K-Drama 
This review may contain spoilers
Incredibly Mixed Emotions
The Early Spring leaves me with incredibly mixed emotions. On one hand, the messy secret office romance feels authentic if we don’t count the fact that the lead couple doesn’t even talk. On the other hand, the show is a structural mess with a male lead who is deeply unsatisfying for 95% of the drama.
I want to start with the positive. While the acting isn't mind-blowing, it delivers exactly when it counts during the story's high-stakes emotional peaks. The scenes with Flora and Luke breaking up and trying to divide their dog or the episode with the suicide scene are extremely realistic and honestly had me crying. All actors did fantastic. Additionally, the lead couple has genuinely great chemistry that kept me hooked, which is wild because I’ve never seen either of these actors before. Sun Qian as Flora easily outshone the Jing Bo Ran, holding down the emotional weight of the show. Perhaps it’s also because the show concentrated on her story mostly. But she was very natural and you could actually see the change in her character. Jing Bo Ran as Luke was a great, but I thought that there were some moments where he seemed stilted. And I don’t think they were even the emotional moments.
The interpersonal friction between Flora and Luke isn't just cheap drama tropes—it is an extremely realistic reflection of real-world relationship struggles for a couple with such power dynamics as them. He is the boss. She is an employee. They are both in a very vulnerable situation if they get caught. Show the insecurity was extremely on point. This realism is elevated by exceptionally high production value and stunning cinematography, which beautifully frames the couple's tension during their many intimate moments. I will see if you want to see C-drama with a lot of skinship. And by a lot, I mean A LOT, and you don’t even have to wait for it, then The Early Spring is it.
However, the male lead was truly despicable for the most part of the drama. I actually understood the creator's vision for the romance, but I basically had to guess what they were trying to say. The biggest issue is that Luke is incredibly unappealing because he has the emotional intelligence of a chair. We never got to learn why he was so arrogant and couldn’t express his feelings properly. Yes, his dad is cold, but his mom is very warm, and the drama gives us a mere two-minute explanation of his childhood in the beginning and literally never returns to it. There were also some other events in his past, that were just dangling threads that never got fully explained or resolved like his unsuccessful business. It seemed like it was supposed to lead to something, but it never really did. On top of that, Flora never even meets his parents.
Luke’s entire storyline revolves around being an immature a$$hole and pining after a woman he genuinely likes but can’t say a single nice word to. The breakup was entirely his fault. All he had to do is to tell Florida that he loved her. Who tied his tongue? I couldn’t figure out the reason behind him being such a coward, except that he was just a jerk. The fact that he knew in advance that Flora wasn’t going to receive an award because of the inner company politics and didn’t tell her wasn’t absolute dick move. I do blame her for the fact that she did not confide in him because of her insecurities about her friend’s suicide, So he went off on her, not truly understanding why she was so emotional. She was still probably coming to terms with the fact that her close friend killed himself. This seems to be the pattern with his character. He will do something nice for her, but when it counts, he becomes emotionally unavailable and extremely selfish. By that point, it’s hard to blame her because she has never experienced any kindness from him at the moment when it actually counted.
And honestly, this drama wouldn’t even exist if these two just took a moment to talk about their insecurities and issues upfront. Luke only redeems himself in the final episode because he finally grows a backbone, confesses his true feelings, and treats her right. I think this is one of the reasons why I couldn’t give this drama a higher score. Some people score dramas as low as one or two, but I know how hard the actors and the producers work, so I usually try not to drop below seven and even then for me, that’s barely possible.
The writing choices outside the romance are just as baffling. The drama is set against a strict "no office romance" policy, yet they date secretly for six whole years and we don’t get a single subplot about them dodging coworkers or getting caught. It only comes to fruition at the very end of the drama when the writers need to set up the breakup. Even then, Flora never finds out about Luke’s choice that was aimed to save her place in the company. There is also almost zero humor, making the drag feel even heavier. It falls into that classic, frustrating C-drama format where the backstory consumes three-quarters of the runtime, forcing the creators to wrap up the actual resolution in the final two episodes, which ruins the pacing and makes the ending feel completely unearned. This pacing nightmare makes sense knowing the show was cut by eight episodes, but it severely harmed the romantic payoff. I usually binge dramas, but the execution here was such an exhausting rollercoaster that it took me a whole week to get through 24 episodes that are only 35 minutes each.
Ultimately, despite the solid chemistry between the leads, I still wasn't all that impressed overall. It really made me appreciate masterclasses like Hidden Love or The First Frost so much more. Those two Chinese dramas truly left me impressed because the flawless pacing and the storytelling support each other perfectly, using just enough humor to break down the heavy, sad, and dramatic moments. Unfortunately, The Early Spring missed so many great opportunities to strike that balance. The only saving graces that actually carried me to the finish line were the absolutely amazing soundtrack—without it, I probably wouldn’t have even finished—and Luke the dog, who was easily the best highlight of the entire show and definitely had more emotional intelligence than Luke the mail lead. The music and that dog single-handedly saved this from being a total drop.
