Negotiator (2018)

A decently entertaining drama despite its undeniable plot holes. The drama is the epitome of a drama where objectively, is probably not the greatest drama out there, but subjectively, could become your guilty pleasure. You should only check out/watch this drama if you:
1) Are a fan of one or both of the lead actors (Yang Mi and Huang Zitao)
2)Like noona-dongsaeng romances
3) Are interested in a brainless drama to watch to pass your time (I used it as a brainless stress-reliever in between studying for midterms, which was fun)

Story:
It tells the story of Xie Xiaofei, a seemingly bratty, annoying and childish young man. However, he turns out to be someone with a good heart and certain opinions/ideas that you may agree with. However, he is quite bratty, although also likable, but also annoying. He's quite bipolar, and a very conflicting character. I had an intense like/hate relationship with his character. However, after the big thing with his family, he kind of starts to mature, so there is change. May not be the amount of change you’d wish he had, but decent enough.

Tong Wei, is a closed-off, serious, strict, career woman, whose life is turned upside down when Xiaofei enters and causes a series of funny and not funny mishaps in her life. However, the pair is very likable, and probably the only likable parts of the drama. I know that most people were kind of put off by the age gap, but they do mention it in the drama that the woman is older.

What I liked:
1. The main couple is very cute (until the last like 3 stressful episodes)! Especially if you like noona-dongsaeng romances.
2. The drama is pretty well-paced. Despite the plot holes, I still found myself wanting to watch the next episodes.
3. Yang Mi’s fashion/clothes in this drama is A+++!! Literally loved most of her outfits
4. That it kept itself together (for the most part) longer than Les Interpretes. It got extremely frustrating for the last 4-5 episodes, but hey, at least not the entire latter half of the drama like Les Interpretes
5. Tong Tiantian was annoying as hell in the begining but redeemed herself about halfway through
6. There were some decently funny parts!!
7. I really like the OST songs

What I disliked:
1. The supporting characters my goodness. Most of them were annoying for a large portion of the drama (although Tong Tiantian and Shang Bichen were more bearable as the drama progressed and Tong Wei's aunt had a reedamable moment LOL)
2. Tong Wei selling her house to make money to help pay Xie Xiaofei's mom's medical bills??? Like girl......I wouldn't do that if this wasn't dramaland
3. Lawyer dude Qin Tianyu was annoying as hell sometimes. Like Tong Wei told him quite a few times that she didn't like him, yet he was still so persistent LOL
4. Zhao Chenxi............my goodness where do I start with this annoying supporting character!!
5. The story did have its plotholes throughout, and were quite bearable most of the time. UNTIL the last like 5 episodes I was basically riding on the wildest rollercoaster ever I was so confused and frustrated lmao.
6. Tong Wei's best friend was such a hassle and obstruction sometimes LOL. Plus she is the kind of women I would NOT want to be.
7. The whole Tong Wei and Shan Shan's tragedy thing in the last few episodes.......I won't say more because that would be too spoiler-y
8. The drama is called "Negotiator" but there really wasn't THAT much negotiating LOL.......maybe they should change the name.

Acting:
So I would say that the overall acting was okay by the entire cast. Many of you may have seen Yang Mi in Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms, where she showcased brilliant acting. Her acting in this one was okay. The character itself is very serious and work-oriented, but her character livens a bit more as the drama progresses. I liked a lot of her crying scenes, but even those, she didn't cry like crazy because of how reserved her character was. I especially liked her crying scene when she was arguing with Xiaofei in front of Chen Xiaoxi's house, as well as that scene where she found out about Shan Shan's fate. 

As for Tao, he posted on Weibo when the drama just started airing that this was the first drama he's ever filmed (even though his other drama aired earlier) and I feel that as a debut drama, he did pretty well. I do think his emotional/crying scenes were better than his angry scenes. He makes me laugh when he's angry LOL but his crying scenes were actually pretty good.

