Well-Intended Love (2019)

I wanted to love this drama. My friend got me to watch and told me it was cute and adorable and a lot of fun. I believed her. The first 10 episodes were great and I was honestly enjoying it. Then the big plot twist happened in episode 11 and from that point on, the drama was honestly ruined for me.

***SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER****

STORY:
This was really the only problem I had with this drama because I actually liked the acting and the chemistry between characters was great.
It started off fairly cliche - ???? - Cruel, harsh boss and the ??? cute, young, innocent girl are thrown together. Contract marriage, eventually fall in love for real. All great. I actually really appreciated that this time around, the male lead wasn't an ass to her the whole time before he realized his feelings, but he was very respectful of her, treated her well, was super cute to her. Great start!
The first episode I thought it was gonna be super melodramatic what with the boyfriend cheating, the sickness diagnosis, etc. It seemed like this was gonna be a downer drama. I was wrong. It was bubbly and romantic and cute. Everything continued on - relationship was cute, they kept getting closer, they finally fall in love.

AND THEN THE BIG PLOT TWIST. and this is where it went downhill for me.

***SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER****
***SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER****
***SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER****
***SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER****

You find out that NOT ONLY was the female lead NEVER sick with Leukemia, but that the male lead knew about it from the beginning. What could be worse than that? THE MALE LEAD WAS BEHIND THE WHOLE THING. From day one, he was the one who manipulated the female lead, the doctors, down to keeping her holed up in some private facility for two months while she "recovers" (which they conveniently skipped over in the drama and they go straight from getting married to her being fully recovered in under 2 mins). It was ALL a ploy by the male lead to get the female lead to fall in love with him.

The drama continues to try and make it seem like he did it all for a noble cause - cause he really fell in love with her over the past two years when he was at his worst and she was the bright star that made him happy to live and whatnot. That's all great and that's a great love story. BUT THE FACT THAT HE ESSENTIALLY STALKED HER FOR TWO YEARS, FAKED HER ILLNESS AND FRAUDED HER INTO MARRIAGE MAKES ALL OF THIS JUST CREEPY AND NOT OK.

I know that the drama was trying to make it seem innocent, and she of course forgives him for all of this, but honestly I couldn't get over that plot point. It was too creepy and too stalkerish. If this was real life, there was no shot in hell that she would forgive him and continue their relationship.

Legit if they had kept everything the same - him falling for her prior to really meeting her, but actually had her be sick and have him donate his bone marrow, and all the subsequent story points - MINUS THE PART WHERE HE FRAUDED HER - I would be perfectly fine and I would have been able to enjoy the second half of this drama. But honestly, I can't believe they romanticized a legit stalker and manipulator and tried to make him seem noble. I can't.

Ugh.

ACTING:
I think the actors were all really good. I loved the leads (at first) and thought their relationship was surprisingly refreshing for a Chinese drama (where most of the time it ends up being the same plot lines). I was super into the male lead and thought he had a good suave personality, as well as being caring and thoughtful.

REWATCH:
Absolutely not. Knowing that one plot twist really I just can't with this drama. They try to make it cute and relatable, but it's just not for me. It's creepy and stalkerish.

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I literally made an account just to give this a bad review. The first ten episodes are pretty standard, but there is a plot twist in episode 11 that is so freaking disturbing that it ruins the show. The male lead is literally a textbook abusive husband except that he never actually hits her (though he does physically restrain her and drag her around to the point that she is crying and bites him to try to make him let go because he won't listen to her). He financial controls her, manipulates and lies to her about huge life events with no concern for her feelings, he stalks her, and even locks her in their house and won't let her leave. All the while he is professing his love and saying its for her own good and that he wouldn't change his behavior because it brought them together. Even after she makes her feelings perfectly clear, that she needs space and respect and doesn't want him to interfere with her life, he continues his behavior behind her back! He's literally insane. I cheered when she left him because she was escaping an abusive relationship, yet for some unknown reason the writers make her forgive him and they end up together. I'm actually disgusted. For a second I thought it was going to tun into a thriller where she has to escape him and try to put her life together while he stalks her and gets crazier and crazier. It's just horrible. I wish I could give it 0 stars.

