems to want more with her… then, she totally reverse her attitude when she ends up living at his place because of a hand injury (ep33/36), … She is no longer acting shy and she is surprised that despite her clear invitations, he doesn’t seem to be interested in sleeping with her… until at the end of ep. 34, she gets what she wants, because he sees her crystal clear exchanges with her best friend on the very topic of whether he may have a problem, explaining why they haven’t yet splept together …
I wish the story had been explained to me this way, I wouldn’t have wasted my time on this drama.
There are good moments, funny moments…
But all in all, it displays a very immature and disrespectful female character, who is forgiven her bad behaviour because of her good looks and professional skills…
Only the last ep. Slightly makes up for the above…
Not satisfying watch for me, even if I had low expectations…
the first 1/3 was enjoyable, afterwards, it became irksome, as there was absolutely no character development arc… I’m not into mischievous female characters, displaying a far from recommandable set of personal values in their private life. Not a good example to follow.
Even the 2nd lead couple broke up and was apart for the majority of the drama… because of fear of a serious relationship and commitment …
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Cute but very predictable
I enjoyed watching it. I bringe watched in within a little under a week. I liked and shipped all couples and everyone was absolutely beautiful. Such an attractive cast.The storyline however was super predictable and our typical “nobody talks to one another” drama that would have been solved with one easy conversation.
Still I was pretty happy overall, so if you just need something nonsensical non (too) frustrating with a pretty satisfying end, this one’s for you. Don’t expect a cinematic masterpiece though.
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Love the actors, but…ugh
Others have covered this so I’ll just add: I adore both actors. Who in the world would waste the chemistry, charm and comedic chops these two have with such a poorly done drama. I love a stupid romance - I can’t tell you how many are in my favorites list. I don’t hate the cold CEO stereotype. I love the “girl reporter” characters in ridiculous old American movies. With those elements and these two actors, this could have been a really fun watch. For me, it was not. So watch if you love one or both actors, ignore the story and just zoom about staring at their gorgeousness!Was this review helpful to you?
