This review may contain spoilers
Spectacular Start, Awful Ending
The show started off truly amazingly. They captured the cozy small town family vibes, the casting is close to perfect, the production value and sound editing is top notch, and the story set up attracts you from the start. It's about a group of friends who essentially grow up together through the 90s and 00s, and they really take you down nostalgia avenue. The acting is subtle and nuanced, gives you the warm fuzzies all around. Wang Ruichang played the perfect attractive asshole, Hu Yixuan played the perfect adorable heroine, and I was so in love with the whole package that I didn't notice the trainwreck happening until it was too late to jump off...So the first 20 episodes are extremely enjoyable. The main point of the story is the evolution of the relationship between Xia Xiaoju and Lu Shiyi, from when they first meet as teens who can't stand each other, to the best of friends in university, with hints of perhaps something more in the future. The teen arc is hilarious and lovely and we're introduced to their personalities, their virtues and all their flaws. Xiaoju is an academically average girl with a very caring, kind heart, headstrong in most aspects except when it comes to love - she botches so many opportunities to confess to Cheng Lang that we expect that part of her character to be the main focus of her character development. Lu Shiyi, on the other hand, is a bit of a jerk, can't say a sweet word to save his own life, is instinctively rebellious, but has a very tender, caring heart. The way he's shown, we expect his inability to express his love properly the focus of his character development.
The set up for their character developments are so cleanly and clearly executed. Xiaoju lost a lot of time and energy being unable to draw up the courage to confess to her first love, and Shiyi couldn't make Xiaoju see him as anything other than a somewhat irritating best friend because of his sharp tongue. In a perfect world, this drama should have been written in a way where once Shiyi begins sanding down his sharp edges in order to win over Xiaoju, and Xiaoju begins realizing her feelings for him, she should have taken lessons from her experience with Cheng Lang, overcome her cowardly tendencies and decidedly confessed to him. Shiyi should also go through a character development arc where he mellows out a little, or at least is less afraid to show his sincere love towards Xiaoju. With so much angst and bickering, 3 or 4 episodes in the end where we get to see them as a real couple, where Xiaoju truly realizes who's been good to her and Shiyi finally experiences the joy of having his love requited, would be the greatest payoff and reward for the audience.
Instead, there is no character arc for Xiaoju, and the little character arc they gave Shiyi is completely nuked in the latter half of the story. She is just as cowardly as she was in the beginning, but this time she actually loses the man who loves her back, when before with Cheng Lang she just lost an unrequited love. Then she's in her late twenties and she starts acting more like a jealous child than she was as a teen! Shiyi is still a complete jerk, unable to stop himself from figuratively pulling her pigtails even in his late-twenties! In the last two episodes, the guy goes to Zurich for a few years, does not contact Xiaoju at ALL, leaves her with the impression that he got himself a girlfriend, and then he comes back without a notice, acts like a grade A twat, and then he proposes... and then... she... agrees? They kiss and the end??
I was left dumbfounded. And then I was actually pretty mad, because they ruined what could have been a really perfect love story. They had such a good cast and premise, and then they wrote it THIS way. Why? My dissatisfaction is unbearable. And don't get me started on all the side characters - it's like the writers just love the idea of angst and break ups, like they want to shoehorn in as much of those as they can regardless of how out of character or illogical the situations are.
My recommendation for how to watch this show is to stop at the point where Lu Shiyi officially confesses. Then let your own imagination play out how the rest of the story goes because I can guarantee whatever you imagine will still be better than what they made. You can skip through the rest of the episodes if you want, and consider them the happenings of an alternate universe.
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This review may contain spoilers
Lost Potential...