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It's the year 2019, and we still have this kind of dramas..

Content of the drama is basic, girl is sick, needs transplant and boy is a match. Boy has a sick grandma who loves him so much, and wants to see him love and marry a girl. When girls asks the boy to help her, boy says okay, but first let get married and have a contracted marriage for 2 years.

Typical contracted marriage turns real marriage plot, seemed fun on Netflix so I said just try it, I mean, everyone needs a bit of cheesiness in life time to time.

But OH BOY

WILL CONTAIN SPOILER AND ANGER AND SHOCK READ AT YOUR OWN RISK

First of all, the reveal is just too big. And it's not a reveal like "boy has been lying because of a misunderstanding" or "a simple white lie started all this". The reveal is that THE BOY IS A FREAKING STALKER, A SOCIOPATH TO THE CORE. I just can't with the sugarcoating. He is wrong. Girl is literally a victim, and still keeps sticking around him. You know just because he waited in the rain outside of her apartment doesn't justify his actions.

Him being kind of a macho at the beginning of the show is not my style, yet acceptable as there are many kind of relationships and people who can get with it. But UGH I LITERALLY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT MORE CAN I SAY ABOUT IT THE SHOW IS JUST WRONG THE PREMISE OF IT IS WRONG EVERYTHING IS WRONG

I mean, girls friend seems clever and protective over her but when the big reveal happened, she didn't even react much? And supported their relationship? Just, why??

And last but least, as the show goes on, that big reveal didn't even matter? They had a conflict for what, like one or two episodes, than moved on to another subject like family issues or something.

Violence, both physically (second leads father beating the leading lady and the second lead, male lead literally kidnapping the female lead, holding her forcefully etc) and mentally (male lead tricking the girl to believe she had a terminal illness, than deceiving her into marriage and then making her fall in love with him etc) was like the main purposes of the show. And they didn't even resolve those issues. The guy can wait as much as he wants in the downpour and get a pneumonitis or anything but that wouldn't make it equal to the punishment he deserved.

THE SHOW IS JUST WRONG AND WISH IT DIDN'T EXISTED IN THE FIRST PLACE.

