I was looking for a long-ish drama since as you all know a lot of us are in quarantine and need some distraction, and a few weeks prior I had heard of this drama and was immediately interested. I was already a fan of Janice Wu so the decision to start this was even easier.
I really enjoyed this drama and I feel like it did a great job by keeping me busy and entertained. First of all, I loved the cast! I love how we got to know the characters better through time so even the ones you really hate at first, by the end you really care about them. Also, since this is a sports drama I was really surprised by the great work they did! Ice skating is not the easiest but they did such a great job at making it seem effortless! That being said, I didn't really care about some of them, but that's okay, as most of them are very likable and cute.
As for the plot, I honestly have very little to nothing to complain about, I found it always at the same pace and never felt really bored or uninterested, and when considering the fact that they are 40 episodes, this is honestly great work.
I didn't really care for the O.S.T. but towards the middle-end I found myself really enjoying that as well.
It's not a perfect drama, but I absolutely loved having every day some new episodes to watch and this kept me company so well I'm very sad it's over.
Don't know if they'll do a second season, but if they do, I will surely watch it!
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The characters: At first, I was skeptical about Janice Wu playing the lead role, simply because I didn't like her in a previous drama. Her acting in this one, on the other hand, amazed me. She was perfect for the role, and I feel like her acting developed a lot. The male lead was also amazing. They had chemistry, and worked well together. You couldn't not root for them. My one huge problem with dramas is usually that the main couple doesn't communicate, don't trust each other and so they break up. While something similar happened here as well, I was thankful, that their break-up wasn't long, they didn't drag it out, and that it was resolved quite quickly, which made it less annoying. Their interaction was amazing, I loved them as a couple. The secondary couples and the supporting characters were also adorable. They were very supporting of one another and they were very loyal too, which made the series a lot more enjoyable.
The plot: I usually find 40 episodes super long, and I feel that long dramas start to drag at some point. I actually didn't have that feeling this time. A lot is happening in this drama, and thankfully nothing takes ages. The plot has a nice pace, not too slow, and not too fast. I do feel though, that 40 episodes is long to rewatch something, so I'll probably not rewatch the whole thing again, but it was definitely watchable for the first time. One of the strongest points of this drama series was the fact that it concentrated on ice sports. It didn't only use it as a background for the series, it focused a lot on the training, on achieving their goals. We saw a lot of scenes with them on the ice, the drama didn't favor the romantic aspect more, which made the drama series especially unique. A lot of the time I didn't care about the love (even though I watch c-dramas purely for the romance!), I was more interested in their competitions, and the scenes where they trained and were on the ice, focusing on realising their dreams.
The message: On one hand, it focused on young athletes overcoming obsticles and sticking to their dreams. It emphasied the importance of believing in yourself to overcome anything and to forge ahead no matter the odds. I thought the drama conveyed this message beautifully without any distractions. The message was recieved loud and clear, to the point where the viewer feels empowered to pursue their own dreams. On the other hand, it made China seem great. This is a normal occurance in c-dramas, where they empower their nation and focus on making China great and proud. This is an amazing marketing power for the country that I applaud. China is changing it's country image in the eyes of the world, both internationally and domestically. It encourages youth to develop a strong love for their nation and their nationality. It gives them a feeling of belonging and a society that they can strive for. It makes them feels like they also want to become a proud member of this nation. This drama series achieved this goal. It made China shine in a bright light. I also applaude whoever thought of the ending of the drama. It gives the whole series a whole new purpose and a whole new light. The series generates marketing on its own.
Whether from a viewer's point of view, or as a marketing manager's point of view, it's simply an amazing piece of work that is both esthetically pleasing and meaningful. I definitely recommend watching it at least once!
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This review may contain spoilers
Can't get enough of the leads!
I've watched this show twice, but still whenever I see clips of the show especially of the main leads, I want to watch it again!STORY
The storyline of Tang Xue and Li Yubing as childhood frenemies was funny though ultimately I felt the story could've also gone without it. I know it's from the original novel but the story starting from college was already interesting enough and how they were chasing towards their dreams. I wasn't that interested in the supporting characters though. Especially Tang Xue's friends.
The latter part of the show, I felt had unnecessary conflict that had been dragged on longer than it should have. Especially with Tang Xue and Li Yubing's misunderstanding. I felt that it could've been solved sooner and was put there just so they could have a problem in their otherwise perfect relationship.
I also felt that Li Yubing is portrayed too much as a hero that it's an insult to his teammates. Since, after all, they're playing ice hockey which is a team sport so why does everything depend on just Li Yubing?
