LA_Drama Fan

That scene where he was so stunned in the hallway that he couldn't even move was really great...then the glare to the bellman with the rumbling of thunder in the background was the chef's kiss!

To be honest, when she said "Can I choose neither?" I wanted to scream at my TV. I just couldn't believe it...it made her previous faux pas at New Years' Eve (about wishing for career success) pale by comparison.

But again, it's why this series is so good. Even smart people can say stupid things (Twitter is plenty enough evidence of that) and that's what we see here: characters that act like real people. And it does serve as a window into the conflict in her. But still, when she said that, it pissed me off.

I watched 27 last night. I was so wound up after watching it, I started dictating my notes to my iPad so I wouldn't forget them...it was 1030 at night, so too late to get back on the PC to submit, so I'll do it this afternoon.

Thank you, you are very kind.

Ep 26
The storm clouds that have been gathering over the last few episodes finally break. The full fury of Shi Yan’s realization of what has actually been going on with her is about to rain on her and ruin the sand castle of a relationship her heart created. The episode ends with Shi Yan figuring out the reason she fell for him: the secret she has been hiding so badly since the beginning of their relationship.

ShuYi never fails to disappoint and frustrate us. Even here, when she realizes her house of cards is collapsing, she can’t bring herself to tell him her feelings. Even worse (and this may be her low-point as a character) when he simply asks her “Compared to your ex-boyfriend, who do you like more -,me or him?” her inner mind screams “Can I choose neither?” In the battle between her heart and mind, this was the final stroke: Her mind wins and her heart's desires are crushed. That scene on the divan, post-spa confrontation, was her opportunity to come clean to him, but instead she goes into full-evasive mode and we can tell that this time, he’s not buying it.

Later on, when he’s drinking alone, he foolishly even contemplates giving her one more chance, if she would just tell him the truth. When the awful truth does come to him in the hotel hallway, we can only pity the poor room-service porter who kindly asks him to step aside.

So, once again, our heroine’s mind simply can’t bring itself to give into her heart and sets her up for what is going to be a terrible episode 27. Her inability to tell the truth to anyone: her family, her friends (except for ShanShan), co-workers, about her feelings speaks volumes to the fear harboring inside this woman, who has relied on her intelligence and beauty to get her through the world and is completely unprepared for a committed relationship with a man who dearly loves her.

As an aside, it’s interesting to note how both of these people have such blind spots in their business/life dealings, probably because they're so enamored of their success in life:
- Him, being blindsided by Bruce’s departure from Le’an Tech and being left holding the bag of his prized investment: a now-challenged tech company with a weak/defeatist CEO.
- Her, with her over-achieving professional success leaving her bewildered when she discovers her boyfriend has been cheating on her since college and that she is falling in love with another man.

God, I love this series.

The business aspect of things was added by the screenwriter - it was left out of the original novel. However, it provides a context for their relationship as we see ShuYi's career environment at the magazine. This is important since her career is paramount in her life. For ShiYan, yes, some scenes get heavy in detail (I never would have expected to hear about phased-array antenna systems in a C-Drama - and FWIW, they got the details right) but we have to see all this in context to the kind of person he is. This is HIS company after he broke away from his father's firm...and things don't go overwhelmingly great for him. He is challenged and fails at time, but we see his persistence as well. The business scenes also provide the environment for the 'three musketeers' to exist in....and they too, are missing from the novel.

I too came to this series from the YouTube shorts that kept popping up in my timeline. I'm glad I did, because these characters feel like real people, with all their flaws and insecurities laid before us. Imperfect characters in an imperfect world make for a story that holds my interest.

If you want to see the core of the story, I highly suggest reading the novel (it's on-line) as it's very interesting as well, espeically with the differences from the TV show.

I've said it before: this show will win the 2024 KBS Awards "Golden FF Button" award.

She's a total 'fish out of water' in that environment, plus having no memories more than 2 years old, has to be pretty bad. So of course, the writer has surrounded her with aggresive people who take advantage of her good-nature. This show is hard to watch.

26 episodes in, and nothing tops the scene in his car back in Ep 19 when she exclaims "when is he going to confess to me already???" "I'd be long dead if I were any more impatient". They were so cute.

