SilverBallerina

I don't even know how to start this. This is such a beautiful love story, but also such a necessary portrayal of how war affects people. We tend to create emotional distance between ourselves and what's happening out there (because it happens far away), but this drama will bring you right into the battlefield, into the frontlines, where you will suffer as much as everyone else.

The acting was phenomenal. Chen Zheyuan is such a versatile actor. He was soft, he was strong, he was brave, he was vulnerable. He was hurting. Gods, every time I cried in this drama was when he was hurting (and he gets hurt a lot). I also never expected I needed a Chen Zheyuan in a military outfit... That was hot. I knew him from Hidden Love and always thought he had this innocent aura, until I watched him in this drama. We've been blessed!

I didn't read the novel, and I watched this drama completely blind, and still, I immediately understood there was romantic tension between Sa Xin and Benjamin. Unfortunately, due to the censorship, there are only very subtle hints and a Dr. Pei who tries to dispel this feeling (it didn't work for me; Dr. Pei felt like a third wheel). I wish we had a drama just for them!

The ending is terrible. Not in the sense of being bad, but in the sense that it broke my heart into a million pieces. After everything we witness in this drama, it hurts so badly how things end. Even if it's an open ending and they try to make it soft, it's easy to understand the meaning behind it, and unfortunately, that is the reality of a lot of war veterans.