This review may contain spoilers
Decent - but slightly frustrating and entirely carried by the leads at times.
I have such mixed feelings about this drama. I've been anticipating this since it was filming, since I'm a huge fan of Chen Zheyuan and not only was I excited to see his performance in a story with more emotional depth than some of his other projects, but I personally enjoy watching dramas that evoke strong emotions, even if they are on the more heartbreaking side.
When the drama first started airing, I was enjoying it a lot. I personally loved the romance between Li Zan and Song Ran and felt like they had really good chemistry, and I feel like there was a good balance of tension and drama while also having some lighter moments with the lead couple. However, my first criticism with this show is that I feel like it suffered from the typical issue I have with a lot of cdramas, which is that it was too long. As with a lot of other cdramas I've watched, it did start to lull at some point around episode 13 or so, and while it did eventually pick back up I do think it would have benefited from losing a few episodes. While I do think this particular story needed some room to be fully fleshed out, I think that 38 episodes was maybe a bit excessive, and a lot of the drama that was happening once the main characters returned to China was just simply uninteresting and annoying - for example, the bullying storyline. I think overall the plot of Li Zan wanting to look out for Jiang Yu was nice, but the entire bullying storyline was silly and a lot of the dialogue in these situations was poorly written.
Also, one of my biggest peeves in dramas is the miscommunication trope. I could have dealt with it for a few episodes or so, but this was a running thread between the leads for the entire drama and it was really frustrating and pointless. It was also irritating to see the leads finally confess to each other that they were both struggling after returning to China and be vulnerable with each other, just for them to continue to not communicate any of their feelings and hide things continuously - and while I did like the character of Song Ran overall, it was an annoying trait for her to get so upset over Li Zan hiding things from her when she was also doing the same thing constantly. This entire narrative got old really fast and it continues for almost the entire show, seemingly just for the convenience of some drama between the leads.
My other big criticism with this drama is the final three episodes. I haven't read the novel, so I wasn't really sure how this would end, but I'm not really sure what the point was of having a 20+ long episode arc of Li Zan suffering with PTSD and trying to overcome it and heal from it was, just to put him through more trauma right at the last minute and rush through both the process of it happening, and also the consequences of it. While it makes sense within the story for the bad guys to want to seek revenge, doing this so late in the show after he had already largely processed all of his trauma just felt weird to me, and the fact that the ending was pretty much just "well, he's never going to recover from this" felt like a strange message to send - especially after spending the entire show focusing on mental health and trying to heal from past traumas. I was also pretty happy with how they'd dealt with both of the leads' mental health issues earlier on in the drama and the fact that they didn't just have them magically heal from it within a couple of episodes, but took a more realistic approach of having good moments and bad moments, so it was quite frustrating to watch them try to cram an entire traumatic experience and recovery process into the final few episodes. Plus it was just a deeply unsatisfying ending as a viewer, since it feels like the leads' stories weren't really fully finished.
As for the performances - overall they were very strong. There were a few side characters I didn't love the casting choices for (Jiang Yu, Luo Zhan, Shen Bei, and Dr Liang specifically), and also some of the English speaking characters weren't very convincing (nor was the dubbing), but these weren't too painful given how much screen time those characters have - and also the leading cast more than made up for it. I personally loved the casting for Song Ran, Li Zan, Benjamin and Saxin and thought they all did a convincing job and very much helped the drama move along in moments where it started to lull or the dialogue was poor.
Since Chen Zheyuan's performance was the thing I was most looking forward to with this drama, and he did such a fantastic job, it made it a bit easier for me to get through the entire drama. He did such a convincing job of portraying such an emotionally complex character - even down to small facial expressions or mannerisms that showed exactly what he was feeling even when he wasn't speaking. And while I didn't love the direction the story went in for the final few episodes, his performance was absolutely outstanding and full of so much raw emotion. While I didn't necessarily expect any less from him given his previous performances, I really think this is his best performance to date and I hope that we get to see him in more projects that allow him to explore his range the way that this did.
Overall, I think this drama was decent and there were lots of moments that I enjoyed, but it was definitely weakened by poor writing and directing choices at times. The lead cast, and the relationships between their characters, is absolutely the selling point of this drama and at times was it's only saving grace. I'm not sure that this is rewatchable for me, since it's a long drama and it does drag at times, but I'm glad that I watched it at least once - I just can't help but wish that some of the choices made were different, and as somebody who has been waiting a very long time for this drama to air I did feel slightly disappointed by the end of it.
