Frost_edelweiss

both already gone

available since Oct.26 on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Tj02x4wDOU (no music included) probably for "limited time only"

Suspension of disbelief about technicalities was absolutely needed, but the bouncy steps and charming naughtiness of the small, B size (!), "imperial princess" Gege (Ma Qiuyan) made this short drama very enjoyable. Sweet kisses but no scandal despite the acknowledged "age gap" (irl the pair are only 3 years apart, so they played comfortably this modern fairy tale romance).

But yes, paying more attention to music and instruments would have been perfect, so it will rattle those who can't bear watching a piano left in a garden with no shelter, and the way instruments are only used as props. Others will only laugh at the blatant 'this is just fairy tale' and focus on fingers intertwining, swoon at the kisses, laugh at the teasing in a non musical voice from the 'baby genius' who insisted she was an adult because she had a driver's license and a pretty little red car (so why did she say she needed money for the piano? just laugh it off!). At the end of the day, it is an unserious feel-good short drama to stave off the harshness of the real world.

Yes, she is amazing ;)

as you pointed out in your review, the lyrics of the song then had a bigger role than just decoration. And some who watched did not get to see the lyrics (Netflix zapped them)

have a look in Discussions above, find the companion piece, section 3 , use the table of contents to click on section 3 and scroll down almost to end of that section to the discussion about :

Xú Chí s "Black Lotus" vs. Yè Xìnzhīs "Fox (狐狸)" 🦊
What puzzled you was a complicated frame-up involving the guy she had broken up with and the guy who tried to appropriate her work - although these two separate incidents were unrelated. Xinzhi offered an easy way out, but she solved the unpleasant conundrum herself with some carrying weight help from her two workplace friends. The description of the frame up there should be clear enough I hope: I puzzled too until I put clues together, including that of the mysterious off-screen manipulator who also hoodwinked director Sun. Therefore, I added this paragraph as example of Xu Chi's problem solving, which can be an important feature of consulting work.

ikr 😅

Yes I thought it would have got a little more, considering that The Early Spring hit 6.7 in Opening Douban, but it is true these two dramas are widely different and many clamor for conventional romance with "lots of skinship" and this one, as announced, was more business focused. But this opening DB for Irreplaceable is not awful. From 18K ratings.

I have added two posts to the lore in the Rose pavilion, to sum up the activities since the StayRomantic concert of May until preparation for her 28th birthday, with illustrations and some links :

https://kisskh.at/discussions/chinese-actors-actresses/70027-stars-in-the-rose-pavilion?pid=3595288&page=47#p3595288 (the details of the engravings on her microphone) ;
https://kisskh.at/discussions/chinese-actors-actresses/70027-stars-in-the-rose-pavilion?pid=3595350&page=47#p3595350 (the overview of her businesses, of her "nine IP projects", of the fanclub project for her birthday)
Enjoy !

It is rather for intellectuals, perhaps, and less for those who can't take it that fulfilling a career is as important for some women as for men, that cases may require some thought to understand what they were about and the elegance of the problem solving. and more...
Good for you that you appreciated it. The crowd may not be unanimous, but you don't stand alone ;)

Just mentioning. I completed my very illustrated Companion Piece (in Discussions section, up scrolling over this comments one). If you are curious about locations, film bases, the Zhao Jinmai method, drama archetypes and the "black lotus" and "fox", how much Bu Tianna's Serpenti necklace is worth, what outfits styles are recommended for the office in the leads' view, where to go bowling or dining in the CBD, finding a metro station to commute from Guomao to Wangjing East Road and explore the subdistrict after a cup of coffee (not sure they also offer black truffle flavor milk tea, though) at the Jinhui building, dine following Ye Xingzhi's restaurant rules, get an overview of places and prices to stay and live like a well paid irreplaceable executive (or director, CEO, diplomat working in an embassy...) with or without kids to put into international schools, with or without a hukou, or other associated details : dive in !

The Piece is cross linked to a table of contents, so just find what you are most interested in, or go from item to item along the 10 sections. Highlighted texts can lead to "more info" and the Piece is optimized for dark mode in case white mode hurts your eyes.
(Well, optimized as much as is possible on MDL: sometimes it is not perfect for highlighted text using blue on black! but if I changed it to yellow, the corresponding white mode would fall foul with faint yellow text disappearing in the "snow", and red is as dubious there as green sometimes although I hope most readers are not too color-blind ;)

Fair enough ;) enjoy whatever you watch!

If you are curious about non romance stuff in "Irreplaceable" such as real locations, some technical stuff like what they did on the film base and where is it - it's one base among several, but I liked that I actually recognized the "family home of Bu Tianna" which is a stone's throw away from Three Shadows Photography centre, a place I visited a few times in Caochangdi.... among other places. So I went hunting for pictures and explanations for who might like to travel thereabouts physically or virtually ;)

Since I was at it, i also added some stuff about Zhao Jinmai, why she is coined as a "black lotus" in this drama, and what are the current female archetypes in dramas.

It is a very illustrated Companion Piece, which you can enter through the Discussions section above this Comments one.
All the posts are cross linked to the initial Table of contents, so if you want to read about the Old Homes (and the sinkhole threat), about the Temporary residences ways of living (such as serviced apartments), about Zhao Jingmai (and archetypes), about Driving and finding a hospital, lol (driving in Beijing is not for the faint of heart - but in 7 years of roaming with my "minor official" style black car, not totally understated but not flashy Porsche either, I never had any trouble, respecting the unwritten road rules : give way to bigger and quicker vehicles, avoid touching anything, such as pedestrians, bikes, trees, tanks, articulated buses and military vehicles ;)
You can take your pick of info to accompany what you watched.

