I liked how all characters were important, the main female character was direct, rational and she was never naive or clumsy. The main male character was not the typical donjuan, he was sweet and caring.
To those who are hating, you have no heart tbh. Do you really know love if you dislike this? I don't think so.
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A Must Watch Drama
Stumbled upon this Chinese drama on Netflix, wow I must say I am impressed with the female and male lead characters.Again I don’t watch much of Chinese drama, but I do love Jane Austen and have watched most of them.
Both lead characters pulled it off pretty well and I do like seeing them as a couple in this drama, they have good chemistry and they look good together. Best scene is the play rehearsal, where she reads her lines passionately and the look he gives her… awww.. I love they way he looks at her. Worth your time… and worth rewatch indeed, in fact I’m doing it now..I am a fan of Chinese drama after this, love Zhu Yan Man Zi and Zhao Shun Ran. Hope to see more of them in Chinese dramas as couple of course, cross my fingers and toes…??
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Let's Get to Crackin °good°
Sheng turns to say something and LZ isn't there. “Why are you walking behind me?” ”I guess I'm used to it,” our FL replies.In UL, both of our leads need to come out of their shells. Zhu Yan Man Zi (Love Endures, Women Must Be Stronger, The Hypnotist) is our FL, Luo Zhi. She's clever, cerebral, composed, and classy. She's downright chaste, but even moreso, she is candid and considerate. She has enjoyed Sheng Huai Nan (Zhao Shun Ran from Memory Lost & Alliance) crushing on him from afar since HS. Sheng never noticed her - She was always behind him somewhere. He did notice the chicken, however. When she put on the chicken outfit, she wasn't such a chicken anymore, and she approached him. The presence of a large chicken ended up being a great distraction that gave Sheng a leg up in an uncomfortable situation. When he removed the chicken head to thank his savior, viola! There's a /girl/ here.
The handsome Sheng, who has had to deflect unwanted advances his whole life, doesn't realize that he DID notice LZ in HS. They were anonymously exchanging notes about schoolwork for a period of time. LZ knew who her pen pal was, but she prefers clandestine operations, so she never revealed her identity. The first year of college was uneventful, but now the 2nd year has started. She un-chickened the chick inside her that one day, and since Sheng lifted that chicken head, she's been walking around exposed. Guys are noticing her now, like Sheng's BFF. Hiding is LZ's safety mechanism. LZ prefers the periphery - a 5 meter minimum distance from Sheng; anything else is super-duper uncomfortable. So, when he asks her to accompany him to the amusement park on a group outing, she declines. “He is a victorious general in the examination field. But on the field of love, he is utterly defeated.”
There's nothing more tantalizing than a club that won't have you as a member. As a professional woman-deflector, being turned down is something new for Sheng. Who is this chick? He can't help but be interested…
UL is a 2019 release that is rated 7.8 on MDL. It is 1 season consisting of 24 30-40 minute episodes. It is NOT to be confused with the 2021 release that is of the same name, rated 7.5 on MDL with 38 episodes. {Why do they do that? China put out two versions of Love 020 in the same year. Hollywood has the same problem with overlapping similar projects.} Sheng’s BFF, Zhang Ming Rui, is played by Zhang Yi Chi (Rattan). The more he talked, the more I loved his voice. Credit when Gu: Actor, Li Jin Zhe (Zhong Guo Di, The Youth Memories), plays CEO Gu. He exudes sex appeal and it exceeds his mere looks. Part of it is his dreamy voice. This is director Ding Pei's first effort. She has nothing rated under 7.5 on MDL and, given the acuity of UL, I will actively seek out this director's works.
