Chints

A very very slow burn, but once ignited, it is lovely

I once started this because of the fake relationship tag and watched about halfway before dropping it as I was so confused at the extremely slow plot. I decided to come back and give it another shot and was very pleasantly surprised at how lovely the story developed between the two main characters.
This is not a slow burn, this is a barely smoldering ember you could leave alone for days and not worry about any change or damage. I would honestly say any actual plot only started around episode 10, and up until then was just a lot of character development and laying of the foundations of their relationship. It was a bit of a slog to be honest, but they came together in such a natural way that all the slog in the beginning made sense. A true strangers to friends to lovers (or I guess, strangers to spouses to friends to lovers). It was beautiful, but I don't think I could rewatch it lol.

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A good time loop story, but person

For someone not used to time loop stories, this would probably be a really fun and interesting plot to follow. But I've read some top notch time loop fanfics so this was good but I cant rate it 9/10. The mystery was good, and I liked how in each loop they learned more about the mystery but also more about each other. I liked how the main characters were written and I feel the actors did a good job portraying their inner turmoils. This is definitely a healthy main's relationship as there is no unnecessary cheap drama between the two leads. They come to rely on one another first through a need for survival and then because they only have each other to understand. Obviously they should fall in love with all that forced proximity, and so obviously they do, but the story doesn't really focus on gooey moments between them. It's more like "you and me against the world" and they are both on the same page about it.

I personally find it a bit boring to rewatch anything with a mystery plot, and since this is a time loop I feel that I've seen enough repeats in the actual show to not want to rewatch it again.

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Better than the drama (Love O2O)

I honestly liked the movie better than the drama. I've rewatched both this movie and the drama at least twice, mainly out of nostalgia. The original storyline from the novel to the drama to the movie has always been a bit childish/tropey, but at its core it is sweet, and that's why I like to come back to it every few years or so.

I particularly like that this version of the main characters were written to be less one-dimensional. No hate to Yang Yang (Xiao Nai) or Zheng Shuang (Bei Wei Wei) who acted in the drama because I think the drama actually followed pretty closely to the novel's story and the actors just followed their scripts. The novel is from BWW's POV and doesn't really give much insight into Xiao Nai as a person except BWW's perception that he's basically a perfect human. This however ends up leaving Xiao Nai as pretty much a blank sheet of paper with no personality to really extrapolate from. He's crazy smart, successful at everything he does, multitalented in a bunch of random things, and always able to think 17 moves ahead and outwit his opponents. It's like he's been isekai'd into this story with full knowledge of every single turn of events and is never worried or unsure of himself or BWW's feelings.
Here in the movie, however, Xiao Nai is still smart, handsome, and playfully arrogant, but he seems more real. He finds out Cao Guang is confessing his love to BWW (not really a spoiler it's the second lead c'mon now) and immediately goes over to do... something. And I say "something" because he literally goes over without a plan immediately to find out what's happening to the girl he has a crush on, and ends up doing nothing bc BWW resolves the situation. The drama version of Xiao Nai would look at this like a game of Go and orchestrate a whole unnecessarily complicated solution in order make himself look super cool at the end. In this movie he's just a smart dude with a big crush on a girl.

BWW in the show is also similar to the novel, but that just means she's also perfect and beautiful and shy and demure with no minor or major flaws. I just think the show didn't do much justice to her character being a top student in a computers major beyond the first couple episodes. In the show she interns at Xiao Nai's company (which somehow has like 30 employees despite not having made a single game yet so idk how Xiao Nai is paying those salaries) and she essentially just acts like a mother to the group while working at the bottom of the totem pole. Not a problem to be more feminine and nurturing, but I just don't get why her character is supposed to be a top scholarship student in her major and year and then she doesn't go for the opportunity to be a real contributing member of the company, or why XN is .

In the movie this is different and more realistic. Xiao Nai's "company" is truly just a start up with his roommates and the main plot is him and his roommates being blindsided by corporate greed. XN is not an all-knowing all-seeing deity, he's just smart kid with a dream who faces a major setback he didn't foresee and is powerless to stop against. But BWW is able to support him emotionally and also bring the roommates together and give them the motivation to start over and work even harder than before. She also joins in as an actual member of the company to do her own work.

TLDR: This movie version of Bei WeiWei made a lot more sense that she was tomboyish and a little shy but beautiful and just innocently wanted to support the man she liked. Also that she's not absolutely useless once she gets a boyfriend. This Xiao Nai also made more sense bc he's an arrogant pretty boy but is so intrigued by Wei Wei when she isnt expecting anyone to be paying attention to her. In the drama Wei Wei was awkwardly unexpressive and puritan in her shyness and Xiao Nai was painfully perfect and one-dimensionally boring. Basically, I wish the drama was shorter and I wish the movie was longer.

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