This review may contain spoilers
Live up to disappointment
From the synopsis and even the trailer, you'd think this would be a drama about people going to Beijing to follow their dreams. And in retrospect, it did start off that way in the first quarter of the drama. So of course, I was intrigued. I wasn't expecting them to all to actually get their dream bby the end of the drama but I was fully content with watching their drive and the motivation the characters had to reach it. But unfortunately, the writer didn't have the same idea as me.Throughout the drama, there was a common theme that became redundant and ridiculous after a while. One of the characters would get a chance to live out their dream, be it singing, acting, writing....and the writer would snatch it away and then repeat the same thing over a few episodes later. It's like letting the characters get a taste of success and then stripping it from them to prolong the story. It made it so the characters would do jobs outside of their ideal profession to earn money. That's understandable but after a while I started to notice that it was steering away from the core reason of them coming to Beijing in the first place and the premise of the story was diminishing from my eyes. But I don't even know why I was surprised because they jumped the shark numerous times with all the gang violence that didn't even fit the scope of the drama at all.
This next part is a spoiler and why I hate this drama and would never recommend it to anyone. So, don't read the next part if you don't care for spoilers.
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The way the screenwriter wrote Jelly Lin's character and the 2ML's characters to be miserable was infuriating. Those two were the happiest at the start of the drama and became miserable by the middle and had the worst ending possible. Jelly Lin's character out of everyone grinded the hardest to reach her dream as an actress. We watched her get her second fl taken away from her then she got the third FL role and that was taken from her as well. Then the writer had her sleep with an investor to get acting jobs, the same investor (an old disgusting guy) ended up getting her pregnant, she had to quit acting because of the disgust she was getting from her costars and special treatment she got from production, her mother disowned her; until finally she got some semblence of happiness when she married the guy who always loved her (2ML), they moved to Paris, and a couple of years passed and they were happy and in love only for the writer to give her husband a tumor and six months to live.
As one would expect. Her husband died, and she ended up alone in Paris for 20 years until coming back to China. And what makes it even crazier is that the ML actually got to become a screenwriter (He was the only one out six that got his dream) and produce movies, but somehow getting Jelly Lin's character to be an actress in one of his movies wasn't an option? Even in the drama the ML said if his scripts where able to beome movies or dramas that he'd cast her and that never happened. I'm so annoyed.
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Disregard the Low Rating. It's worth the watch.
I thoroughly enjoyed this drama. Was it perfect? No. There were numerous plot holes, a weak mystery plotline and there were pacing issues. But overall I think this drama delivered exactly what it intended to do.It made me laugh so much in the first half that I had to go back and rewatch some scenes before watching the last two episodes. Xu Lu and Ceaser Wu are great comedic actors and the chemistry between them was really good. For a comedy, I didn't expect so much romance. This drama most likely wouldn't have been so great if these two weren't the leads.
I enjoyed the second couple as well. The 2ML was a complete bimbo. But he was cute and the chemistry between him and the 2FL was adorable. I never got tired of their scenes. The ending credits with them at the end wearing the XO hoods was one of my favorites (you'll have to watch the drama to understand the symbolism behind the X & 0)
This show gets a 9/10 for me. I highly recommend anyone who likes a good laugh with a nice dose of romance to watch.
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Started with a bang and ended with a simmer
The first half was a perfect ten for me but it started to lose it's appeal after a time for a few reasons.The Bad
*The FL was literally and figuratively stuck in the past. I can't tell you the amount of times the FL could be hanging out with her friends and instead of getting to know the 30 year old version of them, she'd mention the past and que a flashback would ensue.
*I bought the romance between the leads when they were teenagers but during the present timeline I didn't see it. The FL was in love with childhood version of the ML and you can't tell me otherwise. It also didn't help that she had more chemistry with the writer guy.
*Too many flashbacks. I didn't mind it at first because I though it'd end at a certain point or they would start to show us only important scenes from the past that would be relevant to the plot. Some of the flashbacks weren't needed and because that I don't even think I got to know the thirty year old version of some of them.
*Out of all the friends I only found Yi Fei and Guan Chao's story to be interesting. But surprise, surprise. They had the least amount of screentime.
The Good
*The Friendship felt believable and sincere. I saw multiple interviews were the cast said they spent time together; outside of filming and it shows.
*The Ost was beautiful. Especially the opening and ending song.
*The acting. There were a few hard scenes in this drama and thankfully the actors in the drama were strong enough to deliver.
Even though it seems like the bad outweighs the good in my evaluation. I will admit that this drama isn't bad and I don't regret having watched it. It's just the fact that it started at a ten in my book only to disappoint me in the second half with some of the writers decisions in the script.
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