kestonis

Why this drama has such good rating? I got a little bored in the middle and jumped to the last episode, to see what to expect. To my surprise. it felt like more parody than real episode. I laughed hard from its absurdity, bad acting and terrible writing. Feels like they intended drama to last 50 episodes, but they cut 20 episodes into one. It is not even rushed ending, because emotionally it was far from it. Characters had half story left to tell.

My gut tells that they been cut short because of budget or acting crew issues. It was quality writing and acting in previous episodes. Last episode feels like not from this drama. Therefore I do not expect second season.

Comparing to other high rated coming-to-age dramas, this is total flop. What story they wanted to tell?

Better to watch "My Youth". There is clear message, clear emotional progression, clear character outline, less noise from side stories. Emotional progression of characters very similar to this drama and they completed it. Ending a little bit rushed, but was ok for that drama. Here characters are deeper, has more flaws, therefore more likable, but it is impossible to tell their story in only 30 episodes and include unnecessary side stories. Third girlfriend of trio does not add to the story much. After her character appeared many writer mistakes became evident - overusing 8 minutes, etc.
I recommend to skip this drama.

Worst sports drama ever. Playing through unrecoverable injury in just high school competition is beyond stupid and wrong message for audience. It is dumb.
It is not like Karate Kid about just broken bones. It is much more serious - career ending injury. It is not about ML.

To dig deeper they are in civil court, not criminal court. She can never be jailed or deported. Civil court only settles monetary compensation. This means ML wanted more money than SML offered.
Furthermore ML is not in official position of power, so bribery charges cannot be applied, even if it was criminal court.
From many perspectives this case is so wrong, not even to start talking about dramatization. Could they not consult any lawyers, because main character is lawyer?

I started watching. I did not like court case between leads at all. It was not based on USA laws, because self defense and sexual harassment are on another level there. In the end ML confessed of sexual harassment (btw this has nothing to do with the case). He should be charged with it, or at least thanking FL for not pressing charges, instead he went from the court raised head like he is some hero. He never apologized to her. And the dude tells "very manly". Where did he saw manliness in ML? It is 2020, not 1990.
It was funny idea with amnesia. It would be ok if he tried apologize for that, but later it was not funny. How they will force romance between leads after such disaster?
Sadly it is still the trend for Chinese dramas with location at foreign countries are totally bad written, because all budget goes to shooting locations (fake city copies) and foreign actors salary. Not enough to hire writers with a little bit brain.
Also usually foreign actors' characters are written like they are Chinese people. This never stops amaze me.

Teens

Speculation. I really do not like where they are going with second couple. Seems that Kang In Wook was involved in Ha Won's mother's death. Now after his wife died he will be involved with Moon Soon Ho? Their first scene together inclines that.
Drama is very sensitive, emotional, healing. It highlights very subtle emotions. I like there they are going with main couple. At the start they are miserable inside. Unusual situation from the start forces them out of shell to help each other. But second couple is out of place, irrelevant to main story, that it will become distraction.
I am happy with the start but it will be impossible to maintain that with their choice to have character Kang In Wook take so much screen time. This simple mistake will downgrade this drama.

Weak arguments in this drama. Any normal person first step is to go to police. There was no reason for him to be afraid of police. Strangely he meets 'friends' who do secret investigation. After such illogical and stupid first step all following steps were stupid.
Idea was great to show how he became victim of his own futuristic tool, but writing was too poor to enjoy it.

