The story is moving and engaging. From episode 1, I was intrigued with the storyline and overall premise of espionage.
In terms of acting cast, can I just say that Gao Chen is definitely "A Man for All Seasons"?!?! His upstanding, trustworthy, self-sacrificing and yes even, coward in love nature, is truly beguiling. The actor, Kevin Yan, is handsome and a half. He has been added to my list of Asian actors to follow and admire from afar.
What I really like about Chinese dramas is the evolution of characters within the story. The journey of Hanzhi is characterised not only in her development into womanhood but also in her hairstyles as she matures from the curly tendrils of youth to sophisticated coiffs, that express inner confidence as well as outer beauty.
The music for this show is very good. I dance along to the opening sequence and the OST is swoon worthy. The melodic instrumental that begins the OST introduces the love sequences perfectly.
I am currently rewatching the series, to create a mind map of the best shipper
(Gao Chen/Hanzhi) moments of the series.
Overall, I am enamoured with this story and hope by this review, you will be enamoured with it too!
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I liked it, specially the first half since there was space for more romance scenes. I did not dislike the second half. I have watched several dramas like this one so I knew there would not be easy solutions to problems and that a spy sometimes has to do things he/she doesn’t want and not be able to do the things he/she wants to do. The ending was more or less what I expected. There was this one character that might not deserve it, but that made me tear up.Btw, do not expect the female lead to be this super smart and super brave spy or anything or you might be disappointed. She has moments like that but she is mainly a naive girl that does not know time and place, very clumsy and easily gets lost, like literally gets lost, she has no sense of direction. >.<
So try not to go in with any kind of expectations about the female lead’s character. But I can promise you that she will have a lot of character development, so don’t give up on her after watching just 2 or 3 episodes.
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KEVIN YAN is PERFECT!!!
Owww I love this drama so much..... It was a great choice to put Kevin Yan for the lead role Gao Cheng. He is so charming & drives me crazy. Gao Cheng has the PERFECT Character of a man who every woman dreamed of.I like the way he rejected Mei Feng's love in elegant way without yelling or screaming at her, he treated her with respect eventhough he rejected her.
I like the way he teased Lu Han Zhi, so funny to watch!!!
Someone who played Han Shao Min also gorgeous.
The antagonist, Lin Chai Rong also elegant but cruel. I love the scene where he released Han Shao Min & made Han Shou Min lost trust from his group. So Genius!!
I watched this series on youtube but I felt a lot of scene get cut, in ep 39, I didn't see the scene where Gao Cheng hugged Miss Li. & I didn't watch the scene where Mr Wang got tortured. I knew there should be a scene of this since I saw it at ending clip song & I soooo furious they cut it.
But.... here's the thing.... I dont like lead female, the person who played Lu Han Zhi (Song Yi) .
Lu Han Zhi is described as the MOST beautiful ladies in Shanghai, in my opinion her look is just good looking.
For a role who need unbelieable beauty I prefer Zhang Nan, Dilraba Dilmurat, Zhao Li Ying or Yang Mi.
Also..... There is "Mind" intrepreter too. I thought it was unnecessary, it was my first time I watched a drama who has man intrepreter. I dont think it is necessary. For example, When Lu Han Zhi asked Gao Cheng for dinner in restaurant. The male intrepreter say that Gao Cheng suspect he had been watched. In my opinion, just show Gao Cheng held his guns secretly, we will understand.
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Honestly recommend if youre a Republican/Historical drama enthusiast.
I initially watched this drama for Song Yi because I saw her Cheongsam clips on Douyin. But heck I stayed for the plot and the casts' superb acting. (Also bc the plot reminds me of Rookie Agent Rouge 胭脂, RAR, I'll explain why.) I also shipped the 2ML with the FL rather than with the main ML but watching 10+ episodes changed my mind. I am now on the MLxFL ship. 2ML might wreck your ship sometimes, just so you know xDPlot wise, its your typical naive FL with a Genius ML who helps & protects FL from all sorts of disastrous situations. As bad as this sounds, it's really not that bad. The FL is not "totally stupid", just "clever" at specific times, really naive and stubborn by nature. No fret, she does grow, just ever so slightly because from the POV of the ML, she's always the small little woman he wants to protect. However if you are expecting the FL to be like RAR's then no, but the ML's smarts is equatable to the ML in RAR. I would say the plot for this drama is similar only with the exception of the FL as per explanation above. Don't expect too much (topnotch) spy action from the FL, there were some great actions in the early episodes though!
FL is just your typical pampered princess who grew up loved by both parents and has no idea of what the world is outside. Her character development is very obvious through the 46 episodes as she got used to the society after her father dies in the first episode. FL also trusts the 2ML A LOT, like, A LOT!! Because the dude was the first man she liked, so he holds a special place in her heart and fully trusts him. Hence, whatever he says, which tend to cause misunderstanding between the main leads, the FL is inclined to believe him. She misunderstands the ML often but the misunderstanding is often resolved within an episode or two, which I am thankful for because its painful to watch my ship have tons of misunderstandings inbetween.
