K-Drama 
Entertaining, but don't watch on an empty stomach.
Overall, this was a fun and entertaining drama. It has a lot of different elements that made it enjoyable, from the main romance and light comedy to serious political drama and martial arts combat and of course, lots of food! And for the most part that crazy mix makes perfect sense. Most of the characters are interesting and show real growth in ways that keep you engaged. The plot has a very good core premise with some nice creative twists that keep things from being obvious. They also do a good job of avoiding some of the more annoying plot tropes common in so many romance dramas. The plot does drag down a bit in the low-to-mid 20s episodes as they fill time with some side plots. And some goofy character behavior that worked early on did become tiring around that point. But the plot recovered very well over the last half-dozen episodes and finished strong.The actors are all very well cast and really deliver well on their roles. Both leads are excellent and have great chemistry. The production values - costumes, sets, special effects, camera-work, etc, are all top quality with only minor, irrelevant glitches here and there.
Caution: Do not watch while hungry unless you have food to eat.
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Very enjoyable light rom-com
This show is exactly what it's supposed to be: A very enjoyable romantic story with some light fun comedy. Most of the 'drama' is lightweight and resolved fairly quickly. The only things that are dragged out are the initial plot premise deceptions between the ML & FL - that's dragged out past it's usefulness but at least when the big reveals happen the show doesn't endlessly drag out the subsequent resolution of the trauma that results. So while this is a very, very slow developing romance - slight spoiler: the first kiss doesn't happen until well past the halfway mark of the show - otherwise the show moves at a fairly brisk pace. Things do happen in each episode and until the final couple of episode long time-wasting montage scenes are minimized.The two leads , Zheng He Hui Zi and Miles Wei, have very good chemistry and look great together. Both carried their roles beautifully and somehow managed to sell the idea that two characters could act like stalkers of each other and it not be creepy - indeed it's cute and romantic!. And the second couple is just fantastic. I really would love to see Chen Hao Lan and Li Jun Xian get lead roles - together or separately - because both actors feel like they can carry a lead role. I especially was impressed with Chen Hao Lan. She plays a very dynamic role as the FL's bestie with her own dramatic story arc of ups & downs. And Li Jun Xian is simultaneously handsome and charming and yet a total goofball when necessary, in hilarious fashion.
The production values of this show are solid, with lots of great wardrobe, settings artwork and really nice soundtrack. A few prop quibbles and oversights but nothing worth crying about.
My only real complaint is just my common complaint I have about how for some reason c-drama writers so often feel obligated to include some sort of 'love triangle', which in this show is in the form of the annoyingly pathetic Li Shi Can character. He plays the part of the stereotypical 'unrequited love interest' who pines pathetically for the FL, but is doomed to be forever friend-zoned. His character was just so pathetic and selfish and boring to watch. Just a pointless waste of screen time and take my advice and just skip rapidly through any scenes with him in it - even some that include the leads. You really won't be missing anything good in this show by skipping his scenes. The writers could easily have left him out completely.
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Not perfect but entertaining and a strong finish over the last few episodes.
Not perfect. The characterization of the ML was almost cartoonish (cold, emotionless stoic-to-a-fault CEO) at times and often not really believable as someone anyone would like. And the SML & SFL characters and romance was often very annoying and fueled with tropes. The script writing was very good up to episode 20 and then took a nose-dive over episodes 21-24. But then it bounced back and was pretty solid through the final 9 episodes and especially the last 3-4.In particular, Xue Shanshan's steady growth as a character carried the show even through the low points of the story. She has very visible and realistic growth from the bubbly naive young girl at the start to the mature woman she is at the end. Yet even as a mature woman she still retains the charm that entranced the ML (and the viewers) from the beginning. Ziao Li Ying delivers a fantastic performance in a role that is very, very different from say, the grumpy overly-serious swordswoman of Legend of Fei, or the clever, revenge-motivated assassin of Princess Agents.