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Ok so this review is dark and full of spoilers. aand I'm going to vent a lot my frustration so you may hate me if you liked this drama. Then just don't blow your bubble and stop reading now. xD
I found this drama on netflix and at first it was our typical, full of cliché (and occasionally cringeness) love story: marriage contract between a poor thing who has a desease and the only donor compatible: the youngest and richest CEO of CEOs history that every woman would like to approach - but for some reasons he doesn't seem to be attracted by anyone, and rumors have him being in a triangle with his secretary male assistant and his male actor friend.
Asians are rather conservative about lgbt so none of them is actually gay, or at least bi. Bi would be a nice plot twist.
But instead we had a really shitty plot twist that will make your jaw drop underground.
Well the signals were there and some bells happened to ring for me, but I know that dramas are often a bit extra, so I wouldn't imagine what was going to happen.
First of all: she had to beg him several times because even tho he was on the donor's list (it means he signed himself in) he didn't want to agree to save her life. That's quite nasty for a premise even for the tsundere archetype to be honest.
Then as they start to "fake" their marriage (he asked her to marry him in exchange of her life, basically. She tought he was gay and needed a cover up - but that's her assumption, not a deception.) he starts to be a bit too controlling: he stated she - a grown woman - was forbidden to drink alcohol (not getting drunk, just to drink a beer for instance), was forbidden to wear skirts over her knee and things like that.
Actually the very alarm for me went on the moment she was walking at the mall with her friend and some guy stole her wallet, only to come back minutes later scared with that same wallet intact, begging forgiveness. How did her hubby knew? Wasn't he supposed to be at work, doing all that office stuff? (seriously I am always amused to see how much free time heads of conglomerates have to roam around instead of directing thousand people in dramaland. And they just sign stuff or scold people when they're rarely seen at their workplace LOL)
Some time passes and they spend lovely time together, they say cheesy stuff and flirt all the way.
And then the ugly thruth: we get to know that the marriage in fact was the masterpiece of the dick moves to approach a girl you like: he stalked, photographed her, got reports about her FOR TWO FREAKING YEARS and planned ahead the whole marriage thing by bribing doctors and forging documents about her having leukemia, when she was just anemic!! That would be GENIAL if only this drama was tagged under "thriller". But it's a rom com instead. How romantic! Let me spread some rotten flower petals here.
Because asking her for a coffee was too mainstream? We get to see in flashbacks she wasn't a cold, difficult to approach person, the exact opposite!! In fact he fell for her because they met by coincidence and she helped a stranger (him) without asking anything in return.
Even with his turbolent past with a severe father and a uncaring mother (she was a real bitch, let me say it moreover because she seemed a poor victim of the father too when she tried to steal his son's company at first occasion. wtf.) I think that's not logic at all. And also why his loyal assistant didn't warn him about the consequences, about how frong this was?? He planned to deceive her and confess the truth only when she had already fallen for him so she would forgive his actions: yeah sure, feed that to the dogs.
If only that she did exactly as he planned.
She discovered the truth, she got angry, she told him how suffocating is his behavior, HE LOCKED HER UP IN THE HOUSE WITH TWO GUARDS "FOR HER SAKE" when she wanted to leave and after couple of episodes they're back together. No consequences, no therapy.
Not to mention he begged her, telling her he wanted to change and after all that, she discovers he bought her apartment in secret. Psycho much? Hello? You didn't learn anything from all that mess?
But let's being serious for a second here because yes it's a fiction, it's a drama so "over the top or die trying" is our national anthem but I felt rather disturbed to see how lightly all the matter was treated. The friends, from both sides, just said: "oh, that's not cool" and that was it. Leaving aside the fact he didn't yell or hit at her, he, in fact, abused her. This was plain domestic abuse. He said what every perpetrator say in this circumstance "it's for your own good, I did it for you".
For the rest of the drama I kept being disturbed by it, I kept thinking the target of this stories are teens and they are easily influenced by everything around them. (It's not an asian only thing, I can use "after" by Anna Todd as another bad example.)
I just don't think it's a good idea showing manipulative characters justified and forgiven like that, without at least some therapy. Yes, he's a victim of his father too and I am prone to be more comprehensive, but it's not enough for me to excuse him or giving him a second chance right away.
I think it's also disrespectful towards all the people out there who are abused by their partner, trapped in this nightmare.
You may think "yeah but it's just fiction!" and I may agree with you except that seeing often those things as normal and romanticized even is very harmful for young minds. If he wasn't rich and handsome would you be on the same page as now?
Here's a really fitting example of what I'm trying to say: we're all educated that pink is a feminine color. A boy would be ashamed to wear pink (Jia Fei was more convinced that Wen Li was gay because he liked that very color) but isn't it just a pale hue of red? That's how our brain works: we get used to things and finally think they're normality. Ling Yi Zhou himself is a perfect example: he's so used to be manipulated by his father he thinks he's normal to treat his partner as some pet.
I was sad to see people willing to cheer for them at the end, while they were so severe to the second fem lead girl who basically did the same thing to Ling (she ipnotized and drugged him to forget his wife so she could stand a chance. This reminded me of Tom Riddle's mother. She tricked a guy to love her with a potion and when he woke up he left her pregnant with the dark lord. That would be a great lesson for both An Ran and Ling Yi Zhou).
I liked how Xia Lin and Chu Yan's friendship developed and that left me with the infamous second lead syndrome. He started as a bitchy rival, then he learned to respect her as a person and they become friends, they talked about stuff and helped each other: sometimes she rescued him, sometimes he rescued her. The true example of an equal and sane relationship.
For me the perfect ending would have been her escaping with him and the controlling dude being on therapy and then after few time trying again to have a relationship with another woman in the right way (or die, while trying to kill the girl and his friend who "stole" her), I think I will pretend that happened and forget about this whole stuff right away.
if it wasn't clear enough I won't recommend this at all xD I would rather keep watching the same old stuff full of clichés without abuse :/

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Like dramas with contract marriages? Think this is the drama for you?