When the drama first started airing, I was enjoying it a lot. I personally loved the romance between Li Zan and Song Ran and felt like they had really good chemistry, and I feel like there was a good balance of tension and drama while also having some lighter moments with the lead couple. However, my first criticism with this show is that I feel like it suffered from the typical issue I have with a lot of cdramas, which is that it was too long. As with a lot of other cdramas I've watched, it did start to lull at some point around episode 13 or so, and while it did eventually pick back up I do think it would have benefited from losing a few episodes. While I do think this particular story needed some room to be fully fleshed out, I think that 38 episodes was maybe a bit excessive, and a lot of the drama that was happening once the main characters returned to China was just simply uninteresting and annoying - for example, the bullying storyline. I think overall the plot of Li Zan wanting to look out for Jiang Yu was nice, but the entire bullying storyline was silly and a lot of the dialogue in these situations was poorly written.
Also, one of my biggest peeves in dramas is the miscommunication trope. I could have dealt with it for a few episodes or so, but this was a running thread between the leads for the entire drama and it was really frustrating and pointless. It was also irritating to see the leads finally confess to each other that they were both struggling after returning to China and be vulnerable with each other, just for them to continue to not communicate any of their feelings and hide things continuously - and while I did like the character of Song Ran overall, it was an annoying trait for her to get so upset over Li Zan hiding things from her when she was also doing the same thing constantly. This entire narrative got old really fast and it continues for almost the entire show, seemingly just for the convenience of some drama between the leads.
My other big criticism with this drama is the final three episodes. I haven't read the novel, so I wasn't really sure how this would end, but I'm not really sure what the point was of having a 20+ long episode arc of Li Zan suffering with PTSD and trying to overcome it and heal from it was, just to put him through more trauma right at the last minute and rush through both the process of it happening, and also the consequences of it. While it makes sense within the story for the bad guys to want to seek revenge, doing this so late in the show after he had already largely processed all of his trauma just felt weird to me, and the fact that the ending was pretty much just "well, he's never going to recover from this" felt like a strange message to send - especially after spending the entire show focusing on mental health and trying to heal from past traumas. I was also pretty happy with how they'd dealt with both of the leads' mental health issues earlier on in the drama and the fact that they didn't just have them magically heal from it within a couple of episodes, but took a more realistic approach of having good moments and bad moments, so it was quite frustrating to watch them try to cram an entire traumatic experience and recovery process into the final few episodes. Plus it was just a deeply unsatisfying ending as a viewer, since it feels like the leads' stories weren't really fully finished.
As for the performances - overall they were very strong. There were a few side characters I didn't love the casting choices for (Jiang Yu, Luo Zhan, Shen Bei, and Dr Liang specifically), and also some of the English speaking characters weren't very convincing (nor was the dubbing), but these weren't too painful given how much screen time those characters have - and also the leading cast more than made up for it. I personally loved the casting for Song Ran, Li Zan, Benjamin and Saxin and thought they all did a convincing job and very much helped the drama move along in moments where it started to lull or the dialogue was poor.
Since Chen Zheyuan's performance was the thing I was most looking forward to with this drama, and he did such a fantastic job, it made it a bit easier for me to get through the entire drama. He did such a convincing job of portraying such an emotionally complex character - even down to small facial expressions or mannerisms that showed exactly what he was feeling even when he wasn't speaking. And while I didn't love the direction the story went in for the final few episodes, his performance was absolutely outstanding and full of so much raw emotion. While I didn't necessarily expect any less from him given his previous performances, I really think this is his best performance to date and I hope that we get to see him in more projects that allow him to explore his range the way that this did.
Overall, I think this drama was decent and there were lots of moments that I enjoyed, but it was definitely weakened by poor writing and directing choices at times. The lead cast, and the relationships between their characters, is absolutely the selling point of this drama and at times was it's only saving grace. I'm not sure that this is rewatchable for me, since it's a long drama and it does drag at times, but I'm glad that I watched it at least once - I just can't help but wish that some of the choices made were different, and as somebody who has been waiting a very long time for this drama to air I did feel slightly disappointed by the end of it.
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