STORYLINE VERY GOOD , VERY RECOMMENDED.
Sang Zhi falls in love with Duan Jia Xu, a boy who often comes to her house to play games in his older brother's room. He is five years older than her. Sang Zhi had a crush on Duan Jia Xu when she was young, but they lost contact with each other for some reason. After he graduated, he joined the university in the city where he was, and during their intimate and close daily interactions, they slowly fell in love.Really support this drama chinese , the story line is never boring watching in every episode ❤️❤️ This the first drama me very recommended for you all.The chemistry between actors chen zhe yuan & zhao lu si is very good.
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A drama that is sugary sweet but delivered so we believe its real!
This drama deserves a 10 because it is perfect for romantic junkies like me. If you want a story that focuses on the main couple and explores how the became a couple, this is it.The music was perfectly timed an presented to support the relationship. The acting from our leads was wonderful and compelling and their chemistry was off the charts. They conveyed the myriad of emotions of their journey with beautiful facial expressions that pulled me in every time. I believed in their love.
This is not new or groundbreaking story and for some it is actually a problematic story. The part that attracts me if the way the drama lets me experience the emotions the characters are feeling. We feel their butterflies and frustrations and feelings of inadequacies and yearnings and hope and desire to loved and be loved. From beginning to end the actors portray a scenario that unfolds to explain the POV of both of the people in the relationship and how they get to the point of being the ones for each other. It kind of sacrifices any other story lines to just focus on our leads.. There are short scenes of side stories but they were really only to support the main couple . I could see the potential for criticism to say these were just "forgotten" but I was too invested in the main coupe to really care.
So this is not even a flaw for me. In my opinion this allows for the main characters to be fully developed. By this I mean that at the end, I believed that even though the ML was older his life circumstance led him to focus on survival so his romantic/emotional age was actually less than his real age. The same with the FL - her princess life gave her so much security and safety to be who she wanted to be. We also learn early on that she is intellectually capable so this coupled with her freedom of expressions helps her to study and learn from her experiences. She is able to analyze situations and critically think through problems which in a way bridges the age gap. I totally believed that his emotional age and hers where much closer and made them well-suited and no issues with a romantic relationship.
A romantic relationship that they are fully committed to an expend all the passion and energy in their heart and soul to secure and maintain and be happy in. That is the sweetness and also the pure fantasy of this drama. The portrayed sincerity which these two bring to their relationship makes us believe it could absolutely be real. I really enjoyed that ride and will definitely watch again. In my books they deserve a 10/10 for delivering this so well.
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Never knew the shine would light up my whole life
This is one of the purest love stories I have ever had the privilege and honor to witness. This series has instantly become one of my favorites. The production is simply beautiful. The music flows seamlessly throughout. All the relationships seemed so genuine. The actors convey the characters so well. The chemistry is undeniable. The story is not messy nor is there unnecessary drama. It is literally perfect. I only wish we could experience more because I am not ready for their story to end yet.Was this review helpful to you?
The perfect love story!
This was such a beautiful story with beautiful people (and I don’t just mean appearances). Everyone was just genuinely good people. Even the villains aren’t villains, the one was emotionally scarred and the other was just blindly supporting her best friend. The relationships were so authentic but also beautiful. The siblings had the sibling rivalry but were also protective of one another. The parent-child relationship was so healthy, goodness! They express their opinions without being hurtful or getting angry. The roommates were such amazing and supportive friends! No jealousy or backstabbing! And the mains, oh the mains! Such a healthy relationship! It’s been a while since I saw a relationship without stupid misunderstandings or breakups. This drama really deserves all of its flowers!!!Was this review helpful to you?
Pure & Sincere Love Story
actually this drama doesn't have a very special storyline, but the love between SZ and DJX has revived this drama and made it special in the hearts of viewers. Their love that is so pure, sincerely develops is an important point in this drama. and of course the acting of the main role and other supporting roles have made this drama special too.besides the way of love between our main couple, I also like the sense of brotherhood between SY and SZ, even though they often fight but actually they care for each other and love each other.
even the sense of kinship between roommates and college students SZ, DZY and SY in this drama is also very good, there is no intrigue stabbing each other but always together.
i just finished it. 10/10
addendum : SZ's Mom looks very young and beautiful, sometimes like a sister with SZ.