The first few episodes were so interesting, and hooked me right away. I have a guilty soft spot for Hana Kimi-type stories, and this seemed like a perfect one to curl up against after a busy day. The music is lovely, the animal sound effects are hilarious, the lead actress is adorable and well-cast, the lead actors are all very handsome, the production quality is very high. It really started off so well and I was immediately invested. But then...This show could have been leaps and bounds better had the three MLs discovered her gender within the first 10-15 eps. There could have been so many more interesting conflicts and better comedy if they knew and she didn't know. Instead, nobody knows anything, potential scene set ups go nowhere, and on ep 24 I still can't really tell you what's going on because nothing is going on. They completely dropped the dialogue novel subplot a third way through, which was disappointing because it was such a good side story. If I were the writer, I'd have used it to parallel/reflect the evolution of the romance between the characters in real life throughout the drama. I really, really want to go in there and wrangle with the script myself. Also, ML feels more like a 3ML because of how little romance there is until near the end of the show. She has wayyy more chemistry with Ao Lei and Le Xuan. Extreme second lead syndrome. This could have been fixed or overlooked had the reveal been done earlier, as I mentioned before.
There is such a perfect mix of ingredients and characters here for a very good rom com, but it's like the writers couldn't decide which genre this story is supposed to be. They should have focused on the rom com aspects, because it's too lighthearted for the whole political conspiracy they tried to revolve the story around, neutering the parts of the show that are actually interesting.
I'm still finishing it because it's a pretty show, and I like the characters a lot, but the whole drama can be summed up as: lost potential. :(
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Illogical Story, Cute Characters
The bad:-Very convenient plot points that are hilariously unrealistic. Out of all the places of certain characters to appear, in a massive city, they just coincidentally stumble upon other relevant characters, with no prior knowledge or plan. And this happens far too many times that my suspension of disbelief couldn't be maintained.
-Also, some of the acting is way too theatrical - namely, Gu Jiusi's right hand servant Mu Nan. You do not need to exaggerate those expressions, we can very well infer what you're feeling at the moment, dude. And even Liu Yuru sometimes, whose crying can sound like an adult imitating the cries of a toddler.
-Unrealistically tragic, to the point that things don't make sense. How does a single commissioner get away with massacring an entire city of nobles with the little army he has, and nobody in the city rebels against him? Really? Nobody's fighting back? He can just seize their assets without consequences?
-Another thing that is annoying is how long and dragged out some of the shots are. You don't need to spend five entire minutes zooming into every character's faces multiple times to show us how they're feeling, and it makes me laugh sometimes. If your audience is laughing at moments that wasn't intended to be funny, you've got a writing problem. You also don't need to spend ten minutes having a character verbally go into detail about how they're feeling, as though they're narrating their mental state as a therapist would describe it. Which is also unrealistic - it's very boring writing to have the characters so aware of their subconscious problems. Show, don't tell.
-Episode 23 was stupid as hell? Yuru barely disguises herself, goes into the HEART of enemy territory and thinks that nobody would recognize her. "They've only met me once all those months ago, surely they won't remember." Girl?????????? Do you think the enemy is stupid???? The next moment we see the enemy alerting their bosses about her. They're not even trying with the writing anymore, just pushing plot along regardless how out of character and silly it makes the characters.
The good:
-Gu Jiusi's actor is superb, if a tiny bit theatrical at times too. But I've seen him in other media, and he's a very natural actor. I wonder if that exaggerated style of acting is a preference of the director's.
-The sets are beautiful and the design of the costumes are splendid as well. But the rags they had to wear - where did they find them? Why do they look completely different from the clothes they started their journey with?? To make it more believable, they should use tattered versions of their previous clothes, not fashionably designed rags.
-The chemistry between Gu Jiusi and Liu Yuru is very lovely and adorable. Especially the first quarter of the drama, they had me laughing out loud at times. No drawn out misunderstandings, no immature jealousy, no petty fights. It's a very healthy romantic relationship that has you feeling all fluffy for them.
-I do still want to know what happens next, which means the writing isn't irredeemable. I think it's an interesting premise, even though it's still just your everyday palace politics cdrama, but there is enough intrigue to keep me on.
-It has tropes that I personally like - namely, the female character getting injured/fake dying while the male love interest doesn't know that she's still ok. Too often it's the male characters dying or getting injured to protect the female characters, so I like the reverse of it.
Overall:
I would recommend this if you're looking for something to watch casually. This isn't addictive so you won't be losing sleep or messing up your day schedule. It's good to pass the time with if you like something that has humour, tragedy, romance, intrigue, and don't care about using your brain too much.
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