Setting aside how annoying their characters were, the supporting actors in this were actually okay too. I must say, Dylan Kuo being the only Taiwanese-accented person in the entire cast threw me off a lot at the very beginning because his pronunciation was SUPER obviously different LOL but I guess I eventually kind of grew used to it. The guy who plays Sun Hao......does not sound like he was dubbed.......his voice sounds really raspy(??) and kind of annoying LOL or maybe that's just me but he's not in the drama that much so it's okay.

Also you may be annoyed by dubbing at times (I thought it was fine since I love dubbing lol). They had issues passing SARFT the first time, so their characters were all dubbed after stuff was changed. The English dubbing might feel kind of whack too since the actors were saying Chinese and then they were dubbed over with English. But I mean......at least there wasn't TOO much of those parts, and it's not like the actors can speak English very well LOL.

Music:
The instrumental music was sometimes quite bothersome….they were kind of too loud at times (which is why I docked off some points)?? But the OST songs I really liked!!! I listen to a lot of Chinese music, so I really liked the opening and ending theme songs, as well as the other OST song sung by Yisa Yu. I have all 3 of these songs on my phone and have been listening to them quite often these days.

Rewatch:
I would rewatch the parts with the main leads!! I really thought they were cute, and I’ve already rewatched quite a few of their scenes. But nothing else aside from the main leads LOL I watched this drama because I’m a big fan of Yang Mi and I often times enjoy noona-dongsaeng romances (thus fulfilling the two bullet points I had listed at the beginning of this review).

Lastly:
I used to think Huang Zitao was kind of annoying (me being a semi-kpop fan and all) but throughout the past month of watching this drama and scrolling through Weibo, my view of him as turned from annoyance to neutrality and a bare liking. His Weibo stories of him watching the drama were quite funny.
I'm hoping Jaywalk Studio can pick better modern cdramas for Yang Mi and her talents in the future.......I feel like they always pick up awful modern cdramas LOL it really wastes the potentials of their talents!! ://

In essence, a guilty pleasure drama XD

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Heart melting drama

Let's start....... lol!! I didn't know about huang zitao. Then one day I accidentally (fortunately) found the drama called "brightest star in the sky". Then I fall for him immediately! He has such a handsome face and iincent eyes thst every1 will fall for him! I am not an exceptional case either! Then I watched "negotiator" drama. Then I searched about him and found many unknown facts! Litterally I am amazed to see him as an actor. He did every role so well. This series is not an exception ofcourse. This series has a very good story with perfect acting and mysic. The music is not as good as his previos drama but still it's one of the best! I really love everything about this drama... the flow of story is just perfect. The role of z tao is quite reasonable and promising. I like the fact that main male lead z tao was kissed by another woman. This scene was quite interesting . Bcz in the most of dramas we always see the main leads as holy water. Lol!! They are not. They are also human like side roles!! I really appreciate its nature. People nowadays like some garbage drama like "GO AHEAD". But if you have a gpod raste about story and acting then you will definitely like it!! I hope my words will inspire you to watch this drama.

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A business romance around Z.Tao

Some parts feel like a travelogue about Hawaii, Suzhou, Shanghai, New York Manhattan...

Z.Tao played impeccably as the Xie Xiaofei spoiled heir of an unlikely America based Chinese group, pushed almost to destitution by internecine business and family strife, who emerged from the ordeal as a more powerful business leader.
His love interest was the negotiator Tong Wei played by Yang Mi (overdubbed here as she usually is, whereas the rest of the cast is not). She let herself be seduced by the uninhibited young man, and went on to help him regain his footing in the company.
But Xiaofei's dad wanted his son to marry heiress Chen Xi, and the father of this other woman always sporting a well oiled head with "elegant" short hair also wanted to pressure his daughter into a marriage for business alliance; she loved Xiaofei since she noticed his selflesness on a plane while they were both flying to Shanghai, but Xiaofei was very clear about his heart already being taken. He still accepted to help her as a friend, and was even tempted to finally marry her because of his falling out with the negotiator. It could have been an unhappy ending but with a last half of episode twist, things got back on track.