The rest of the cast is solid. I do think that Zhang Han was given a rather tough role to play as the near emotionless Feng Teng. The script writers made him so extremely tightly wound at times that it was painful to watch Zhang struggle to make him seem like a human and not a cartoon character. I don't blame the actor. You can tell that the script that was given defined him this way. It's (as mentioned at the start) probably the biggest drama trope weakness of this series. But fortunately it was more than balanced by the fun of watching FL's counter point character. And even the ML character finally showed a lot of growth over the last few episodes to make sense.
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This review may contain spoilers
Almost perfect, just a couple of annoying flaws. Definitely worth watching.
Fun, classic period-c-drama. Features a very strong female lead performance by Zoey Meng. ML (played by He Yu)is also just as capable so isn't diminished by the FL in any way. He's just, unfortunately, hindered by poison through nearly all the story., which is frustrating because you can feel that holding him back from his full potential The romance-factor is important but develops slowly as, while ML is absolutely smitten by the FL from the moment he sees her and has his heart locked on her with laser precision that never wavers, the FL starts out the story having 'survived' pretty heavy trauma (a forced loveless marriage, the extermination of her entire family, driven to suicide in order to get revenge before being reincarnated within the body of a woman who was, herself, just murdered! So she is quite understandably extremely guarded emotionally. She has her shields up at maximum constantly and so it takes a looooong time before she has finally healed enough from her trauma to let them down and allow the ML to touch her heart. Her apparent coldness turns some fans off but just keep her history in perspective and be patient. Once she finally falls for him, she falls hard so it's all worth it. The only real negative in this show (other than some occasional clumsy edits and frequent reliance on 'off screen' events getting added to the narrative only by talking about them, is the way it handled the Prince Xin character. Xin's character is basically the all-too-familiar 'psychopathic-obsessive-unrequitted love interest' drama trope. Played brilliantly and creepily by Jeremy Xu. This character, like in too many c-dramas, is given too much screen time, beyond what is needed for the storyline, Very popular in a lot of c-dramas to try to mislead the audience into having sympathy or empathy with this sort of creepy based on 'sad backstory'. And this show does too much of that as well. Fine. We just have to accept he's a psycho and endure all his creepy weirdness and eventually this builds up to him doing awful psycho things that the FL needs to overcome. Where it gets weird though is in the end, the show decides to tuck in a one-on-one conversation between the Xin character and the FL, Xi He, where he explains that he did all these bad rebellious things just so she would gain legitimacy through stopping him. So with this revelation, the show gets to portray Xin to the audience as just a misunderstood 'good guy'. A martyr, in fact. But the fact is, to the larger plot, if he was simply a psychopath who rebelled, as we thought anyway, the FL still would have been legitimized because she stopped him. In other words, this bizarre 'reveal' at the end made absolutely ZERO difference to the plot. And this 'twist' doesn't exist in the storyline anywhere outside of that private conversation and then a brief mention later between Xi He and Xin's brother. So it just feels weird and contrived and pointless. The whole conversation scene was totally bizarre - she had NO reason to grant that conversation to him and ultimately just became some 10 minutes of wasted screen time. If they simply left him as a psychopath who rebelled, then the entire rest of the story remains the same. That screen time could have been put to better use on maybe building more interesting foreshadowing of Hua Yong's fate. Make it so that a lot of viewers have a better understanding of what happens at the end without thinking it is magic.Was this review helpful to you?
A brilliantly executed parody!
First off: THIS IS A PARODY!!!! It's apparent from some viewer comments that some folks just never understood that about this show. Those folks were always way too serious and upset about either the ML or the FL behavior early on - which was over-the-top on purpose (because: parody). If you realize this is a parody, just relax and enjoy.Second: It really helps you enjoy the parody if you are a veteran of watching lots and lots of c-dramas (and k-dramas) because that way you will better recognize the zillions of drama tropes and cliches that this series plays with on purpose. Many will be obvious, such as the SML-is-unrequited-love trope and - OMG - The Cliff scene! Many others are subtle and this show doesn't always hold your hand to point them out. You are expected to see and recognize them and when you do they make many of the scenes -- even the serious drama ones - even more fun.