I get what are you saying. But here is not the case. I will explain why his plan is stupid and childish.
1. In world of politics most valuable asset is connections. In 5 episodes he does not try to increase his assets. He only makes more enemies in political world during each episode. Comparing to his nemesis other chief of staff, who tries to get deals with various people on every opportunity.
2. His connections are from the past police buddies and various skilled workers who hold zero power in political world. It helps to fight battles but not to become a politician.
3. He fights his boss battles and gets blamed by everybody while boss stays clean. He gets nothing in return, just empty words. He does not negotiate with his boss to become step by step more independent, to get seen by people.
4. His original plan is to get seen by his boss' shady supporters is stupid. Shady people support you only if they get something in exchange. He cannot offer anything to them that his boss can't. He doesn't try to brake their relationship, that they would doubt his boss and start seeing him as alternative.
5. Another way is to work directly with voters like his girlfriend got elected. He shows no improvement in that part too.
6. His only power is using his boss name (f.e. getting media attention). He has no power outside.
7. The only actions for himself is to return to post and remain boss underdog.
8. His plan to randomly gather evidence on his boss is child's dream. He has zero preparations to betray his boss. His girlfriend prepared before betraying her senior. Hundred times smarter than him.

In summary he has zero power in politic world, not skilled politician but extremely good in fighting behind the scenes battles , cleaning his boss messes. He is not on path to become assemblyman. He does zero actions to change situation.

This is not the way experienced politician would build his career or plan his dream.

Mistakes are understandable. Issue not about his choices or overlooking what is important, but why he has to make these choices at all.

Why he has no plan b no plan c to reach his dreams? Why he builds the dream on empty promise from boss? He is not in early 20s naive rookie. He is too smart and too old to behave like that, to believe that without doubt. His character is very inconsistent.

His plan to reach his dreams is very stupid from very beginning. Sounds like a plan from child with zero life experience.

Writing is actually not bad. The dialogues. The issues. The plot twists. The political battles. These things urges me to keep watching. But everything about TJ is total nonsense and he is main character. Maybe it is actors fault I do not know.

Drama is fun to watch , fast paced and script is quite good, but there is big BUT..
I am only one do not get main character? His character is very incoherent. He is supersmart and super stupid at the same time. What is his dream? To become an assemblyman? To get revenge? After 4 episodes nothing is clear about him and there is no mystery, no emotional pain surrounding him to keep watching this.

There is no way Mr. Song will let TJ to become an assemblyman. He is too valuable to remain as a dog, as a servant to let him walk away. Song will never help TJ. TJ is in trap and he willingly put himself into this situation. As TJ smart is, he should predict this. But his main plan is to rely on only Mr Song. He has no plan B no plan C etc. He is not naive rookie to believe that. Seems like very stupid character, but from first episodes he is shown like superhero smart.

I do not get his character and do not get any emotion, do not feel sorry for him getting caught with USB (btw he was too stupid to place in office). Does not feel anything for break up with lover. He chose to betray her for Mr. Song and does not get anything from it. Seems there were many ways to get out of situation without betraying her. Whole situation was too much forced to just portray him sad, regretful in later episodes.

Every episode he just gets more enemies and seems he step by step farther away from his whatever dream.

Can anyone interpret his character and his motivations?

As series goes ML becomes uglier every episode. How he treats FL, childhood friend girl, and most importantly classmate-friend who invested in. Currently at 13 ep. I think never saw drama there lead is so selfish bastard but never criticizes himself and always thinks he is right.

Sadly scenario does not highlight how hurtful his betrayal of friend is. Writers hide many facts to make ML look better. I know investment in IT industry especially well. Here what actually he did to his school friend chronologically:
- By any means tried to stop competitive investment companies to invest in his company with argument that he as friend will treat him better. Which later became total untrue.
- Knows that his friend is technology guy and bad as manager. Thinks using his weakness he will make more profit. Never helps his friend and never gives him advice from managerial side which he should be strong himself.
- Mismanaged the meeting with investors. Simple call before meeting would solve this. People from top management companies are usually good at this to prevent such situations. Never says sorry to a friend and makes his friend who is bad manager to take all the blame.
- Does not try correct his mistake and his friend ends up with worst possible contract conditions. Lost control packet of shares in such early stage, which is actually suicide for IT companies in real life. It never works well for founders. Moreover they also added horrible conditions with investment flow, that actually his friend lost all his rights even as minority owner. As a bad manager his friend should not know such nuances and ML never told him of such risks.
-ML is too arrogant to ask people to help his friend.
-Eventually sold his company to his biggest enemy and destroying his career and dreams.
- ML thinks he is the Good guy because increased the price by few millions in short amount of time. But actually his friend lost hundreds of millions in the long run. His friend could become industry leader but left with cents in his hand.
-ML investment company made legendary huge profit and ML took all credit for it by actually doing nothing, just introduced his friend to his boss and boss solved everything.
-IT industry is specific. If you make one good software does not mean you can make good one in totally different field. If you sell IT company there is always competitive clause that you cannot make software in same field for at least three years. His friend should be rare genius to be able start another company in another field right away. He is not, therefore ML destroyed his career.

