El Cuento de la Rosa (2024)

Refreshing modern female oriented drama

When casting is top notch & the story is not filled with over toxic characters, it's enjoyable to watch.

The story starts off with everyone captivated by Rose's beauty. Beauty is not just standard Chinese beauty but also the energy, 气质 she exhibits. Picking Cristal Liu is perfect for the role. She has that artsy, sophisticated 气质 and she looks young enough to play college age to 30's mom age.
She comes from a healthy family with loving parents with an overprotective brother. There isn't the idea of girls are any less valuable than boys hence she grew up free pursuing what she wants rather than what her parents want for her. She's smart, sassy, confident but also with many imperfections. She's not afraid to take chances on love and in life.

Ep 1-12 1st love. She's impulsive and the relationship progressed fast without deeper understanding. Break ups, fights, yelling feeling semi toxic as they find out more about each other. Very relatable to many people's 1st relationships.
Ep 13-28 Mr. Wrong Husband. She wanted someone stable and settled with the obvious wrong choice, but the series got draggy that I almost dropped the series. The best part was the divorce where she wrote to her daughter: "Divorce in my view only represent an end in a relationship and not a life failure."
Ep 28-35 Mr. Soulmate. At this point she regained her career and she's on a happier path. They have undeniable chemistry and connect on that artistic level.
Ep 36-38 Younger crush, not enough to make an impact.

What's enjoyable:
1. Good female supporting characters small or big parts. Even in the beginning a woman blaming her breakup on Rose, acting all crazy, Rose said "You are smart and beautiful, why waste more time on an underserving guy?" There was no female bashing over love interest like in other dramas.
2. Rose's Loving parents. Positive supportive parenting & nonjudgmental. "Life is only few decades long. If Happier times > sad times, then life is worth it."
3. Modern topics: Career women/Married, unmarried, divorced/Single parenting/Multiple loves, realistic that love moves on (None of that drama love trope of 30-year-old never been kissed, waiting to be reunited from their 1st unrequited love from 10 years ago because they met at 5 or something)

What could've been better:
1. WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY less episodes on boring husband choice
2. Use those extra episodes on Soulmate

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A Very Realistic Contemporary Drama

This drama was everything it promised to deliver, we had the free spirited female lead, the supportive family and 4 different male leads

Pros:
1. the Story was executed very well and it was extremely realistic
2. Many opportunities to analyze psychology behind the character
3. Real life issues faced by women all over the world
4. Beauty comes with many many benefits but also just as many complications
5. great osts
6. Excellent cast - they executed everything to the best of their abilities

Cons:
there are 2 reason as to why this was not a 10 star watch for me:

1. The open ending did not make me feel content and the younger male lead was unnecessary in my opinion, his character was not done justice as he only got around 3 eps of screentime. I wish they gave the viewers closure on whether she is eventually happy ( more details on her ambitions for her future) or if they chose the romance route I wish they showed us who she chose and whether she remains single

2. THIS IS THE BIGGEST REASON WHY: The male leads (rose's exes) never fully move on from her, although she is able to leave them in the past they are always held back by the memory of her. This is very unrealistic, although ZGD being single makes sense (him being career oriented) , i don't see someone like FXW staying single for over 6 years just for her. In reality although it takes time to move on, you don't always stay in the past, whats more surprising is how only she moves on

Overall a great watch if you can deal with mature romance and love psychoanalyzing things

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