This review may contain spoilers
An Age Gap Drama
He Fan Xing and Yuan Song were an "I can stare at you all day" type of couple---they were simply gorgeous on screen.I like age-gap dramas and if the age gap is the main issue I like to see how the couple deals with the perceived problem. In this case, He Fan Xing (played by the beautiful Victoria Song) was still looking for her first real love at the age of 32 and had no idea that she would find it in someone 10 years her junior. When Yuan Song and Fan Xing were together their love felt sweet and forbidden but I guess it was the forbidden part that He Fan Xing had the problem with and had to figure out.
I understand the cultural differences in Chinese vs. American culture as it relates to family honor, parental influence, and not being a target for gossip for friends or the trusted community; however, I felt bad for Yuan Song (played by Song Wei Long) that it took so long for Fan Xing to become brave. I also hated that she broke up with Yuan Song for a while to be involved with Ye Lu Ming, who on the surface, would be more acceptable to parents and society. Thank God Fan Xing's heart never betrayed her and simply would not let her settle for anything less than genuine love.
Fan Xing finally coming to her senses and doing what it took to get Yuan Song back was great. The only thing I wished for was, if you are going to go 41 episodes, they could have cut down on some of the other side stories and had enough film time to show the two getting married and starting a family. That would have been a more perfect ending.
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meaningful, funny as well as sweet
I just binge watching this drama! *finally* and i'd like to say it again that it ain't one of those bad dramas after all. Actually i kept refusing to give it a shot since it has many eps for me, an easily bored person. However.. i couldn't resist song wei long's charm esp in this drama.Hence, i reconsidered it again and eventually fall for it.
My summary was : i love both main lead (as i initially watched it for song wei long) and side lead cp (he chan yang x chai minmin). They literally stole the show from the beginning by showing their ridiculous acts HAHA (It's pretty rare for me as i never skipped their scene like i did in many dramas beforehand). All of them were bonding well. For the storyline itself, i didn't mind at all cuz i saw from her pov (FL) as a 30s woman. Perhaps for sum ppl, she might be a bit immature, but it's a common problem, isn't it? she doubted him at first since their age gap was quite aloof. As time went by, she reflected on her fault and so did he.
Thank God, the ML still sincerely love her, always got her back and remain being a positive person (even tho sometimes he seemingly couldn't endure the current situation).
last but not least, don't be bothered upon negativity in the comment section. i regret myself by believing it back then. if u can't bear with main leads cp, see the side lead cp instead HAHA
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As lovely as lovely can get
First review ever, I loved it so much I just had to say something, because 8,1 rating isn't giving Find Yourself justice.It truly is lovely and completely without fault.
Watching Find Yourself is stress relieving, it's medicinal. Where to start?
1) The cinematography. Shanghai is beautifully portrayed here. There are a lot of outside scenes, so we get to admire beautiful views of the city's streets, parks (Xuhui Riverside Green Space, among others) and Huangpu River.
2) The story. From ep 1 to 41 there's a very natural evolution of all the characters. Everyone grows up a bit. It's a story that could be anyone's, every single character is relatable. You won't hate anyone, and there isn't excessive drama or misunderstandings.
3) The rewards. You learn a lot from it, about understanding others, understanding yourself and understanding that not everyone's idea of happiness is the same. Life is unpredictable, and most of it is out of our control. Sometimes I found myself looking for a pen to put down on paper some passages from the dialogues, they felt too precious to be forgotten.
4) The music. I never skipped the opening and ending songs. The whole OST fits perfectly with the drama.
5) The characters. The FL and ML are both relatable and likable even with all their (very human) flaws. Every character is flawed in their own way and you'll root for everyone.
6) The acting is very good from everyone. I was impressed with Song Weilong, he was 19 when he filmed this (September 2018)! 19! Wow. Song Qian was a perfect He Fanxing, I want to be friends with He Fanxing. Cai Minmin is the cutest thing ever. He Canyang is charming, funny, vulnerable and a perfect 32 year-old that will forever be a kid at heart. I also need to mention Ye Luming for being the most lovable "villain". He Fanxing's friends, co-workers and family also have their own story told and they all acted very well, I think I will remember all the characters for a long time.
And finally...
7) Love wins! There's just so much love in Find Yourself, be it romantic love, love between friends, love between family, love for your pets... By the end I felt like I had been treated to a delicious and filling exquisite banquet.
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Cai minmin and he canyang!!
This one is really good, i found the first half of the drama was boring, but everything became interesting after their breakup.I dont really dispise luming, he is cocky but he is super kind and care to his niece, a lot. I even ship fanxiang and luming for a while, lmao.
