The young leads were adorable and very well played. This is supposed to be a comedy romance? I did not feel much chemistry between the leads, the kids had more on that end. Also: the drama felt at times to try to be more mistery/thriller than comedy/romance.
However these parts lacked depth. Too much storylines did not create enough details.
You summarized my views perfectly! The lack of backstory is something that even Yang Yang complained about during…
Thinking from censorship perspective it makes sense.
Song Yan smoked - we were told - he apparently got even Xu Qin to smoke. However we only really see Xu Qin tell Song Yan to never smoke again. Song Yan is supposed to be in a lot of fights, Xu Qin is supposedly inticing fights.
We do not really see the bad guy Song Yan was supposed to be. We are being told.
This could be a censorship thing depending on what they actually To be honest: given Xu Qin's character I did not really expect much "romance" in high school. Given both their personalities it would have made sense if Song Yan is just nice to her, makes her laugh and happy. A free life where she can "see the world" outside of her cage. On the other side Xu Qin showing complete loyalty + trust in Song Yan and being happy with him.
Showing these kind of moments might be enough to understand how the story of these too started. If the director really made "romantic" scenes in high school while fully aware about the censorship: this would just not be very smart to try this for this kind of drama.
I liked the drama more than I thought I would. Its a little bit too slow burn, but this makes sense given their history.
The mother is bad, makes mistakes - however she is not evil. She has a screw lose and does not reflect on herself - probably because of her own upbringing.
FLs brother - while it felt a little creepy at times - just lives in a dark place where "a ray of sunlight came in" in form of his sister. He does not want to be alone in this darkness and he has no idea how to break out of it. It is a rather fascinating portrayal of a family. There have been similar dramas to this end, however this one makes it feel realistic.
The supporting cast with hinted romance could be more on-screen to give this drama a little more room. At least Jiang Yu would have been a nice on-screen development.
The only downside this drama created: the lack of backstory and how long it takes for the insufficient backstory to be revealed. It's not enough explained how ML and FL fell in love and how deep their love grew in high school. We do not really understand why these two lovebirds could not move on after 10 years. Why did Song Yan fall in love with Xu Qin? How deep was his affection? What small and big things did Song Yan do for Xu Qin that she created this deep connection?
Working with flashbacks was a nice setting, however it was not enough to showcase this deep bond.
All in all I liked the drama. The acting was great from everybody involved.
Why is it such a high rating? It seems like your typical Cdrama with the average 7.5 to 8.5. What makes this so…
It's a non-nonsense romance drama with some fluff, some heartache and some fun.
First: the pairing is special because both ZLS and CZY are VERY good facial expression actors. They do not just look good and look good together, they both can bring out their emotions through their eyes. I do not know many actor pairings with a similar vibe and versatility (e.g. I liked ZLS with Yang Yang, but together with CZY: completely new level!). The pairing of these two just feels right.
The story/writing is great. This drama manages to explain to us, subtly, how Sang Zhi fell in love with Jia Xu. From admiration to "puppy love" to actual love. This is beatifully told and most importantly: it feels realistic. Other drama with similar settings rarely get us to understand why they fell in love or why they did not fall out of love (because something stupid happened). Sang Zhi and Jia Xu communicate with each other, although their are misunderstandings, these are cleared up as soon as possible! They do not want the other to misunderstand a situation.
In this drama are one of the best parents - in my opinion - in cdrama or drama in general. Their portrayal is realistic and very mature. There isn't any over the top parenting but parents who care for their children and most importantly they guide their children (instead of "making them do anything they want") while supporting them unconditionally - even while they make mistakes ! FYI: they do not have much screentime but everytime they make an impact ! Kudos to the actors !
I liked the drama, the couple were great together. However the ending I did not understand. Can someone explain?
She became his Dragon Heart Scale again, however she also seemed to be the light to purge the dark energy.
Did he find her reincarnation? That would make her 14 years old? Does she have her memories? Or did he find her after she reassembled herself? Where or what was she exactly or how did she survive?
They break up in 18, back together in 20. TML stops being a creep around episode 30-31. But XL shuts him down…
I completely agree however the concept of protecting her seems to fit his actions about not telling her about the illness of JSC.
Don't forget: Zang Qiu (ok, medically not at liberty to say anything about it) and Han Fang knew about his injury as well and did not say anything. Same goes for JSC's grandfather.
A lot of people actually knew about it and nobody felt it was necessary to tell her her.
Also: while Huo was visiting JSC, JSC did not fight for her, rather he seemed like he gave up completely. To me his reaction was somewhat understanding. He could have completely ignored him or maybe try even harder after they broke up to keep them apart. Compared to other 2MLs he can be described as "harmless"
They break up in 18, back together in 20. TML stops being a creep around episode 30-31. But XL shuts him down…
To be fair, FL finds out about his feelings at around episode 14 and shuts him down immediately. Before that I did find him a little creepy, however after that it went down a notch. The time he tried to hang out with him felt more like a period of him learning little by little that he stands no chance.