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A BEAUTIFUL HEART WARMING STORY❤️
I never thought that a crush would be potrayed in a beautiful sacred yet thrilling way like this drama did... sincerely speaking it felt like I was passing my eyes through some one's diary...all the emotions and feelings were so real and natural..this drama had that ability to grow onto you even without you realising it...There many reasons why iam rating this drama with a solid 10 but I'll break them down into five.
The plot might seem like something you have seen before but trust me you haven't, it has a unique touch to it, from the story execution to the dialogue to the consistency to the way it's heartwarming and beautiful and emotional...yet light and simple.
Zhao lusi as Sang Zhi has to be the best decision they made, she fits the role so well and is acting is so effortlessly from the time she acted as a 17 year old to the current episodes where she's grown up, her character is really attaching and lovely and worth rooting for, I loved her character development and the way her character was made sensible cute delicate but at the same time brave...this has to be my best character of Zhao lusi so far ❤️
Chen Zhe yuan as Duan jiaxu is everything, he was written as mature yet caring and understanding to sum it all up he was that green flag and I admired how he acts with his eyes..all his emotions are potrayed from his eyes and that's what made his character unique🤍
Victor Ma as Sang Yan was another unforgettable character..he won me over with the way he's character was written..he's relationship with the female lead was so precious and I absolutely loved their bickering and dynamics as siblings..❤️
The chemistry between the leads was beyond doubt amazing .I loved their natural and unforced Interactions, I love the comfort I got from their relationship I love how their relationship was far from toxic but health and admirable 🤍
The osts were beautiful and reflected the story and the Cinematography was to die for.
Overall this was a nice ride..I roller coaster of many emotions and I must say I'll miss this drama so much.
I do recommend this...if you want something light and fluffy ❤️
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This drama is a Happy Hormone Booster everyone needed.
I am a vivid Chinese novel reader. I have read and loved this novel since 2021.Last yr, I heard they will make this novel drama adaptation. I was so happy because it happened to be ZLS , whose acting is excellent for me, will act as FL.
But I had some worries at that time too bcoz the storyline is so straightforward and simple with no plot twist whatsoever that I am afraid many will find it boring.
Turn out I was wrong totally.
Because the way the script go, the way the actors act and even OST are so perfect that you forget what you are doing, where you are or what time is it.
I am so surprised by what this drama makes me feel. It is even better than the novel.
I am completely addicted to it now and will rewatch for a thousand time whenever I feel so down in my life.
I really hope people will give this drama a chance too. Because you know what, in reality our life are so harsh and stressful. We need to watch perfect ML and perfect FL in love with each other and living in a perfect fairy world surrounded by their loved one happily forever.
🥹❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
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Sweet Warm Drama
I'm not a fan of Zhao Lusi and Chen Ze Yuan. I'm watching out of curiosity as to why it's so popular.a warm and sweet teenage story, perfect for watching when relaxing. but for me this was a bit boring, I skipped some scenes that were too long, like the scene when Sang Zhi was thinking. this is great to watch, especially for those of you who like relaxing dramas that warm your heart. i recommend it.
ML and FL are very good looking, they also have strong chemistry. very suitable. I last saw ZLS on Feel at ease Mr Ling, and CZY on Mr. bad did not expect they would play together and break a record like this. their acting skills are very natural and pleasing to the eye.
Anyway, this is a warm story, watch it if you're bored and relax. I think it will also be good if you watch it when you're lonely. one more thing, this drama is very light, especially since the characters are still teenagers, don't think the conflict will be complicated!
Happy watching all!
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This review may contain spoilers
Hidden Love
I never knew I could blush this much, how can love be this sweet 🤭🤭🤭 The way she looks at him is so innocent yet in an adoring and piercing way, they making me rethink my single life😂😂. I feel all mushy inside ahhh🤭🤭🥰🥰. Am just happy that he didn't have any feelings for her when she was till very young, because it would just be so wrong. She's an over-thinker, this day and age you would see a 30 years dating a 20/25 years, some would be married at that age. I know her brother might be okay with them but her parents🤔Was this review helpful to you?
it's extremely good
I was sp excited when I saw this, I had to watch it immediately. it's so freaking good you js have to watch it!!Was this review helpful to you?
Perfection definition of „She fell first, he fell harder“…
After watching hundreds of dramas, I can’t believe I’m writing my first ever review here.I’ve watched quite a lot of great dramas, so I’m surprised at my lazy self, that I actually took the time to write this and summarize my thoughts.
