hum

I think you're confused between the definitions of genre and plot. True Beauty and this series fall into the same genre, which is romantic comedy. Marriage contract is just the plot. (You can see the genres of both dramas on their 'details' pages. The keywords under the 'tags' topic are the plot/storyline.)

Thanks for recommending Plot Love. I see you gave it a lower score than this drama, so I'll trust you that it's not better than this one 🙂

I think I picked a decent one to compare with. True Beauty is a decent drama in the same genre, isn't it?

The difference b/w Cdrama and Kdrama in my opinion is the quality (which reflects the capability of the production team = writers, directors, cinematographers, stylists, editors - the behind-the-scene team), not about one is lighter than the other. In the same genre, I still use the same standard. I don't have a double standard for Cdrama vs. Kdrama.

Thank you for sharing your opinion. I'd like to discuss a bit further with you as following. Anyway, please don't find it offensive. It's just fun for me to examine things :)

True Beauty is a series with the definition you talk about - light story that don't need to put much concern on - and the result on the screen can still show that the production team had prepared their work well. The FL in that series wanted to be a makeup artist and the makeup on her face was spotless throughout the series. Meanwhile, the FL in this series wanted to be a clothing designer, but her clothes and style were tasteless and unknowledgeable.

I don't think being a light story should be an excuse to make a sloppy job. The way this production team made their job done just shows how much they were lazy and inattentive.

Thank you so much for letting me know your support. A lot of times I'm likely to get attacked in the comment section if my review give a low score. When I see there's some comment on my review, I'd take a deep breath and prepare my mind before reading. Thank you for giving me a chance to sigh with relief once in a while :)

Allow me to respond a bit about the age gap first and let me come back for other points later.

When you said 'not all of the incidents happened in the same year', it nudged me and made me go back to check the scenes where young BR&YH appeared again. And yes, now I see there was some change that indicated the passing years. Their school clothing had changed. You were right.

Now it's cleared up. Thank you. I'll cut off my review about the age gap part after this.

Thank you so much for the additional information. I didn't know OBY's incident is based on a real case. Thank you for putting the reference here, too.

Thank you for mentioning the exact birth year of BR&YH as well as explaining the prolonged school year of OBY for me.

All the combined information you give me here helps clearing my understanding. I'll cut off my review about the age gap part after this.

Sorry! You were quite fast in reading it. I feel like I deleted my reply within 5 minutes but I wasn't fast enough, lol.

I deleted it because I came to realize the point you said and went back to check on the related episodes.

- When BR and YH met for the 1st time, looking from the clothes they wore to school, which were casual wear, it was in their elementary school years.

- Then BR lost his family when he was 11 and still in elementary school.

- Later, when OBY's incident happened, BR&YH were already in junior high school. It was said on the incident day that YH was from a junior high school and both BR&YH's clothing changed from the elementary school's casual wear to the junior high school uniform when they met OBY. At first, I was confused and thought they made a mistake by saying YH was in junior high school on that day.

Thank you for pointing the important things out so clearly in your first comment. The information there accumulated for me to come to this realization :)

Wha~ thank you so much for reading my messy long review. I didn't think anyone would read it before I finish all 20 episodes since this drama has finished for quite some time. I thought I was the last person in the world who watched it, lol. Also, there're already many reviews in the front, I thought mine wouldn't get any attention from anyone. As the result, I'm pretty reckless while writing the review.

The version of my review you read is when I've done ep.17. I think there'll be some more revelation in the later episodes, so I took note for myself to not forget (ex. when I said "I also don't forget the alibi of everyone in the 1st case and waiting for you to properly explain, writer!" without explaining which case; or when I said "chasing" without elaborating which chase.)

For the two points above, please allow me a bit more time. I'd like to talk with you about them after I finish ep.20. When the time comes, they might not be the issues to raise anymore. I'll let you know if my thought changes. If I still think the same, I'll discuss them with you.

With MHIL, you mean My Husband In Law, right? And MFS is this drama, My Forever Sunshine.

Allow me to laugh a bit about your speculation, Haha. Did you read my review content?? If you did, you should know that I'm not a fan of MHIL at all. I said on the review that MHIL is worse than MFS. It got a lower score from me than MFS.

You should read the content of my review before coming to comment this kind of thing. If you disagree with the opinion I gave and would like to discuss it, I'm more than welcome. I like hearing different ideas that are reasonable. But the way you bring up your bias and prejudice here isn't reasonable, so there's nothing to discuss. And it can't overturn the reasons I gave a low score to this drama.

