Only for Love

Typical CEO story, Nothing special

Pros: leads are really proactive in flirting, quick in seeing their interest for each other, not shy and embarrassed abt their romance as in they're not really hiding it, proudly shows the other, good side couples who were actually interesting, cutesy scenes were better than their intimate ones, i wanted the second male lead so bad, there were other women but he did not give the time of day at all and it was a really small part of the story,
Cons: their little breakup was really silly and not needed, I didn't really understand the reason and why they couldn't just talk to each other???, the progress of them getting back together was also weird, all their kissing scenes were kind of awkward (had her eyes open like a lot), for me personally it was not the greatest chemistry but so many loved it so might just be me,
a lot of business stuff which wasn't too bad but bored me near the middle-end,

I love the journalist as a female lead plot and I was going in expecting a lot as it was really popular. Their chemistry was nothing special to me, especially during the kiss scenes. The thing that disappointed me the most was their breakup. Their communication was so well leading up to that and the breakup was played out for an awkwardly boring long time. I liked the side couples a lot, their scenes were cute. My favorite was her coworker and his assistant, I wish they had more screen time. All the characters even the "bad ones" like her ex and his girlfriend were pretty interesting too. I wish they played more into when they all found out the girlfriend was lying. Watching that scene was lowkey pretty awkward to me, I wish there was like a better revenge. Even though I loved the second male lead, I thought his involvement in the story was also out of nowhere and felt off the rest of the show. When he first showed up, I expected him to be a small side part but he ended appearing up so much (not complaining). Overall, I genuinely was interested and enjoyed it throughout. I think it's just a classic cold CEO story. I rated it 8/10 right after I finished but writing the review 2 days later, I forgot a lot about the story already and would give it a solid 7.5.

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Ordinary sweet love story but did not really catch interest.

I am honestly so disappointed how it all went to certain extent. The drama was good only because it had all the popular and highly anticipated actors in it. Yeah, we had a lots of famous figures in it, who are quite popular in lots of famous dramas which have got the best drama recognition from viewers. But the story was disappointing.
Looking back at the comment section, you can guess, how much highly anticipated drama this was, so maybe that's the reason for the heavy disappointed, probably because we expected too much.
Now, coming to WHY DISAPPOINTING?

- Character sketch: Apparently, the character sketch of fl, and her bestie disappointed me the most in the whole story. One is weak and dumb when misunderstandings stand, other is worse in giving advices, and barely held her own relationship. It kinda annoyed me that everytime, their male partners were the one taking initiative, yet they kept acting as if they were being ignored and excluded.

- Plot- too ordinary, too flat, too uninteresting. Once again I would say, it barely got so many viewers because it had popular actors, literally so many popular actors. Even the supporting characters acting mother, father and colleagues are quite famous. That's the only reason it was continued by so many and not dropped. Mainly because we expected since it has our fav actors. The plot seemed a lot draggy.
I am guessing all of the popular actors took this because they wanted to expand their reach internationally, since these kinda modern sweet love stories attract the foreign viewers first, that isthe genre us foreign viewers all started with, when we entered the Cdrama industry. But to the regular viewers, who have been regular watchers of their dramas, it turned out to be a flop :(
Umm, that's all I guess was there to it. That was my personal opinion, I hope, you would have happy time seeing this, and it won't seem disappointment to you, like it did to us. Happy watching!

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Red Flag

Reposting because my review got deleted to manipulate the score

I watched Dylan Wang's and Bai Lu's previous work and I love them however this show didn't sit with me at all:

First few episodes were amazing. Shu Yi, a beautiful woman aware of her charms, good at her job,
bold and confident, she was a perfect female lead in a pile of female leads where a woman is represented as an insecure average woman, unaware of her good looks and why men like her. Loved her being straightforward and flirty putting the cold male character in a position of being adorably flustered by her charms.

Shi Yan, a beautiful and cold man whose charms come from his love towards his work. He is determined, ambitious and charming. Despite being distant and nonchalant with most things, he makes sure that around the woman he likes, he is ready to be the one to take the first step without shame. Especially if he is jealous.

However, after the 10th episode the story starts going south in many different ways. It is unclear whether Shu Yi immediately falls for Shi Yan's charms or if she is only doing that to assure her interview with him which doesn't fit her character. She is someone who's familiar to everyone she writes about. We are constantly told how amazing she s at her job which doesn't explain us why she has to seduce him in order to do her job properly since that did not help with anything.

