9791Egon
London, England
I'm quite new to asian drama but in the last 18 months, I've probably watched about 100 with the vast majority being korean.
For that reason, this drama falls into the common 'chinese drama' issue of being too long. To be honest, this was one of the drama's I watched when I first started 18 months ago and I hated it, but having recently watched a drama that had 70 episodes (COVID-19 lockdown has me binge-watching asian dramas), I thought I'd give this one another try as I thought I had mis-judged this one... And on a re-watch, it's actually much better than I first thought. However, the story still could been told in 30 episodes or less, because it re-hashed the same old mis-understandings/mis-communication trope and employed a significant amount of flashbacks that were unnecessary and irrelevant but if you've seen at least one other chinese drama then this will not be news to you and you'll know exactly when to fast forward (every flashback for example as I can guarantee it won't add much to your understanding of the plot or story at any given point in time).
Given the characters are supposed to be adults in their late 20's, holding high-level positions in their respective companies, you'd think there'd be less angst - something more common when your drama is set in a school, college or university. But no, one of the reasons I disliked this when I first watched it was because I thought that the female lead in particular cried far too much but on a second watch, that's not true. There is too much mis-understanding and plotting to frame the leads but given they've managed to get so many of those in to 48 episodes, I think they've done reasonably well in fact - and the female lead probably was entitled to cry when she did.
The above being said, I loved the casting and the characterisation as I thought they were all believable and played their characters well... It's just that the story they had to work with wasn't that good and I actually thought they all became a bit bored with it as well as the audience.
Given that I would score most chinese dramas as no more than a 5 (except for Le Coup de foudre is a 9 at least), this is a reasonably good watch.
My advice would be stick with it (although I'm sure you can guess what happens at the end); and fast forward anything that is in a hazy, sepia tone as they're flashbacks that are either irrelevant or get explained by a character at some point anyway so you don't miss anything.
For that reason, this drama falls into the common 'chinese drama' issue of being too long. To be honest, this was one of the drama's I watched when I first started 18 months ago and I hated it, but having recently watched a drama that had 70 episodes (COVID-19 lockdown has me binge-watching asian dramas), I thought I'd give this one another try as I thought I had mis-judged this one... And on a re-watch, it's actually much better than I first thought. However, the story still could been told in 30 episodes or less, because it re-hashed the same old mis-understandings/mis-communication trope and employed a significant amount of flashbacks that were unnecessary and irrelevant but if you've seen at least one other chinese drama then this will not be news to you and you'll know exactly when to fast forward (every flashback for example as I can guarantee it won't add much to your understanding of the plot or story at any given point in time).
Given the characters are supposed to be adults in their late 20's, holding high-level positions in their respective companies, you'd think there'd be less angst - something more common when your drama is set in a school, college or university. But no, one of the reasons I disliked this when I first watched it was because I thought that the female lead in particular cried far too much but on a second watch, that's not true. There is too much mis-understanding and plotting to frame the leads but given they've managed to get so many of those in to 48 episodes, I think they've done reasonably well in fact - and the female lead probably was entitled to cry when she did.
The above being said, I loved the casting and the characterisation as I thought they were all believable and played their characters well... It's just that the story they had to work with wasn't that good and I actually thought they all became a bit bored with it as well as the audience.
Given that I would score most chinese dramas as no more than a 5 (except for Le Coup de foudre is a 9 at least), this is a reasonably good watch.
My advice would be stick with it (although I'm sure you can guess what happens at the end); and fast forward anything that is in a hazy, sepia tone as they're flashbacks that are either irrelevant or get explained by a character at some point anyway so you don't miss anything.
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