Meese

The Lin Sui/Jin Zhao relationship is very cute 🤣

Adopted siblings. He is the son of the father’s friend who died and the father took him in. They were separated for years prior to reuniting after the parents divorced. They did still grow up together (though based on how they were raised, you could see it more as sibling like or close friends). I would say if adopted siblings in general makes you uncomfortable, this might not be the show for you.

There’s a bunch of BTS videos of different scenes that were cutout there. There’s a thread above with Reuters of some of these deleted scenes if you want to check them out.

If you’ve enjoyed it for the most part so far, I would recommend making it to episodes 19/20 and see what you think in terms of where the plot goes. That way, you at least finish up the Thailand arc since you’re close to that point. I think you get a good idea of where the story will go from there to make a judgement on whether to finish it.

Thai Sweet is 12 episodes but unfortunately He Yu had to leave in episode 6. I’m not sure why but I’ve seen a couple mentions of family emergency. More of the cast plus Zhang Bichen (sings the ending credits) join YSX and Mike in his place for the last 6 episodes.

If that's true, props to the people that picked out the OST BGM because it's a pretty great selection overall. The music definitely added to the story overall.

Yeah, I was also worried the breakup would be dragged out too, but I thought it was fairly reasonable overall in terms of length and there was still plenty of time afterwards to get in a lot of couple-y stuff.

Does anyone know if the SAL background music is unique to just SAL or are they all general snippets other shows/movies have used before?

Yeah, if not for the cast and fans, it really seems like there would not be much outside of billboards and Thai Sweet (which the cast were the ones who seemed like planned a lot of it).

Thanks. I was confused for a sec because I was like what promo and where can I watch it lol.

Is this sarcasm or did they do more promo than I was aware?

I think it was supposed to be 6 years (that's what it was in the novel too) but the editing/subtitles got messy and confusing.

Now that this drama points it out, I sort of like how that was brought up. Like you, I never thought of how pushing away a loved one "for their own good" could actually have them end up with someone who wouldn't care about them as much and still leave them in a toxic situation. I like that JM was the one who recognized that and brought it up.

Whenever I hear the OST, I get so many flashbacks to moments of the show. The OST really captures a lot of the feelings from SAL.

I agree Esther can come across as “wooden” in some scenes in the beginning, but she improves in the second half with showing more range imo. She definitely has room to continue growing, but I do think you get a peak into her growing as an actress later on.

In terms of the beginning, when you sort of reflect back on JM, I think there were some issues with the script when it came to her character for what exactly she was doing there. I don’t think the reason translated well. YSX said something along the lines the director told her JM was almost immediately attracted to JZ but I think you would still have expected them to be a bit awkward with one another after not seeing each other for years while also jumping right into a more dangerous situation. I don’t know, I was confused, I’m convinced the script writer was confused on how they should initially act, so I can see where YSX would be confused with what exactly JM should be like in the beginning because you have this more playful character who is supposedly instantly attracted to her her long lost childhood brother/friend figure who shows up beat up and won’t answer questions and then you’re in car and motorcycle chases. It’s a lot.

I agree though, I would have liked for JM to have come right off the bat as a bit more saucy. I don’t know how that would have played out exactly with all the chase scenes and seeing a guy after like a decade, but I think that would have let her do better in those beginning scenes and establish more of JM’s personality right off the bat.

The promo in general just felt so weird to me where they randomly dropped it without an official start date originally and had Thai Sweet in the queue already but it is missing HY for half the episodes and then it's mainly just livestreams and TT snippets to promote the show in addition to billboards which as an international fan, I can't appreciate.

I wonder if YSX and HY didn't both have dramas that are supposed to start filming soon if they would have done some shows together.

I WISH 😭😭😭

As primarily an Esther variety fan, that was one of the things I was looking forward to the most for SAL. The livestreams and Thai Sweet made me want that even more because of how much fun the SAL cast seems to have with one another.

The North American audience was exactly who I was thinking in terms of it doing well on Netflix. I mentioned it in a previous comment, but I see a lot of parallels to other shows/movies/books that have done well in NA which makes me think this could do really well on Netflix.

LOL. The more I think about it, I can see more parallels to TSITP from the growing up together to not seeing each other (granted, in TSITP, it was for less than a year and it's family friends vs adopted siblings) and then having that yearning back and forth coupled with the coming of age plot/couple goes through a period of separation due to the guy pushing her away due to a personal tragedy. This is like the more action packed version, edgy version of TSITP.

And yeah, I also feel like the show is doing well on TT. That's interesting about the hashtag comparisons. I think the one benefit of the choppy editing and very loose plot is that this show just feels like it can be told via TT. There's some really great edits out there that capture the feel of the story really well and a lot of scenes that are great little snippets.

I was shocked at how there are multiple C actors/actresses that have 3-4 shows that came out this year. I understand there can be delays due to the censorship review process, but that's SO much content in a short period of time.