UL2019 is slow and steady. It moves at LZ's pace. Simple, cheerful piano and strings accompany the scenes, making it feel like romance-improv night at the coffee house. There's °slow° that's infuriating and °slow° that's relaxing - and a wide band of it is up to individual taste. UL works because the characters are well formed while the tempo, softly spoken words, and the soundtrack are like a caress. °Slow° works; Slow-and-stupid doesn't, and UL is never stupid. That is the value in this show - The actors are fine. The story is uneventful. The pace is plodding… the value here is in the writing: It is the witty dialogue, the intellectual quotes, & the insightful commentary on humanity.
They end up involved in the drama club and put on a production of Shakespeare's 12th night. {Apparently, China is in love with Shakespeare ↪ and Shakespeare's works seem akin to China's historical pieces in many ways.} The translation-of-the-translation is beautiful:
¤Women are not big-hearted. A woman's love is like a person's taste. It can be tasted on the tip of the tongue but not in the organs. My love is like a hungry sea, which can digest everything. Don't compare them to each other¤
◇I know how women love men. One of my sisters fell in love with a man◇
¤And what was her past?¤
◇It's blank. She never told anyone about her love, and she let depression bottle up inside of her until it destroyed her, ruining her beauty. She pined away. Illness and sorrow tormented her while she waited patiently, smiling despite her sadness. Doesn't that sound like true love?◇
Thus is their version of 12th night and, quite obviously, some of the inspiration for the show. Actress, Zhu, is marvelous in the scene. She's acting as a person who pretends to be acting but what she's saying is true, so she's not really acting. Anyway, the acting is great.
Rain Shen (Alliance) plays LZ's roomie, Jiang Bai Li. Each of these girls is getting major interference from the exes of their love interests. The always composed LZ doesn't handle attention, nor interference, well. (“You are too cautious!,” LZ's mom laments). Hanging around Sheng, the campus lightning rod, is crossing a wide and dangerous road for a timid chicken like LZ. She had reinforced her protective bubble-of-isolation over & over again. It's talon-proof. This is just another form of pride, and it will alienate a person. People can be horrible, but isolation becomes a sickness in the bones. Too much alone time will make a person very, very off-kilter ~>> weird. It's difficult to find decent people. When we do, we shouldn't shut them out over fear. That is what LZ begins to do with Sheng, once he notices her. As Sheng makes overtures, LZ becomes terrified and shrinks away.
Nevertheless, things get cluckin, and they're going well. Her shell starts to CRACK. At the first sign of static, LZ runs away like a roadrunner. The agenda-driven mean girls are hen-pecking, and try to make it look like LZ manipulated a situation. Sheng's forced to “major” in interpersonal analytics that semester in order to sort out fact from fiction. Part of the sorting process is managing fear. The mean girls played on his fears. Author Terry Goodkind writes that people will believe a thing because they want it to be true or because they're afraid it's true. Fear is useful if it guides us, but not if it rules us or turns us into fodder for manipulation.
The Legend of the White Snake is brought up as an analogy. Per Wiki, it is “a Chinese legend centered around a romance between a man named Xu Xian and a female snake spirit named Bai Suzhen. It is counted as one of China's Four Great Folktales.” In the show TLOWS-4.5, unrequited love turns a young girl into a villainous monster; she is a constant pest and causes lots of trouble. Sheng’s friends keep bringing it up.
Before the end, Sheng's world will crack. Towards the close of the show, they get into a drama that seems plucked out of nowhere. There are a couple of tiny hints at a family issue from the past, but the build-up is insufficient. That last story arc didn't play as well as the rest of the show. It is worth noting that the secondary romances aren't bad, but they aren't nearly as good as the primary one.
▫ ▪✴Now for some Scooby Snacks✴▪ ▫
✴They each buy a seed with a word burned into it. When the seed grows, the word appears on the plant, itself. How awesome is that?
✴They are in law school and they do a mock trial of the OJ Simpson case.
✴Always dignified, even though she is a bit chicken, LZ won't be pushed around. “You have to try this drink or your life won't be complete,” Sheng urges. ”I prefer a flawed life,” she shoots back.