ML is such friend that is worse than your enemy. Also during whole situation he behaved like rookie investor. Only his boss covered his ass to turn into positive situation for him.

Not even start how horrible he treats female counterparts. He is gentleman but never cares about their feelings and very easily tells most hurtful words, then without sincerity says meaningless sorry. Women unrealistically and magically fall in love with him. Writers hide this by making his love rivals even more horrible (married, unfaithful, fat&ugly, deceitful).

Should you know how drama will end. In intro there is a hint. ZZ gets seriously ill/coma.

My prediction is that both guys will be near hear bed and eventually agree to be only friends because in last episodes JR will try rekindle lost love and SPC will try aggressively pursue her. Their actions will do more harm than benefit and it will be more their fight as competitors in business&romance than ZZ feelings as tries to be pacifier between them.

I think it is original plan, but maybe they will change it because they will get more bad reviews and ratings will drop quickly. At this moment fans who ship different sides of love triangle are both not happy. As neutral I am, I still not happy too.

Main drive of drama is romance (love triangle). Really?
There is zero relationship development for ALL THREE leads at already 2/3 drama. Except for one episode there was zero changes. Between ZZ and It it went from 0 to 100 real quickly in just one episode. Before that AND after that there were zero changes. What they show us just how their relationship are impacted by third party - Ms Bai. They do not show how views about each other changes, how their relationship develop.

SPC fell in love ZZ from 0 to 100 real quick too. After that 25+ episodes nothing changed.

I think at this moment SPC character would get more charm if it showed how fells out of platonic love and accepts being only friend with ZZ. To make it understandable writers must show how he tells in love with another girl and start real relationship. It would make it him stronger. Only one can hope but this is not happening.

There is Italian girl in cast but she is reserved for JR after all three ends up as only friends.

Better ending for SPC would be dying in last episode than we having this - main lead and most outstanding character in romantic drama has zero actual dates and is alone from first to last episode. Should this drama should really be categorized as romance?

The most thing I am angry about is drama name. It should be more business oriented about real estate instead of about relationships.

Also this drama should be called 2 episode drama with 100 side stories. Because there are only 2 episodes important - the one JR and ZZ start relationship and last one there they will rush everything.

This drama has only sidestories but no plot. I am gonna drop this and watch last episode.

Your comments bring the hope and inspire to not drop this.

But still I am little bit skeptic, because it is already half drama. Her character is shown that even if she realizes these feelings she is not the person to jump the ships immediately. She will try to work it out. Also there is no "best girlfriend" secondary character to push her to act towards her true feelings. Instead there is annoying Jing Rans mom and it will be too hard to leave her. So at first she will need to break up and for that needs to something happen. Jing Ran is too passive to make obvious mistakes (be overjealous, angry or have an affair). So it will take looong time.

So they will put one of two main characters in pause as in "waiting mode" for an half drama. There will be no development in his feelings? Till last episode. It is not fair treatment for main character.

They could maintain love triangle arc if she did not start serious relationship till the end. But now triangle aspect is worthless and dragging because half the screen time one character is put on sidelines. He cannot influence their relationship in anyway without being viewed as negative and has no romance development for himself.