But I can't help feeling that Yang Mi often played perfunctorily in this drama and did not feel that much connection to her character and her partner. The tragic death of the negotiator's friend was also unneeded and even made that part feel like the scriptwriters had an agenda to show karmic punishment for those who don't conform to the established forms of relationships in courting leading to marriage and only then, to having children. The fairy tale of the selling and recovering of the town house and the hysterical aunt, the annoying cousins on both sides, many tropes etc and the plot holes were detrimental.

Z.Tao did his best and because of him, the drama was still enjoyable. I read somewhere that this was his very first drama acting, released after another one, for some reason. If so, it is even more impressive : he shows lots of expressions, and spontaneity which redeem the older Yang Mi's competent but not really charismatic acting here. The age difference between the two is not stressed in the drama, instead it is more the class difference and the different ways of leading a large business, which were at the center, with clan leaders clashing and mysterious mentors influencing outcomes.

The music in the OST has nothing to do with Z.Tao. Although the drama is not a musical, and he does not play a singer (though he does perform an impressive flip as a street performer, at one moment, which will remind audiences about his real life martial arts youth training) I regretted that his distinctive take on music and rap were not used here, too.

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STORY:

Generally the plot for me kind of failed? The biggest storylines include the romance between Tong Wei and Xiao Fei, Tong Wei trying to clear her father's name (and her career at CAEA), and Xiao Fei's family business. While everything was addressed and covered, it just didn't seem to flow smoothly throughout the series and the show didn't really captivate me enough to want to care.

-Romance wise - things seemed moderately realistic. Tong Wei is this super successful, young woman who has tons of people falling for her, but she doesn't show interest in anyone until this rebel, bad boy, etc etc. Xiao Fei shows up in her life and shows that he's more than he's let on. During their relationship, I really just felt like things were not that compatible between the two. I can understand why story wise they'd fall for each other, but just their general personalities definitely collided (which is obvious by the fights and whatnot that happen), but there was never a moment that I was like "oh yeah, these two are made for each other." Also as "strong" of a woman Tong Wei was supposed to be, I feel like once she and Xiao Fei got together, she definitely lost a lot of that "strong" ness and got pushed around by Xiao Fei A LOT.

- CAEA - the whole point of Tong Wei working so hard to become who she was was two sided - 1) to meet a higher up at CAEA's New York office and find out what happened with her father 2) To work with Jonathan - the person who inspired her to become a Negotiator. While both of these main points were eventually addressed, it just seemed like things were crammed into the last few episodes and things didn't progress smoothly.

- X Group - Xiao Fei's family business story line was fairly predictable. The heir to the business who wants nothing to do with it, the overworking father who dedicates everything in his life to the business, the scheming family member who wants to take over, etc. Nothing mind-blowing here
ACTING:

Yang Mi - this being her first drama post Eternal Love, I'm sure a lot of people had high hopes for her because Eternal Love was such a huge success. Honestly, while she didn't do a bad job, there was nothing noteworthy about this role. Her character starts off being a strong business oriented Negotiator, but as the story progresses, her personality becomes much more muted and she loses a lot of the fire in her that makes people like her at the beginning.

Zi Tao - I never really listened to EXO so this was my first exposure to him. I think his acting was good, but I didn't really care for his character's personality - so I'm not sure if that falls under him or the screenwriters. His character was that typical "I get what I want" kind of person and yes he has a soft side that's very loyal and caring, but he was way too pushy for me throughout the show (literally he would push and pull Tong Wei around when he'd put his arm around her). I think for both of the characters having very strong personality traits, Zi Tao could have dialed it back a bit because eventually his character definitely overtook Tong Wei's character and in a lot of instances she fell into the background.

Other Characters: honestly I think the only characters I didn't mind were Shang Bi Chen and Tian Tian (after Tong Wei and Xiao Fei get together, because before that she was super annoying). Most of the other characters were all just pushy and and obnoxious (Tian Yu and Chen Xi especially). Normally there's at least one or two side characters that I really like and here they were all just meh for me.