Okay, those two things out of the way: This show really delivers. It is extremely well crafted in all aspects. The cast is absolutely stellar, loaded with talented actors you should recognize and they are all really great in this. Each of the primary cast gets plenty of moments to shine in their character without the series feeling scattered too far from the leads. Both Li Yi Tong and Lu Yu Ning are wonderful, showing wide range in their characters and they have great chemistry. The script is excellent - which is important because it is very specifically criticizing and sending up all the 'bad script' hacks in the script-within-a-script.
Other production aspects are also fantastic. The sets and costumes are all first-rate and the lighting and cinematography are beautifully done. And the music. Oh my god, the music is done SO well! All the scenes are enhanced by very well thought out music.
I really enjoyed this series. If you miss on the first two points I made up above, you might knock it down a bit on the score. But for folks that understand this is a parody and who are experienced watching c-dramas, this show is pretty much perfect. So much fun.
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Great show up through episode 19. After that .... ick.
Mixed feelings. The actors were all solid. Chemistry between leads was great. Pretty good show up until ep 19. Then became an absolute garbage script over the last 5 episodes as the writers decided to change the show from "Dating in the Kitchen" into "Corporate Pissing Contest Between Two Spiteful Brothers". Worse, in order to facilitate the pissing contest, the writers applied plot-induced stupidity to make Zhao Lusi's character, Gu Shengnan, suddenly become the most stupid, naive, gullible idiot. Again and again she keeps making the WORST decisions and ends up caught as an emotional punching bag between the two brothers. They also transformed the younger brother from a nice, likable goofball into suddenly being a completely morally broken scheming slime ball who has no qualms about manipulating and hurting the innocent Shengnan in order to get at Lu Jin. She ends up enduring a ton of emotional pain and anguish because of all this. And in the end, we are supposed to think it's all, "OK"???? Lu Zheng is given a complete pass at the end despite having done such scumbag things? Similarly, the show expects us to forgive and forget and let Lu Jin's mother off the hook for all truly cruel crap she pulled? Did the show change script writers for the last few episodes? Or were they on drugs during that time? Because watching the last 5 episodes was just awful. I only forced myself to watch to the end because I'd come this far and despite the truly awful final plot line, I still very much enjoyed both Zhao Lusi and Lin Yu Shen's performances. Even when the script had them behaving like idiots. The show also has a very nice music soundtrack. And the show was great back when it focused more around food and the symbolism and importance of food, cooking and eating in the various plot-arcs that built up the original premise of the show. The show just forgot all that and lost its way for the final 5 episodes.My advice is watch the show up until some happy point somewhere in ep 19 ... and then just skip to the final happy ending scenes in the last few minutes of ep 24. Everything in between is just garbage.
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A visual feast and a lot of fun
This show starts out as a repeating comedy. The various sect disciples & elders are total absusive, ignorant a**holes who keep insisting that the ML is a piece of trash. He proves them wrong and presents clear evidence he's beyond what they thought and they all shut up for ... about 5 minutes. Then the next challenge of the story presents itself and the whole cycle repeats. Each time the various fools in his way say silly, ridiculous things and set arbitrary, ridiculous thresholds and each time he survives and exceeds. Eventually, it just becomes comedy. Like an SNL sketch (with much cooler special effects, of course!). And it's crazy just how stupid and morally broken nearly all the characters are in this world. The only truly decent characters are the Wife, the three Sword Immortals and Elder Yun. The ML is mostly in the 'right', but is starting to struggle a bit with where the Dugo Sword is taking him. Definitely agree with other fans who say it all felt like 'villain arc' but I think it is not that simple. As with other commenters, I'm eager to see if they do produce a sequel. Wifey's grin and comment at the end were intriguing. Overall, this was a fun, entertaining show. The production values are very good - some of the visual effects are delicious eye candy. The OST was pretty good too, especially for a short-format production. That cast was fully of beautiful people who all looked like they enjoyed this experience.Was this review helpful to you?