P.S. There's no point in giving a heart to your own comment.

But if it's about picking up the main idea from a passage, I can help you a bit. Let me conclude myself for your better understanding here:- I already explained with example how I see this drama has nonsense elements. The easiest way to make the drama better is to cut off these nonsense parts. You, instead, are the one who can't explain yourself how the things I pointed out are not nonsense.

If you want to make a constructive conversation, try responding to the points below:

- You say that the anger of Chinese viewers about how this drama painted the wrong picture on the e-sport circle is for no reason and unacceptable. Why their anger is unacceptable when the drama did do it and it made a wrong impression as well as influenced the wrong understanding of the circle? How the doing of the drama's production team is fair to the e-sport industry? You are the one who doesn't explain yourself, not me.

- You order me to accept that this show is no nonsense. Why I have to accept that when it's actually nonsense? You should explain how it's not nonsense starting from the point that I say is nonsense (--to remind you, it's about the unprofessionalism of many key players in the famous e-sport teams in the drama). Try to defend how the thing I mentioned isn't nonsense from your point of view.

I found out that:

1. You only read my review subject but not its content, so you misunderstood my meaning when I said 'drop' and also inquired me about the requirement of my preference of a good drama despite that I already stated it - which - I still elaborated further as you asked for.

2. You haven't read Weibo or Douban, or properly researched what Chinese people actually discuss before claiming them. You act like you understand the topics they talk about, but you actually don't. However, anyway, I concluded what they talked about for you, but you seem to deny the fact.

3. You are not able to accept different opinions. You still ask me repeatedly about the things I've already answered like I hadn't responded to you. This occurs bcos you refuse to accept opinions that are different from yours.

I feel sorry for you, but you have to deal with this kind of your feelings, perspectives and attitude on your own. I can't help you with it.

Let me say for this drama there's room for a stronger plot, make-more-sense script and convincing acting.

I'm gonna elaborate a bit about the plot to give you some idea, but not gonna talk much about the other two points here since it's gonna be too long:-

There're many nonsense situations when it comes down to the game competitions. The key players in Team CK, FNC and DQ.Five all decide to show off/bring down Smiling during the game due to their own grudges or personal agenda without caring about their teams' plans or the big picture. This is irresponsible and highly unprofessional. They did this selfish thing without considering their teammates, employers (their clubs) or fans. And it happens again and again in the drama making the ordinary viewers think this is the norm in the e-sport circle.

If you can read Chinese, go to Weibo, the Chinese viewers are very upset about this nonsense painted on the e-sport industry and give score to this drama on Douban as low as 2.9 out of 10. And for the music, they give score as low as 4.2 out of 10.

So... see my score again, and look at what the locals say, you might change your mind and think that I'm already kind to this drama.

I don't understand what nonsense you talk about music assigning there. It's not the topic you started anymore and I don't know what you want to convey. But from what you talk, at least it makes me know you don't know much about sountrack music or anything.

And you shouldn't talk about numbers bcos if you see my watchlist it's a lot more than 50, and I have indeed watched far more than what I put on the list 😂

They run out of idea to create enough stock of music. The music pieces are played on the loop even in the same scenes. The quality and style of the music are acceptable. It's the average level of Chinese drama, but not especially good.

Thanks for sharing how you feel with me. I have fun discussing/talking out about what I see differently with others :D

I drop the score. I haven't dropped the series yet. And I drop the score because it's become worse. The amount of lovey-dovey scenes doesn't represent the quality of the series :P

Thank you. I'll watch it and update the review :)

Yeah I missed that episode. It's the out-of-plan special episode I talked about. Do you have a link leading me to that ep? I really, really want to watch it.

[[Spoiler Alert for those who haven't watched this show]]

Thank you for taking your time to discuss this with me although my review comes quite late (about a year after the show broadcasted) and there're also quite a few reviews in the front that might attract people's interest more than mine :)

For the point you bring out, I've already considered all of what you say before I concluded my opinion. I don't weigh it as a dream. It's just a common trick in this kind of fantasy story to lead the character in it as well as the audience to a self-interpretation so that the explanation of the fantasy part would be either/both more interesting or/and logical in the universe of the story, and it would sound more solid/believable for the viewers. The reasons I don't buy it as a dream is because:

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1) Li Jin Bu gains knowledge about the Northeastern region (where is her mom's hometown) as well as the Northeastern habits/familiarities after coming back, and those are accurate to the point that is hardly from an imaginary dream. It's very unlikely that she becomes familiar with the Northeastern's extreme coldness in winter just by dreaming for one night. She can also make the Northeastern food after coming back. Her mom is surprised that she can make it. She can also make dumplings her grandmother taught and told her it's her mom's favorite. These are the skills she didn't obtain before going back to the past, and also the skills unlikely to obtain by dreaming out of nowhere in one night.