It heated up a little during ML and FL breakup from 18 to 20, but not to a point where he became creepy again or went completely over the line.
At episode 29 he completely gives up but at that point - honestly - it did not even feel like he really liked the FL. His actions felt more like an obligation or that he was used to it - at least to me.
Why she chose to hide his son was just a lame excuse. It's because when they broke up, he said to her i don't…
You are correct, but: The ML did make a comment at one point, that he did not want to have kids because of his condition which is hereditary. This was something she knew 5 years ago, as their conversation revealed. After she found out she was pregnant she might also had reservations to tell him because he might try to push her to an abortion - especially since they had a falling out at that time.
Was that the right decision? No. But would anybody after that decision call up the father and tell him "hey, I had your son" - I do not believe there are a lot of women who would make this decision.
Especially since their was risk of getting taken away your child. In the long run she seems to have made the right decision. What did Cindy say? "Yes I believe she did such a great job taking care of him, we should not take him away from her" By that definition, after birth, while the mother had not much of a chance to take care of her son, Cindy and their family might try to get custody ?
Now back to the current time: After ML finds out, the FL does try to hold him back, not knowing how the father would react to their child and a possible custody issue. That's actually warranted and expected of a good mother. As soon as FL realizes that ML cares for the son, she lets him be part of his life.
Even after she found the documents of a possible custody battle, she did not completely deny him access to the child. She did try to prevent the overshadowing present showers for the son from the ML, because she was afraid that would make her son waver and possibly leave her. Immediately after she kicked him out of the house she even told QuanQuan "Of course you can meet him in the future"
The essance of your assesment is right. ML did have for more reason to have trust issues to the FL. However I do not think that the FL was wrong to feel fear of losing her child either.
Overall I liked how they portrayed this, otherwise it would have been completely unrealistic and the way they worked through their issues was nice to see.
Totally get that! I'm the same, only now just getting back into cdramas after Meet Yourself and this drama! Both…
Falling into You (2022) Sports- and Noona-Romance drama To Fly With You - Sportsdrama but youth-based Falling into Your Smile - Sportsdrama (well, e-sports but it counts :D ) Reset (Thriller, Mistery with little romance). completely different but very good There are other healthy and or very nice C-Drama besides the obvious wuxia drama (Legally Romance, Lighter & Princess, Fall in Love, Forever Love, Love Me If You Dare, Go Ahead, GO into Your Heart)
True this aspect made it unreal.. i play tennis myself and yes we can play badminton too but footwork and strokes…
Well he did learn and play tennis at a young age. So he most likely learned early the handles and grip of the the tennis racket. That is also the most important part where badminton players (I was one myself) can really injure themselves because the difference on playing with your wrist If you learn both, especially at a young age, you can adapt between playing tennis and badminton - however it is not easy
Footwork is completly different which makes this transition almost impossible. However there are very rare cases. I have an acquaintance who swtiched between different sports in his 20s and 30s (badminton, bowling, football) and he was able to compete in each sport at professional or almost professional level. There are those kind of freak athletes out their^^
Still - on high professional level it is very unlikely to happen in real life.
I finished the show and I am very satisfied with the overall story. The chemistry of the leads is amazing - another great drama for Zhang Jing Yi after Fall in Love. They both really brought their characters to life and portrayed them perfectly. I really liked the mature vibe of this Youth drama.
Most of the supporting cast were nice but to me neither outstanding nor memorable. Probably because most of the drama is about the main leads and they have a lot of screentime (well deserved!) But that gives us plain supporting characters which I cannot be invested in. Gao Jian Hong was the only one which had enough story revealed to understand his actions - however misguieded and bad they were.
All in all a very good drama which atm is very hard to rate for me
Finished the show. First: I did not like it. Why is there even a Romance Tag on this Show? Other drama have more romance without a romance tag. There is basically no romance - they care for each other and make it more or less clear . But the mission comes first and basically in the military they cannot start a relationship. They do have chemistry but compared to other shows that are not heavy romance related it cannot compare.
The story: I don't get why this show is called "Operation: Special Warfare". "Trainingcamp: Special Warfare" would be a far better title. Basically 32 episodes are about Trainingcamp and 3 episodes are actually there mission. They have chance encounters here and there but that cannot be an excuse
The acting is ok, nothing great, some better than others. But I did not feel any real emotion towards FL. The story is very weird a lot of times. On one hand they claim in this show that china has reached a very high warfare technology level but on the other hand they cannot prove that a very obvious to the naked eye photoshopped picture is photoshopped ? :D CGI was not really great either.