Problem with this series is that during 21 yesterday, I remembered I had to take care of something, so I got up in the middle of it, closed up the garage and turned on the AC, and eventually went back to watch the show. I've never just got up in the middle of a show and walked out on it without any regret before.

I just finished ep 22 and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better depiction of the struggle between a woman’s heart and mind as this series has given us:
• -In Ep 19 her MIND tells Prof Yu that she’s “only 25 and not ready for this” (dating, romance).
• -In Ep 21, in a moment of drunken candor, her HEART reaches out to the depressed ShiYan to reassure him and they share their most intimate, uninterrupted kiss of the series to-date. She doesn’t pull back this time, and proclaims her role as his girlfriend.
• -And in Ep22, we get 2 key scenes that she is becoming aware of her internal struggle and he recognizes it too:
o She tells her boss that she wont risk love or career for each other
o On the riverwalk, our couple both finally acknowledge the importance of her career, and Shi Yan promises to support her.

Is her heart winning? It’s definitely asserted itself, but I still wonder if she is in love with him or simply the concept of being his girlfriend?

Unfortunately, there are dark undercurrents (reminders of her original scheme to date ShiYan out of vengeance) in this episode that hint storm clouds are gathering on the horizon.

PS- Just finished Ep23, and her guilt and paranoia over her initial motivations continue to grow...the end must be near.

Given this writer's fondness for multiple amnesia arcs....
You don't suppose that we'll see DoRa have all these people (including her mom) back in her life, in alternate roles, much to PS anguish, and then something will happen and the amnesia will relapse and he'll again be faced with the same decisions of what to do with her? Like DoRa is stuck in a time-loop?

For instance: She suddenly realizes who all these people are around her (JD, Mom, etc) and in horror flees the scene, gets into an accident and winds up in the hospital. This time, since the only thing on her is PS's business card, he's the one who's first contacted and he gets another chance at saving her?

I can see this happening....they still have 20+ episodes to go.

Well-put. In one of the discussions above, I said that she was "Ambushed by her feelings" for him. I still think that's pretty accurate. In, I think, Ep 19, she confides to KongNan that at 25, she's not ready for marriage or a relationship and is chafing at her Mom's attempts to fix her up with Prof Yu. I think she's being honest here, and part of her evasive behavior with him is due to her confusion between her heart and mind.

I was thinking of an alternate way they could have written the show, after the impending breakup...not that I have any problem with how it went. Just something different. But I haven't fleshed it out yet. I'm up to Ep 21 now, so I'm rolling merrily along...this show is like my dessert after dinner - I look forward to it, at the end of the day.

When you do, be sure to study Eps 18/19 (New Years Eve & Day). I think these are 2 key episodes in the series. In addition to the New Years Eve Rooftop scene, we get the day-after events at the farm, and their first real kiss.

The whole issue of "their relationship was founded on her desire for revenge" seems odd to me. While it is emphasized more in the novel (and really not even that much), in the series here, it's only used as a motivation for her to approach the Rolls under the premise for borrowing a power-bank to charge her celfone. Once she realizes who he is, the revenge thing is dropped. In Ep 19, at the horse farm on New Year's Day, she has a chance to explain this at the beginning of the episode when he asks her about her motivations for pursuing him. While we know this weighs heavily on her mind, she cannot admit why she first approached him (not knowing who he was) and instead talks about work, which again makes him roll his eyes. When she could have buried all that quickly by being honest in saying my intentions were not that pure initally, i became attracted, etc, etc.... she chose to lie again and hide the truth. But for drama's sake, it had to be this way, otherwise it short-circuits the whole issue with who his niece actually is, and so on.

It's interesting that he's no angel either: he's using his niece to spy on her, essentially. Something that both girls are unaware of. Shu Yi should be equally offended by this, once all the cards are on the table.

So many interesting facets to this drama!

Thank you so much! ShuYi is as fascinating to me as she is frustrating. I can relate to this drama as I had a woman like her in my life, whom I still have very strong feelings for. She too was very intelligent, beautiful, and accomplished in her career, but also had issues with being honest and forthright to the point that unlike in the drama, we were never able to reconcile. So I've learned a lot about life from this drama too and it's made me reflect a lot. There are so many parts of this show I want to comment on, I need to hold it in check here, otherwise I'd be rambling about a series that ended months ago.

