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Nothing But You chinese drama review
Completed
Nothing But You
2 people found this review helpful
by Sinasina
Apr 26, 2023
38 of 38 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 6.5
Story 6.0
Acting/Cast 7.5
Music 8.5
Rewatch Value 4.5
This review may contain spoilers
Just when I started watching this show I asked the comment section for spoilers, "when do they get together?" "Will the annoying bosses ever go away?" I've gotten confusing answers to both of these questions. Now that I've seen the whole drama, I know why. You An's former bosses really do keep popping up like jackrabbits -when they really shouldn't anymore- wasting screen time & the answer to "when do they get together" is just really confusing. Is it ep21, 26 or 30? And what has happened in the episodes in between? I'm still confused about which episode they really get together in, but I do know that between these key episodes pretty much nothing romantic has happened. I think maybe the writer kind of hoped we would forget about progress, so they could get together again, twice. (or a lot of filmed scenes have gotten axed ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

The drama starts really slow, the first 10 or so episodes are rather draggy. You could call it super slow burn of course, but it's not like the romance is really slow, it's just there is so much focus on sports that the padding kind of makes it feel like it is slow burn, when it's actually quite fast based on the OTP's scenes & their actual progress in relation to what has been shown to us. This wouldn't be a big problem, if the show was a strong sports drama, but it's really not. As many other reviewers have claimed before me, I have also played -some- badminton, tennis & I'm still following the ATP tennis scene. In my opinion this was not very good. Talking about 190km serves & then showing me a 130km serve, or showing me how the racket hits the ball & then showing me how the ball lands, with flying balls rarely shown is something I've found rather jarring. I understand the difficulty & the actors really did a reasonable job mimicking professional tennis player mannerisms, but the action itself is either not shown, or is at a very low level. (by low level I mean far worse than me after 6 months of playing tennis at age 19, forget professional..) Even if we ignore the lack of immersion during tennis games, there are plenty of other problems that are difficult to gloss over, at least on the sports front. (for example I agree with the coach etc that switching from Badminton to Tennis, especially at 22 is a fool's errand, though I can easily accept this much fantasy in a cdrama romcom)

I talked about FL's bosses being super annoying before, but the whole wildcard plot dominating the final episodes is utter garbage. The sudden appearance of an intelligence insulting contract & the events that follow, including, but not limited to a 2 year separation plot, are just not good. This is not the "intelligent adult romance" I've signed up for.

The noona romance itself, apart from the pacing issues was quite enjoyable for me, the fluffy scenes in the second half were all great, my need for sugar has been completely satisfied. I wouldn't say that the actors had earth shattering chemistry, but they did a reasonably good job overall.

TLDR: The show had it's good moments, but Meet Yourself is a far better mature romance & Falling Into You is a far better noona-sport romance. (the romance is only a wee bit better in Falling Into You, but the sports part is leagues ahead)
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