This review may contain spoilers
Stepping on banana peels all year round!
I'm sure by now everyone heard about this drama being a huge clichefest. That is naturally true. Sang Tian just kept falling into Wen Bing's arms. That "oh no I fell onto your lips" thing happened FOUR times in this drama and there were uncountable fall related hugs and whatnot throughout the entire show. Of course there were other miscellaneous cliche/corny scenes too, but somehow the second hand embarrassment levels were kept below my nerve threshold.
Despite the ridiculous premise and everything else the writers did a competent job at keeping my interest & they made the cliches bearable, the drama had soul, even at the story level. I'm no genderbender expert, but to me it feels like this is a new take in the genre. In typical genderbenders the girl keeps changing the disguise all the time & the ML gets to interact with the girl as if she were two different persons. In MUG however she is in her boy getup 95% of the time. The creators made her still look girlish intentionally. Obviously it's not realistic that no would realize she is not a boy with all that lipstick & visible breasts. However against all odds it just works. The drama never taking itself seriously certainly helps to keep the magic alive and finally when we reach the end it feels really gratifying to see her finally posing as a girl. (yep the ending is pretty great)
It's really nice that there is no real love triangle and even the OTP's only obstacle is dealt with fairly quickly and painlessly.
The casting choices were great, the leads had great chemistry & the supporting actors were on point as well.
My biggest gripe with the drama is the story flow. It just took way too long for the plot to progress. The second half of the drama is way better than the first half. Episodes 5 to 15 don't contribute much in advancing the story. I'm not saying those episodes are not entertaining, however there is certainly quite a bit of repetitive plot and I felt they were just draggy.
All the second couples were great, but unfortunately they had very little screen time.
I don't know much about hockey, but the matches & practice sessions seemed interesting enough. There are obvious problems that even I noticed, but I felt that those did not detract much from my enjoyment. (Sang Tian barely has arms, but she hits like supergirl; camera tricks to hide the fact that most actors are no skating experts etc)
The cinematography was just incredibly beautiful. In cdramas background obliteration is a recurring problem, but in MUG the beautiful sets were properly shown to us in all their splendor before going for that creamy close up shot and even those were tastefully executed. I've seen quite a few cdramas, but I think this one is the prettiest one yet.
And finally the issue of Elvis Li aka Huang Hao Ran is a bit baffling. I have not double checked this, but to me it seems he was only inserted into the drama at the halfway point in a really arbitrarily manner. He came out of nowhere, but suddenly he had a rather important role, he did overact as well. I don't know why they did this, but my theory is that perhaps My Unicorn Girl 2 is already in the pipeline & Elvis Li will be a significant character in that drama. (like what they did with Wu Bai in GGS1)
TLDR: The show may be a bit draggy early on, but overall it was very entertaining & there is zero angst, so 8/10.
Despite the ridiculous premise and everything else the writers did a competent job at keeping my interest & they made the cliches bearable, the drama had soul, even at the story level. I'm no genderbender expert, but to me it feels like this is a new take in the genre. In typical genderbenders the girl keeps changing the disguise all the time & the ML gets to interact with the girl as if she were two different persons. In MUG however she is in her boy getup 95% of the time. The creators made her still look girlish intentionally. Obviously it's not realistic that no would realize she is not a boy with all that lipstick & visible breasts. However against all odds it just works. The drama never taking itself seriously certainly helps to keep the magic alive and finally when we reach the end it feels really gratifying to see her finally posing as a girl. (yep the ending is pretty great)
It's really nice that there is no real love triangle and even the OTP's only obstacle is dealt with fairly quickly and painlessly.
The casting choices were great, the leads had great chemistry & the supporting actors were on point as well.
My biggest gripe with the drama is the story flow. It just took way too long for the plot to progress. The second half of the drama is way better than the first half. Episodes 5 to 15 don't contribute much in advancing the story. I'm not saying those episodes are not entertaining, however there is certainly quite a bit of repetitive plot and I felt they were just draggy.
All the second couples were great, but unfortunately they had very little screen time.
I don't know much about hockey, but the matches & practice sessions seemed interesting enough. There are obvious problems that even I noticed, but I felt that those did not detract much from my enjoyment. (Sang Tian barely has arms, but she hits like supergirl; camera tricks to hide the fact that most actors are no skating experts etc)
The cinematography was just incredibly beautiful. In cdramas background obliteration is a recurring problem, but in MUG the beautiful sets were properly shown to us in all their splendor before going for that creamy close up shot and even those were tastefully executed. I've seen quite a few cdramas, but I think this one is the prettiest one yet.
And finally the issue of Elvis Li aka Huang Hao Ran is a bit baffling. I have not double checked this, but to me it seems he was only inserted into the drama at the halfway point in a really arbitrarily manner. He came out of nowhere, but suddenly he had a rather important role, he did overact as well. I don't know why they did this, but my theory is that perhaps My Unicorn Girl 2 is already in the pipeline & Elvis Li will be a significant character in that drama. (like what they did with Wu Bai in GGS1)
TLDR: The show may be a bit draggy early on, but overall it was very entertaining & there is zero angst, so 8/10.
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