YOU ARE WRONG.
STOP NOW.
DO NOT PRESS PLAY.

This is the strongest warning I can possibly give about a drama.

At the beginning, this drama had a lot of things happening that were ridiculous - and by that I mean silly, overblown makjang. To be honest, for the first few episodes, I kept watching just to see how ridiculous the plot could get.
Unfortunately, it's not the overwhelming list of silly that is the problem here.

List of silly:
Amnesia
Hypnosis
Drugging
Stalking
Cancer scares
Kidnapping.
And more...

The biggest problem with this drama is that it is a shocking apologia for domestic abuse of a particularly subtle and manipulative kind.

Cut it whichever way you want: Xia Lin's husband is almost sociopathic in his possessiveness. He controls her every move, manipulates her, gaslights her, tracks her, stalks her, lies to her, imprisons her. And worst of all, all of this is framed as evidence of his great epic love. It is not. This is not romantic, it is hugely disturbing and hugely wrong.

This is the story of an abused woman who tried to escape her abuser but ends up falling back into the relationship anyway. It would actually work quite well as a warning against men who behave like this; using their wealth and power to control another person. Ling Yi Zhou is the most abusive male lead I've seen in a drama in a long time.

The only acceptable resolution to this scenario would be Xia Lin being strong enough and brave enough to leave this toxic relationship behind and forge her own path in the world without Ling Yi Zhou. Anything else serves as a justification for horrible domestic abuse.

Even after the huge TWIST I admit I kept watching because I wanted to see how the show would handle the revelation. But by the time he was microchipping her with diamonds to track her every move, I realised I was done.

I am not just sorry I watched this - I'm upset that dramas like this exist.

I wish I could give dramas a 0 because if I could, I would.

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This show, apart from being full of gender stereotypes, also has a sexist and abuse-normalizing storyline. Ling Yi Zhou is controlling, oppressive, obsessive, selfish, psychotic man who basically blackmailed and tricked a woman into marrying him and yet he is always portrayed as the perfect dreamy husband! Also Xia Lin went from being a dynamic young woman trying to make it in the entertainment industry to a stay-at-home obedient wife whose ONLY purpose is to support her toxic husband. Also Xia Lin’s reaction of her finding out Yi Zhou’s scam was absolutely terrifying. Instead of freaking out about the fact that she was being watched for months and forced to marry him, she was only upset because she had been lied to about her being ill. The issue of Ling Yi Zhou trapping her into that marriage is never tackled, while Yi Zhou hiring guards to keep her inside the house (so basically kidnapping her) after finding out that his scheme was uncovered is also a toxic behavior worth mentioning. All in all well intended love is about a toxic relationship that is everything but well intended and I definitely do not recommend to anyone to further support it. At the same time I hope everyone who has already watched it could understand how wrong and unacceptable it is for a show like this to air in 2019.. Horrifying.

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Highly offended

This drama was such a disappointment. As a sick person, I was excited to find a drama where the lead is sick. The first ten episodes were fine, the story was as I expected and the acting was good. I binged watched most of it as quick as I could. But then the massive plot twist happened.

/SPOILERS/

I was appalled to discover that he had manipulated the whole situation, making her believe she was life-threateningly ill and that he was her only saviour. Making her beg him to save her live and forcing a marriage onto her, to satisfy his crush on a girl he had never previously met.

How could anyone forgive this? This would have been such a great drama had they just not made it all a lie. I watched this ages ago, but keep returning to lower my score for it because not only was the twist poorly written, it upset and angered me like no other.

I'm not sure if 'triggered' is quite the right word to use, but for me, someone who has had to come to terms with having a disease, watching this drama brought up so many negative emotions. I was so excited to see a sick character, that when the twist happened, I felt so angry that they ever thought that this story was acceptable.

