I have this thing for the popular boy/shy girl theme (in fact, if you know of any other drama with that kind of relationship, please tell me!) which is why I went for this one.
To start with, I liked the main couple a lot - this may sound absolutely ridiculous, but I have a very time with the fake brunette wavy hair that girls have in k-dramas. Yes, I know how superficial this is, but I hate it when a drama portrays a girl that is supposed to pay little attention to her appearance/be shy has her hair dyed and curled... Think of the time it takes! So yes, I was thankful to see ONE drama heroine (Qing Luo) with natural, straight black hair.... So beautiful! And her ears were adorable :)
Aside from that, one thing that disturbed in this drama was that the change between shy/practically mute girl to normal/relatively talkative girl was too brutal... From one episode to another she just became normal, as if the whole shyness thing had become a nuisance and the drama didn't bother to treat it correctly. Same for a few other characters: a girl that almost crushes the heroine's hand with a rock suddenly becomes her best friend the following day... Oh well...
Also, characters just came in and out too often - especially in relation to the hero, whose demons come to haunt him for an episode or two and just disappear. This was the case for the 3/4 of the drama, but towards the end the drama focused more on the secrets of the hero's (Chen Ling) family, which surprised me in being well-done and interesting.
I'm very sensitive to aesthetics, and on that aspect, this drama was terrible. It was SO. UGLY. And one could argue that the images are not as important as the story, but I'm sorry, a movie/drama is not a book. It's supposed to tell a story with images. There were times this drama was just so careless, bad filming, bad editing, bad framing... Apart from ONE image that, given the rest of the drama, amazed me - it was actually really beautiful, but I can't tell more so as not to spoil... (in the last episode). If I may continue ranting about aesthetics (there should be a category for this, it's just as important as, say, the music!) the clothes were fine (although I wonder who sponsored this show?... Hmmm, Fila, maybe, give the fact that all 4 most important characters have it written somewhere on their clothes, sometimes when they're all together, which is highly suspicious), but the art?... Bleeeeeeeeeeeeeergh. That portrait of Chen Ling, bare-chested in front of flames was simplistic and silly - looked like some cover for a trashy romance book. On the other hand, the last drawing we see of hers in the last minutes of the drama looked very interesting and nice, actually.
The main couple was strong, both characters went very well together and the actors were great. On the other hand, I felt that most of the interesting parts had faded by the middle of the drama and the couple just became repetitive: in general, some horrible thing was revealed about Chen Ling, and Qing Luo supported him despite it... in fact, most of the supporting came from her, i found, and very little from him. Now that I think of it, the crucial moment when she needed support for real, he faltered (but of course came back after a short break up). That was a bit annoying.
I feel that I have talked only of the negative aspects of the drama when I didn't even rate it that badly (7 is actually quite good, no?). To sum up the positive aspects: endearing, good-looking (very much so!) main couple and good acting from their part (they truly carry the drama and are the reason this drama, in my opinion, deserves a "good" grade), a pretty interesting plot (especially towards the end), some pretty nice music (although it is repeated so much, and sometimes awkwardly cut then played again) and... being a classic! (its "old" age makes me overlook what I would've condemned in a more recent drama).
Was this review helpful to you?