I understand they wanted to bring Jing Ran and Zhen Zhen together to show social problems of too fast love. It really resonates with the side stories they have shown.

But to leave nothing to other character seems unfit. There will be shown his growth as businessman and resolution with father but money is least important thing for his character.

For me is baffling that they from first half to second half career man will transform into family man and family man into career man. It is so messy if you view bigger picture instead of focusing who she should choose.

To make it simple they could make Peng Cheng fall in love with her in later episodes, but now they give us no needed his tearjerk for 30 episodes. His response will become boring. We all know he will will tease her, make jokes, but then she stands ups and walks away, camera will focus on his teary eyes. Rinse repeat for 20 episodes. Till the last episode 15 minutes. There will be time jump and they meet again hug each other either as new lovers or as only friends with zero kiss for 48 episodes. Finito.

Such second half will destroy that they created in first. And I do not see how they can make it any different.

I agree with you. It supposed to be as you said. Ending up as only friends most logical ending at this moment. But they will definitely not introduce new girl to Peng Cheng. If you root for his character this drama is utter disappointment. His character being used as only spare tire is worst outcome but also most logical at same time.

Why they even created this drama and actor accepted the role? Writers created amazing character and will put him on tearjerk for 40 hours and do not have any redeemable ending.

It is logical outcome but not satisfying.

Writers put themselves at this point that either fans of his character will hate this drama either they will make changes to force them together and drama will become unrealistic and loose the charm. Writers put themselves in position to have low ratings either way. Is it a smart move?

If they wanted to make it about true friendship between man and woman they could handled it in easier way. There are so many good examples in other dramas.

They have one of the best writing for sidestories, for dialogues. I thought found a gem in this drama and could really enjoy it and probably re-watch many times later. But direction it took, it will be put on "no recommend" category.

I would disagree. Solving problems not equal romance. In many dramas with 2nd lead syndrome they are good problem solvers. Their interaction reminds "She was pretty" Korean drama. In very same ways 2nd lead teased the girl and solved her problems.

"She might come to realize..." - this would one of the most important scene in drama, because direction changes completely. This should be visualized to viewer. But how? This should be planned and combined with emotional peak - f.e. boyfriend betrayal or near- death (ML gets into accident), etc. Tho for such realistic drama such events would be out of character.

BTW I am amazed by character development already in middle of drama. This positive aspect is quite rare in chinese dramas.

Jing Ran - workaholic with not aligned priorities. He says his dream is family life, but actual focus is only career. He is quite inhumane and ignores everything. His mom is annoying, not likeable but she speaks with experience. Eventually he listens to her and he starts to pay attention to his love life. as award he gets to know that Zhen Zhen is his writing friend and in the end he gets the girl not the other guy.

Zhen Zhen - at first she is distant, does not care about human world. Works as remote assistant, no actual human contact. Also communicates with the crush from distance too. Has no girlfriends. Peng Cheng wakes up her - with unpredictable requirements makes her loose the job and go out of comfort zone. Then she starts working people oriented job. He encourages to take action on her passive love life (his intentions backfired) and as award she eventually gets her dream boyfriend and safe friend.

Cheng Peng - at first with no plan, indecisive, weird, no integrity. He wants to hate father openly but at the same time use his money. Says he is wrecking his life to revenge his father, but actually he is not alcoholic, no drug abuse neither playboy, and actually does nothing dangerous. Just dropped out of school. Zhen Zhen seriousness brushes on him and he starts having dreams, goals. At the start he is immature, but his reaction to heartbreak is quite mature, not clingy or abusive. As award he will became amazing businessman and earn many money. Sadly to be successful at love life is not his fate, because he did not made any mistakes and at his vicinity there are no proper single girls.

If they wrapped things here f.e. 24 eps, drama would be already great from character development.

Will the name of drama ("friend"), the subtle uniqueness of plot and realistic direction will leave us more than disappointed? Shao Peng Cheng is the best male character I've seen in a while. Combined with Deng Lun acting it becomes amazing. But after half of drama (21 eps) there is no indication that his romantic role will be more than perfect rebound guy. This is so not right.