The fact that Yang Shu was at any point considered as the team leader is a joke (by the company, not herself - I can understand she thinks that) and completely unrealistic. The fact that they made it seem that the Special Forces don't train that much ... I do not think that was their intention XD
Funny thing: everybody got stronger on this show, especially the women. However none of them felt like that because they did not put on more muscle and they did not lose fat. Sorry, if 9/10 of your show showcases hard training, at least make the actors look depart.
The bad guys did not have any charisma whatsoever. Another funny thing: when bad guys plant explosives on a road, they leave the middle of the road empty of all explosives and only put it left and right of the street. otherwise it would be too hard for the good guys :D
The young leads were adorable and very well played.
This is supposed to be a comedy romance?
I did not feel much chemistry between the leads, the kids had more on that end.
Also: the drama felt at times to try to be more mistery/thriller than comedy/romance.
However these parts lacked depth. Too much storylines did not create enough details.
Overall I don't get the high rating
Song Yan smoked - we were told - he apparently got even Xu Qin to smoke.
However we only really see Xu Qin tell Song Yan to never smoke again.
Song Yan is supposed to be in a lot of fights, Xu Qin is supposedly inticing fights.
We do not really see the bad guy Song Yan was supposed to be.
We are being told.
This could be a censorship thing depending on what they actually
To be honest: given Xu Qin's character I did not really expect much "romance" in high school.
Given both their personalities it would have made sense if Song Yan is just nice to her, makes her laugh and happy. A free life where she can "see the world" outside of her cage.
On the other side Xu Qin showing complete loyalty + trust in Song Yan and being happy with him.
Showing these kind of moments might be enough to understand how the story of these too started.
If the director really made "romantic" scenes in high school while fully aware about the censorship: this would just not be very smart to try this for this kind of drama.
Its a little bit too slow burn, but this makes sense given their history.
The mother is bad, makes mistakes - however she is not evil.
She has a screw lose and does not reflect on herself - probably because of her own upbringing.
FLs brother - while it felt a little creepy at times - just lives in a dark place where "a ray of sunlight came in" in form of his sister. He does not want to be alone in this darkness and he has no idea how to break out of it. It is a rather fascinating portrayal of a family.
There have been similar dramas to this end, however this one makes it feel realistic.
The supporting cast with hinted romance could be more on-screen to give this drama a little more room.
At least Jiang Yu would have been a nice on-screen development.
The only downside this drama created: the lack of backstory and how long it takes for the insufficient backstory to be revealed.
It's not enough explained how ML and FL fell in love and how deep their love grew in high school.
We do not really understand why these two lovebirds could not move on after 10 years.
Why did Song Yan fall in love with Xu Qin? How deep was his affection? What small and big things did Song Yan do for Xu Qin that she created this deep connection?
Working with flashbacks was a nice setting, however it was not enough to showcase this deep bond.
All in all I liked the drama. The acting was great from everybody involved.
First: the pairing is special because both ZLS and CZY are VERY good facial expression actors. They do not just look good and look good together, they both can bring out their emotions through their eyes.
I do not know many actor pairings with a similar vibe and versatility (e.g. I liked ZLS with Yang Yang, but together with CZY: completely new level!).
The pairing of these two just feels right.
The story/writing is great.
This drama manages to explain to us, subtly, how Sang Zhi fell in love with Jia Xu.
From admiration to "puppy love" to actual love. This is beatifully told and most importantly:
it feels realistic.
Other drama with similar settings rarely get us to understand why they fell in love or why they did not fall out of love (because something stupid happened).
Sang Zhi and Jia Xu communicate with each other, although their are misunderstandings, these are cleared up as soon as possible!
They do not want the other to misunderstand a situation.
In this drama are one of the best parents - in my opinion - in cdrama or drama in general.
Their portrayal is realistic and very mature.
There isn't any over the top parenting but parents who care for their children and most importantly they guide their children (instead of "making them do anything they want") while supporting them unconditionally - even while they make mistakes !
FYI: they do not have much screentime but everytime they make an impact ! Kudos to the actors !
However the ending I did not understand. Can someone explain?
She became his Dragon Heart Scale again, however she also seemed to be the light to purge the dark energy.
Did he find her reincarnation? That would make her 14 years old? Does she have her memories? Or did he find her after she reassembled herself? Where or what was she exactly or how did she survive?
Don't forget: Zang Qiu (ok, medically not at liberty to say anything about it) and Han Fang knew about his injury as well and did not say anything.
Same goes for JSC's grandfather.
A lot of people actually knew about it and nobody felt it was necessary to tell her her.
Also: while Huo was visiting JSC, JSC did not fight for her, rather he seemed like he gave up completely. To me his reaction was somewhat understanding. He could have completely ignored him or maybe try even harder after they broke up to keep them apart.
Compared to other 2MLs he can be described as "harmless"
The time he tried to hang out with him felt more like a period of him learning little by little that he stands no chance.
