A little imbalanced
I mostly enjoyed this drama, but I can't shake the feeling that the FL didn't deserve the male lead. Maybe it's because his love and loyalty was so encompassing that she seemed apathetic in comparison. I just wish they would have had a few examples of her being even a fraction as thoughtful as he was. Like a birthday or holiday gift; something, anything! It just felt like too big of a disparity. Actually, come to think of it, this may just be a Bai Lu problem because I got a similar impression from her in Forever and Ever. In that drama she at least verbalized her love and loyalty to the ML, but it wasn't always convincing. Sometimes it was just lines she was delivering. What really gave that romance credibility was One and Only. For whatever reason their love was 100% believable and engaging in O&O, despite the limitations of a serious period drama. Sorry, I digressed. Anyway, LYZ is absolute gold in this. He's so fun to watch, despite any other frustrations.Was this review helpful to you?
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Chu Li is not a well developed character
I'm so annoyed with this drama, I don't even know where to begin! Chu Li is such a disappointment. I guess I shouldn't expect the writers to be infallible, but if you're trying to make an empowered female, then she shouldn't simultaneously be oblivious and reckless. Also, a "strong female lead" who still needs constant rescuing from the ML is oxymoronic. Mostly because she never acknowledges how much he helps and bails her out. Meanwhile she spends a ton of energy pushing the ML lead and 2ML to do things that go against their gut and are ultimately bad decisions. And she never learns her lesson, nor even seems to recognize it was her fault. I'm not saying that the ML is perfect, but the FL character seems to not understand him at all, constantly pressuring him to do things that don't suit him at all (e.g. collaborating with the illustrator, meeting the actress, doing the interview.) Yet, she spends most of the series professing to know him better than everyone else. I get that they needed to drive things forward with the conflicts created, but I just wish she wasn't always responsible for them. It makes it harder to root for her. I also got the impression--that unfortunately seems to be a trend in several of the contemporary C-Dramas I've watched lately--that the FL was just romantically tolerating the male lead, but not really attracted to him or that into him. The NYE scene in the last episode reinforced that, like what girl in love wouldn't be in a hurry to ring in the new year with her boyfriend?! Yet she didn't want him to get her from work and she turned down a ride home to instead slowly walk through crowds of people celebrating. Like WTH, do you even like him at all? Again, I get that they were trying to set up a scene, but I still think it's a really bad portrayal of a girl in love; like completely unconvincing most of the time.They did a couple of "day-dream" scenes to try to offset her stiffness but her indifferent/standoffish/prude behavior throughout was hard to overlook. Maybe this is a style/theme, but if it's a tag I would definitely avoid dramas with this attribute in the future. I've just started Love Game in Eastern Fantasy (liking it so far) and if the FL doesn't develop convincing feelings for the ML then I'll know it's just an Esther Yu (and maybe Ryan Ding) problem, and I won't watch her drama's anymore.
Positives: the 2nd leads are pretty great and very attractive. The villain is the perfect "love to hate" character. I find the music in dramas extremely intrusive, and this wasn't exactly an exception. However, this OST actually included catchy songs and I liked a couple of them.
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Shocked by how much I liked it
There were times during this drama that I was bored and annoyed with the otaku/obsessive fan theme and some of the irritating tropes used, but I stuck with it for the gorgeous leads/great chemistry, excellent casting, good writing, etc. and I was really rewarded! The character growth was great; even the villains were tolerable, actually they're very entertaining! And I personally enjoy villain redemptions. I also don't mind the childhood connection trope because it helps supersede any claim the second leads might feel they have on them. The childhood connection in this made it more poignant, and that's not always the case in other dramas. It's often done really sloppily and feels disconnected and unconvincing, so this was nice for a change.Despite a few annoyances, the end result was extremely satisfying and in hindsight it made me feel like it was really well executed overall. I saw that some others felt the last few episodes dragged, but I actually really appreciated the time spent galvanizing the relationship of the main couple. I think a lot of other dramas make the mistake of blowing past that and force us to just pretend that they have had sufficient time and experience to bond on a deep level.
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Had potential, but ultimately untenable
I was excited to watch this because Lee Min Ki is generally great and the 8.4 rating was impressive. Sadly, it didn't live up to the hype. This is one of those dramas with an identity crisis. It wants to be too many things and only succeeds at a couple of them and bombs the rest. The main thing that it bombed was having a mature lead couple with an honest relationship. It had potential at first, but in the last 4 episodes the FL became soooo unlikeable; just a mopey insecure girl playing games with the ML's head. My eyes were rolling so hard my head hurt. I hate it when dramas purport to go against the status quo or champion feminism but then so quickly undermine that. The thing is, if you write a tsundere character, you have to live with the consequences. If she really loved him as he was, then it was totally ridiculous for her to BREAK him like that. It was sad to see him become such a mess. In fact, he had already done all of the things that she would qualify as evidence of his affection for her. They should have just written it so that someone told her about the things he'd done (e.g. the book he got, or how he beat up the assistant director, since that is apparently the kind of gesture that would please her.)Anyway, just as others have said, the supporting cast was exceptional! Love CEO Ma; it was always a relief when he was in a scene. And Bo Mi was a real treat too. Since the subplots were pretty engaging, I can muster a 6.5 for this otherwise disappointing drama.
