RiceCakeMochi

I started watching MO LI / The First Jasmine mainly because the leads are two of my favorites, Cheng Lei and Bai Lu. Cheng Lei's acting is remarkable, while Bai Lu has this emotional quality in her acting that somehow reaches you without needing to do too much.

So naturally, I expected a lot from this drama.

And surprisingly, it did give me the emotional attachment I was looking for, just not in the way I expected. It happened slowly and deeply.

What I really love about this drama is the way the characters grow even while they're together. Even though this is a romance, their entire character development isn't built around the relationship. They still have their own struggles, their own personalities, and their own growth.

They're not strong simply because they have each other. They're strong as individuals, and I really appreciate that.

Bai Lu's portrayal of her character is probably one of the things that stayed with me the most. There were moments when she portrayed Qing Shuang around her, especially through the trauma and delusions, that genuinely gave me goosebumps. The way she carried those scenes made the character's emotional state feel much more complicated than simply "she's traumatized."

Cheng Lei was also a big reason I enjoyed the drama. His acting gave the character a presence that made me want to keep watching.

The one thing I wasn't completely satisfied with was the villain.

I think the character has the ingredients of a villain. He doesn't see love or life in the same way as the main leads, and some of his ideas are so unreasonable that, logically, I should be completely against him. For me, a villain really feels like a villain when they stand completely against what the main characters believe in, especially when their idea of love or life is so twisted that you can't help but think, "What the hell are you talking about?" 😂

And this villain definitely has some of that.

But somehow... I couldn't feel enough hatred toward him.

It's not that his acting is bad. I actually think he did a good job portraying the character. I just didn't feel that emotional anger in my heart that I usually want from a villain. Maybe it's the writing, maybe it's the way the character was developed, or maybe, and this is the most embarrassing possibility, I'm just biased because he's too handsome. 😂

So I'm not entirely sure whether that's an acting problem or a story problem. I'll leave that one to someone more objective than me.

But here's the funniest thing about this review.

While writing it, I actually had to check whether I had really finished the drama or not.

That's probably saying something about how I felt about the ending. 😂

Still, I really enjoyed the character development, the acting, and especially the slower emotional build. This is the kind of romance I appreciate more because the characters don't completely disappear into their relationship.

They have each other, but they also have themselves.

And honestly, I think that's what made me emotionally attached to them in the first place.