The acting and delivery in this drama was not bad, I could barely fault it in that aspect, but this drama became tainted for me the moment they decided that it was acceptable to have a character forgive someone for making them think they were sick. And not just that, the guy was crazy! He stalked her for two years and then even set up elaborate plans where she was hospitalised so he could fraud her into a marriage with him. This drama tries to subtly put a blanket over the deep issues over emotional abuse, and I can't see how anyone could accept how the story played out.

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Oh. My. God. You guys, I would willingly give away my entire life savings just to have this crap-fest of a drama erased from my brain. As an avid drama watcher, there is a lot I am willing to put up with. Cliches? Sure. Love triangles? Sure. Noble idiocy? Sure. But this- this awful, awful drama from the depths of hell; this is where I draw the line.

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER!

Okay, so the Main Guy agrees (with a lot of pleading from the Main Girl's side) to enter a contract marriage with her to donate bone marrow, as she is sick with leukemia and he is her only match. After a while, they end up falling in love for real. Simple, right? But no. We soon discover that the Main Guy SWITCHED HOSPITAL RECORDS AND MANIPULATED THE MAIN GIRL INTO THINKING SHE HAD LITERAL CANCER IN ORDER TO FORCE HER INTO A MARRIAGE WITH HIM. Yes, you read that right. And when the Main Girl tries to move out of the house (as she should!) he SETS UP GUARDS outside the house to stop her from leaving. What?! Surprisingly. this is not even the craziest plot twist in the series. That is something too insane to even be written in words. But the title of this show is a big fat lie: this is not, in fact, Well Intended Love, since manipulating a young girl into thinking she is terminally ill is the exact opposite of good intentions, and much of this drama would have been avoidable if he had, oh I don't know, ASKED FOR HER NUMBER instead. The Main Guy also has a disturbing habit of using sex to get what he wants from the girl all the time, which didn't sit great with me. But on the good side, the acting was decent all around, and even the chemistry between all the actors was good.

Rewatch: For me? Hell no. But if you were potentially willing to suspend your sense of morality and common sense for a couple of hours, you might be able to rewatch it. I hope.

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TW;:ABUSE/ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING

First of all this drama disgusts me.The man tricked her into thinking she had to get a transplant and basically manipulated her to be with him. And then made it seem like it was ok like it was just the thing to do. and then towards the end of the drama one of the characters kidnapped her even though she was a pregnant women and constantly threatened her he would grab her by the neck and others and threatened to shoot her with her baby honestly I felt disgusted the whole time and I felt that the people who made this drama took it way too far and honestly wouldn't recommend this to anyone. and then its showing that all men have to do is make someone think that they are sick and force them to marry them and have a baby.He treated her like she was an object and only wanted her for his own benefit and then covered it up by saying that he "LOVED HER" absolutely horrible don't watch this if you are sensitive abuse,manipulation etc

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okay so to be fair, there is a good chunk of reviews killing this, which are btw absolutely correct. but hear me out: this entire title is just pure comedy.

when i say this, i mean, i never laughed so hard in my life by the turns of events from this drama. like when they hypnotised the mc to forget about the girl. or when he needs to MARRY HER to donate his bone marrow to save her from leukemia EXCEPT it was made up!!

i will recommend this to anyway who wants a good'ol'laugh. sometimes i close my eyes and this drama comes to mind. the impact. always makes me laugh. maybe it should be considered a LAUGHING STOCK.

do not take is seriously tho, because if we deeply analyse this, it's bad. really bad.

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The story of this drama is sucks and out of plot.
From amnesia to family conflict. They didnt stick on one story thats why the script was meh. Despite of acting, this is my third time watching chinese/taiwanese drama. So I didnt know very well about their acting etc.
BUT they have one good point that other drama doesnt have. Every time they have a couple quarrel and problem both party solved the problem in good way and communication unlike other drama did to dragged the episodes just to ask for forgiveness. They will do right away.

Very honestly, I enjoyed their cheesy thing hahahah the couple looks great together in one frame but the story itself is still meh. If the plot of the drama was good, I bet the couple will looks amazing and favorable. Chinese & Taiwanese drama should learn about the directing, story telling, and acting from Japanese and Korean Drama. They need to developed those so the viewers can enjoy watching it.

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