melontea

Cringe is unavoidable in many short-length dramas. They're like trashy romance novels but in TV format 😂

I find that unlikely.

This director only makes short dramas and, as far as I know, there has never been a case where a drama with 45-minute episodes got edited down to only have 15-minute episodes.

The intro length might be because they probably didn't know how to cut the song shorter without "butchering" it.

I've always wanted to watch a reincarnation story with a third lifetime. Too bad the short-length format didn't allow for a longer, more elaborate story.

I still enjoyed the watch though. Definitely one of the better ones for a short drama with good production value and believable acting.

By the way, does anyone else find the ending to be bittersweet because the FL we've come to know in more than 20 episodes doesn't really exist in the end? 🥲

I love Mysterious Lotus Casebook. Actually I started watching this drama in hopes of finding a story with similar vibes and a character like Li Lianhua, but nothing I've seen comes close to it.

The author isn't very good at writing romance. It's not just Xiao Se and Qianluo. None of the couples, whether they're from the younger or older generation, make any sense to me 😅

But I don't think romance itself is the problem. After all many great stories have romantic subplots, but they're well-integrated in the main plot and their development feels natural. In this drama though, it feels like the author paired up his characters randomly and had no idea how to properly work them into the plot.

No way 😆 I haven't watched Unveil yet, but that's funny to know.

And yep, they said it right in the drama in an earlier episode, meaning it's canon. Oh well.

I also assumed Tang Lian to be much older and was surprised to found out his age.

But the worst is the casting for Li Hanyi. She's supposed to be only 4 years younger than Sikong Changfeng, yet she looks like she could be his daughter! 🤯 Even her dubbing voice makes her sound quite young.

I'm enjoying this drama a lot, but my suspension of disbelief when it comes to ages can only go so far 😅

Those are not fans but haters, paid bots and netizens adding their unneeded 2 cents.

I've seen Chen Xingxu's actual fans say there's a coordinated smear campaign going on against him which would explain why he's getting attacked over minor things.

The same thing has happened to other Chinese actors before. That's why we should always take hate comments from the Chinese internet with a grain of salt and not assume they come from real people with real opinions.

They're not fans but haters, bots and random netizens.

On the Chinese internet, there are lots of fake bot accounts bought by agencies and antis to spread hate against certain actors they don't want to see succeed.

From what I've read, Chen Xingxu's Chinese fans think there's smear campaign going on against him which would explain why he's getting attacked over minor things.

Thanks for replying! Looks like I'll have to watch both versions 😆

Thanks for the reply! Looks like I'll have to check out the drama as well 😊

I've defended many female leads on this website before but the writing for this FL genuinely annoyed me at one point.

I really didn't like how strongly she held onto her prejudice against the ML for such a long time. There were moments where she showed a bit of understanding and kindness toward him only for the next episode to destroy what little progress they made in their relationship. The ML seemed like a sad masochist, always going back to the FL, no matter how many cruel words she threw at him.

Some viewers think it was written like this on purpose, as a parody of other similar relationships in Cdrama land. Even so, it didn't make it any less frustrating to watch 😮‍💨 I thought a parody was supposed to subvert or comment on stupid tropes, but I didn't get that impression from how the main romance was written.

Does anyone know if this is a total copy of the animated cartoon so far or does it bring anything new to the table?

I just started watching the cartoon when this dropped a few days ago and I'm not sure which version to watch now.

I've seen Thailand portrayed in US American shows before and even they didn't feature so many Western-looking tourists as background extras 😅

That's one of the things that made me wonder if this drama was really fully filmed in Thailand.

Eh, I've jokingly said before that I'm "not adult enough" when offered coffee because it's my least favorite beverage and I'm way past college age 😅 I think it was just a joke between them too.

There are other things that I find more childish about the writing of her character but I'm keeping it to myself until I've watched more episodes.

I find it relatable rather than delusional. As someone who has been attracted to much younger men before, I can totally understand where the FL is coming from thinking of the ML as a "kid" 😅

She didn't annoy me as a character but the romance was not well-written nor well-portrayed. At some points it was even kind of cheesy. They should have been partners and friends in my opinion.

May I ask which kisses got cut?

There's a pretty long kiss scene in episode 19 (?) and it's more explicit compared to other similar scenes in Cdrama land. I'm just a little doubtful it's because of censorship that other kiss scenes were deleted since we got a very good one in the aired version 😅

They were just badly filmed and directed.

I didn't mind the kiss scenes between the CEO and his rich wife because they actually looked real and helped to establish their relationship/characterizations, but the main couple kissed like they didn't feel comfortable doing it in front of a camera 🙃

The Thai actress actually had a thick Thai accent which made it really hard for me to understand her. It didn't make sense for her role either because she's supposed to be an American-born Chinese. Too bad there were no English captions for her lines 😅

The other actress is from Hong Kong and her accent sounded different to me, easier to understand to be honest. Actually, all the other actors (either from China or Hong Kong) spoke better English than Maggie. She's a total miscast in my opinion.