It heated up a little during ML and FL breakup from 18 to 20, but not to a point where he became creepy again or went completely over the line.
At episode 29 he completely gives up but at that point - honestly - it did not even feel like he really liked the FL. His actions felt more like an obligation or that he was used to it - at least to me.
at the end of episode 5 they start their "contract marriage"
The ML did make a comment at one point, that he did not want to have kids because of his condition which is hereditary.
This was something she knew 5 years ago, as their conversation revealed.
After she found out she was pregnant she might also had reservations to tell him because he might try to push her to an abortion - especially since they had a falling out at that time.
Was that the right decision? No. But would anybody after that decision call up the father and tell him "hey, I had your son" - I do not believe there are a lot of women who would make this decision.
Especially since their was risk of getting taken away your child.
In the long run she seems to have made the right decision.
What did Cindy say? "Yes I believe she did such a great job taking care of him, we should not take him away from her"
By that definition, after birth, while the mother had not much of a chance to take care of her son, Cindy and their family might try to get custody ?
Now back to the current time:
After ML finds out, the FL does try to hold him back, not knowing how the father would react to their child and a possible custody issue.
That's actually warranted and expected of a good mother.
As soon as FL realizes that ML cares for the son, she lets him be part of his life.
Even after she found the documents of a possible custody battle, she did not completely deny him access to the child. She did try to prevent the overshadowing present showers for the son from the ML, because she was afraid that would make her son waver and possibly leave her.
Immediately after she kicked him out of the house she even told QuanQuan "Of course you can meet him in the future"
The essance of your assesment is right. ML did have for more reason to have trust issues to the FL.
However I do not think that the FL was wrong to feel fear of losing her child either.
Overall I liked how they portrayed this, otherwise it would have been completely unrealistic and the way they worked through their issues was nice to see.
To Fly With You - Sportsdrama but youth-based
Falling into Your Smile - Sportsdrama (well, e-sports but it counts :D )
Reset (Thriller, Mistery with little romance). completely different but very good
There are other healthy and or very nice C-Drama besides the obvious wuxia drama (Legally Romance, Lighter & Princess, Fall in Love, Forever Love, Love Me If You Dare, Go Ahead, GO into Your Heart)
It depends on your prefernces
That is also the most important part where badminton players (I was one myself) can really injure themselves because the difference on playing with your wrist
If you learn both, especially at a young age, you can adapt between playing tennis and badminton - however it is not easy
Footwork is completly different which makes this transition almost impossible.
However there are very rare cases.
I have an acquaintance who swtiched between different sports in his 20s and 30s (badminton, bowling, football) and he was able to compete in each sport at professional or almost professional level.
There are those kind of freak athletes out their^^
Still - on high professional level it is very unlikely to happen in real life.
The chemistry of the leads is amazing - another great drama for Zhang Jing Yi after Fall in Love.
They both really brought their characters to life and portrayed them perfectly.
I really liked the mature vibe of this Youth drama.
Most of the supporting cast were nice but to me neither outstanding nor memorable.
Probably because most of the drama is about the main leads and they have a lot of screentime (well deserved!)
But that gives us plain supporting characters which I cannot be invested in.
Gao Jian Hong was the only one which had enough story revealed to understand his actions - however misguieded and bad they were.
All in all a very good drama which atm is very hard to rate for me
First: I did not like it.
Why is there even a Romance Tag on this Show? Other drama have more romance without a romance tag.
There is basically no romance - they care for each other and make it more or less clear .
But the mission comes first and basically in the military they cannot start a relationship.
They do have chemistry but compared to other shows that are not heavy romance related it cannot compare.
The story: I don't get why this show is called "Operation: Special Warfare".
"Trainingcamp: Special Warfare" would be a far better title. Basically 32 episodes are about Trainingcamp and 3 episodes are actually there mission.
They have chance encounters here and there but that cannot be an excuse
The acting is ok, nothing great, some better than others.
But I did not feel any real emotion towards FL.
The story is very weird a lot of times.
On one hand they claim in this show that china has reached a very high warfare technology level but on the other hand they cannot prove that a very obvious to the naked eye photoshopped picture is photoshopped ? :D
CGI was not really great either.
The fact that Yang Shu was at any point considered as the team leader is a joke (by the company, not herself - I can understand she thinks that) and completely unrealistic.
The fact that they made it seem that the Special Forces don't train that much ... I do not think that was their intention XD
Funny thing: everybody got stronger on this show, especially the women.
However none of them felt like that because they did not put on more muscle and they did not lose fat. Sorry, if 9/10 of your show showcases hard training, at least make the actors look depart.
The bad guys did not have any charisma whatsoever.
Another funny thing: when bad guys plant explosives on a road, they leave the middle of the road empty of all explosives and only put it left and right of the street. otherwise it would be too hard for the good guys :D
Well overall I am rating this show at 5