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Thoughtful crime drama with a splash of romance
I looked this one up because I like three of the main actors (FL, ML, ML's sidekick ZiCheng). I was not disappointed.The first episode scared me a bit with the "Chinese physics" problems (accidental kisses), but then it settled and became a good crime drama. There's an underlying mystery surrounding her memory -- we get a few clues now & then until about episode 30, then the remaining episodes really focus in on solving that problem. The first 30 episodes they work on solving other crimes... there was a bit of a sense of Scheherazade, in that you'd be half way through solving one crime, and get some interesting leads towards a second crime.
The best part of the crime solving was that they walked you through the logic: if A is true, and B is possible, then we should think about C. It always walked you through their thinking. This could be considered a "cerebral" crime drama, in that it's much more on the discussion of the logic than on running around with shooting, car chases, and explosions.
It's worth a rewatch because there are clues you get in one episode that you don't notice until a few episodes later when it gets raised. Lots of "oh... yeah..." moments.
The main romance was very slow after episode 1. It was a believable progression, but it's a very thin layer on top of the police work. The secondary romance felt kind of forced.
GuJing's chemistry with the two guys (YiXiu and ZiCheng) was good, but not at the amazing level of to Dr. Qin.
Dislikes
* Tang Yi Xiu's interrogations got annoying. He gets upset quickly.
* A few too many of the same flashbacks -- sure, FL's recovering her memory, but we don't need to see the entirety of every flashback every time
* Ah Zi started off interesting -- stereotypical Chinese giggly girl, but with a very cool interesting layer of capability underneath... but then shifted to a bit too dumb for her own good
As of Feb 2021, I found English subs through episode 26, then shifted to French subs for the rest. (My Chinese is good, but not for crime terms.) French subs did the song lyrics too.
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Distorted view of gender bender
The story is supposed to be a romance between a rich playboy and a tomboy, where he's questioning his gender identity. It doesn't work, and leads to severe gaslighting -- teaching girls that it's not OK to dress like a boy. Everyone knows she's a girl, and there are lots of open comments to that effect. He gets freaked out that he's attracted to a girl who doesn't like to wear dresses. It's creepy and bad teaching.ML is weirdly empty, FL is good. 2ML is the strangest "nice guy" I've ever seen.
I haven't seen the original Korean.
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Unremarkable
Standard romcom story contract marriage to love, but in 5-minute episodes. He's engaged for business-finance reasons, and falls for FL first so does what he can to dodge the engagement. She has a real suitor that she's not interested in.Nothing remarkable about their acting. A few amusing scenes as she tries to ditch the various blind dates her mother sets up for her. Her mother was completely unexpected; absolutely the most memorable character. Episodes were so short there was nothing unnecessary or annoying. Despite short episodes, there were no weird gaps in the story.
Sound dubbing was weird in the version I saw -- you'd get about a minute or 1:30 with no sound at all. Auto-generated subtitles.
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The FL was cold, but didn't give me a "capable" sense -- she worked crazy hours, but I never felt like she was taking the world by storm. Her interactions with her uncle were particularly lame. The ML was not the warm-bubbly type, but just sort of there. They set him up with a weird disability that I've never heard of, but then we only hear about it perhaps twice again. The chemistry between FL+ML was good while negative/hate, but then suddenly shifted without much warning into CP. I had to blink and rewind... I hadn't seen any clues that either was falling for the other.
The 2ML and 2FL were a great couple. Laugh-out-loud funny.
The first few episodes were much more focussed on comedy. Despite story-line problems, I was really enjoying how silly it was. Best scene: when the ML's home becomes a "for-the-experience" restaurant. That faded in later episodes, and I was watching simply because the series was so short.
The last episode is a left turn out of nowhere. Neither necessary, nor explained. It was a head-spinner. At least it didn't destroy the rest of the show.
Pacing was strange. Sometimes strangely fast (e.g. switch to CP), sometimes strangely slow... like 10 minutes of music and people running around looking for something.
Acting was not memorable -- neither bad nor good. FL lead's crying was better than many other female actresses.
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Good story + acting, but directors watered down WeiWei
I really enjoyed the basic plot of meeting in the online game (first third of episodes), leading to a real relationship (second third), with the business aspects of the gaming industry (last third). Good chemistry between the leads, and between the four guys (Xiao Nai and roommates). I liked the way they constructed some of the lessons about reasonable behaviour, for example when FL WeiWei explains "love" to SML Cao Guang.All of the characters were very stereotypical and pretty one-dimensional with no real character growth. Since there were so many characters, that was mostly OK.
The movie version of LoveO2O handled WeiWei's character MUCH more effectively. In the TV serial, she is an empty shadow that is hard to respect. (I think the actress did a good job, but the script & directors failed.)