✴I love how the walls in the girls' dorm are a tribute to Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. LZ frequently mentions the anime Only Yesterday which is a 1991 Ghibli movie. Sheng also likes the film.
✴“Misunderstandings happen when two people are not direct with each other. It results in frustration… Face him bravely,” A wise friend cautions.
✴They are studying for the upcoming Marxism exam. “What's Marxism?” One of the guys wants to know.
✴On break they don their HS uniforms and sneak into class together. Cute.
✴“When an attractive man tells a lie, he could be quite good at it.” LZ is warned by a woman who got burned.
✴Have you heard a quote from Mencken? “A man makes love by braggadocio and a woman makes love by listening. Once a woman passes a certain point in intelligence, she finds it impossible to get a husband. She simply cannot go on listening to men without snickering.”
Thank goodness our capable LZ didn't pass that point. She's been a chicken that moved like a turtle all of her life. But in the second year of college, she joined the human race.
(more) 〰QUOTES〰
People expect too much of women.
Heaven favors the courageous.
〰IMHO〰
RATINGS
Directing 7
Writing 7.5
Acting 7.7
Romance 7
Flutters 5
Art 5
Sound & music 7.5
Ending 7.5
LEVELS
Warmth 4.5
Action/ Excitement 1
Laughs 2.5
Tears 2.5
Fright 0
Tension/Anxiety 2
Gore 0
Thought provocation 5
Snores 2
Poli-wagging 1/10. They discuss Marxism. One of her professors says he was labeled as an intellectual and was about to be locked up! Yes, this is what is is to live in China, but it shocking they allowed that in a show.
Age 12+
Rated TV-PG-13: Parents Cautioned
Re-watch? This was great to watch once
In order of ~lite & trite~ to ~heavy & serious~ you may also like:
♥️ -
C:
A Little Thing Called First Love 8.5;
Find Yourself 8.9;
The Romance of Tiger and Rose 9.8;
The Sleepless Princess 9.1;
Wait, My Youth-8.4
K :
A Witch's Love 7.8;
Love To Hate You 8.9;
Touch Your Heart 8.2;
Crash Landing On You 9.1;
Oh My Ghost 10; Be Melodramatic-8.7
It's Okay Not to Be Okay 9;
Hospital Playlist 9;
My Mister 9.5;
Romance junkies only -
My Secret Romance-7 (if you ff thru overdone flashbacks),
Boys Over Flowers-8 ~ melodrama to the max,
The Bride of Habaek-7,
Heirs-7.3,
That Winter, The Wind Blows-7,
Something in them Rain-9,
C: Well-Intended Love-7.5 Rom-porn - extra points for the dopamine,
When I Fly Towards You-7.8,
Wait, My Youth-8.4,
A Little Thing Called First Love-8.5, Hidden Love-7.8
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A bit hard to follow
I would give this series a better rating if it weren't so hard to follow. A lot of 30 second scenes and time skips that are super hard to follow. It got super confusing at times because you'd be in a flash back and then suddenly current time, a 30 second scene, then another time skip.The story was very cute, but a very stereotypical plot. I did like however that the main lead was not an asshole, that troupe is very overdone, he was just a normal guy. It was a bit refreshing.
Overall, it's a cute series, but definitely not something I would watch over and over.
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This review may contain spoilers
Frustration with moments of relief
What I liked:-decided to give it a try because, for a C-drama, it was short at 24 episodes
-Luo Zhi liked Huainan for years, but quietly. She worked to stay in his world, following him, waiting for him to walk by. It was only slightly stalkerish in my eyes, because he had no clue.
-He actually liked her, not knowing it was her. I liked the attempts he made to find out who she was.
-I loved how they both kept re-visiting the window, the place where they'd actually spoken to one another.
-Watching the main couple, you could get a strong sense of the importance of bravery in relationships. What if she'd been brave and spoken to him years earlier? (This feeling is tempered by the number of things that I didn't like in the drama)
-Luo Zhi's friendship with her roommate BaiLi (BaiLi herself, for me, was another story entirely)
-Ming Rui. He was a good friend.