But i like cai minmin and he canyang story the most, they r too cute i might combust >///<
Whatever happened at the end tho? There is no one explain if they still strong or breaking up ?
The one i hate the most was fanxiang's friend husband who cheated. Cheater have no right, esp if his wife is pregnant. Trash.
Songxue boyfie also kind, he has responsibility, i wish songxue told her boyfie first rather than running away. But glad it went well at the end.
I have no word for the leads, they have nice chemy, but it gets draggy too much, also the male lead personality didnt grown at all. So it kinda hard to see their scene. Whatever it is, i enjoyed it, i usually didnt like victoria's drama bcs i cant stand her acting. So i hold this for a while, glad i decided to watch this. Her acting also improved.
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Complicated Age-Gap/Social Norms Romcom Drama
After watching this drama, I am rather conflicted on how I feel about watching the drama. The drama in general is really just about basically person A that has a relationship with person B, they break up, person A has a relationship with the person C, person A's brother has a relationship with person C's niece, turns out person C and person B's father are friends, more drama happens, and then person A is back with person B. The drama is pretty much drama. Anyhow, here are some of the positives and negative sides of the drama that I have taken note of:~ THE STORY (NEGATIVES)~
Frustrating Couples: I am someone who values trust and open communication within every couple in dramas. Those qualities are honestly what makes a romance drama good for me, especially since too many romance c-dramas are about misunderstandings and all that 'I'm not going to tell you to protect you' that gets frustrating. I absolutely love those jealousy scenes, but it definitely is possible to have trust while being jealous. As for this drama, oh my, they just aren't into open communication or trust apparently; there are so many things that could have been resolved had they just communicated. That's for the main couple. As for the side couples, a lot of the times the relationship just feels so toxic.
Frustrating Characters: Throughout the drama, I had a love-hate relationship with the main leads. One second, I liked the way they conversed and went through with certain decisions, and another second, which is most of the time, I am quite disappointed in them. Sure, both of them aren't experienced in love, but there are some things that shouldn't require experience in it to realize. As for the side characters, one of the co-workers is extremely toxic; I personally value friendship more than crushes, and this character officially ignores her friend because her crush seemed to like her. The second male lead's sister are quite irritating. The female lead's parents were amazing for the first half of the drama, and then it went down.
Lack of Character Development: Almost 90% of the drama is about how the female lead is unable to commit to the relationship because she cares about how others think about her relationship. The drama highlights her insecurities, which is absolutely normal and expected of a romance drama. However, around the last few episodes, she suddenly has this realization that I love him more than I care about how others feel because I can't force love and all that. In general, she did not develop much as a character, if at all. Neither do the other characters. The male lead, second lead, supporting characters, and almost everyone had no changes. The only main change was the female lead's best friend who decided to get divorced, and she was a minor character who was not as involved in the plot.
Social Norms: I understand that one of the aspects of this drama is about how people think society deems age gaps in relationships to be quite negative, and in some ways, yes, this is true. However, the story is too involved in this assumption, and the characters never realize that the society is more than that. I am sure that there are still many people who deem age gaps and teacher-student relationships as something negative, but there are also many people that are supportive. In terms of the drama, the story and narrative was too narrow and unthoughtful.
Lack of Logic: I get that the focus of the drama is that romance and love is not logical, and you just feel your heart beat around that person. However, there is a big difference between love and attraction. We have the main couple that met and were like, oh I like you, for almost no reason. The second male lead suddenly changes his mind and starts liking the female lead. The female lead's brother just suddenly likes the second male lead's niece. I am definitely not a person that goes for slow romance, but there is really no reason behind any of the character's actions in terms of love. A question for the characters is: What do you like about your counterparts?
~ THE STORY (POSITIVES) ~
Certain Characters: If there weren't a few of the supporting characters that I liked and me-needing to complete the MDL 2021 challenge, I would have dropped this drama early on. The first character that I didn't have a chance to dislike throughout the drama was the female lead's brother and one of the female lead's best friend: Song Xue; they were the star characters. The second male lead is pretty decent as well, and the male lead's stepmom was pretty amazing, too. Other than Song Xue, perhaps the next best character is the character that only appears in the drama for about 2 episodes; she was the girl who was attracted to the male lead, was honest about her liking him, and helped him get the female lead.
Certain Scenes: This drama would count as a comedic drama, so I did have some good laughs over certain scenes. The conversations between the female lead and her brother; the breakup dinner for the female lead and second male lead; the revealed secret of the male lead's identity; the almost got caught in a secret relationship scenes.
