The Quirky and the Charming (2025)

Ho avvicinato questo drama con l'intenzione e la convinzione che fosse un'opera leggera e in effetti non mi ha delusa da questo punto di vista. E' carino, leggero, a tratti divertente ma ci sono alcune cose che purtroppo l'hanno penalizzato. Dopo un inizio abbastanza frizzante, la cosa piano piano si placa fino a diventare ad alcuni tratti insipido. Ci sono un sacco di situazioni episodiche che sembrano fatte apposta per fare da riempitivo e che alla lunga sinceramente fanno storcere il naso: non siamo mica in una serie lunga 40mila ep che può permettersi questo tipo di narrazione! Anche alcuni legami lavorativi per me funzionano fino ad un certo punto. L'antagonista della storia è piatta, molle, non rappresenta una vera minaccia per i protagonisti (dettasi stessa cosa anche per l'altro). Però, nonostante tutto, si fa guardare.

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Definitely quirky and charming

Just wanted to start off by saying, my rating is based on the genre of the drama, which is a romcom. The drama is true to it's genre, a romantic comedy with the male lead who is the boss and a kind of hard headed female lead who becomes his employee and they have beef, a typical romcom enemies to lovers. Even if it's something I've seen manyyyyyy times I still enjoyed it in this drama.

The story starts off with Yi Ran, the female lead who has multiple jobs and prioritises money. One day, she catches her boyfriend cheating on her and breaks up with him. She makes the sudden decision to stay one night at a 5-star hotel, and lets go of herself. Once the night was over, she had an incident with one of the employees which causes her to write a bad review of the hotel, which leads to bad PR for them. Vincent (Xiao Mu Cheng) who is in charge of managing the hotel goes out and seeks Yi Ran to become a professional reviewer for the hotel, and their story begins.

There are characters you'll like, some you don't, some you'll come to like and some you kind of just don't care for. For me, I did personally enjoy watching both the lead characters and tbh I think it's mostly because they were hilarious, their relationship was enjoyable to watch and I do like how the Yi Ran just does not care and makes things clear, it was fun to watch the relationship dynamic between the main couple. I really enjoyed Yi Ran's attitude when it came to defending her man, it was funny. Some people might find her annoying but her character works in this sort of genre so I don't take it too seriously. I also enjoyed the coworkers, I do admit some of them were kind of irritating in the beginning but I really did come to like them, they were the comedic relief along with the main couple for me.

That being said, I did not care for Yi Ran's friend so I skipped her parts, she didn't add anything to the story and I truly disliked the second leads throughout the drama. You Jia and Yi Shu were both irritating, they don't take no for an answer and were very unreasonable and unprofessional, so I skipped them too. Personally felt the second leads got way too much screen time for my liking, I rolled my eyes every time they were on screen, I did not enjoy their "romance" and the attempt at doing comedy with them just wasn't for me. Another annoying character that appears in the second half of the drama is Mu Cheng's dad...all I could think of was, "what a miserable hag". Wished Mu Cheng was able to stand up to his dad from the beginning.

Story was really fun in the first half, I enjoyed it, it made me laugh a lot and the couple were quirky indeed, sometimes they made me go ??? with their actions, they just caught me off guard (not in a bad way) but I did find them cute together and how they would stick up for each other even before they became to realise their feelings. I enjoyed how easily and naturally they became friendly and soon a couple. I don't remember any serious arguments from the couple once they got together but they definitely did have several misunderstandings before which I think got resolved quick enough. Misunderstandings aren't my thing and I dislike them but I could handle it in this drama. It was all pretty light-hearted, which I enjoy from these dramas because sometimes I just need a break from the really serious dramas. The second half of the drama...for me there was too much going on, I mean for a cdrama it's pretty short but they were doing too much with Yi Ran's mother and Mu Cheng's dad, then the rival, maybe if they took a different route with some of these characters it would've been more enjoyable.

Overall, I enjoyed the scenes at the hotel and how they deal with customers, I enjoyed the main couple for the most part but the story became kind of meh towards the end I guess and it dragged a little in the last couple of episodes, all of a sudden there was too much drama and the original vibes of the drama were lost. Too many negative characters appeared at once but despite this, the couple and their coworkers were still fun to watch and were the best part of this drama, would've preferred more of them rather than the second couple. However, I still would recommend this if you're simply looking for an easy, lighthearted drama to binge and keep you entertained without racking your brains. It's been a while since I've watched a drama like this so I ended up liking it more than I thought I would.

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