Give it a shot--

SPOILERS AHEAD

Let me preface this with the following: I tend to dislike dramas that do not take place in the historical period because they are filled with cringe worthy fluff (in my opinion) but my best friend likes them and recommended this one.  I was skeptical because I can count on one hand all the modern dramas that I have liked, and they usually are not your typical drama.  That said, I liked this.  For the readers who haven't stopped reading  by now, here is a brief summary:

First, I will start with the characters:
The main characters are Shan Shan, an overall positive and highly motivated young woman who believes in the age old adage 'if you do your best everything will work out' so she is 1)optimistic and also 2)thoughtful and considerate.  But she isn't perfect.  She enters a well respected company in spite of coming from a third rate university which has her concluding that the HR guy accidentally accepted her because he was tired and wasn't paying attention.  She enters the bottom level department (but important office) responsible for crunching budgets out for everything the company needs. It is a lot of data collection and entry--meaning not very interesting.  Everyone in her office isn't overtly mean but they wonder how she was hired with such a common and otherwise uninteresting background (they came from better schools, yadayada).  

But back to her overall character: Shan Shan is a likable character because while she is cute, she is imperfect.  She makes a lot of errors in the office  but she is very receptive to criticism and feed back.  She tries hard.  She struggles with self confidence and trying to make it in a city, with trying to live up to the expectations of her family (she comes from a village in the middle of nowhere and everyone is so proud of her because she got into this company).

Boss Feng, or 'the big boss' is someone I still don't know a lot about.  He is the serious type, concerned with productivity, but he isn't mean. Just very serious and flat affect.  He is concerned with presentation and with doing his job well but also dislikes it when others do not take responsibility for their mistakes. He is very smart and is balancing his work life with his private life (i.e. unwinding and hoping no one sees him playing basketball because his image is very important, but not in a shallow way more in a 'this might make others see me as too approachable/unprofessional' he uses others perception of him in his business handling I assume because it makes his job easier if they view him as an impersonal untouchable kind of person rather than someone more human)

NOW FOR THE EPISODE SUMMARY

1. The story opens up to a young woman in bed and she receives a phone call that she is needed in the gynecology department and a cab is outside. She gets in the cab and a second later, as she wakes up, is confused as to who she knows who could be in the hospital. She arrives and we learn she is Shan Shan, and she meets 'the big boss' and his brother. It seems she possess a rare blood type and the bosses sister needs it.  She asks him how he has this information even though she is happy to give the blood (she asks in a really nice non confrontational way cementing to the audience that she is sort of a laid back friendly ditzy sort).  He says he has access to the info as the boss and she accepts it.

2.Afterwards, she goes home, life goes on, and we eventually learn that the boss's grandfather started a tradition of hiring people with this rare blood type for the event his grandaughter might need life saving blood. He has continued it (hence, this is why she was hired). Shan Shan picks up on it when she realizes she never attended the required new employee training, meaning it seems like she was just hired to be around.  Even the boss denies it when she asks him, and she doesn't q question him to his face but has doubts and was going to resign but her friends convince her that she should just let it go, and use this as an opportunity.

3. Boss man's sister sends her lunches everyday, making her the source of a lot of gossip. Shan Shan continues to cross paths with the boss, in actually reasonable ways, and while their interactions are minimal, he VERY slowly begins to notice her as 'interesting'.  Meanwhile she is oblivious to this.

That is essentially episode 1.  I encourage you to give it a shot.  Other dramas that I liked (modern) include My Love From Another Star, Secret Garden, Autumn's Concerto, and It Started With a Kiss (the one with Ariel Lin).  I like it because none of the characters are annoying, and it is tough to do the ditzy cute girl without it being so sweet you want to cringe.  Or cringeworthy.  They keep it fairly grounded in reality (or at least as much as a soap opera is able to).   The only big plot hole is why they would hire someone for this rare blood because he has enough money to get it easily. I get a strong vibe that this is going to be a nice guy kind of romance (meaning not a jerk) and a clash between two different personalities and classes.

Read More

A little everywhere, but fun.

This drama goes a little bit everywhere trying to establish itself. It's not the worst setup, but not the best.

There's a few key things I don't like. Excessive use of sped up scenes to make the story go faster. I admire they want to keep the pacing going, but it's annoying after too much use. Freeze scenes for the "action" bits. I hope that doesn't stay. I don't find the use of cartoons to work. I actually really want to see the actors faces. I can see why they want to do it for day dream scenes, but I hope they don't use it too much.

Overall it's an okay setup. I think t's funny that Shan Shan loved the idea of the hiring department accidently falling a sleep and clicking her through. Yet the fact that she might have been picked for her "panda blood", AKA AB, she doesn't like it. Though being a blood bank would probably terrify me. In fact, I'd find a new job ASAP.

So far I like Shan Shan she's caring, up beat, and tries her best. She knows her flaws. She was also smart enough to realize that she was a blood bank. I'm very curious as to where the drama will go from here.

Read More