~ THE STORY (NOTES) ~
I am not a big fan of the drama. There were a few issues here and there. I did find the teacher and student relationships were a bit odd; though I have nothing against teacher-student relationships, the conversations and interactions just did not really match. This drama is also quite different from other c-dramas in that its progress is pretty fast in terms of romance; for example, one-night-stands happen, which do not really occur in c-dramas as often.
~ ACTING & MUSIC ~
I have been wary starting this drama because I am not a super big fan of the male lead's acting, and this drama did not really improve my impression of him; it might have lowered it, too? As for the other actors, I personally thought the female lead did well (with the exception of the crying - maybe the script originally made the crying so fake?) and the supporting characters did pretty well too, so I gave it a 7/10 because none of the acting stood out much, which is expected for romance dramas. As for music, I do recall a few good music pieces, but they did not really leave an impression on me either.
~ OVERALL ~
That's about it! I don't believe I will be rewatching this drama anytime soon, and because I only spent about 1-2 days finishing this drama (ahh, yess, I am the type of person who stays up at night to finish watching a drama), I wouldn't say if it really is worth it or not, since it didn't take up too much of my time. Overall, I gave it a 5.5/10.
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This review may contain spoilers
There are shorter dramas with more romance
I was thoroughly enjoying the series initially especially the comedy and the romance was sweet too. I really liked the ML, Yuan Song, as he was a kind and caring boyfriend. Saving your girlfriend's fingerprint on your phone so that she knows you have nothing to hide is a huge gesture. In fact, he kept making huge gestures towards her and she kept wanting to hide the relationship. I never understood that. You only hide a relationship when you think you are doing something wrong. Instead she should have opened a dialogue with him as well as her family.The other thing that annoyed me is that the main couple spent more time broken up than they were together. That is not why I chose to watch this drama. If you are like me, it might be a good idea to skip the episodes after they are broken up until you get to the end. By the 28th episode, I started to get tired of the other plots. And by the 37th episode they were still not back together.
I wonder if the reason for keeping them apart this long is because of the real life age gap. Why not create dramas with actors that are older but have similar age gaps if you can't provide a genuine take on an older female younger male couple? Maybe one where the male is also established. I am yet to find a show that depicts how such couples deal with their relationship long term rather than running away from it.
I couldn't care for He CanYang and Cai MinMin's relationship either. In most cultures, men marrying girls 10 - 15 years younger is normal. No one really bats an eye. Meanwhile even marrying a woman few years older is looked down upon. Even in this series, CanYang is more worried because MinMin is his student. Luming is against it because CanYang is his girlfriend's brother. They are not dealing with an age issue at all. In fact, I liked the brother until he repeats the toxic misogynistic line that his relationship is normal because he is a man but his sister's would be shameful because she is a woman. What a fall from grace of a character that seemed open-minded.
I could only appreciate 2 side stories - the other designer male's office romance and the cheating husband. It would have been far better if this series was shorter instead of adding so many couple stories when the main couple is simply not progressing. I would have definitely liked to see more of Yuan Song but there are 2 episodes without him and in some he is just barely there. In fact, the second male lead has far more scenes. I really loved the ML's stepmom's character. It was nice to see their relationship.
The main couple's romance is honestly disappointing. If it weren't for the comedic moments, I would not even give this show a 7. In comparison, The Rational Life is a superior series.
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DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME! STORY COULD BE TOLD IN 12 EPISODES
No climax... just plain dull. I skipped many episodes near to giving up if not for Song Weilong and Victoria Song.Acting was great. Song Weilong though young but played the role well. So did Victoria. Overall acting was good. The most "irritating" to watch was Mr Ye. He has got that face that I wished he will drop into the quick sand! haha
Story was a bit shitty and slow paced. There was no climax in each episodes just plain ... no drama
Music was ok.
dont even know how it got such a high ratings.... just wonder whether it was because of Song Wei long!
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Bait and switch premise
The show has a brilliant visual and romantic chemistry match up with Victoria and Song Wei Long as He Fan Xing and Yuan Song, but their relationship is basically relegated to being an afterthought side story that also has to share time with a litany of various side stories and you wouldn't even know Song Wei Long is the male lead as his screen time is more like that of a supporting role while a whole other character is treated like the male lead and is the one that spends most of the time with the female lead. I hope Victoria and Song Wei Long will star in different drama thatdoes legitimately feature both of them as the actual leading screen partners throughout the whole show.
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Story; The story was pretty good, it was quite a calming plot, like there weren't too much happening so you could chill and understand what's going on. The FL character annoyed me a bit because of her "dumbness" and how she can't usually interpret situations. Overall this was a pretty good story because it was quite unique.
Acting/Cast: The cast did amazing! Both the FL and the ML really converted the script into something real and magical. The choices for cast were pretty good too because their appearances really fitted well with the characters they were going to play. Song Weilong seemed like that somewhat rebellious young person that doesn't really know much about life yet well Song Qian seemed quite experienced.