REWATCH:

I honestly probably wouldn't rewatch this drama. Overall it wasn't a bad drama, but it was just kind of mindless almost? It's not hard to follow and there's no crazy twists and turns that make you freak out. It's just a fairly generic romance/business drama. Not a must watch, but it's a good way to pass a few days/week

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This drama was a waste of my precious time. Something I rarely have these days.
I only watched this drama for Yang Mi. I'd watch her in anything. I think she excels way more in historical dramas than modern day dramas. I did not care much for Tao but his acting was not bad at all.

The plot was so-so. It started out okay but it got lost somewhere along the way. Similar to the preceding drama but a little different with some twists and dramatic turns. The leads relationship was a bit unhealthy. It had nothing to do with the fact that the male lead was younger than the female lead. It was the fact that people kept interfering into their relationships and they kept letting it happen. The main lead guy's family as well as the female lead girl's friends. It did not help the fact the the main lead is from a wealthy family so his family is all old fashion and about business. They basically tried to control his life and tie him down but he was not having it.

The male lead was very young, smart and can be mischievous. Him, being young and mischievous was part of the reason why he was an insensitive brat sometimes. He was so immature sometimes. He took out his frustrations on others and hurt them because of the pressure from his family and dealing with the situation involving his mother and his father. It's so ironic how he's so smart yet so stupid at the same time.
The female lead was strong-willed, determined, hardworking and in love for the first time. I loved how she worked hard to try to achieve her goals. Somewhere along the way, I think she forgot why she worked so hard in the first place. She was given a choice and at first I thought she chose incorrectly because she was being irrational, but I sort of understood from a logical point-of-view. She was very mature and she was like a supporter for the main lead even though he acted on impulse and was irrational half the time. Some of the choices she made throughout the show, was stupid, because it did neither of them any good. It just caused more pain, suffering and a whole lot of misunderstandings.

All other characters were annoying. Did not care for them. Well, maybe one character I liked and that was the lady named Rita. She had amazing insight love love and relationships. In a way, she helped Xiao Fei and Tong Wei (The main lead couple). They were cute sometimes and I didn't care that it was an older-woman-younger-guy relationship. They had some chemistry.
There were other potential couples but the writers messed it up. It would have been great to see the other couples rather than focus on the main couples and their foolish nonsense,

There was a lot of nonsense in this drama that didn't need to be in it. I feel like the writers just threw things in the drama to create more unnecessary drama. It became chaotic and a bit out of control. Halfway through the drama, circumstances became more irrational and illogical and half the things that happened made no sense because if one thought about it from a realistic standpoint, some of those situations would not have happened at all leading to such incomprehensible outcomes. I guess the writers were trying to give some sort of "Life Lesson" in this drama. All I got from it was ABSURDITY! It was poorly executed. >.<

I did not like the music as much. Nothing interesting.

I DO NOT recommend and I will definitely not re-watch this drama. It had so much potential and they completely messed it up. I was okay with the ending whichever way, but all the stuff that happened in between was totally unnecessary. 41 episodes of complete crap! Don't waste your time.

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This drama is awesome! Ignore the negative reviews

Great drama. Yang Mi and Zitao acted very well and the supporting cast also did a good job. Good romance drama with interesting business theme. Characters have flaws and are very relatable. The pacing is also good and not very draggy.

Some things are over the top and cringe-worthy (eg. when the actors speak some sentences in English), but hey that happens all the time in C-dramas.

Leads have good chemistry. If you are a Yang Mi fan, you will absolutely love it! Much better than Interpreter, with a happy ending. Just watch it and i guarantee you will enjoy it.

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Uhm!

This series, I would say, is potentially good. However, the creators failed to maintain its promising course and ended up with lame attempt to toy the viewers emotions particularly on the latter part of the series. They thought they could play around by injecting twists but I find it ridiculously dumb. So the story seemed rushed towards the end, riddled with plot holes. They seemed like squeezing everything together in the last 15 minutes of the final episode. Watching the latter part, I was like, "What is going on here?". LOL!

