m5m

Strengths: The two leads in this are cast perfectly. Both play their respective roles wonderfully and their chemistry is fantastic, whether they are arguing, goofing off together, being cold & businesslike or romantically hugging and kissing. They are perfect pair for the roles in this series and they make it worth watching. The rest of the cast is also mostly fine, though most of the characters are ... unpleasant for various reasons. Acting talent, for the most part, is not a problem for this show and probably its best feature. The production values (sets, wardrobe, cinematography, etc.) are okay, though there are numerous little glitches such as wrong props, missing bandages, etc., etc., that are easy to spot. Plotwise, the basic story for the main couple (Su Mang and Zheng Chu) is pretty good. It gets a little annoying when they drag out an extended 'noble idiocy' trope over the last several episodes, but still their story is overall fine. And the story for the '3rd' romance plot between Tang Guo Guo and Su Chang is pretty good. Indeed, arguable TGG's character arc is one of the better parts since she really goes through the most dramatic, positive changes throughout the drama.

Now the bad: From somewhere in the middle of this series and all the way to the end, the writing went from just fine to just plain awful. Episodes started to get filled with cheap, lazy drama tropes, one after another. Often just to obviously drag out screen time. And then there is the absolute horror show that is the secondary romance plot line involving Tang Ming and the two sisters, Yan Xiaoqiu and Chen Shan Shan. This story is just so stupid and awful and cringe. It doesn't help that Tang Ming is just a completely unlikeable stupid meathead who makes one bad decision after another and ultimately causes so much harm to both sisters and himself. It is nearly impossible to empathize with him, root for him or feel sorry for him when it all blows up in his face. For someone who isn't meant to be a villain, he is one of the most unlikeable 'good guys' in any show I've seen in recent memory. To make his story progress, the writers resort to an unbelievable amount of cheap, cliche' plot gimmicks and it's beyond annoying. Be prepared to start skipping quickly through scenes involving Tang Ming or Chen Shan Shan or you may loose your mind. And - SPOILER - they even resort to killing off one of the very few truly decent, almost saint-like characters just to provide a dramatic 'life lesson' to the idiots in the plot.

This show starts out so strong and I stuck with it to the end just because I loved the two main leads so much from the start and because the tertiary couple (TGG and SC) really grew on me as the story progressed. But it was not easy to stick through all the badly written crap, especially in most of episodes 30-39.