Music: The theme songs were very calming, but I felt like the lyrics were a bit sad and it would've been nice if there was a much more catchier happier tune, but it was alright.
Rewatch value: I personally thought that the scenes with the FL and the SML dragged for a bit. There were also some unnecessary scenes with supporting characters that didn't really affect the FL and the ML. I personally find that the drama is a bit too long, so I won't be very likely rewatching it.
Overall, this is an okay drama because of its uniqueness in plots and the cast were also well chosen. I'm happy to say this is a well produced drama.
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Pretty to look at, but full of wasted potential on frustrating immature characters.
Apart from the obvious eye-candy (I could stare at Song Wei Long for days), I was overall quite disappointed in this drama. It suffered from poor character development and contrived plot, which made me both addicted and frustrated at the same time.I wanted this show to be a mature romantic journey of growth, where two people who are inexperienced in their own ways find a balance in one other and get through societal pressures together. What I got instead was naïve main characters avoiding their problems and making poor life decisions, as well as frustrating secondary characters behaving very immaturely.
As an age-gap romance, the show had potential to explore some interested topics like going against social norms, workplace power dynamics, parental pressures and different types of marriages. These could have been interesting ways to keep our couple apart, however, these were only mentioned at a surface level and the potential was wasted.
Instead, the main source of conflict came from third-parties that manipulate our main characters or cause misunderstandings. The couples own insecurities lead them to run away from each-other or refuse to communicate their feelings. I'm not a fan of these kinds of reasons to keep the main couple apart, and kept watching in the hopes that they would learn from their repeated mistakes.
Unfortunately I don't feel like this happened, and didn't see much character growth or many people "finding themselves". In fact, I felt that several characters went backwards and became less confident or made worse decisions as the show went on. More emphasis was put on finding someone to love, than finding out who you really are, so that was a disappointing message.
I also disliked that the show glorified problematic behaviour, like the second-male-lead Lu Ming and his manipulation tactics, and that Fan Xing was okay with it. For the love of pasta, please don't take any relationship advice from any of these characters.
The only saving grace is Song Wei Long and his perfected "I find you cute, and I'm trying not to smile about it" look that he does so well. Unfortunately, there isn't as much interaction with the main couple as you would expect, which made me question why they even liked each other. The main characters have more screen time with secondary characters than with each other.
If you are looking for a sweet romance or mature journey of self-discovery then I think you will be disappointed on both fronts. You might enjoy this if you are a fan of Song Wei Long or any of the actors, however expect to be skipping a lot of scenes to get through the unnecessary number of episodes.
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arcs i loved
-the male lead and female lead
-the female leads family
-the cheating husband and friend
-the female lead and her twin brother/ 2 friends relationship
-the unwanted pregnancy
-the office lovers
-male leads family
- 2nd male lead and niece
arcs i hated and mostly skipped
-prof and high school student
- high school kids
-manipulating side of 2nd male lead.(it was cute at first then it became annoying)
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Cute romance
I didn't expect to enjoy this drama, because I saw Song Wei Long's flat acting in Untouchable Lovers and I also didn't think Victoria Song would be a good actress because she was a k-pop star. Surprisingly, their chemistry and older-woman-younger-man romance worked out very well.Things I enjoyed:
1. Romance of the main leads: Fanxing is 32 y/o while Yuan Song is 22 y/o. Fanxing is mature so she stays as reasonable as she can, yet her innocence in love and dating comes out when she deals with things such as jealousy and minding what outsiders think of her relationshup. Meanwhile, Yuan Song is young, yet he is determined to be a man in his own right. I'd describe this as a very enjoyable masculine and feminine dynamic.
2. Other storylines: Every else also had their own relationship troubles, such as Fanxing's twin brother's relationship with his younger female student, Fanxing's two older friends (one struggling to deal with a cheating husband and one being too headstrong to readily accept a traditional female role), etc.
3. Characters: I loved the main characters as well as side characters, each having their own story or personality. The closest to annoyance I felt was with the 2nd male lead, but his "annoyingness" does have its place in the drama and story line.
4. COMEDY: I can't tell if I'm childish, but I have to admit there were so many scenes where I laughed out loud at how ridiculous/petty the humor was, yet it felt like very realistic things I've seen in day-to-day life. It feels like the writer of this drama is actually quite in touch with the current generation and dating scene and could thus throw in jokes at appropriate moments.
Overall, I would recommend this if you're interested in that older-woman-younger-male romantic dynamic. The drama did a great job in showing it's quite reasonable while also being fun and light to watch.
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