You know the feeling when you want to describe something and try to convey your thoughts and feelings into words, but no words can actually truly express it right? Yes, that’s how I feel right now. That’s how much I loved this drama.
It might sound exaggerated but every time I finish a drama that I feel so content and happy about, I start to feel immense gratitude for things I usually take for granted. Be it the eyesight I have, to be able to watch and read the subtitles or the hearing that I have to be able to listen to voices and music. I’m so happy to live in a country where I can peacefully watch dramas and enjoy myself. Sounds weird, but that’s how I feel.
Hidden Love was an absolute beautiful and heartwarming drama. One of the best, if not THE best ROMANCE drama I’ve seen. I’m so happy we get to see so many healthy couples in dramas recently. I’m really impressed by Chinese dramas these days. After „Meet Yourself“, I’m happy to rate another lovely Chinese drama 10 stars this year.
I’ve watched great dramas over the years and I can tell you. This drama is PERFECTION. I’ve never felt bored for even a second. This is how romance is done right. I absolutely adored this couple. They made me feel whole lot of butterflies and brought me to tears as if I’m the one in the relationship. Their acting was so incredibbly natural and authentic. It felt so real! I will miss them so much!
I also loved Sang Zhi’s relationship with her brother Sang Yan. It was so fun to watch them quarrel and be ordinary siblings.
I will keep myself short, because I could ramble on for too long. I’m happy to have watched this drama. And I look forward to rewatch it in the future. Really thankful for all the people who put this awesome drama together and made it the gem it is.
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The perfect feel good summer romance of 2023 (and perhaps, beyond!)
Forget all that you watched before. Clear your mind from jaded gazing through heavily lead-tinted dark old-hand "grandma- who- knows- better" glasses of disbelief and suspicion. (Btw chuckle along when you get to the part with the monstrous and hilarious asymmetrical sunglasses presented to the big brother Sang Yan). Or nitpicking about colors, dress, or technicalities : these are anyway very good despite the short-changed budget it came from.Even if this doesn't remind you of the crushes you might have had, all those treasured or awkward, sometimes suppressed and forgotten, childish memories, it could let you be moved or reminded of what it felt like to imagine love. You will thus get the added bonus of personal connection to the youth and coming-of-age story better than anything you watched before. Even those who had not so good experiences , even horrible ones, in love, recognized how wholesome this drama was and remains.
I suggest you watch on just as if you were admiring and expecting a small seedling break the soil and grow : first frail, then strong, until the rose bud flowers and engulfs you in its heavenly perfume : enjoy !
This drama is very special and we are many who knew it even from the beginning, with the young child actress Zhang XiWei who was not bad, ,but did not steal or represent the show. The continuity between her and older Sang Zhi (played by Zhao Lusi), was quite good : she was acting a role older than her real age, but represented well the difference between an overprotected and childish girl of 13-14, before the older actress took over to portray the evolution of the pampered 16-17 years old that suddenly broke the glass ceiling to experience her first real wound in love, and rebuilt herself into a more independent young lady of 19-20 in a different city. 20 is the minimum age for marriage in China btw. So, the dating had to take its time. And there were other smaller or bigger hurdles to overcome, that many watchers could relate to, one way or the other.
That's why it is on top of the wave of popularity in this summer season laden with blockbusters from Indiana Jones, Mission Impossible ... to long expected heavyweight c-dramas such as The Longest Promise : Hidden Love is not just a little appetizer story for fangirls of a manhua. Netflix does not look to China to purchase a drama idly.
Zhao Lusi ("ZhiZhi", Sang Zhi) and Chen Zheyuan (Duan Jiaxu) have elevated the "classic love story" from ordinary to work of art : it is that good!
The rest of the cast played along well or remarkably well :
- Sang Zhi's big brother was played by Chinese-American Victor Ma BoQian, who entered the world of Chinese entertainment by taking part in a song battle in 2017, where he was a strong competitor of Mao Buyi (who performed the famous "Drowning Sorrows" song that you can hear the tune of, when Duan Jiaxu went with colleagues to a karaoke where he bumped into Sang Zhi , now a freshman student at Yihe university.)
---- You will also find :
- an understanding and doting modern mom in Li Ping, Mrs Sang (played by Zeng Li, different from the at first traumatizing one she played in Love Like the Galaxy, but with whom Zhao Lusi had already many good memories of interacting on and off sets),
-a concerned but relatively generous dad in Sang Rong (played by Qiu XinZhi).