I'm at Ep 20, and Shi Yan's ability to overlook her faults in this area, because he's blinded by his love for her, is VERY realistic.

I can't blame the screenwriter....many of the scenes and dialog are lifted directly from the novel, so if they didn't like the book, well, don't watch the series, I'd tell the haters. I do think that if they retained the title from the book "Accidental Love", it might have been better at explaining the story than using something as generic as "Only for Love".

Hit him AGAIN!!!!!

I watched 18 again, and in thinking about it (I think about this series way too much) I think the first time he wished her well in her career on the rooftop was semi-sarcastic to make her think about how dumb that sounded. But the second time, when he dropped her off at her apartment, he was sincere, because he accepted that her career was more important to her than he was. Of course this was reinforced in 19 when they finally kiss without any iphone interruptions, and she pulls away from him. She is clearly not ready for a meaningful relationship with him, despite her fascination with the idea.

Kick your agent in the rear and get a new role! You were one of the few bright spots of The Real Has Come....looking forward to you in a better show.

Just watched Ep 18 (New Year's Eve @ the rooftop restaurant) and it was terrific. When she interrupted his confession with her shout out about her career goals as a New Year's Wish, we could see the air let out of his soul. Dylan's facial expression was perfect in this situation and I could really feel the life fade out of him (the use of the dying sparkler was a perfect way of symbolizing it). Once again, she talked about her career at an inopportune time. And his repeating back to her about wishing her career success as well (twice) afterwards was either his way of saying "do you realize how wrong that was?" or just giving up on them and wishing her well in her endeavors. All this does is reinforce in his mind that his mistrust of her is well-placed and all is not what it seems in their "relationship". He knows she holds her career above all else, including him.

I know she gets a lot of heat, but I feel for ShanShan. She's TRYING her best with advice, but she has very little to work with in ShuYi. ShanShan, in getting the recap of that night's events finally realizes that maybe this relationship is a lost cause and her BFF isn't ready.

New Year's Day, at the horse farm, he's had a chance to stew on it overnight and is definitely not ready to see her again. He's even more confused by her actions and mistrustful of her aims - and the stable scene didn't help at all. "He's like a kite...one moment he's close to me and then he's far away. I don't understand him at all" (Beautifully written BTW). While she isn't wrong, she's made no effort to understand him by connecting the dots of the things she's learned about him . When he holds her tight and nuzzles her (to her shock) he then pinches her cheek to let her know that it wasn't a dream....and walks off. Leaving her to be the puzzled one this time.

And of course the whole point of the episode is, that by the time he finally found the courage to open up to her on the rooftop so they could move beyond the awkwardness, she blew it all away by talking about her career's supremacy in her life.

Sad, but a wonderful episode.

(and BTW the OST for this show is so good!)

He has multiple credits as a doctor that are missing here: It's Beautiful Now (ER Doctor), Bravo My Life 2022 (Neurosurgeon), and at least another I can't remember. Plus the current Beauty & Mr. Romantic (reporter). I submitted these to the Database

Wow. What an amazing series.
I thought it was kind of pointless to leave a review of something 4 years old, but my post here would have been too long, so I left a review anyways (shrug).

Suffice to say, at 8.6 this is under-rated. If you haven't seen it, set aside the 50 hours of your life and enjoy this family's journey. And understand that "family" means more than blood relations.

Maybe, someday, we'll get another weekend series this good, but don't count on it. This was a rare gem.

One thing that does bug me about this series, and it's trivial...is that she gets in and out of the Rolls on her own. And maybe this is how it works in China??? But:

I know Mr. Feng DOES work for ShiYan. And yes, HE should get priority for boarding the car. But by now (Ep 15) Mr. Feng would have pulled her aside and told her politely but in no-uncertain-terms to wait by the door for him to open it for her for both entering and exiting the vehicle. I've known a lot of men like Mr. Feng. Yes, he works for Mr Shi, and the Company probably owns the car, but the Rolls is HIS car, and HE operates it and that includes boarding and exiting passengers.

This ain't Uber, ShuYi: Mr. Feng knows what's going on with you two (most drivers are VERY clued into their employer's lives) and he wouldn't let her act like a taxi passenger. Of course, this will all change when they marry, and she gets boarded first as the 'lady-of-the-house'. But for the time being, wait by the door or wait inside for Mr. Feng to open it for you.