ML was good, he was able to convey what a condescending brat is all about but with a heart. He was loyal and warm to the FL. He was "effectively" irritating sometimes LOL!

FL seemed a bit bored in this series. Did not see her portray her role for most of the time. Emotionless. Lifeless. Even up to last minute of the final eposode, she was kind of uninterested and detached. I understand that mybe because she was trying portray a character that isnt optimistic yet with the relationship because of bad experiences. But dont get me wrong here, I like her. She was good in her other series, She And Her Perfect Husband.

I would also like to comment, especially on the last minutes when the FL asked the ML if they could go home. It came across to me like, "Nothing is interesting out here, lets just go home". LOL! Whoever came up with that idea needed reflect on him or herself. LOL! So lame. To some, that might be acceptable but not for me. It messed up the finale. Not to mention the ML did not get a straight answer to his proposal and ended up guessing for a "Yes!" LOL!

Supporting casts were all good. I like their own little stories as well.

It took me almost a month to finish the series because I was torn between dropping it or waste more time finishing it. Unfortunately, I decided to waste my precious time. LOL!

Enjoy watching!

-B-

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I wrote this before and I did review all of sudden 20 of my reviews are missing.

I didn't like this drama when I first watched it. I rated it very low and someone sent me a message saying that I was being unfair. I said maybe I am. I rewatched it again and I did improve my rating for it from 2.5 to 7. Yang Mi is one of my top 5 Chinese actresses. I apologized to Ms. Yang Mi. I feel that she is a better actress when she takes the role in historical dramas than in the present day. I will watch all of her dramas but this is how I feel. She is still a great actress no matter what.

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To be honest I only started watching this drama because of the main leads, especially because of Yang Mi, so I didn’t expect much of this drama but is really entertaining. The story is simple and has many funny moments, it is perfect to watch if you don´t want and intricate and thoughtful drama. But for the same reason the storyline lacks in strength and the final episodes feel like the production wanted to end all quickly at the same time they putted problems that were even more dramatic, so the last episodes were just a bit annoying and I felt in a hurry.
The other thing concerns to the main couple. At the very beginning I didn´t know what to think about Yang Mi and Tao together, not because their age gap, but because he really don´t have the same acting experience as Yang Mi. But after few episodes I really found them really cute, and they were the only couple in the whole drama that deserved attention. Actually the only scenes that I kept re-watching were Xie Xiao Fei and Tong Wei ones.
As for the acting, being honest just after re-watching Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms Yang Mi´s acting really lacks of strength mainly because of her character, at the very beginning Tong Wei had the potential to be a strong female lead with established thoughts and personality, but they messed up a good character because of the romantic plot, she loose almost all of her strength and changed a lot. Tong Wei lacks of character unity that´s all, at the end I felt she was rather weak and that upset me so much because Yang Mi is a good actress.
Tao as Xie Xiao Fei did a good job and he´s so cute. His character starts being this kind of rich heir cliché: a jerk with hidden feelings, but the real good thing about Xie Xiao Fei is his evolution so I could see a less annoying and more mature side of him.

Good things:
-Entertaining and has many funny and cute moments
-The main couple :3
-The OST

Bad things:
-Zhao Chen Xi, that girl annoyed me so much
-What the drama did to Shan Shan at the end, I simply found that unnecessarily dramatic and unfair.
-Tong Wei´s development as character
- That freaking part of the house

Weird things:
- Those English parts, I can´t handle that

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At some point ,i think that they uselessly increase the length of the drama , even they stretch all the love story too much . Other than first lead they didn't show other couples story much .I like lead actress' sister story too I think they can show more chemistry between this couple.Qin tian's love story started at second last episode ,I want to see them more but they only focus only lead story .
I think they can end drama with lead marriage as well Qin tian love story , bin this way ending get better .About story ,I don't like much . so if they complete the love story of each couples so I think drama would be better.

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