Loved the visual presentation of the game. I would probably enjoy playing it. Music was very repetitive / annoying... almost anime... enough so that the non-watchers in my household knew what scenes were the romantic scenes and what were the busy/work scenes.
I found myself rewatching a lot of the early episodes, because of the game graphics, the relationship development, and details like the YuGong's failures when he used idioms. Subtitles were excellent, even the idioms, for example YuGong's idiom mistake 暗度仓库 (an du cang ku = hidden warehouse) which should have been 暗度陈仓 (an du chen cang = secret liason) was translated as "eating the forbidden brew" and "eating the forbidden fruit" respectively.
DISLIKES
* Kiss scenes. She looks downright terrified in almost every kiss scene (even the one where she's daydreaming).
* Bei WeiWei is supposed to be a really strong character. She's supposed to be #1 2nd year computer science student, at #1 STEM school in China, #1 female player in the server / #6 overall. She runs circles around the guy-programmers. But during the last third of the episodes, they completely water her down. UGH. She gets food for the guys while they do the real work. When they do the final couples-quest, he's the one who gets all the puzzle-solving while she sits in a dark room... it's not a couple's quest at all. She raises baby tigers rather than work or go on complicated quests.
* There's a layer of controlling somewhat-creepy behaviour from Xiao Nai. It's OK in the first half (he knows who she is while she doesn't, but he doesn't abuse that knowledge). But in the second half, it changes -- her salary even goes into his bank account not hers. She isn't given choices about ANYTHING -- for example , even though we know she'd choose to marry him and not return to her parents, he doesn't ask about either... even their wedding night he says "I can't wait any longer" . She isn't an equal in the relationship.
* There were some minor plot gaps, for example she knows he's a 4th year student at same university who wasn't living on campus for the first half of the year... but even when they finally meet F2F, that's somehow been forgotten.
* Some of the computer science items are atrocious... for example, the "server statistics" in one of the last episodes is (literally) just a directory listing!!!
* WeiWei's roommate ErXi was unbelievably annoying. (Actress was fine, character was not.)
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OK, but doesn't live up to the hype
This is a pleasant drama, without any real sparks. I expected more from these actors and from the level of hype.Biggest plus is the eye candy of the actors.
Biggest minus -- there's just not a lot of depth there. The first few episodes were very bland. Things got more interesting in the middle, but faded again towards the end. There really wasn't a lot of chemistry in the relationship at any point -- just sort of generic friendly. The best acting was when they were alone: Yang Yang in the episodes in which his friend is sick, and Dilraba in the scene at the very end where she's on the phone asking for a divorce (in a show that her character is acting in).
The aerospace engineering scenes are a disaster. Other than the gender imbalance of the staff, and the fact that Yu Tu plays online games, nothing else is really portrayed correctly. (I'm an engineer, and just like medical doctors who don't like medical portrayals, most computer or engineering portrayals leave a lot to be desired.)
The story follows the book closely.
ORIGINAL REVIEW, WRITTEN AFTER SEEING THE FIRST 8 EPISODES.
THESE COMMENTS STILL HOLD.
This is a pleasant drama, without any real sparks. Chemistry between leads is adequate, but again, not exciting -- Yang Yang's character in "King's Avatar" had more romantic chemistry (and that wasn't even a romance). The plotline is almost exactly the same as "Love Scenery," but much emptier. In YAMG, they basically play the game, with vague hints at events happening in their professional lives. LS had more depth to the plot, *much* better chemistry between leads, and better connections to friends.
There are no stupid FL moments, and she does a pretty reasonable job defending her capabilities. (The promo paragraph says she's "just average," but that's not how it's played.) Her eating disorder is annoying, but sadly unsurprising.
I enjoyed the CG for the game when they do a 3D holographic reconstruction on the dining room table. This unfortunately only happens a couple times. You aren't going to understand the game (esp the teamwork issues) unless you've played League of Legends or watched "Falling into Your Smile."
I expected more from these actors and from the level of hype. So far, it aligns pretty closely to the webnovel. I'll keep watching because it's a reasonable filler leave-your-brain-at-the-door kind of show.
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Relationship is not believable
The usual trope of CEO demanding marriage in exchange for help. Each of the actors does their own part pretty well... they just don't come together as a cast. We are supposed to believe they fall for each other, but he's a jerk and never changes, and she tolerates it because he's had a "tough" life. The one saving grace of this show is that she finally does dump him because he's a jerk. Sadly, they do get back together, in theory because he's finally addressed his psychological issues, but it's not believable. I ended up reading episode summaries rather than watching, and skipped large chunks after about episode 10 or 12.Was this review helpful to you?