2) Li Jin Bu remembers how to go back to the house of her mom in the hometown too clearly, which surely isn't from the memory of her last visit when she was 6 years old. You can see that at the train station, her mom even remembers the wrong way and Li Jin Bu is the one who corrects her as well as leads the way back home.

If you remember the first time she gets to the past, she doesn't know anything about the place then. You can use Li Jin Bu's sense of place in that scene to compare with this scene. In the scene in the past is how Li Jin Bu's reaction should be if she experiences the place for the first time. And a dream that has all details exactly the same as in reality is very skeptical to be based on reality. I don't think details from the subconscious of a 6 years old (if you want to talk about the possibility that the whole story is still her dream), especially about direction, would be this accurate either.

3) Li Jin Bu has all the memories of every corner in her mom's old home where she spends time in what you think is her dream. This kind of memory that is as clear as being able to create another same, real world is unlikely to be just a dream. The way all the corners of the home in reality are exactly the same as every corner in her dream is too unrealistic to be just a dream.

This scene is actually for the character of Li Jin Bu to figure out whether her dream is actually real. And she gets the answer from coming back to her mom's hometown. You can see her confident smile when she realizes the answer after seeing that every detail of the house is the same as what she has expected before arriving. To find the answer is also the reason she urges her mom to come to the hometown in the middle of winter as well.

4) It's not likely to dream of the exact name of someone who really exists and that person also takes the exact same role in real life as in the dream. Duan Xiao has existence and his existence takes the same role in both the real past and the dream past. That's too much coincident to not doubt that it's not real.

5) How much possibility an imaginary person in a dream would appear in the reality, and even look exactly the same? The ML in the present looks exactly like the one FL remembers from the past. Her recognizing smile doesn't look surprising from feeling beyond imagination or feeling unbelievable when the ML shows up at all. That's because she's already certain that what seems like her dream is actually real since when she visits her mom's hometown.

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All of these points combined and it would be too highly coincident if it's just a dream not a reality. The kind of forceful direction to make it as a dream would make the story be more ungrounded and effect the wavering ending to fail twice, which is first, when the FL comes back to the present and they try to explain it on the surface as a dream. Second, when the FL figures out that the details of the dream and the reality are exactly the same - from the aspects of her skills (ex. cooking skill and being able to bear the Northeast's winter coldness) to places (ex. direction in her mom's hometown, things at her mom's home) to people (ex. same name, same face of ML).

So, all things considered, the director/writer don't seem to intend for this story to be explained by a dream but a time-traveling.

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P.S. I'd like to respond a bit more to your last point -- Scientific or not isn't important in this show. It already has the fantasy bits which is very acceptable as it's the kind of world the writer sets and shows a clear intention to create. What is important in 'every' show, though, is the logic of its own universe. This show contradicts itself in the end = it ruins its own rules = it ruins its own world. But as I said, I think this contradiction is less severe than what they did in 'Someday or One Day' and 'Someday or One Day' was a really big hit when it broadcasted. Another show worth watching. If you haven't watched that, I'd like to recommend it to you :)

P.S.2 Time-traveling story is especially hard to unfold, which most of the time is because of the rules they set up themselves. It's not surprising for me that this show fails at the end when it tries to unfold itself as it's expectable. The only time-traveling show that impresses me is Dark, the German series of 3 seasons in total.

Each person's degree and way of tolerance are different. Most real audiences I find nowadays are very picky, opinionated, judgmental and intolerant. They are not very forgiving or generous in giving chance as the bottom line is it's their time in the fast pacing world full of comparable choices we're trying to snatch from them.

I'm quite surprised to see many comments here saying something like people who don't give a long-term chance for a drama are to be blamed and even irrationally insult them. I wonder whether these people are the actors/actresses' die-hard fans or they don't have much media experience to compare the works and sharpen their thoughts with diverse opinions with.

I really wish the world was able to spin slower so the real audiences in my circle would be more patient and easier to please like them, then the content creators could work in a more relaxing way.

Thanks for letting me know there're diverse opinions here. I thought for a moment that there might only be me who thinks differently than others.