CINEMATOGRAPHY & EDITING
It's surely hard to shoot the scenes on the ice rink, especially during games. Of course the editing had to make sure that the scene where the actors were shown and the scenes where they used body doubles were edited seamlessly. They had a lot of cuts though and you couldn't exactly see what was happening in the game but I guess it still became effective in portraying the fast paced, high tension of the games.
The close up scenes of the kissing scenes was soo waaaahhh! I think my replay button died.
COSTUMES
I love how as Tang Xue and Li Yubing fall for each other, their outfits become more color-coordinated!
ACTING
Ever reliable, ever likeable Janice Wu. If another actress portrayed Tang Xue, she might not be as likeable but because Janice Wu has this innate charm, that's why you can still root for Tang Xue even when she's being unreasonable sometimes. Her chemistry with Steven Zhang is off the charts. My gosh Steven Zhang has such great charisma, even just the scenes where he's looking at Tang Xue, it makes your heart beat fast! He can go from being intense to being like a cute little puppy when smiling. And the kissing scenes oh my goodness!
MUSIC
I love their soundtrack. My favorite was Sa Dingding and Liu Yuning's versions of The Moment I Met You. I love them equally and makes the romantic scenes 10x more thrilling.
OVERALL
Recommended! After watching this I kept on looking for shows about skating because it didn't just make me interested in the characters itself but also in ice skating. For me, it's also rewatchable but you can skip the scenes you're not really interested in or just replay the leads' love story hihi.
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You shine best when you’re pursuing your dreams – a heart-warming and inspirational drama
All in all, this was a solid drama that deserves commendation. I thoroughly enjoyed the notions of teamwork, comradery, friendship and brotherhood, fighting for one’s dreams despite the obstacles both physical and mental, love and support that were warmly embraced in this drama. However, this was a drama with faults that dragged that unfortunately drag down my rating.STORY
Solid plot line that flowed well for a massive 40 episodes. The first 25 episodes were done really well, pacing, plot wise and character development were all really good and I liked seeing our two leads grow closer together. Liked the humourous revenge plot line and liked their interactions with each other. However, after episode 25, it went downhill and saw a complete 180 degree tone shift into something darker, depressing and at times frustrating. It was super light hearted, funny and engaging prior but then suddenly all this revenge, violence and depression started to appear and weigh down the drama. I felt they added these extra subplots to beef up the drama, but were not executed well and didn't align with the character's characterisation. A major stump for me was the double standards regarding ‘lying’. We spent the first 20 episodes building Tang Xue’s character as someone who absolutely cannot stand lies and this even inhibits her relationship with Li Yu Bing. But then after episode 25, she lies one after another and expects everyone around her to just trust her. And then in the end who feels the consequences and ends up apologising? Li Yu Bing.
I felt Li Yu Bing copped it hard for no reason and Tang Xue got let off everytime. Despite this, I thought their moments together were very cute and could really see how much Li Yu Bing liked her and cared for her. Loved how they each had something from each other e.g. snowflake necklace and pink hockey stick. However, I just felt I needed more from Tang Xue, both in emotion and action.
ACTING/CAST
Janice Wu is not my first choice in actress and actually her expressions and also loud, brash, lack of subtlety in character put me off this drama initially. But I continued on because I liked the banter and humour between the two leads. I think Janice played the character well, I feel like that’s the only sort of character she can play. Very obvious, almost aggressive and nothing subtle.
However, Steven Zhang, boy was I pleasantly surprised by his acting. He did his character so well and I ended up rooting from him. I loved his sense of justice and how supportive he was. I felt like Li Yu Bing really expressed how much he loved Tang Xue, whereas I couldn’t feel it that much from our female lead. I really followed his journey from success, to setback and to comeback and I really appreciated this character arc.
Side characters. There was a lot of heat about the amount of side characters and the time spent on them. I totally get that, it was excessive and unnecessary and the side character stories didn’t have much depth and felt quite superficial. But they did relieve tension from our main lead and built up quite a nice friendship support network which I love.
Our ‘evil’ characters were so off. I liked Zhou Ran’s growth and understanding. But Bian Chiang, what was going on with him? He was deluded and I had no ideas what his motives were and his character and acting felt off. An uninteresting character that had more say in the plot then I wanted him to.
MUSIC
Moving and inspirational soundtrack, really like the whole snow and ice motifs throughout.
REWATCH VALUE
I’d rewatch the first 25 episodes and then leave it at that. I don’t really need to relive anything after. It was super depressing, frustrating, annoying and just felt completely unnecessary.
