Great drama! It had many things I wanted to see in the drama like an Ex-GF getting humiliated properly after a bad breakup initiated by her. Or an Ex-GF seducing the ML when he tries the friendship card I so despise.
Yes, the romance was spectacular with a lot of well placed cliche troupes.
Though it has its fallacies too like it took too long for them to get together by K-Drama standards or how it really got boring afterwards. The episode they did get together was great but immediately after the passion just fizzled out like they aged many years all of a sudden...
The SML's story was quite boring and I wasn't able to get vested in it though the drama did give him a lot of screen time in the second half. Same with the second couple as well which ultimately was a lost cause.
She doesn't break up with him over pride, she breaks up with him because of the overwhelming burden of poverty.…
She admits herself that it was because of pride. The whole episode was named "Pride and Prejudice" for a reason. So there is no other explanation.
As for seeing others getting ahead in her university days, she was one of the best and as evident by the scene with her senior trying to recruit her despite knowing that she could score a job at an MNC easily, its impossible that she has such emotions.
She simply let him go because she couldn't face him as poor, burdened by debts and trying to get by with her grandmother, when she portrays herself as a perfect intelligent individual. A personality that she uses to mask her realities and show herself as equal or better than others.
And lets face it, she treated him like a dog and he continued with that due to immaturity but obviously that loss of own opinion i.e. loss of communication, does weigh on a relationship indirectly.
In time he learned about this problem, took charge of his feelings/opinions rather than running away or literally staying quiet and with her realizing how madly she loves him, their second stint succeeded.
I'm wondering what you mean by the programming scene not true to purpose? I'm a web developer even though not…
He doesn't do research that's why I said he is an impossibility. Also do remember they are in China, there won't be similar sites or even sensibilities.
They have a great mistrust towards anything proprietary from the west that's why you also don't see Windows 10 or 11 but XP, Vista and 7 being used in the series... These in itself bar majority of latest CAD tools like IDEs or device drivers from getting installed, perhaps they have hacked versions...
Yh that deletion was just so fake, no matter what all developers have some kind of version system installed.
I'm wondering what you mean by the programming scene not true to purpose? I'm a web developer even though not…
I run a software business and manage the technical side with development for our most critical products. I meant that programming is not just throwing out code and things just work out. Hacking is also not my thing so I don't know about that.
Essentially the planning and problem solving aspect of programming always gets glossed over in the media. Even though I myself don't really give much dedicated time to such as I do it as I code but its not that I am glued to the screen always, typing off pages of code like a dumb mule.
Also the systems being used for what they do are not appropriate. Though you could say they are more for their passion rather than of practical use. Like having a Core i7 and 16GB RAM, the core i7 was unnecessary while 16GB RAM is too low for even web development nowadays.
Then they had those titans and graphics development, don't they realize those are gaming cards (overkill for even that), unsuitable for game development. If you are broke, at least find some good second hand professional GPUs.
I am not even criticizing the ML, who is just out of this world impossibility.
I want to skip the college drama and jump to the eps after coming from jail.. can u tell me what happened exactly…
Fang was not going to stop and would try to ruin her and the company in the future so he made himself the bad guy thus removing the target on them so the company could flourish. The company was envisioned to become his ticket to power in the distant future while he controls it from the shadows.
So he bought all shares from the girl and sold all his shares as well to Gao and told him to run the company in his stead. Then he goes and beats up Fang in the competition ceremony in public, thus ending up in jail. Gao sees the opportunity and seizes complete control and cuts out Li.
Frankly, its a weak premise that doesn't make much sense. When it happens, it doesn't make sense at all but the author molds it to those objectives in the later drama. The implicit trust in Gao is also a very forced plot device, I mean he never gave any impression of being satisfied with Li Xun that Li could find him as some friend.
Very fun drama to watch throughout. I didn't find the FL attractive which really urged me to drop the series in the first episode but I forced myself due to the rating here and it was good.
Great support cast with back stories and real involvement. The programming scene is spicily presented, not true to purpose but good enough for general consumption.
For once a villain was born from ML's mistakes, his grievances were not wrong frankly. An unaware giant swallows its own without regard which was the exact case here as well. Just because of the futility of the situation created by the author he went the evil route, in reality, he would have many options to separate himself and be successful.