Disconnected scenes and shaky cam
It's a great start, in terms of actor choices and story line. Story concept is good, and I was really looking forward to it after You Are My Hero.Where does it fail?
* The FL (a senior medical resident) is a whiny little girl who makes remarkably stupid decisions. In ep 1 she wants something she doesn't deserve, and squats/sulks. There are multiple cases where she makes a decision that is both dangerous to herself and her team, such as not telling her team what she's doing and going off to search for victims on her own. This characteristic doesn't improve over the episodes.
* The 2FL, a firefighter, squabbles with her team. She doesn't listen to orders and she acts like a spoiled brat. She is also extremely clutzy, tripping and falling regularly. There is no way the team would tolerate her on the squad, and I can't believe she passed any of the tests. (FYI: I'm ignoring the pretty overt sexism, in that she is the only female firefighter, and the rest of the team supports her giving her the easy tasks etc.)
* Shaky cam. All of the dangerous scenes (fighting a fire, cleaning up after an earthquake, etc) are shaky cam. Episode 2 actually made me nauseous. But it's not just the dangerous scenes. It's everywhere. We even see it in restaurants, when people are sitting and chatting.
* There are multiple occasions when things are just bizarrely unprofessional or unrealistic. For example, leaving a doctor to tour the firefighting facility on her own, with no guidance about what's dangerous or where she can't go (and surprise surprise, she gets in trouble). Or having the firefighter fix the engine of a modern car out in the field (they never tell us what's broken).
* Scenes are cut really strangely. It jumps. Sometimes I've wondered if I accidentally skipped an episode. For example, there's one scene where FL says something to ML, and that's the end of the episode. You expect start of next episode to continue the conversation... but it jumps to a following day. It's almost impossible to tell how much time has passed between scenes. There's a woman who gives birth to a baby... in about 2 minutes of screen time... and in the background *nothing* else has happened in the course of the rescue operations (no victims extracted, etc).
Why should you watch? Simon Gong.
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Cute short story
18 episodes of 10 minutes each. Complete story about a girl who wants to run a guesthouse. A good friend, two competing romantic ML who help her. A brief argument with each set of parents. A couple of specific problems to solve.The best part: no scheming 2FL or parents. Presented as almost a postcard advertisement for WuXi, with each episode talking about one of the local attractions.
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This drama has not aged well
I am writing this review in 2024, 20 years after the show came out. On the surface, it's a classic Asian drama -- starting with a contract marriage, then just as the couple start to fall for each other, the ex-girlfriend shows up. The FL Kim Sam Soon (mostly) stands up for herself, her friends support her, she knows what she wants, and she's got a pretty rational view on life and her own weaknesses. The ML Hyun Jin Heon is an arrogant guy who at first blush appears a bit of a playboy, and not that competent, but we see pretty quickly that this image is a facade.I liked the cooking, the amusing clips of Sam Soon's imagination, and the direct approach to talking about Korean beauty standards.
Where this show falls down, after 20 years, is in the relationship. First, everyone hits each other. Not the usual "mom with a broomstick running around the coffee table", but actual slaps and punches. Multiple times when women are on the ground pulling each other's hair, and men having fist fights and walking in with bruises. There's one scene when a guy punches the wall inches from a girl's head. Second, ML is extremely controlling, not respecting her decisions (e.g. regarding her name), saying "you can't talk to or date other men", badmouthing her, etc -- all the while when he's breaking similar rules. Frankly, this is both physically and emotionally abusive. It's no wonder that women in Korea are doing the "4B" movement.
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Best friend group, with well-built relationship structures
Story starts at 8-years post university graduation, and focusses on friendship, love, and death. The 9 friends were presented very well, each with real back stories and real personalities. It definitely draws out viewer emotion more than most dramas. I generally do not like dramas with a lot of angst because it tends to be very fake and created for the plot... in this show, the angst was natural, and a part of the characters.Storyline was interesting, with surprises. The natural ebb and flow of friendships was presented extremely well. The viral-video meme was done OK, but used as more of a plot-hack than a story-driver. I found it annoying that almost every negative character behaviour was pointed out much too late, e.g. "this drove me utterly crazy, but I never told you," and this caused no end of problems.
I felt like all of the (many) romantic lines were somewhat strange. For FL, one line was bland, the other demonstrated consistent immaturity. For ML, one line was stereotypical and over-done, the other demonstrated a strange level of stupidity. Among the friends group, the "social center" had a romantic story that didn't seem to fit his decisive personality.
Acting was superb, notably the very believable crying scenes (which are usually a pet peeve of mine).