- faithful friends such as Qian Fei (played by "chubby" Hu YuXuan who has been remarked in many supporting roles since Ever Night), or a trio of sisterly university roommates, each with their own individuality :
- independent Yu Xin (played by Qi Tian Ting),
- bubbly Ning Wei (played by Smile Wei Xiao)
- and diffident Wang RuoLan (played by Wang YiLan) who has her own crush on
- a tall basket ball player university student, Jiang Ming (played by Lu DongXu) who himself had at first set his eyes on Sang Zhi.
There are understanding and supportive office superiors, such as :
- Li Xun (played by Guan JiTing) who is the director of a game design studio to which he invited Jiaxu when they were both interning in Nanwu in episode 4 (and no, this Li Xun is not related to the one in the drama Lighter and Princess, if you were wondering!) who is married to
-Jiang SiYun (played by Wang Yang), who is the motherly and big sisterly figure that makes the game designer studio a sort of home for the staff.
Since an antagonist of sorts is needed, we get the obsessive Jiang Ying (played by Xu ShiXin) who has a suspicious-minded friend in Shi XiaoYu (played by Shi XiYue) Xiaoyu also acts as superior to Sang Zhi during the student's internship in a design company in Yihe. But these two are barely a threat for the blossoming love story between main leads, so they are like the necessary mists and clouds that make the azure blue skies uplifting. That said, even rain on a day devoted for a project transforms the day into a very special camping opportunity, in the lovely story : it will remind some of the audience about the make-believe grand travels and explorings they did as kids on rainy days.
The background music and songs are sweet counterpoints to the moods and change in those.
Zhao Lusi sings two songs, the intro one, 只想把你偷偷藏好 (Just Want To Secretly Hide You), in duet with Silence Wang Sulong 汪苏泷 , and the solo song, 我有喜欢的人了 (I Have Someone I Like) -
Five other songs also contribute to make the OST pleasing and memorable :
- Be Your Light (sung by Victor Ma Boqian 马伯骞);
- You Are My Only Wish - 你是我此生唯一所愿 (sung by Diamond Zhang Bichen 张碧晨, famous singer and unconventional unwed mother of a daughter with ex-companion "Martian"musician Hua Chenyu 华晨宇),
- Forever Star - 张洢豪 (sung by Zhang Yihao 张洢豪),
- I Have You - 有你 (sung by Zhao Lei, but , not the Beijing born singer 赵雷 best known for his Chengdu song, but the Chengdu born younger 赵磊 who was a member of R1SE and X NINE), and
- Star Thief - 偷星星的人 (sung by yihuik 苡慧).
Some other tunes in addition to the Drowning Sorrows one (消愁) that I mentioned before, can be noticed. Such as a Zhao Lusi song from the Oh! My Emperor! drama (that also starred her), a snippet of a Coco Lee one (Di Da Di) sung by Sang Yan (The iconic Hong Kong singer passed away at 48 very recently on July 5, 2023. She is remembered for many songs such as “A Love Before Time,” from "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon that almost won an Academy Award in 2000. Also for the "Reflection" song and voicing Fa Mulan in the Mandarin-language version of "Mulan,")
Also, in Ep12, student Jiang Ming sang and played on the guitar the song " I've Liked You Since The First Day I Met You"遇见你的第一天起我就喜欢你 by Zhāng Yīháo (張洢豪), from the OST of the recent youth c-drama 《时光与他，恰是正好 》Time and Him are Just Right. The tune is repeated in background music in the last episode bar scene.
Hidden Love, despite all the complications it went through, in its making (that you can learn separately about it, in interviews, if you are curious), is already an international phenomenon, breaking many mental and geographical boundaries with its soft and refreshing, healing message, based on humanity's most powerful sentiments to change the world for the better : hope, confidence, benevolence, trust, courage, persistence, and love.
The drama has an "extra" episode 25.5 after the 25 scheduled ones. This extra one is, like for Lighter and Princess, a compilation of various footage such as jokes, humorous BTS and making of iconic scenes, fashion parade, interview, cut scenes, more, and ends on a wish that touches the audience too, written by Jiaxu on a strip of star paper : 只只的 所有的 愿望 成真 (Zhǐ zhǐ de suǒyǒu de yuànwàng chéng zhēn) : May ZhiZhi's wishes come true
Also, don't forget to play along with the episodes' end snippets to find clues about where they belong and why they were added.
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