I want to start with the positive. While the acting isn't mind-blowing, it delivers exactly when it counts during the story's high-stakes emotional peaks. The scenes with Flora and Luke breaking up and trying to divide their dog or the episode with the suicide scene are extremely realistic and honestly had me crying. All actors did fantastic. Additionally, the lead couple has genuinely great chemistry that kept me hooked, which is wild because I’ve never seen either of these actors before. Sun Qian as Flora easily outshone the Jing Bo Ran, holding down the emotional weight of the show. Perhaps it’s also because the show concentrated on her story mostly. But she was very natural and you could actually see the change in her character. Jing Bo Ran as Luke was a great, but I thought that there were some moments where he seemed stilted. And I don’t think they were even the emotional moments.
The interpersonal friction between Flora and Luke isn't just cheap drama tropes—it is an extremely realistic reflection of real-world relationship struggles for a couple with such power dynamics as them. He is the boss. She is an employee. They are both in a very vulnerable situation if they get caught. Show the insecurity was extremely on point. This realism is elevated by exceptionally high production value and stunning cinematography, which beautifully frames the couple's tension during their many intimate moments. I will see if you want to see C-drama with a lot of skinship. And by a lot, I mean A LOT, and you don’t even have to wait for it, then The Early Spring is it.
However, the male lead was truly despicable for the most part of the drama. I actually understood the creator's vision for the romance, but I basically had to guess what they were trying to say. The biggest issue is that Luke is incredibly unappealing because he has the emotional intelligence of a chair. We never got to learn why he was so arrogant and couldn’t express his feelings properly. Yes, his dad is cold, but his mom is very warm, and the drama gives us a mere two-minute explanation of his childhood in the beginning and literally never returns to it. There were also some other events in his past, that were just dangling threads that never got fully explained or resolved like his unsuccessful business. It seemed like it was supposed to lead to something, but it never really did. On top of that, Flora never even meets his parents.
Luke’s entire storyline revolves around being an immature a$$hole and pining after a woman he genuinely likes but can’t say a single nice word to. The breakup was entirely his fault. All he had to do is to tell Florida that he loved her. Who tied his tongue? I couldn’t figure out the reason behind him being such a coward, except that he was just a jerk. The fact that he knew in advance that Flora wasn’t going to receive an award because of the inner company politics and didn’t tell her wasn’t absolute dick move. I do blame her for the fact that she did not confide in him because of her insecurities about her friend’s suicide, So he went off on her, not truly understanding why she was so emotional. She was still probably coming to terms with the fact that her close friend killed himself. This seems to be the pattern with his character. He will do something nice for her, but when it counts, he becomes emotionally unavailable and extremely selfish. By that point, it’s hard to blame her because she has never experienced any kindness from him at the moment when it actually counted.
And honestly, this drama wouldn’t even exist if these two just took a moment to talk about their insecurities and issues upfront. Luke only redeems himself in the final episode because he finally grows a backbone, confesses his true feelings, and treats her right. I think this is one of the reasons why I couldn’t give this drama a higher score. Some people score dramas as low as one or two, but I know how hard the actors and the producers work, so I usually try not to drop below seven and even then for me, that’s barely possible.
The writing choices outside the romance are just as baffling. The drama is set against a strict "no office romance" policy, yet they date secretly for six whole years and we don’t get a single subplot about them dodging coworkers or getting caught. It only comes to fruition at the very end of the drama when the writers need to set up the breakup. Even then, Flora never finds out about Luke’s choice that was aimed to save her place in the company. There is also almost zero humor, making the drag feel even heavier. It falls into that classic, frustrating C-drama format where the backstory consumes three-quarters of the runtime, forcing the creators to wrap up the actual resolution in the final two episodes, which ruins the pacing and makes the ending feel completely unearned. This pacing nightmare makes sense knowing the show was cut by eight episodes, but it severely harmed the romantic payoff. I usually binge dramas, but the execution here was such an exhausting rollercoaster that it took me a whole week to get through 24 episodes that are only 35 minutes each.
Ultimately, despite the solid chemistry between the leads, I still wasn't all that impressed overall. It really made me appreciate masterclasses like Hidden Love or The First Frost so much more. Those two Chinese dramas truly left me impressed because the flawless pacing and the storytelling support each other perfectly, using just enough humor to break down the heavy, sad, and dramatic moments. Unfortunately, The Early Spring missed so many great opportunities to strike that balance. The only saving graces that actually carried me to the finish line were the absolutely amazing soundtrack—without it, I probably wouldn’t have even finished—and Luke the dog, who was easily the best highlight of the entire show and definitely had more emotional intelligence than Luke the mail lead. The music and that dog single-handedly saved this from being a total drop.
Was this review helpful to you?