Also, LMK has a fantastic full-toothed grin, so it was a real bummer that his character only smiled like twice.
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Watch this entire drama...if you hate yourself
I had been on a C-Drama kick when I was starting to feel burnt out from 30+ episodes per show. So I came back to the much more schedule friendly K-dramas. First: I hadn't noticed it before, but after so much time away from them, I realized that a ton of Korean dramas seem obsessed with death themes (i.e. 2nd chance, ghosts, angels, serious trauma over dead loved ones, etc.) This drama was definitely filled with it. I guess they made it work, but it's kind of overbearing. The characters and relationships had such great potential, but they were overshadowed.I enjoyed the first 11 episodes and spent the rest of them (except the finale) in self inflicted pain with every torturous scene. The FL starts great and the ML nails it, but then everything takes a turn for the worse. They manage to put a bow on this mutilated package in episode 16, leaving me with a sense of closure. But it honestly wasn't worth the frustration.
Since I really had love for this drama in the first half, I feel super conflicted over the rating. I would have given the first 10 episodes at least 9.5, but the last several have to drag it down a minimum of 2 points. It doesn't feel right giving it a 6 or lower because the episodes that I liked were fun while they lasted and Lee Min Ki is such a fox, so 7.5
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Nice to live vicariously
It was the dream version of the childhood crush on an older sibling's friend. It was surreal and satisfying to live vicariously through the female lead as she actually gets acknowledged by her crush and eventually has her love reciprocated. Even when I didn't like the story and execution, CZY was so consistently dreamy that it was all forgiven!Was this review helpful to you?
Inferior to O&O
This was sadly inferior to One and Only, but it will still be mostly satisfying for anyone who watches O&O first. RJL is handsome and has a pretty good command of the screen, but his character is soooo frustrating. I saw someone else comment that they're trying to imply that because of his hyper intelligence he may be on the spectrum. I haven't read the book, so I really don't know the intent. But whatever the reason they had for making his character so stiff and backward, it didn't really work. Again, every annoying thing is this basically gets a pass if you watched the first series, because it just makes you want to see them together, no matter what. But my main point is they didn't really do RJL justice. In the first series he is so upright and stalwart, and has lived the hardest life possible and still somehow was more human and sympathetic than in the modern one.Was this review helpful to you?
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Really depends on what you're into
If you like business focused dramas (and don't mind lies and constant plotting) then you'll probably enjoy this. If you're a fan of the leads then might love it (great chemistry)! Xu Kai seems to excel in period dramas, while modern romcom dramas (e.g. Falling Into Your Smile, or As Beautiful As You) don't always showcase depth or range. Take FIYS for example, it's a super lovable drama, but his character didn't really have many layers. So my guess is he chose this drama because his character is really well written and a great opportunity for him to show real vulnerability and growth. It's not a perfect script, but good bones, as they say. Others have remarked on his voice bringing more to his character and I agree, it definitely added authenticity for him. Dubbing can make characters feel disjointed, so I prefer the actual actor's voice. *Side note on XK: when I first saw him on a poster/title card, I was not impressed and didn't think he was at all good looking...but chalk it up to stage presence and screen chemistry, that boy brings it!!! Now I think he is in the top 3 most attractive of C-Drama stars.I generally have low or no tolerance for dramas that are heavy on deception and misunderstandings. The first 10 episodes were really hard to get through because of the web of lies and nonsense. I was able to endure by using the FF button liberally and really just focused on the scenes with the leads together. As a result, I was not as agitated as others were by the excess law stuff and lack of scenes between the leads. Actually, when you compare the 40 episodes to a 24, 26, 32, etc. ep drama, than they probably have the same amount of scenes together. It might even add up to more, and I felt that they wrote their time together wisely, at least for the middle 10. They were bonding in a mature manner and as I was using FF it was really nice to watch all their scenes in succession. I saw all the warnings about the last 5 episodes, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Sure it was messy and out of step, but I kind of felt like it didn't have many good alternatives. Basically, the FL lead needed to jump off of the diving board into the deep end of the pool, and this is how the "powers that be" thought it would be best accomplish that.
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