-The friendships between the male roommates.
-Happy ending for the couple, and happy ending for me that it was over.
However:
-Very poorly edited. The scenes switched randomly very quickly. Two people will be having a conversation, then it quickly moves to a scene of a lake or to a completely different conversation.
-Too many side stories filled with people that I didn't like. The secondary men in the secondary relationships were weak and ended up with women that they didn't love (because they deserved it?) Why couldn't they speak up for what they really wanted?
-BaiLi. Every time we saw her in the first few episodes she was sobbing. She was totally in love with someone, "I'm never getting over him," but then when some random guy shows up and pays her some attention she quickly moves on. Not to mention that the random guy is creepy and a liar, but whatever.
-Acting. I think the problem was more with the writing than the acting, but everyone spent a lot of time wandering around being miserable. I struggled with Luo Zhi and her being in love with Huainan in the earlier episodes, because once he started talking to her, she was mad all the time. What was that about?
-Too many women trying to break other couples up. Multiple women after Huainan, which, to be honest, I just didn't get. He was handsome and nice (not your typical cold ML), but he didn't have that much personality-wise. How many evil women do we need in one drama?
-Dubbing. Some of the secondary men had terrible voices and a number of women sounded the same. And WHY do they insist upon using the woman's voice that is high pitched, shrill and breathy?! With the advancement in AI, they should be able to get voices to sound better in these C-dramas.
-24 episodes and the main couple were together for literally one episode! Shorten the drama, remove all the extra couples, and let us get to truly know the main couple.
-lack of chemistry, mediocre kisses (he was trying harder than she was, that's for sure!). If there are going to be kisses in a drama, have a course called Kissing 101 and teach these actors how to make them look believable.
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Esquecível
Não é aquele drama maravilhoso, mas também não é ruim. Assisti há pouco tempo, não deve ter um mês e já esqueci como ele é. Eu realmente não senti nada de especial. É uma história até tranquila, mas não tem nada marcante, realmente muito monótono. Precisei respirar fundo e reunir coragem pra conseguir concluir sem pular direto pro final pra saber o que aconteceria.Pra mim, foi decepcionante. Esperava um história mais profunda e cativante, nem os personagens secundários eram tão interessantes. É um drama assistível, não tem nada demais, apenas uma história morna pra passar o tempo.
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Não sei se todos, mas acredito que grande parte do público brasileiro conheceu ou irá conhecer o drama através da Netflix, entretanto a sinopse que está lá desanima aqueles que gostam de um drama um pouco mais maduro. Quando vi o nome do drama junto com a sinopse pensei que seria uma nova versão de Playful Kiss e juro que corri da cilada, depois de alguns dias encontrei uma postagem no twitter falando profundamente da história e acabei percebendo que não era nada do que estava imaginando. Bom, a história é basicamente de uma menina que ama em segredo e o cara (que é lindo, inteligente e super popular) não enxerga a mocinha. Aí você vem com a pergunta: - Então é a mesma coisa de sempre? - Sim e não!
Acho que para desenrolar um pouco tenho que falar da nossa mocinha (Luo Zhi), ela conheceu o protagonista (Huai Nan ou 4) ainda quando criança, estudaram juntos (não lembro se foi só no ensino médio ou também no fundamental) e acabaram entrando na mesma faculdade. É bom deixar claro que a Luo não corria atrás dele como uma maluca, tanto é que mesmo depois deles se tornarem amigos o Huai Nan demorou muito para perceber que a Luo gostava dele. A menina era tão madura, inteligente e divertida que conquistou o Nan, o secundário e de brinde me conquistou.
