This review may contain spoilers
A beautiful love story with sizzling chemistry
This show is about the leads' love story and personal growth, through and through, with no distracting subplots and second leads. The main leads are perfectly casted; the supporting characters are strong; the cinematography is dreamlike; the OSTs add weight to all the emotional moments. This is a show I'll rewatch over and over again.The main selling point of the show is the lead's chemistry, which is consistent from Ep.1-29. While the show is poorly edited, it doesn't detract from the essence of the story
The Thailand arc reels you in with gratuitous scenes of veeeery strong chemistry and high-adrenaline racing + boxing scenes, shot with a flurry of colorful lights layered against the humid nights.
The Nanjing arc is where the leads really showcase their acting chops. Esther and He Yu really impressed me here and brought my initial rating of the show from an 8.5 (exciting watch but not special) to a 10.0 (probably my favorite drama of all time).
Despite their 6-year separation, during that time, they continued living for each other and lived how the other would've wanted to live. The title's literal translation is "Dual Tracks", and during their separation, it really did feel like they were driving on parallel tracks, in hopes of meeting each other again one day. Jin Zhao crawled his way out of death's door and worked his way up to be the person Mumu has always seen him as since they were kids (a law-abiding, intelligent, successful individual), and opened up a coffee shop Mumu dreamt about having while they were in Thailand. Mumu did well with her studies, saw the world as Jin Zhao wanted her to when they broke up, and pursued astronomy, a subject Jin Zhao loved before life's tragedies took that chance from him.
The characters were always consistently expressing their love for each other -- Jin Zhao prioritizes Mumu over everything, even himself, and remembers all her small quirks. Mumu always took the first step to figure out Jin Zhao and fight for their love, bringing a sense of security and unconditional love to him (which he has always lacked given his upbringing)
Jin Zhao and Jiang Mu were beautifully crafted, nuanced characters and the show had a lot of positive themes as well -- but this review is getting too long :)
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