Great premise ruined by dumb ending and exasperating ML
The initial story premise is very good and Kelly Yu as the quirky FL is great, but the rest of this production is a wreck. The ML character is just awful. I won't necessarily blame the actor because maybe he was directed to portray Jiang QingLiu this way and certainly a lot of it is in the script, but the ML character is just not a likable male lead. First off, he's just plain incredibly stupid and gullible through most of the show. He's also mostly incredibly emotionally detached and seems to be sleepwalking through most of this. He is absurdly incapable of actually doing anything right to completion, either as the FL has to finish or fix everything he does again and again. Worst of all he is way too often oblivious to the suffering his wife is going through. The story has a good overall plot with potentially interesting villains but the editing and delivery are very choppy along the way so the story often jumps from event to event in seemingly nonsensical ways. And the final two episodes are just awful - especially the last one which leans so heavily on the Noble Idiocy trope for absolutely no good reason. You have to resist the urge to punch the screen and well, probably could just skip most of the last couple of episodes other than the victory over the bad guys and then a brief happy moment reunited with the baby in the final episode. Just stop watching at that point.Was this review helpful to you?
Very fun to watch. Ending is a little disappointing.
Light-hearted, low budget production but very enjoyable to watch combination of murder-mystery & rom-com in a transmigration period costume format. The production level is not high and some of the acting is flat and amateurish - typic of this sort of short-format production. But the murder mastery itself is fairly decent and the two leads are very charismatic and fun to watch. Especial kudos to Jin Zi Xuan, who is delightful as the FL. The one big negative is that the show ends kind of on a negative open-ended note and begged for either an actual resolution or a follow-up season. Maybe at the t time they expected to produce another season? Without that, probably should stop the story with the scene of the couple at the top of the bridge.Was this review helpful to you?
A lot of fun and well worth watching.
This show totally surprised me with how much I enjoyed it. It's not the highest production values. It doesn't have the biggest name cast. And the special effects and music, while fine, aren't especially notable. But man, the story and the way the actors implemented it, were just so much fun. Very well paced as well, so nods to the directing and editing. The plot wasn't super sophisticated but had just enough nuance to keep it interesting. Plenty of room was left for humor and very little of the humor was cringe or forced. Most of it was well-delivered naturally within the plot and so actually was funny (unlike the often overly forced humor in so many c-dramas). The plot had a few classic tropes sprinkled in, but none of them were massive awkward contrivances and none were dragged out just to delay the plot extra episodes. The show definitely left room for a season 2 so hopefully that will happen.Was this review helpful to you?
Great Cast Wasted on a Terrible Script
Such a disappointment. So much about this show - a great cast of actors, excellent initial story premise, a variety of interesting characters and solid production values - should have meant for a top-grade k-drama production. Unfortunately it is all let down by a truly horribly stupid script. And the number one failing of the script can be summed up in three words: Plot Induced Incompetence. Because this script has the characters constantly being incompetent. At lots of things, but in particular at the things they were supposed to be good at. Main lead is supposed to be a capable bodyguard but consistently makes operational security mistake after mistake and is supposed to be mentally quick in critical moments (as she tried to show off in her job interview) but the script almost alway turned her into someone slow and frozen by emotions. She never learns her lesson about holding a gun on someone within arm's reach (don't do so unless you intend to pull the trigger), repeating the same mistake 3 different times! And it wasn't just her. Almost all the characters kept making obviously stupid choices that led directly to trouble. The plot relied super heavily on this again and again. Even the supposedly very careful and methodical Chairman had no backup power for his CCTV cameras! Simple things such as changing the door lock codes after you. have fired someone! And don't get me started on the bad police procedures! If it was just one or two things like this it would be easy to dismiss and ignore. But this show's script relied so heavily on a constant stream of obvious points of incompetence happening that it just became giant joke among all the Viki commenters as the show progressed. A lot of us got hooked by the early episodes which setup the premise and established the cast & characters, which were all fine. But then as the show went on it became a grind - a real endurance test to try to make it to the ending.Was this review helpful to you?
