Meese

I'm pretty sure they met on that terrace if that's what you're referring to and that was the official "break up", but they made it confusing having it split between multiple flashbacks.

Same. It’s so nice to me to see male/female friendships in the entertainment industry in general. SAL even showed she has remained friends with Mike from working together back in 2019 and it really did seem like the SaL cast got along well.

Him proceeding to sing Happy Birthday while finding all sorts of angles to cover his mouth and laughing 🤣

I noticed they seemed to share a similar sense of humor pretty early on in the promos and it was adorable. Yet another reason I’m annoyed they didn’t do HI6-I think Esther does a pretty good job making her costars comfortable on variety shows so that should have been a fun show.

There's a lot of us in the same boat here so I don't know if we will be very helpful for that 🤣

Is it normal for most CDramas to have some form of merch? It seems weird if merch is normal, why would IQIYI just say nah, we're good on missing out on potential profit from merch? Keychain replicas in particular seem like they would be an easy thing to make and sell.

Can you imagine if they didn't do Thai Sweet? I think that filmed in November, so that was a last minute thing too and it did give the actors played a big role in planning a lot of that.

I will be curious for sure.

I agree that I was also a bit disappointed that they didn't seem to utilize JM's character as well as they could have, and I especially agree about the friends/family part since Nana sort of disappeared soon after they got together and the family was portrayed as lying to her on behalf of JZ. She sort of just had Pan Kai after the accident who didn't lie to her. I think they could have done a bit more with her relationship with her father or even her fighting or driving/navigator skills potentially to give her more depth/character outside of JZ, but my understanding is that the novel itself is more male centered. They did cram a lot into 29 episodes, so maybe if they did have a couple more episodes, they could have done some more character development in the beginning.

I think potentially delving more into her relationship with her father could have helped and then they could have also shown the part in the novel where the father also told JZ to stay away during the six years, but I don't know if they thought that could get weird with the whole adopted siblings aspect. Either way, I would have preferred if they had also included the father also telling JZ to stay away instead of having it be JZ's decision for the friends and family to lie to her.

When I put the show in the perspective that it is more male centered (as in the male is more the focus of the show), I can appreciate JM's character arc they portrayed more, especially when I contrast it with JZ's personality. She is the light to JZ's darkness and her love which is also her strength is more gentle yet steadfast compared to JZ's fierce yet hesitant love. He is more action oriented support while she is more the emotional support that is shown via more subtle actions like the drifting heart and finding a way for him to fix his car. I also think showing how she pursued a career in academia also showed her development and why I don't mind the separation as much because they were both able to grow away from one another - the separation reaffirmed they were each other's end game while allowing them to sort of set up their own lives.

If it does help though, I've read comments by a couple novel readers that the JM in the show is a lot less annoying and more capable than in the novel, so there was some attempt to make her more independent.

Does anyone know if perhaps the plotline of adopted siblings would have made it where they wouldn't promote the drama heavily in China even if YSX didn't have all the issues she had last year?

Yeah, that's how I mostly viewed it. The person asked for no spoilers so that's why I said just raised in the same household for awhile since I wasn't sure if that would be a spoiler.

I am wondering with the cold market in China if networks will look to pull in more international audiences to try to fill in some of the gap of potential lost revenue. Someone mentioned SAL being IQIYI's show to get more of an international audience and it seems to have been a success in that regards.

They are not siblings; technically they are adopted siblings but they were separated for quite awhile. He is the son of the dad's friend who died and got taken in by the dad. He was technically "adopted" in the family when she was born and they were raised in the same household for awhile but separated for quite awhile before reuniting. Hope that helps!

That's good to hear about SIL. I followed along on Reddit since I'm not connected directly to Chinese SM and it sounded like people were using the lower number of views against Esther in the start of the hate campaigns earlier this year and it sort of spiraled from there. I'm glad to hear it still did decent for Youku.

Yep, I'm pretty sure SIL was an example of where Esther being first billing was used against her when it didn't do great views wise. What I've learned about C-Ent is that people are so quick to say X, Y, Z were the stars of the show over the first billing, but it's the first billing that's pulling in the funding and relied on for the attention. That's why I feel for Esther who has a decent number of first billings under her because if a drama "flops", people pile on her. If it's a success, people still pile on her because they think someone else did better when she is the one putting her name out on the line for the drama.

I don't really like when people nitpick in general the first billing - the way I see it, they are the ones who are helping provide a platform for up and comers to show what they can do which should be a good thing; instead, people seem to love to tear down a lead if they think someone else did better. Investors aren't dumb - they choose first billing for a reason and (I mean this well intentioned) it's not necessarily because a person is the best of the best. EVERYONE, especially with idol dramas, has room to grow.

As a general note, I will be interested to track the number of new dramas that will be coming out and how many projects people will have, particularly as top billing. I'm wondering if you will get more occurrences like what is happening with HMH where he had 4 dramas air this year with 2 of them overlapping where investors just want to use big names, reducing opportunities for lesser known/not established names.

That is one of the reason why I get excited when YSX has a new drama - what will she be able to have her ML dance to this time 🤣🤣🤣. I also think it's cute because they usually end up doing a cover of one of her songs which is a nice gesture to her.

I think what annoys me for those sort of comments is that it seems like her ML's tend to respect Esther and give her credit for the work they put out together, yet it's so common for people to just hate on her or uplift the guy while bashing her and not giving her any credit for the drama when it is successful. There are definitely dramas out there with talented actors yet the chemistry just isn't there because at the end of the day, it does take two people to create chemistry and the overall story of a ROMANCE drama.

With how much hype he has around him right now, they would be dumb to not care about him moving forward.

Him learning the dance to Esther's song in Thai Sweet episode 6 was one of my favorite things. He took it so seriously.

I will forever love they created a mini pop group with a choreographed number with 3 former idols and He Yu who I think got a crash course in dancing this year from the group 🤣