This review may contain spoilers
fantastic chemistry that is gonna make your heartflutter
i absolutely love both leads. their acting was impressive. chen jin ke showed amazing micro-expressions (esp his brows, deserves a fandom of its own) and sun zhen ni portrayed so many emotions with just her eyes, and i love seeing them together. absolutely love their dynamic, their progress from enemies to lovers (somewhat) was certainly the cherry on top. seeing their cat and dog disagreements when their fragile bond was still developing to their lighthearted banters when they were already a couple was definitely fun to watch.the fact that they both traveled back in time makes it even better. i suppose i was anticipating the reveal to be made much earlier so that they can depend on each other with their knowledge of the future and become such a power couple. but then, the delay does work in its own way to deliver the intended storyline and make them face more individual growth that way. yes, there were unneeded setbacks because of it and i would say its typical for a drama to add some level of drama to a smooth sailing plot. however, it worked out naturally to strengthen their bond and the argument was a completely normal irrational human reaction for people in love, and they didn't escalate it for ridiculously too long which i appreciate.
the ending could have been better and it is pretty obvious how everyone reviewing was rather threw off because of the last 10 minutes of the drama and set the ratings very low for this despite initially wanting to give an almost perfect rating. i am disappointed with the ending myself, but i must say it could have been worse and i'm glad it wasn't as bad.
there was a chance of them making lin zhi hua never part of the journey and it was all just a dream for her Alone. and i would say that kind of ending would have been even more horrible, i would've hated this drama to the ground. the fact that he still retains the same memories as she does shows that the dream was maybe perhaps an actually reality that did exist for both of them.
as much as she felt lonely waking up from a dream where she lost all the accomplishments and connections she built up, it would have been far more devastating to know that it was all just a dream and the very person who was right there to experience and build it up with her, was never part of the journey to begin with and treats her coldly like a stranger with no attachments. that, would have been horrid had they decided to take that route for the ending.
yes, i hated that all the effort they put thru in their second life has all but vanished. i hate endings where "it was all just a dream" bc it makes all the journey come down to nothing but one person's fantasy. all the people that were able to make different choices and become better people. their family, friendships, financial, academic, and business problems, all of those that they were able to overcome in the second timeline has been reduced to nothing.
but i believe the writer intended to emphasis that these two lovers were fated for each other regardless in whichever timeline they're in. they were able to persevere so much together in the second change timeline. sure enough, they're gonna be able to persevere more together in the original timeline.
like what zhi hua told xue jiao in the last episode, "i can create another company ten thousand times. but you're one of a kind." emphasising that whatever troubles that comes my way, it doesn't matter as long as i have you with me. it can be assumed that is why he left the company after waking up from the elevator coma. it was already infested with too many 'bugs' and right now, he needs to reset and start back from scratch.
perhaps there is a possibility that all of them can have their character developments in the original timeline, albeit much later in life and after creating even more problems for the people around them. but i assume that is the intended message with the final scene showing shi yun and ming ze meeting each other again, where shi yun is the one going after ming ze instead. hints at an open ending that change is possible, even in the original timeline.
[found out that there was censorship towards the time travel genre as it disrespects history and promotes superstition. so i think i can understand now why the ending was the way it is. however, it does give me the perspective that the author intended the story to end differently and it only turned out this way because of the ban which is unfortunate. great story though, but could've been better.]
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