Great Cast. Horrible Script.
Wonderful cast. Horrible script. The overall plot, the setting, the production level and of course the actors were all great. Unfortunately, the script was just awful. The script writer clearly was in love with the "misunderstanding" plot trope as she used it again and again and again in various forms throughout this show. This trope was used to drag out contrived drama for far, far longer than was remotely entertaining. Worse, the script also required some of the characters to act, well, bizarre. Dylan Wang's character, Shi Yan, was just so bizarre and not likable at all until around episode 31 or 32, which is how long it took before the show finally resolve the main 'misunderstanding' to allow the two leads to finally become a couple. Through most of this show his character is so incredibly petty, sullen, ridiculously resistant to normal human communication and to the FL, often downright cruel and abusive. That all magically goes away when they finally turn the corner, but that doesn't happen until, like I said, around episode 31+. Most of this series is just dragged out contrived 'dramatic tension' that you are left waiting for the plot to finally resolve so they can be together. Then you finally get a tiny handful of episodes of them actually being together. This is not good storytelling. There are some good points. While their characters are at times annoying and ridiculous, both Bai Lu and Dylan Wang perform them well. The then-very-young Shen Yu Jie, as Qin Shiyue, is wonderful and steals much of the show as one of the only consistently 'sane' characters and one who goes through a lot of personal growth. The cast and the overall plot premise were good, and the last 5 episodes were much better, but man, it was tough hanging on to the end. I blame all the problems in this show on the awful script.Was this review helpful to you?
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The ending kinda ruins an otherwise wonderful series.
Overall, a fantastic, classic wuxia ... until the final episodes. More on that later. First I just ant to laud a few key points that I liked. This show has so many strong elements starting with a script that create very real, very complex characters who, with the possible exception of the villainous She Wan Chen, were not 2-dimensional cartoon cutouts. Most of the characters in this drama were multi-layered, often involving sides of white right along with sides of black and of course, lots of grey. In particular, the 'love triangle' dynamic involving Miao Renfeng, Nan Lan and Tian Guinong was both angsty and heartbreaking to watch unfold, but also brilliant drama as all three characters show both good and bad sides. Renfeng may be pure heroic of purpose, but he was a negligent fool of a husband who broke his promises to his wife in favor of promises to dead people long gone. That was the first betrayal of their relationship. His essential abandonment and refusal to prioritize his wife and child pushed the insecure Nan Lan right towards his 'best friend' / hidden enemy, Tian Guinong. Who psychotically, obsessively coveted anything and everything that Miao possessed. Some viewers hated Nan Lan for 'cheating' on Miao. But in prioritizing his quest for the truth about the deaths of Hu Fei's parents over his promises to his wife, Miao was actually the first to, "cheat". He abandoned her again and again for months at a time, leaving her alone, vulnerable and scared. And while it was one thing to do in their first years together, once she had a child to care for, it became a ridiculously dangerous and awful thing to keep doing to Lan and Roulan. So she, like any mother, was attracted to the idea of the stable, secure home that Tian promised her. And Tian didn't just woo her with promises. He legitimately acted so sincerely nice and caring to both Lan and her child that she had zero reason to think he was anything but sincere towards her. Literally until late, near the end of the series when she finally sees the truth of the evil deeds that Tian has done, she had no reason to think he was anything but a good man. And I think he DID really love Lan and even, for a time, Roulan. But his love was less than his evil psychosis. On the other story arc, Hu Fei is a bit of a strange character. He starts off as a street smart clever child able to survive alone even after his "uncle" is killed ... but when they time-skip to the 'present day' storyline he immediately acts like a naive, overly-trusting idiot who keeps stumbling