She continues to send him flirty texts but the moment he takes the matters in his own hands, she pulls back despite her being the one to initiate it. The amount of times the character avoids and rejects the male lead's advances and kisses starts becoming annoying where the excitement before every kiss is followed by disappointment where it doesn't create the effect of suspense anymore.

Only in ep 20 do we find out her feelings about him which is extremely late. The story makes us think that Shi Yan's cold attitude was an issue but instead, it was always the female lead's insecurity of her feelings that was the issue. The fl is also put in a situation where she goes out on blind dates with another man due to her mother's nagging ignoring the fact that she already has someone she can introduce?

The show keeps repeating the same scenes. We see more finance related things and their work instead of romance. Numerous conferences which keep repeating whenever there's nothing else in the show.

The characters don't have a proper bonding time and everything they learn about each other is through a conversation of other people and eavesdropping. Most of the conversations happen over the phone not allowing them to have a single honest moment with each other to learn about each other which makes the relationship hard to believe in.

The couple keeps going back and forth until a certain amount episodes where the scriptwriter decides to suddenly throw all deep kisses at once which should've happened gradually in much earlier episodes.

Shi Yan's character is not supported by anything other than his looks and little lore we get from him acquaintances making us yearn to see more of him.

However, the actors did a good job at acting but the execution of the story was extremely poorly done for my taste. It is probably the fault of scriptwriter and not the actors themselves.

Lastly that the only well done execution of the character was Shi Yue, who, from a spoiled rich girl learns her obligations towards her work, her boss and also towards the one she likes.

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Would I recommend this drama?

If you want to watch a realistic drama, move over, this is not for you . If you want to watch fluffy make your heart smile drama (and generate laughters), then yes I will recommend you to watch this.

The pull and push in the ML and FL relationship is just so awkward and draggy. But don't worry, this drama gets better and better.

I read some parts the novel as I finished watching ep 20 to see which one is worse, the drama or the novel. The answer is, the novel by heaps! Why? Because the novel has no Bai Lu and Dylan. At first I thought this was an adaptation of an anime, so I was surprised to find out it's a novel. The novel is so badly written, so cringy.

I would certainly have dropped this drama after just 1 or 2 episodes if not because I love Bai Lu and how good looking Dylan is as the CEO. In fact, I wouldn't even touch this drama if not because of Bai Lu and Dylan.

The couple with the best storyline is actually ML's niece with the professor. The niece is the youngest amongst the 3 female leads, yet she's the only mature one (with FL's best friend being the worst of all).

The business side of the story is actually not too bad.

CONS:
1. FL continuedly lied to ML all the way (well so far anyway, I'm at ep 20 now).
2. The second leads (Shan Shan and Mr Gu Jnr)... What the heck?!? Fast forward all the way.

PRO:
Bashing this drama aside, I do enjoy watching Bai Lu and Dylan - and the 2ML, and 3ML. This drama is definitely swoon worthy and full of eye candy. I smiled and giggled a lot watching this. I would even rewatch just to watch the ML and FL chemistry. So according to my enjoyment level, I'm giving this a 9 (the novel I would give a 4.5!)

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Frustrating and Draggy

This storyline had potential, but there are so many things that dragged this series down that made it so frustrating to watch. I skipped through a lot of it. The cast and acting wasn't the problem - it's the script writing that is ridiculous and insulting to the viewer's intelligence.

Positives (not many):
- ML (Dylan Wang), I watched it just for him. But his voice did not fit the character (they should have used a voice actor to dub him)
- 3rd FL (the niece Qin Shi Yue) - she started out super annoying acting like a toddler w/ the constant whining, tattling and stomping her feet, but that eventually subsided and she becomes quite endearing