Romance well lacks passion for majority of the series and they don't act their age, its more like innocent high school style first love. Kisses are a rare breed. There is tension but its not enough to cause anything. This stays true for 33/36 episodes! Total disappointment.
This was much better than part 1 but then again its wrong to say that considering both combined constitute a season.
The central idea was shaped for the Korean audience brilliantly. I must say South Korea is strangely fitting for this scenario. Even though the whole world suffers from capitalism and still doesn't regulate it, South Korea has that dreaded powerful family corruption going on that many nations have crushed many times. But South Koreans unfortunately have been deluded into a pseudo balance with them.
Not many nations are like the Sri Lankans ousting their government and changing the system. Coincidently we had a Sri Lankan activist who was part of that raid on the presidential palace, among us for an exchange organized by a German NGO. He had a connecting flight through Qatar and they held him there till our embassy intervened. According to him all those hundreds of thousands of protestors are all treated the same way, just for their crime of ousting a corrupt so called democratic government and going against the capitalists.
In retrospect and the meaning behind this series which is bigger than the drama, I rate it a 9.
Its an odd drama, I both like and hate it. Perhaps because it targets a younger audience, teens to mid tweens so there is no realistic grey been good and bad.
There is a high degree of idealism with the legal system being a white horse and going the cliche route of vilifying the more grey aspects of it. A realistic view of it with witty interactions between defendants and prosecutors would have been more interesting but the plot used the cliche illegal countermeasures instead of the real nitty gritty law battles using law intricacies. Those might have worked in a gangster world but we are talking about a law firm and a corporate here, things can't be concluded by just removing the direct belligerents... I felt like the show downgraded to a 90s Indian film.
Romance is nothing phenomenal and is just OK. As per the known Chinese predicament, three is a reset after the fantasy part which spanned longer than half the drama.
This writer does the same thing they vilify in their story as some pitch black evil thing; going against the original intention/spirit behind a law. They play with the Chinese fantasy law's spirit by ending it early, using the same stories inside it as material for plot progression in real life, thus, legitimizing its existence and possibility.
For me, it really just went more of the same and by episode 27, I was bored out of my mind. 8/10
Greed infected expectations are really the downfall of humanity... How hard can it be to not expect any inheritance and build yourself up yourself? Yes, its harrowing to not have a backup but isn't that just life?
The drama is a typical inheritance power struggle though it was addicting. I wasn't able to connect with the fantasy element at all, nor the couple and romance side of the drama so I skipped it all. A first for me to actually finish a non-romantic Chinese drama in such a way.
Its kind of a toned down version of You, English drama with habitual serial killers falling in love, rational thinkers but always on the brink of killing someone, dark comedy, inner thoughts, mind battles, too many interesting points.
This one OTOH ends shortly, has no extra plus points than being a dark thriller and features a truly psychotic couple, from their expressions to their odd ways of pleasure. If they had perhaps exposed their thoughts, it could have been interesting to see and understand their processing but naah.
Oh, law enforcement is as usual extra stupid, like who allows a crippled cop to find a murderer? If the handicapped cop doesn't have this intelligence, even after repeatedly ending up on the floor dragging oneself to safe harbour, why not put a bracelet on her?
It is an odd drama, it has great romance but the plot doesn't engage you as much. It was really hard for me to finish this, even with skips. The ML keeps switching sports so there as well I wasn't able to form any attachment and root for his success. 8/10
Just to be clear, this is an adult rated drama with multiple instances of intense torture, sex, sexual abuse, rape and gang rape but with no nudity.
I second guessed multiple times whether this was not produced in China or does China has a secret second set of censorship laws for certain demographics...
I guess this way, it does show the real nitty gritty inhumanity of the times. Still the odd character personalities confuse me.
As for the review, I didn't like the leads, they were portrayed by old actors throughout their life, from teen years to their 40s. Qi Wei was the only one who could correctly portray herself as her character because of her age neutral progression and portrayal.
It is a revenge and obsessive romance drama which suffers with second FL syndrome. Bad luck for me as I had just come from a drama with a predominantly second ML vibe.