blindly into trouble. He only very, very slowly grows more smart and cautious and is a bit irritating to watch make the same dumb mistakes again and again. But he's wonderfully nice and pure of heart and a fantastic fighter and so easy to root for. The two women in his life are both complex, loving him dearly but both chained by the script writers with their own 'noble idiocy' drama tropes that unfortunately, get carried out all the way to the end of the show and never released. Ziyi hid her relationship with her father and her commitment to the agenda of her nutcase 'master' all the way to the end until it was too late. And Ling Su hid her poisonous fate until it, too, was too late.And this brings me to my biggest complaint about the show. Yes, I understand that the source material is a very old story that purposely ended ambiguously with only two likely outcomes, both being unhappy for one reason or another. So sure, the original source material ("The Flying Fox of Snowy Mountain") did not have a 'happy ending'. So I guess that meant the writers of this show felt compelled to also not have a 'happy ending'. Fine. But the problem with the final couple of episodes isn't just that the show ended with so many unhappy fates for so many characters. The problem was that almost every single one of the 'bad fates' was pointless. There was nothing gained plot-wise or thematically by the deaths of Ma Chun Hua, Miao Renfeng, or Cheng Ling Su. And there was absolutely no point to having Yuan Ziyi tonsured to the life of a nun. Each of these fates was awkwardly contrived and forced upon the story almost as if to purposely trigger the viewers. Yes, the show teased some of these fates from early on so they weren't pulled out of nowhere at the last second. But to tease these dumb fates doesn't validate that they made sense story-wise. Ziyi becoming a nun was based on classic drama trope false-guilt and false commitment to crazy teachings pounded into her head by that nutcase "All-Knowing Nun" that were abslutely logically stupid and made no sense to anyone with half an ounce of rational thinking. It just made no sense. Renfeng staying outside the doors just to get shot to pieces made no sense. He wasn't saving anyone by doing so. And so on. So the whole thing felt at the end like the writers forced all these 'bad fates' purely for the sake of doing so.
And jeez I didn't even get into wondering WTF happened to the twins and Xiaomei at the end of the show? The fates of those three were completely glossed over by the writers. Just ridiculous.
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Wonderful performances. Terrible script.
Mixed feelings about this show. First the positives:Kim You Jung as Jeong Saet Byeol was absolutely phenomenal. This is the first show I'd seen her in and I think her acting was incredible. Her character was simultaneously ferociously brave and strong and joyful and yet also so fragile and tragic. And she delivered that complex character brilliantly. I also loved the performances by Kim Sun Young (Day Hyeon's mother) and of course Ji Chang Wook as Dae Hyun. Overall the talent of the cast was excellent at delivering the characters of this story. Also, the production values of this show were top notch. Sets, wardrobe, cinematography, music - everything was well done.
Now the negatives: The script. How do I put this nicely? It sucked awful in three aspects. First and most obvious is in the nature of the characters the script included. Above I said the performances of the actors was great and it was. But some of the characters were just absurd and offensive. As many have already mentioned, the cultural appropriation represented by the Dal Sik character was jarring. And his various antics were only occasionally funny but mostly just waivering between annoying and offensive. His character could have been written completely different, avoiding all the problems that he represents and the story could have been the same. Better actually. Also, we have to talk about the Male Lead. Again, Ji Chang Wook was wonderful at portraying Dae Hyeon ... but Dae Hyeon was not a wonderful leading man for most of this show. His character was simply not someone that was easy to root for as the leading man through the first 9+ episodes and it wasn't until maybe episode 12 or so that he really started to feel like someone worthy of Saet Byeol's total devotion. From that point on, yes, his character was great. But seriously, he was mostly pathetic and irritating for over 3/4 of the show!