Depois que os dois se "conhecem", na faculdade, a história segue um caminho padrão (começar a amizade; aparecer o secundário; começar o romance e aparecer problemas). Bom, o que não falta é problema, algumas coisas são meio surreais, mas a maioria são casos que realmente acontecem na vida dos jovens e é em meio a um desses problemas que a minha admiração pela protagonista aumenta, ela diz aquela frase do início da resenha e gente, que tapa na cara do Huai Nan (que apesar de ser um menino de ouro, as vezes é tapado demais). E depois disso ainda tem rolos e rolos, contudo não vai encher sua paciência porque os episódios são pequenos e isso é uma porcaria porque você acaba assistindo um episódio atrás do outro. Vou parar por aqui para não dar spolier.
Gostaria de fazer algumas menções honrosas: a primeira será para o grupo de amigos do Huai Nan, eles referiam a si mesmo em números, sendo o Huai Nan o número quatro. Eles realmente foram amigos bem ativos e super legais, lembraram muito os meninos de Love 020 (acho que vou assistir novamente, bateu a saudade); não posso também esquecer da tia e os priminhos do Huai Nan, que família divertida.
Menção desprezível: Toda pessoa normal sempre fica com raiva do vilão, mas neste dorama tem uma personagem que consegue ser mais insuportável que a vilã. Shui Jing é uma "amiga" da Luo, elas se conheceram no ensino médio e mantêm contato (na verdade a Jing que fica forçando um contato e você irão entender o motivo), até uma determinada parte do drama ficava com pena da forma fria que a Luo tratava a Jing, mas conforme os episódios foram passando, percebi que a menina era uma cobra e depois ficava com aquela cara de sonsa, que raiva. Minha vontade era de entrar na história e dá uns tabefes na garota. Tiveram outros personagens que também me fizeram perder a paciência, mas ninguém foi pior que a Jing.
Enfim, o enredo que tem todas as características para ser bem clichê conseguiu uma protagonista forte e justa e isso é bem diferentão (pela temática que o enredo apresenta). Os capítulos curtos também ajudaram bastante, como disse anteriormente, você fica querendo ver um atrás do outro (minha intenção era ver os dois primeiros capítulos, quando percebi já estava no sétimo). A fotografia do drama é excelente e os diálogos são bem estruturados, sem falar nas boas atuações. Não sei se vocês repararam, mas a China tem melhorado muito em romances contemporâneos, o forte deles eram os de época, mas agora estão mandando bem em ambas categorias.
Depois do meu texto acima, se eu não recomendar Unrequited Love estarei louca.
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Ela passa longe de ser uma princesa sonhadora, Luo Zhui sonha com o amor platônico sim, mas é uma garota com os pés bem firmes no chão e na realidade. Sheng é um rapaz popular mas com uma personalidade complicada e com alguns problemas familiares, apesar de ser rico. Na verdade, ambos possuem uma personalidade forte e isso é que gera os problemas e as mágoas que o casal sofre ao longo da história.
Achei que o protagonista masculino é bem sensato, levando em consideração o seu histórico familiar e a construção da Luo Zhui me agradou muito. Os pensamentos que ela faz no diário sobre o Sheng e a vida são bem interessantes, maduros e com um lado filosófico bem profundo.
Analisando o Sheng, percebemos que as pessoas não são o que parecem. Que vale lembrar que não devemos julgar com base em conceitos pré estabelecidos, sejam eles por nós mesmos ou pelas outras pessoas. Alguns personagens principais são chatos e possuem atitudes um pouco ambíguas ou incógnitas.
ATUAÇÃO/ELENCO: Ambos os atores principais foram muito bons em suas partes, atuaram com química e compreensão tão sutis que eu concordei com eles. Todos os outros atores fizeram um ótimo trabalho.
No geral, acho que vale a pena ver, principalmente pelas reflexões de Luo Zhui e o amadurecimento dos personagens. Não achei nada forçado. Os personagens são verossímeis e as atitudes condizem com a personalidade de cada um. É uma história de amor madura. Não levem em consideração o título " Amor não correspondido" e entrem nesta história.
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