The story picks up very late, after the middle part, only then it becomes irresistibly addicting. Essentially when the actors' appearance start to characterise their age correctly. So I found myself skipping a lot of content in the early to mid parts, then finding it harder to skip anything in the last 15-20 episodes.
Regardless acting is top notch as is expected of extremely veteran actors. The enemies are also not one dimensional. Intricate political schemes were the highlight. Obsessive romance was well not very easy to watch.
Ah there are always dramas that just don't click. Perhaps as I have read many many Xianxia, this comes up as just another riding on the same old beaten path every other has that I felt such aversion towards it. I also found everyone other than the leads attractive and thus the main couple just faded. It didn't help that the drama went with the long winded, last episode culmination of romance and life route.
It is an okayish drama, starts great and from about E21, I was literally yawning and skipping large swathes of content... Only the last couple of episodes made it interesting again.
The romance is good and the overall plot is also very interesting, though it doesn't get the focus it needs. Its a romance focused action drama, pity that the main plot had so much untapped potential.
For sure the scriptwriter dumb down her character in the drama compared to the novel which showed her growth and…
You can say that because you have the novel material completing the story. For me, the drama is the end.
There were many times I thought I would be archiving the drama but the ending 16 or so episodes just killed that feeling. Ultimately, it was a good one time watch.
K-Drama 
Yes, the romance was spectacular with a lot of well placed cliche troupes.
Though it has its fallacies too like it took too long for them to get together by K-Drama standards or how it really got boring afterwards. The episode they did get together was great but immediately after the passion just fizzled out like they aged many years all of a sudden...
The SML's story was quite boring and I wasn't able to get vested in it though the drama did give him a lot of screen time in the second half. Same with the second couple as well which ultimately was a lost cause.
So all in all a 8.5 from me.
As for seeing others getting ahead in her university days, she was one of the best and as evident by the scene with her senior trying to recruit her despite knowing that she could score a job at an MNC easily, its impossible that she has such emotions.
She simply let him go because she couldn't face him as poor, burdened by debts and trying to get by with her grandmother, when she portrays herself as a perfect intelligent individual. A personality that she uses to mask her realities and show herself as equal or better than others.
And lets face it, she treated him like a dog and he continued with that due to immaturity but obviously that loss of own opinion i.e. loss of communication, does weigh on a relationship indirectly.
In time he learned about this problem, took charge of his feelings/opinions rather than running away or literally staying quiet and with her realizing how madly she loves him, their second stint succeeded.
They have a great mistrust towards anything proprietary from the west that's why you also don't see Windows 10 or 11 but XP, Vista and 7 being used in the series... These in itself bar majority of latest CAD tools like IDEs or device drivers from getting installed, perhaps they have hacked versions...
Yh that deletion was just so fake, no matter what all developers have some kind of version system installed.
Essentially the planning and problem solving aspect of programming always gets glossed over in the media. Even though I myself don't really give much dedicated time to such as I do it as I code but its not that I am glued to the screen always, typing off pages of code like a dumb mule.
Also the systems being used for what they do are not appropriate. Though you could say they are more for their passion rather than of practical use. Like having a Core i7 and 16GB RAM, the core i7 was unnecessary while 16GB RAM is too low for even web development nowadays.
Then they had those titans and graphics development, don't they realize those are gaming cards (overkill for even that), unsuitable for game development. If you are broke, at least find some good second hand professional GPUs.
I am not even criticizing the ML, who is just out of this world impossibility.
So he bought all shares from the girl and sold all his shares as well to Gao and told him to run the company in his stead. Then he goes and beats up Fang in the competition ceremony in public, thus ending up in jail. Gao sees the opportunity and seizes complete control and cuts out Li.
Frankly, its a weak premise that doesn't make much sense. When it happens, it doesn't make sense at all but the author molds it to those objectives in the later drama. The implicit trust in Gao is also a very forced plot device, I mean he never gave any impression of being satisfied with Li Xun that Li could find him as some friend.
Great support cast with back stories and real involvement. The programming scene is spicily presented, not true to purpose but good enough for general consumption.