Here romantic arc is traditional love triangle between bad courageous guy vs good but passive guy. Girl has crush on good but spends all the time with bad. But here subtle deviations indicates me that second half of will be waste of time:
- usually girl role in this arc is naive, extremely insecure, warm hearted, but here Zhen Zhen is smart, independent and strong. Maybe over righteous, too much responsible and therefore a little bit naive.
- girl and good guy relationship usually does not go further than a crush but here they already became an couple with marriage in mind. She is in serious mature love, not a.k.a. childish crush and not realizing who she really loves. The scene where she talks with phone and not realizing rain dripping on shoulder and Peng Cheng gives her umbrella.
- her rejection of bad guy is impressive and mature one - when he fells sick asks her and she politely asks him to not even joke about it.
- bad guy matured too quickly and there was no response from girl. In such love arc maturity usually is turning point to develop romance between leads.
-good guy makes unforgivable situational mistake that girl feels betrayed. Here he did in early episodes by behaving with her rudely but girl did not even care and it did not caused change of her heart.
-good guy realizes his mistakes too late but here he realized that she was his writing pal all along in perfect time.

Peng Cheng was perfectly friend-zoned. I have no idea how writers can turn the tables without ruining the drama (making it unrealistic) or characters. Writers disposed all traditional ways to make them a pair.

Chemistry shows that Peng Cheng and Zhen Zhen would be much better couple than she is with Jing Ran, but we will not get to see that till very last episode. What is the point for the rooting? What was the point of love triangle when there is just one victim?

Seems in second half will show her struggle with Jing Ran's inattentiveness, lack of time, reality-check and Peng Cheng will be there to listen and heal her wounds but later crying from loneliness. I do not see her loving him more than rebound friend. I do not see how they sparkle new romance, because Zhen Zhen and Jing Ran start of romance is too good to begin with. If at this moment she will change her heart without obvious reasons, at first it will be unrealistic and secondly audience will hate her character. At first she need to fell out of love, spend time alone and start with ML from blank sheet. There are too less time because we are already at the middle point.

The only way to save drama is to introduce new girl to Peng Cheng and make him move on from painful one-sided crush. Make this drama about friendship. Then in last episodes they both breakup and long time no seeing reconnect and sparkle romance. Or do not breakup and remain "true friends" as the title of drama. But asian dramas do not do that.

If they will continue with this one-sided love triangle in second half of drama this is not right.

Peng Cheng and Zhen Zhen relationship should be from equal standpoint. He must move on and do not spend time with her. Do not degrade his character into pathetic rebound guy. He should have his own love arc, not dished into secondary role. He should experience relationship, love, not just childish crush.

Am I too early dissapointed?

Here writing of side stories, tackling various social issues is exceptionally great. It feels they can make 48 episodes without dragging it. Acting and direction are good too. But making ML into crying wolf and the only victim from love triangle does not seem right to continue watching this.

Answers there were but because of bad producing and bad acting it was hard to understand. It were very important factors maybe most important but producers gave them just few seconds.
Answers:
Child was given away while JY was in coma by her mother. Her reason was to save marriage between JY and MH, because JY could not have another child from MH. After JY wake up she was too weak and followed her mother decision. There was written agreement between JY and NK but JY was thinking to not give away the child. Being near death experience changed everything.
JW in the end reveals that he actually had feelings for NK even if was rape date, but he liked these coincidences and had attraction to her, he blames himself for these feelings not for getting her pregnant. So if he would divorce NK in early years does not change his feelings towards NK, so he lived like dead corpse to hide these feelings which destroyed JY life.
Just I have no idea why JW chose to not be a father to his both sons. He was just material support, but no nurture, no moral support and everything else father has to give. Like his father to him. We see his sons there attached to their moms rather father.

Overall it was weak reasoning for characters and most disappointing there was no character development.