The second major problem with the script is alluded to in that. The pacing was just awful. It took way, way too long to move the various plot tracks forward and it felt like a LOT of time was wasted on silly stuff such as poor attempts at humor as the camera spent large amounts of screen time on Dal Sik's antics.
And the 3rd problem is that the script leaned more and more on obvious cliche' plot tropes as the show progressed culminating with one of th worst ones, the classic, "Noble Idiocy" trope, as the final plot conflict to be overcome.
All in all, it's a heck of a credit to the actors to pull off the performances they did with such a crappy overall script. There were some incredibly emotional scenes - both happy AND sad - performed in this show and the actors pulled them off brilliantly. But the script really dragged the overall quality of this show down.
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This review may contain spoilers
Enjoyable, low-stress rom-com
The one-liner: Falling into Your Smile is an enjoyable rom-com that is mostly low-stress and emotionally pleasant.Pros: Both leads are enjoyable to watch. Xu Kai is a little predictable, playing the ML, Lu Si Cheng, as the same sort of 'cold, stoic, super-competent CEO' role that he has played in multiple dramas. Even though he's technically NOT a 'CEO' of a company in this drama, the type of character he plays is basically the same. Nothing new there and while that might seem a criticism, Xu Kai does play it well. Chang Xiao, as the FL, is a different sort. Her character is very reserved towards other characters, guarding her emotions carefully, though inwardly very sensitive. She only shows her emotions strongly to her best friend and, as their relationship grows, to Lu Si Cheng. Otherwise, she holds a straight face towards almost everyone else. This sets up the irony of her in-game call-name because while in real life, Tong Yao rarely smiles, in the game she is always Smiling. Among support characters, the FL's parents and the ML's mother are all wonderfully played in short appearances by veteran actors - especially both moms who each eat up the scenery when on screen. Alas, neither is on screen enough. The plot of the show is fairly straightforward, similar to any sports-competition type drama: The characters work together over a long season of ups & downs towards a goal of winning a championship, overcoming many different types of obstacles along the way. The competition portrayals are fun and exciting. The shift into 3d-animated portrayals of the game events is fun and exciting to watch.
Cons: The behavior of a lot of the supporting cast is cartoonish. The various e-sports gamers, despite mostly being young men in their mid-to-late 20s, are portrayed as having the maturity level of 5th graders. This is supposedly humorous but mostly looks insulting to real-world e-sports competitors who are mostly rational adults. The plot is, as I said, mostly fine, but does lean into the 'noble idiocy' drama trope in a few of the episodes and that's annoying. Also, the show writers commit two glaring ethical sins that really bothered me. Early in the drama, for drama effect, they have a character commit what is objectively a very serious criminal felony - striking someone from behind with a whisky bottle on the back of the head. The sin is that later, this is completely whitewashed and forgiven as if he had done nothing more than give someone a mild shove. Instead of the character being in prison, he is welcomed back to the team with open arms. This is absolutely ridiculous and could have easily been avoided by the writers. If they had simply had the character do nothing different _except_ simply push the guy hard, then everything else written in the show would still have worked without feeling like a whitewash. Then, later in the show, there is a scene where one of the competitors from one of the other teams, isolates Tong Yao in a hallway alone, physically restricts her and threatens her. She has no way to escape the situation other than to bite the guy on the wrist to break free. Later, instead of acknowledging her situation AND HER RIGHT TO DEFEND HERSELF, the writers have Lu Si Cheng scold her for freeing herself and insisting that the only right thing she should have done is to call for Cheng. He even locks her outside of the base for hours and hours as punishment. But this is ludicrous. Cheng simply was nowhere to be called to for help. Lu Si Cheng was completely in the wrong for demanding this behavior of her and for punishing her for 'doing something wrong'. Because she did not do anything wrong. This is victim-blaming and does not reflect well of the ethics and morality of the writers.
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