For once a villain was born from ML's mistakes, his grievances were not wrong frankly. An unaware giant swallows its own without regard which was the exact case here as well. Just because of the futility of the situation created by the author he went the evil route, in reality, he would have many options to separate himself and be successful.
Romance well lacks passion for majority of the series and they don't act their age, its more like innocent high school style first love. Kisses are a rare breed. There is tension but its not enough to cause anything. This stays true for 33/36 episodes! Total disappointment.
Overall a good one time watch. 8/10
9/10
The central idea was shaped for the Korean audience brilliantly. I must say South Korea is strangely fitting for this scenario. Even though the whole world suffers from capitalism and still doesn't regulate it, South Korea has that dreaded powerful family corruption going on that many nations have crushed many times. But South Koreans unfortunately have been deluded into a pseudo balance with them.
Not many nations are like the Sri Lankans ousting their government and changing the system. Coincidently we had a Sri Lankan activist who was part of that raid on the presidential palace, among us for an exchange organized by a German NGO. He had a connecting flight through Qatar and they held him there till our embassy intervened. According to him all those hundreds of thousands of protestors are all treated the same way, just for their crime of ousting a corrupt so called democratic government and going against the capitalists.
In retrospect and the meaning behind this series which is bigger than the drama, I rate it a 9.
There is a high degree of idealism with the legal system being a white horse and going the cliche route of vilifying the more grey aspects of it. A realistic view of it with witty interactions between defendants and prosecutors would have been more interesting but the plot used the cliche illegal countermeasures instead of the real nitty gritty law battles using law intricacies. Those might have worked in a gangster world but we are talking about a law firm and a corporate here, things can't be concluded by just removing the direct belligerents... I felt like the show downgraded to a 90s Indian film.
Romance is nothing phenomenal and is just OK. As per the known Chinese predicament, three is a reset after the fantasy part which spanned longer than half the drama.
This writer does the same thing they vilify in their story as some pitch black evil thing; going against the original intention/spirit behind a law. They play with the Chinese fantasy law's spirit by ending it early, using the same stories inside it as material for plot progression in real life, thus, legitimizing its existence and possibility.
For me, it really just went more of the same and by episode 27, I was bored out of my mind.
8/10
The drama is a typical inheritance power struggle though it was addicting. I wasn't able to connect with the fantasy element at all, nor the couple and romance side of the drama so I skipped it all. A first for me to actually finish a non-romantic Chinese drama in such a way.
This one OTOH ends shortly, has no extra plus points than being a dark thriller and features a truly psychotic couple, from their expressions to their odd ways of pleasure. If they had perhaps exposed their thoughts, it could have been interesting to see and understand their processing but naah.
Oh, law enforcement is as usual extra stupid, like who allows a crippled cop to find a murderer? If the handicapped cop doesn't have this intelligence, even after repeatedly ending up on the floor dragging oneself to safe harbour, why not put a bracelet on her?
7/10
I second guessed multiple times whether this was not produced in China or does China has a secret second set of censorship laws for certain demographics...
I guess this way, it does show the real nitty gritty inhumanity of the times. Still the odd character personalities confuse me.
As for the review, I didn't like the leads, they were portrayed by old actors throughout their life, from teen years to their 40s. Qi Wei was the only one who could correctly portray herself as her character because of her age neutral progression and portrayal.
It is a revenge and obsessive romance drama which suffers with second FL syndrome. Bad luck for me as I had just come from a drama with a predominantly second ML vibe.
The story picks up very late, after the middle part, only then it becomes irresistibly addicting. Essentially when the actors' appearance start to characterise their age correctly. So I found myself skipping a lot of content in the early to mid parts, then finding it harder to skip anything in the last 15-20 episodes.
Regardless acting is top notch as is expected of extremely veteran actors. The enemies are also not one dimensional. Intricate political schemes were the highlight. Obsessive romance was well not very easy to watch.
7/10
The romance is good and the overall plot is also very interesting, though it doesn't get the focus it needs. Its a romance focused action drama, pity that the main plot had so much untapped potential.
8/10
There were many times I thought I would be archiving the drama but the ending 16 or so episodes just killed that feeling. Ultimately, it was a good one time watch.