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Hidden Love chinese drama review
Completed
Hidden Love
14 people found this review helpful
by peachyine
Jul 6, 2023
25 of 25 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 10
Story 10.0
Acting/Cast 10.0
Music 10.0
Rewatch Value 10.0

Must-watch summer drama with a unique storyline, oozing with sweetness and filled with emotions

If you are looking for a cute, sweet, and funny romance drama with great acting, this is a must-watch!
(scroll to the bottom for the drama filming incident backstory)

Hidden Love is my favourite school & life romance drama this year, with a familiar type of storyline plus a slightly different twist from the usual. The story revolves around the main characters and how they grow individually to eventually become people suitable and good for each other.

The first thing I loved about this drama was how it did away with the usual sad-life female lead and a rich-with-everything male lead. This drama kind of flipped the roles around but both characters remained on equal grounds and treated each other with respect, with both of them equal grounds throughout.

Next, character growth was great in this drama. I absolutely appreciated how they portrayed Sang Zhi, from when she was young till she grew into a fully grown adult. If filmed badly, it could easily be sending the wrong message about childhood crushes and having underage relationships. However, the Hidden Love crew did fantastic by showing how Sang Zhi saw Jia Xu as a really nice brother and wished for him to be her brother instead, resolving any possible mislead. Same for how Jia Xu was portrayed, as they showed how he only treated her as a young kid until she was in university to prevent misleads. Props to the crew!

Lastly, the actors were amazing. Every sweet scene had me screaming, and every tearful scene made me sacrifice tissues. The actors made the scenes believable, and I could feel the happiness and sadness along with them through the screen. It was so heartening to see how all characters played their role seriously, working together to make the scenes relatable, no matter funny or emotionally heavy.

This summer, Hidden Love brought me lots of happiness and laughter in a short span of less than 3 weeks. As mentioned, there were tears involved as well, but it was all worth it. Although this might seem like a pure romance drama, I deeply appreciate the realistic parts of the drama to balance everything out. Jia Xu's character taught us how hard work can change things, even when your whole world looks like it's collapsing, and days will get better eventually. Sang Zhi showed us how we have to grow and mature as we age, to become our better selves, so that we can care for the people around us who matter.

Bonus; the OSTs were all so good, one of my favourite drama OST list by far.

Just to share, the original director of Hidden Love actually left the crew before shortly before filming started, and the drama faced problems with casting and wardrobe - they only had outfits to last for 2 days.
Lu Si (female lead), invited actors she knew (previous drama partners & friends) to take up the characters appropriately. Also, she went around looking for brands to sponsor outfits for the other characters and helped with their wardrobe styling as well. Lastly, Lu Si even personally designed Sang Zhi's character further by choosing accessories and props that fit the character well. Without all these efforts, the drama could have been unable to push through.

10/10 for the actors' efforts in scenes, 10/10 for OSTs, and 10/10 in my heart, there was nothing in the plot I wanted to deduct points for, so Hidden Love is 10/10 in all!

See you next time, peach
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