Mr. Right (2018)

This could have been a great light, entertaining drama. I had high expectations, but to a large extent, the drama failed to deliver.

PLOT
The premise was good – in a series of unfortunate events, a girl loses everything that she has been working for. All because of one man.
The first few episodes were fun to watch – caricatural, entertaining. The early mid-episodes of the drama were more melo-dramatic, but also in a good way. As usual, things started to go downhill in the second half – the funny incidents were gone and instead we were greeted with some unnecessary angst and no more innovativeness…

CHARACTERS
For most part, all the characters were stuck in their own ways of dealing with things. However, towards the very end most of the characters suddenly underwent a 180 degree turn. This seemed really unexpected – there were no events leading up to the change, no gradual character development… Not to mention the personality of the male lead… I found his behaviour understandable, but it was rather annoying to watch how he put others before himself, sometimes in a very silly way.

CHEMISTRY/ROMANCE
It is hard to judge the chemistry between the leads. I would say that it was rather good, BUT more on friendship terms. Without spoiling (please refer to some of the comments below if you want to know more), I would even dispute whether this drama even falls under the category of ‘romance’. It was definitely about love, but the romance didn’t develop according to the typical ‘they meet each other, fall in love and progress with things’ scheme of things. If you are watching for actual romance and some skinship, I would advise you to forget about this drama.

On the plus side, I really enjoyed female lead relationship with male lead’s father – quirky, fierce and fun to watch!


I was satisfied with the acting – it’s just a shame that such a great bunch of actors was not put to a better use!
OST was mostly unremarkable, but fit well with the events.
Rewatch value – close to zero for me.

In summary: could have been a great drama, but turned out to be a passable drama, with an underwhelming plot and character development.

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Initially interesting, but got draggy and angsty nearing the end

The show started on a good note. It was funny, light-hearted and the bickering between the characters is amusing. However, it started to go downhill at the last 10+ episodes of the show. It started becoming draggy.

It is quite annoying how (as rightly stated by Gu Yao) there is no change/improvement in Cheng Hao's character even after 7 years since graduation. Cheng Hao is still the timid guy on the inside, trying to avoid conflict at all cost, and even avoiding the problem. I disagree with his decision to offer $5mil in compensation to the "victim" so as to avoid conflict. Offering compensation is acceptable and the right thing to do, but there is a difference between reasonable compensation and extortion. Paying some money for "pain and suffering" is ok, but $5mil for that "suffering" is way too much. The fact that Cheng Hao even decided to sell his house for that just annoyed me. This shows me that Cheng Hao has no guts/spineless and is unable to fight for his own rights and benefits. Caring for others is good, but it should not be at the expense of himself.

Another thing that annoyed me is his inability to open up. He always take on his own problems himself and keep everything to himself. It is understandable if he is alone, but the fact is that he is not alone. He has Luo Yue and Zhang Mingyang who are always by his side. Being open and frank is a key tenet of a relationship (both between friends and lovers). Cheng Hao's decision to always lie and avoid the question is therefore very annoying.

Cheng Hao's lack of guts to just confess and make the relationship official is very irritating. He should have learnt his lesson from 7 years ago, but he has not. He still dare not have the guts to do so. This makes it very irritating, esp since he is supposed to be the "relationship expert". He should know that Luo Yue likes him (it is quite obvious tbh), and he should just make things official. Yet, things were kept murky and complicated - more than friends, yet not lovers... This happened throughout the show until the very end.

I felt that the main story arch between Cheng Hao and Luo Yue was not resolved satisfactorily. Yes, Cheng Hao eventually went to Milan and they hugged. But Luo Yue is there on a long-term basis, while Cheng Hao is on a visitor pass (because he is still boss of his clinic in China). So what are they? Are they together or just friends? If they are together, how are they going to manage a long distance relationship?

On a separate note, what I disliked the most is that the story arch between Qiao Yilin and Zhou Beiye is not properly developed. I find Zou Beiye the most endearing character - earnest and honest. But he is not properly developed. Qiao Yilin and Zou Beiye are very different in character, appearance, background and career choice. How they get together will be very interesting to explore. But this is totally not touched on at all. We never see a proper date between the two of them, or how they interact with each other on a daily basis. Hence, in the last 5min, when we saw Qiao Yilin pregnant - I was surprised - as we never see how they got together eventually.

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