Solid drama that was a tribute to national pride and winter sport. Appreciate the character arcs and their growth as they bounce off each other and learn from each other. It definitely didn’t need 40 episodes and some of the subplots let the whole drama down in flow of plot, tone and Tang Xue and Li Yu Bing’s relationship. But if you like sport dramas (which I do), strong themes of fighting for one's dream and never giving up, then this is for you. Keen to hear your thoughts as always! xx
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What I liked:
I got to learn a lot about ice sports that I didn't know, before watching the drama I had no idea that a sport called short track skating existed. Also as a drama with several side couples, and various other characters, it was nice to see that a majority of them were their own person with their own struggles. Not to mention great chemistry be it romantic relationships or friendships. I have to mention the male lead, Steven Zhang, he stole the show for me with his expressions ranging from cool and focused God of Ice to the adorable BingBing he was whenever Tang Xue was concerned.
What I disliked:
The draggy second half of the drama. Frankly, this drama should have been around 30 episodes. In my opinion, they introduced some really unnecessary plot points just to make this 40 episodes.
In conclusion, if you like dramas that are centered around sports and the struggles that athletes encounter, cute couples with great chemistry, despite certain cliche elements in the plot, then this is the drama for you.
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The story is an inspiring one. First thing to learn from it is the fighting spirit. If you are feeling low or standing on the cross road of your life then definitely watch it. Let's now talk about the lead actors. Steven Zhang and Jenice
Wu did a great job performing their respective roles. Jenice is one of my favourite Chinese actress and being biased, I'll love her in any role she would do. Here in, Skate into love, she gave her best. Steven Zhang, really surprised me with his acting. The chemistry between the leads is really awwdorable. It used to make me anxious, every time camera shifted on to other characters. It was like, Tang Xue and Li Yubing were living in their own parallel universe, like in some incognito mode. In my honest opinion, every artist did a great job but the leads are shining like no other. Aside from the leads, the only two characters, I really like are of, Tang Xue's doctor friend and Vet. Their love story is a cute one too. Truly in love with Ice Dog and Candy Bar. Enjoyed watching it to the end. There is one regret though, if only the drama had more episodes of cuteness to it.
Watch it guys!!! Believe me, y'all will enjoy it.
Thanks.
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Entirely too many episodes!
I usually like to start with the positives, but for this drama I’d like to get my negatives out of the way at the beginning.-Too many episodes! I fast forwarded through a lot of this, there was an awful lot of time where there was absolutely nothing going on.
-Too many side stories. You had the main couple, the second couple, the third couple that wasn’t a couple yet, the fourth couple that were in a relationship on line, and the teacher couple. Add to that the figure skating rival for her attentions, and then the man and woman working together to break up the couple and there was just too much going on. I felt that the main couple’s development and my appreciation for their romance really suffered from lack of adequate screen time. A few of these people could have been eliminated to help clean up the storyline.
-Stupid breakups
-Abrupt ending. Why do we always get shortchanged on a decent ending after suffering through so many episodes?
What I liked:
For me, this was more a story about the importance of friendships, and not so much about love. The main couple was cute, but they were pretty boring. They hated each other, then they liked each other, then they broke up numerous times for stupid reasons and then at that point I didn’t even care. His confession to her in Episode 26, however, was totally cute.
The second couple – I liked how their relationship was strong throughout, and you could really see them maturing in their relationship, as well as wanting the other to be fulfilled in career choice, etc. Her voice was like nails on a chalkboard, but since I loved the storyline, I could forgive that.
I have to say that my favorites in this drama was the best friend, Big Jiang and the girl that was the speed skater (WeiWei?). The two of them, in addition to the male lead, were the Three Musketeers. I could really appreciate the hidden feelings of both of them and could sense that keeping silent for the sake of maintaining friendships, though sad, is sometimes necessary. He was a big teddy bear of a character (though his hair was laughable) – strong on the outside, yet mushy on the inside. I think he was my favorite character in the whole show.
Yu Yan, the figure skating rival was a good character and I liked how they brought in the storyline of the pressures to succeed, the pressures that parents place on their kids and the pressures the kids put on themselves – and what can happen if you lose sight of why you went into something in the first place. Yu Yan’s speech in Episode 39 was wonderful.
The reasoning for the parents keeping the main characters apart was weak. Also, the evil couple trying to break up the couple storyline was terrible. All of the additional things they brought in to add tension felt like they just pulled a few ideas out of a hat and stuck them in. They didn’t feel well fleshed out.
As I mentioned before, I loved the friendships in this show. I liked watching the friendships develop and their little circle widening to allow others in.
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Though last part of last episode I don't like much .I expect more .
A cute love story where couple falling in love as well as shining during achieving their respective goal or a dream
So dream is not the one which is shine .It is a person who shines while achieving the dream .
Second couple (that doctor one ) also very cute and he cried when his girlfriend told some sweets words to him was so cute. I like this pairing more than the first lead couple.