ML is your undercover spy who works for the Japanese on the surface, but is actually against the Japanese and hoping to kick the Japanese out of China (like all Ch Republican dramas are). He likes the FL at first sight and subsequently loves her as they spend even more time together. Most of the things he do (behind the FL's back) are for the sake of the FL's safety and while we viewers may know that, the FL doesn't know because ML doesn't tell. Its dangerous for FL to know. Hence, for spy related issues, he doesn't explain himself to the FL, you will have to put up with that while watching the drama. He does tell FL things that he can reveal to her without risking her life though.
This is also why they have a number of misunderstandings. Must understand that from FL's POV, for her to 100% trust the ML without knowing his real identity is real difficult, much less if the dude initially let her down a small number of times. Whereas for the 2ML, his identity is made known to the FL early on, on top of the fact that she once liked him like an idol, she trusts the him unbelievably much (even after the 2ML betrayed his country in the 2nd half of the drama, and that worried me every time they interact bc I fear that FL would reveal too much haha, but I did say she's clever so.... and also there's times I get so upset with her oh lord-).
The amount of romance in this drama.. is alright for me, would've liked more interactions between ML & FL for the last episode but unfortunately, they were either unaired or never filmed which resulted in odd decisions made closer to the ending. Yes, its a happy ending with both main leads alive. There were lots of interactions between the leads in the 10+ episodes, near to mid 20s but there on, romance was just scarce, and painful. That was when their acting peaked. Their crying scenes were perfect, I loved the chemistry between the leads.
Will rewatch, but probably selective parts and sweet clips only.
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The Chemistry b/t the leads...OMG
Okay, first things first, the chemistry between Yan Yikuan and Song Yi is hands down the best I've ever seen! I watched Love in Hanyuan back in 2020 or 2021 (Yes, I'm just getting around to the review) and since then I've seen probably more than 30 C dramas. The only other one where I've seen chemistry at this level would be Maid's Revenge/Forever Love with Chen Fangtong and Dai Gaozheng.Acting/Cast: I was really excited to watch this one because of Song Yi since I saw her in The Disguiser. Her acting is good in this, but since Love in Hanyuan, she's definitely improved and matured. As for Yan Yikuan, this is my first and only time ever seeing him. I'd love to see them together again in the future, but so far it hasn't happened.
Story:
The plot was decent. Don't expect this to be a very accurate or realistic spy drama, because it's just not. There are a lot of situations that happen that are just not very realistic. Instead, it's got your typical toxic relationship between the main couple set in the Republican Era. Again, the chemistry between the two actors really brings it to the next level, so the typical toxic relationship trope is bearable. The toxic indecisiveness of their feelings comes with the territory, but I really didn't like one particular time in which the FL waits for the ML at the church all day and he finally shows up, but he just calls her mom to pick her up and abandons her. I felt that was too cruel and it made me sort of hate his character.
Also, I've seen so many c dramas where the moms are useless money-grubbing burdens. I understand the mom's character is pertinent to the FL's character development because, without a useless mom the FL wouldn't be perceived as so pitiful, wouldn't be pushed to grow up, learn new skills, and provide for the two of them. At the same time, it's annoying and kinda a sad portrayal of mothers and women since it's so overused.
I love how much we can see that the ML cares for the FL. Even during the breakup portion and he's engaged to her best friend, he's still 100% more concerned about our FL like when she's sick or if she lacks an umbrella in the rain type of thing. I think his care makes his character redeemable after abandoning her at the church. Otherwise, I would still find him despicable and cowardly.
There were some parts where I felt there were holes in the plot. Like when the ML takes over and moves into the FL's house and the FL becomes his maid. I feel like it's kind of forgotten that it was her house. There's this one part where the ML at the time is engaged to the FL's best friend. The best friend brings some food over to cook for the ML. Both the FL and ML don't tell the best friend that the FL is the ML's maid. So during this whole cooking ordeal, the best friend becomes sort of suspicious because our FL knows what the ML likes to eat and doesn't like to eat and the FL also knows where the apron in the kitchen is. To which I say...it was her house previously! Obviously, she had maids when living in the house and we know from prior episodes that she didn't know how to cook before, but it was her house, so like it's not that weird????
I think the part where the SML loses his mind when finding out he was betrayed by the ML and the FL (to whom he was engaged) was a bit overdone.
The ending:
When I first watched this drama, it wrecked me because I thought it wasn't a happy ending and that the so-called happy part was just in the FL's mind. But I recently went back and rewatched the ending and it wasn't all in her head. It is a happy ending, there's just sort of a quick fake-out that the director does to mess with the audience.
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Male lead for the heart
If I just write a few sentences about the male lead, would that be okay? What about him? He hides his love for fl because of his work that could harm her. He has a boring sleepy facade about him (my description okay) which could be a good disguise to his line of work. However, he’s smart and very physical to handle the complexities of his job. He’s the mature, competent, down to business character I wish for in dramas. He’s dedicated to his love interest and has her in his best interest even when she’s silly, makes dumb decisions, and puts him in harms way due to those behaviors. I like it primarily for this. As is with stories during nation conflict, there’s lots to anticipate as story develops. It’s pretty good if it fits your mood.Was this review helpful to you?
