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A try-hard that misses
Dropped it after 1st ep.What I liked about it:
—of all the kdramas I've watched thus far, this is one of the few that has the languages downpat. I was impressed with Sa Rang's Mandarin and English, and Gu Won's English was good too. This added truth to the reality the show tries to portray with the different countries at play.
Things that turned me off:
— obvious Euro-centrism with "we are so rich that we are overlords to white ppl in their own lands". Did they need to juxtapose their wealth against westerners to make their point? Rather smacks of insecurity and overcompensation. Was a very cringeworthy scene, to say the least
— parallel of Gu Won receiving a bouquet on his graduation and Sa Rang receiving it from her beau, as though her greatest culmination was the attentions of a man whilst his, the attainment of higher education. Real warped idea of female empowerment that clues me in on the values of this show.
— despite the above, the thing that made me decide to discontinue with this show was watching Sa Rang try to get Gu Won's attention by speeding him off the treadmill. Not quite sure what the writers had in mind but in which planet is this harmful behaviour, that can potentially kill someone, actually acceptable? Just watching the show continue on after that and Gu Won stand up and brush it off was watching a gaslighting exercise in its own right. This behaviour is not acceptable and normal and garnered me zero sympathies for the female protag from that moment on and because I have zero emotional investment in any of the characters I won't be watching the rest of this series.
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Formulaic with weird paedophilic groomy vibes
When I saw the synopsis for this I knew it was going to be a teen drama replete with unrealistic behaviours and a female ingenue character that bordered on vacuous. I still gave it a go because I found out the lead was none other than Zhao Lu Si from 'Who Rules the World'. However, even having her as the protagonist couldn't keep me on.Firstly, I have no idea why CDramas, or Chinese productions in general, always edit the characters' voices. Women always end up sounding like a chipmunk. Is that sexy? It's certainly not mature. Definitely not natural. Zhao Lu Si's lovely timbre in 'Who Rules the World' is reduced to a squirrel's that sounds like they have a perpetual cold in 'Hidden Love'.
Secondly, there is no life to Sang Zhi at all except when she decides to say or do something manipulative; if she puts half the energy she has in those moments into her studies, it might seem interesting. As it was, a childish, spoilt younger sister protag who has a crush on an older brother's friend and doesn't focus on her own education, dreams and ambitions was too formulaic and mundane a teen drama. Is Jia Xu the only friend Sang Yan has? Is he the only guy she's ever met and known all her teenage life? Will he be the only one there is? Surely, realistically not. And using an actress that's younger than the fourteen Sang Zhi was meant to be, when she first meets Jia Xu, didn't help with the whole groomy vibes too.
Dropped it after first episode as couldn't gel with the characters and didn't care enough to see their journey. Hidden Love did not utilise all of Zhao Lu Si's talents, not even a tenth of it. Disappointing. Only nice things to note were the food!
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