To enhance the emotional scenes, things tended to get dragged out. For example, we'd see someone walking around their apartment "thinking" for 5 or more minutes. I found the music annoying... the same 8-measures played over & over.
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This review may contain spoilers
Tedious
The best part of the drama was the relationship square (each male making incorrect assumptions about the other). I liked the relationship between the second couple, except for the episode in which they finally get together. The three of them (SML, SFL, his daughter) had great chemistry, but she was a little too tentative. Loved the little girl. There was nothing else in this drama that really caught my interest... but since there was nothing outright offensive, I didn't drop.Dislikes:
* First couple no chemistry and just not that believable, from either side.
* The Taekwondo was long and not explained well. The coach was not professional. The competitive girl wasn't believable -- just spiteful.
* I don't recall the music at all, which tells me it didn't contribute to the show.
SPOILER:
* I view the scene where the second couple finally get together as a rape. She's blind drunk and says she loves him, he kisses her, and they wake up naked the next morning. This is not OK. Just to make it worse, it's only a few minutes between the point where she was sober & went into the house & started drinking, and he follows her in -- there's no way she could get that drunk that fast.
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Great start that crashed and burned
I love both Gao HanYu and Jade Cheng. I love food flicks, and the focus on food as a heart-of-the-family was amazing; Recipes that could be repeated.Episode one was everything I could have hoped for. ML notices all the social cues he should. FL is competent and capable at work, while also showing her care for work colleagues and awareness of work/life balance. ML promotes FL to director clearly through a show of her skill. We see ML as isolated and lonely, hiding his warmth and caring nature. The recipe was completely at-home repeatable. FL+ML have perfect chemistry. Second couple is a wonderful pair, and teases/supports main couple beautifully.
The next few episodes you have the usual tropes that come with lonely CEO who only has work to accompany him, and FL trying to balance it all. Some of the tropes are pleasantly flipped, like when the CEO is the one who trips and accidentally kisses the girl.
Somewhere around episode 8 I realized that I had been fast-forwarding through a lot of scenes. Repeatable recipes had vanished. Second couple stereotypical but supportive of first couple; waste of time to watch them. Third couple weirdly supporting each other's stalker behaviour; just irritating.
Main couple finally get together episode 9, at which point I realized that both ML's competence at work, and social awareness has been completely written out of the script. He does stupid stuff at the office that's completely out of character. But first dinner with mother-in-law he's completely out of it, for example literally grabbing soup-poured-for-mom and drinking it himself.
Why do script writers feel that they can have such completely implausible behaviour? I know the story is good when I want to yell at the characters. I know that the story is bad when I want to yell at the script writers.
I skipped ahead to the last episode, and watched as much of it as I could. The timing is seriously weird, both the relationship, and the show. In the relationship, they go from barely speaking to each other to marriage proposal ("I've changed") in only a few days time. In the drama, he proposes and The End.
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A walk down memory lane
The main reason to watch this is Nostalgia. You want to see Beijing in the early 2000s.And, of course, the main actors, who are all eye candy.
But there's just not much to it. The story is bland, and it's really hard to stay engaged. There is a handful of youth actors and their parents. The story's main focus is the interpersonal relationships. You can kind of put up with a few episodes of the background/bland, but then somewhere around episode 6 or 8 it's time to move to actual plot. I can't even say that I think the huge cast of characters had particularly interesting personalities... I did make it through to the end, but only because there really wasn't anything else going on.
Best acting was in episodes 16-18, from ML Zheng SuNian (Lin Yi) and his father Zhen Jin (Fang ZiBin). Lin Yi showed a new skill compared to prior shows (crying, although Dad was still way more believable).
Worst feature of this show: NONE, and I do mean not a *single* one, of the youth actors look like they could be high school students. I believe Lin Yi was the youngest actor (born 1999, age 22), while Chen YuQi is the oldest actor (born 1992, age 29). And they're all supposed to be high school students. It works (or can work) for occasional flashbacks, but not complete episodes.
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DO NOT WATCH: Nightmare-inducing ending
It started good. Wedding of FL+2ML stopped by 2ML's mother. FL meets ML. Then usual plot of FL+ML falling for each other and 2ML hanging around. FL is good about saying No. Then 2FL shows up and competes for ML. Acting was quite good. Storyline pretty typical. No big shockers. FL making good decisions. ML making not-so-good ones, under the auspices of saying "I'm protecting her." She of course starts thinking he's lying to her and doesn't know who to trust. Then somewhere around ep16 (of 20), the vibe changed and 2FL's decisions started getting stupid. Each bad decision led to a worse decision. The final ending literally gave me nightmares the following night -- triggers a significant fear response. I hope I can erase it from my memory. Do not watch.Was this review helpful to you?