Negatives:
- Main couple's chemistry wasn't great. He's supposed to be the older, successful, idolized one and she as the young bubbly one just starting her career. But she appeared older than him so it seemed awkward, like a big sister and little brother dynamic.
- ML's wardrobe was just terrible - nothing fit him properly! As another reviewer commented, it looked like he was borrowing his older brother's clothes
- FL character was so damn annoying - it's not bad acting on the actress's part, it's the scrip writing that made no sense. One minute she's smart, aggressive and outright daring and flirtatious w/ the ML; then the next minute she's a shrinking violet, overly dense/naïve when it comes to love
- The phone ringing interrupting every pivotal moment was so ridiculous! Literally almost every build up to a kiss scene or a confession, their phone rings and they answer it!!!
- 2nd FL (ShanShan) the FL's BFF was so annoying, giving out relationship advice when her love life is a complete mess
- The toxic male dominance was intolerable - how many times did the ML Shi Yan drag the FL around by the arm like a rag doll - in public, in their home, at work places, etc. Some scenes were meant to be cute and some were meant to be anger-based. Either way, there is no way in hell a woman would allow that so it should not be done to that extent in a modern drama. And that scene where Shu Yi's ex BF shows up drunk and obnoxious at her door - Shi Yan leaves a work event...somehow gets there in time to shove past the ex, slam the door, make out w/ the Shu Yi, comes back out and to send a message to the ex that he kissed her and that she belongs to him so get lost. That was just so gross.

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Staying a bit too true to the source material, failing to make a enjoyable TV adaptation

Zheng Shuyi (played by Bai Lu) is an ambitious reporter for a financial newspaper. In order to write another cover story, she wants to interview well-known entrepreneur Shi Yan (played by Dylan Wang). The only distraction from her ambition comes from her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend, who is cheating on her with another woman. Zheng Shuyi vows revenge by focusing even more on her career - and seducing the rich uncle of her ex's new girlfriend. A series of misunderstandings leads her to accidentally mistake Shi Yan for him. And then there's Shi Yan's real niece Qin Shi Yue (played by Shen Yu Jie), who soon starts working as an intern at the Zheng Shuyi newspaper under a secret identity. Follow their tangled love story through 36 episodes of misunderstandings, awkward car rides and boring business talks.

I never have high expectations of modern dramas, but the combination of Bai Lu and Dylan Wang got me excited. There were quite a few scenes that made me giggle like a teenage girl, and some of the suspense kept me coming back to the show every day. However, there are a lot of things wrong with this show.

The main problem is the failed attempt to transfer the charm and humor of the web novel directly to the drama, without making an adaptation based on the different type of media. There were many scenes that had the typical web novel/manga elements - frozen characters, puppy eyes, awkward silences. As drawings, these are usually expressed with additional text or symbols. Since this kind of editing is only done in variety shows, all we got was the characters staring at each other or making awkward facial expressions. The show also failed to use music to convey the meaning of these scenes. This left us with a drama that lacked chemistry between the leads and made the acting seem wooden and boring - and this in a drama with the queen of chemistry!

On top of that, the show lacked an interesting subplot. Almost all the exciting scenes and anticipated revelations were related to the niece, who became my favorite character. The business scenes were incredibly badly written. At times, it felt like they had just used placeholder lines instead of writing actual dialogue.

This all contributed to a disappointing drama with some of my favorite actors. If you are a fan, the drama is still is partly enjoyable, but ultimately the weakest work in both Bai Lu's and Dylan Wang's filmography.

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How not to extend 20 episodes of content into 36 episodes

Started strong, finished okay, middle was a dumpster fire. They didn’t have enough content, so their solution was a) make everyone emotionally stunted, b) make sure no one communicates with each other. Ever. And c)have the FL lead three guys on. She says she loves the ML, then proceeds to date two other guys.

Keep in mind these are 30 something year old people who have all had previous relationships.

Anyway. Waste of a good cast. If you watch the first 15 and last 6 episodes it’s actually good. And honestly you’ll miss nothing but frustration at the terrible writting skipping the middle.

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They have popular stars, that is about it?

When I knew this was another story about a controlling/dominant CEO, I hesitated.
I still give it a try since it has Bai Lu and Dylan.
I find the series has the popular stars , but the rest does not impress me. The story is not interesting and it keeps dragging. I don't know if it is the script or the director, I can't feel/see how their love developed.
What is with phone ringing every time when they are about to kiss? If the FL is not ready, can 't they make her telling ML she isn't ready? Why always overuse the phone ringing or 3rd party as interruption? Once may be OK, but this one, multiple times. It is tiring to watch.
The characters, how they handle love are frustrating me as well. ( I might like them better when they are handling work and rival).
Their 'love" may start to show some progress near episode 20 , but I am already worn out and losing my interest with this show.

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