Since I like music too, despite this drama is surprisingly rich in music, I added links to two personal favorites not in the drama, but which low -key illustrate the mood I felt when watching Irreplaceable.

As for ratings, I am always at least lenient when I complete a drama, and not stingy with 9 to 10s if I found something to be liked in them. I don't really do the "cinema critic stuff" which I usually find to be a chore. Watching all sorts, sometimes digging further around a few titles. Since I already bestowed my 10 on Reset when it aired, I have not gone below 9 for Zhao Jinmai dramas, including the harsh Drifting Away /Bleaching (don't go into it if you aren't prepared to face shocks and horror, the worst there is it is from a true serial killers case!) : that she dared play that role commanded my respect. As for romance, yes she can do it too helped by a good pairing such as Wu Lei (whose gazes can melt three stones, lol). Still, she is not on my top specialists of romance list, I view her as more "serious", so "boring" may be a consequence of her lack of willingness to dive into hearts and roses and tons of kisses and clinging skin like in The Early Spring, another drama which I enjoyed for similar and opposite reasons to Irreplaceable (definitely will peek at Season 2 of that one, now that Jing Boran and Sun Qian exploded as masterly hot and slightly sulfurous pairing. )

Well I did not view Luan Nian as a red flag: that character was willing to go out of his way to treat his beloved when she was filthy drunk, sick, bringing into his home a possible hairy flea-bag! to go fistfight the real scumbags who hurt her, and to kneel at her knees with adoring puppy eyes ; his foul mouth and stinging cactus behavior was a curse on him but he was deep down fair and willing to accompany his beloved's professional growth. I already thought Jing Boran was remarkable in some movies and dramas before, and had noticed Sun Qian too, so was quite thrilled to follow their less business than romance drama - why did Shang Zhitao so insist on hiding their tryst, trying to "protect him" but more "herself" in the corporate unreasonable world looking askance at "office romances" ? Six years of hiding and keeping him away from her inner circle of friends and family, lying to her parents, was very long. But that's another drama, as irreplaceable as the present one!

Uhmm be careful - the tower of Babel is an old cautionary legend. But having looked before into some recent travelers vlogs, it looks like people are hospitable. Yet temperatures are unbearable for most in hot seasons.

some ratings (check reviews too) reflect that a number of haters targeted the drama.
They purposefully threw in 1s to bring the rating down, and to steer away audiences that might have liked it enough. It is quite common on Douban, and unfortunately has also stained MDL ; you spot those more easily when they publish snide or disparaging remarks, sometime from a "special moral" point of view, and when you notice those bring down episode ratings underway with 1s when episodes still are not aired. That sort of people take pride and pleasure in destroying other's enjoyment, like the hooligans who attack and destroy in cities, targeting places and/or people, under false pretenses.
I agree with you that the genre is accurate as a business drama, so that the reasonable but sweet romance elements are cherry on top - whether you like or not the taste of those cherries -- I do, and I did not feel bored in the least, although I was not looking for a lecture in consulting business, which was another kind of "meal" to consume ;)

Guest roles are not necessarily unimportant, but often limited in screen time. Plus I suppose it depends on contract and how the actors accept or envision their roles.

Check "The Tale of Rose" : all of Meigui's lovers were listed as Guest Roles although they really should have been ML except it was difficult to decide who would be 1ML, 2ML, 3ML, 4ML then .... Perhaps it should have been Lin Gengxin as 1ML, but he played a particularly controlling husband designed to be hated (quite a difficult role 180° opposite to his character as God in "The Legend of Shen Li" same year, for which I also added a Companion Piece in Discussion section of that drama).
Whereas the other ones were butterflies who either flew away or died away but managed to appeal to audience despite their characters' quite obvious flaws, but since they were not so obvious "psychos" as THE Husband (who was n°2 lover, in the life of Meigui), they got away "almost with murder".
Anyway, Meigui "survived" them all, literally or figuratively, although her divorced husband kept hoping she'd get back someday and went on paying as much as he could, voluntarily, for her and their daughter since he'd become a mogul risen from rags to riches. So they were "guests" along her long life as an artist.

Money wise, those Guest Roles did not mean the actors got paid less: the 3ML (errm , Guest) who died away after a few episodes got the biggest pay, while Lin Gengxin got the smallest package (among the four, i.e. not a pittance) although he had longest screen time in that drama. (I recorded all that at the time in my Companion Piece of that show and the accompanying Profile of Lin Gengxin: quite interesting for me to witness how fluctuating the notion of "support", "main" or "guest" role can be.... )

I think it is a confusion with Yu Meng's husband. Jiao Xu doesn't seem to be married or have time for a wife, with all the sleuthing and running he does, using Yu Meng's car to escape the irate guys who lost their law suit to him 🤣🤣🤣

Harry -played by Cheng Hongxin (程泓鑫)

Liu Zi (刘姿) — Played by Zeng Mengxue: Yu Meng's close friend ("bestie").

Lu Hui (卢蕙) — Played by Wang Jiajia aka Esther Wang (王佳佳)

Wen Xiaoxiao (温小小) played by Yi Mengling (易梦玲), supporting character