This drama also shows that how parents get involved with their child's dream and how they become so possessive when their child get hurt. To achieve a goal we
should just focus on us while achieving it no need to think how strong our competitor ,we just to compete ourself for our better performance . We should not brings our frustration in between our relationship ,make assure people around us that such hardship will not break us so they get convince and less worried about us
So all these thing had shown in the drama.
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This review may contain spoilers
This is probably one of my favorite C-dramas!!! It’s very inspirational and motivation comes from this drama! I fangirled so hard during every episode when We Tang Xue and Li Yibing we’re together! Their chemistry was unbelievable, I was so sad when he broke up with her because of a misunderstanding, but they eventually get together again because they love eachother so much. The fact that Tang Xue was even by his side after his surgery left me in tears! Everything about the drama deserved all 10 ratings from me because I enjoyed each episode! This drama is so worth the watch! Was this review helpful to you?
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Firstly i have to say that i truly enjoy this drama a lot, coming from someone who is an avid watcher of cdrama. Usually I'm not one to watch dramas while its ongoing but when i first stumbled upon this drama i was hooked in the first few eps and I found myself anticipating every single new ep release. Also I will be sharing my thoughts based on the drama alone with no comparison to the novel! :)Story plot:
Generally very well written, It started off pretty light-hearted and there were many scenes that got my laughing out loud. One main point i really like about the storyline is how it focus not on just purely romance but also kinship and friendship, such as how the parents chose to support tangxue on pursuing her dreams despite their worries and also her father's love for her. The friendship between the characters were also really cute, especially li yu bing and his roommate's scenes. It also depicted a lot on team spirit such as in the later episode where li yu bing got injured but the members made a video to show their well wishes and their respect for him as the leader and core of their team as well as tangxue and weiwei's support for each other. The development of the leads were also done really well, showing how they went from enemies to lovers and also them chasing after their dreams so bravely. I also watched many behind the scenes and interviews of the show, and i can really see how much effort the actors and director put in such as many of the actors practicing ice skating before hand so that the scenes could be filmed nicely and carried out well, as well as the director really setting each scene to relay the message he wants while still having the comedy element. The scenes between the leads were also v realistic unlike some other dramas that i have watched so thumbs up to the team.
Cast:
10/10 for the actors! Both Janice wu and Zhang xin cheng really potrayed their characters v well and I am a fan of janice wu having watched her previous other dramas but this was the first show i've seen of zhang xin cheng and I have to say that he really impressed me with his acting and I'll be sure to keep a lookout for his future dramas. Both of them had really good chemistry and I sure hope that there will be future projects of the both of them together, they were natural in all of the scenes and many of their moments together brought a smile to my face. The supporting leads also all did a great job, they had their own personalities and definitely made the show more enjoyable. The production crew did a great job in casting the respective actors for their roles and the leads sure did justice to their characters.
OST:
Majority of the OST of the show was sang by the actors so that was really cool and music placement was done at the appropriate scenes. I really liked 冰天雪地 and 当遇见你 but all the other songs were written really well too, the lyrics mostly fitting to the plot and character's feeling so I would say that this area was done p well too :)
Rewatch value:
I have already completed the drama the same day the last ep was released and I am experiencing p bad withdrawal symptoms from the show. I would definitely rewatch the drama agn as it left a really good impression on me and there were many moments in the show that i felt were really funny /touching so i can see myself going for another round just for laughs and to watch the scenes between the leads as i really enjoy their chemistry. I will say that i was not that interested by the plot at first but decided to give it a go as im a fan of janice wu and I was surprisingly hooked by the drama.
I do highly recommend you give this drama a go as it was a pretty well done drama although there were some parts that I didnt really enjoy as such bian cheng's weak intervence in the leads' relationship but generally this drama is enjoyable and definitely did well in its field of rom-com. I'm not one to leave reviews but i wanted to share about this drama as it definitely stood out, esp in the past recent years there weren't much modern romcom that got me as interested as this so if u have some time to spare and is debating to watch, do give it a go and if you can are interested then you can stay on and finish it :) hoping for a season 2/future projects between the leads
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This review may contain spoilers
This drama caught my interest with its sports genre. I recently learned how to skate which is somewhat related to the drama itself. The plot was wise. Cinematography was a bop. There were some draggy parts but so far so good.
It does not only tackle about the relationship of the leads, but the character's growth as a friend, lover, child, and an athlete.
One thing I loved about it was the character's development, especially the leads. Them realizing their mistakes, pursuing what they love to do the most. And also, I liked how they build their names in the industry not only as this person's gf/bf.
The music was okayish. And I loved the song that Master Tang sang during the competition. Oh, the ending song too!
This drama is one of the dramas I am currently watching while it's still airing. I must say this is best to watch most especially after an angst drama or a long tiring day.
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