Skate Into Love (2020)

a good rom-com in a sports setting

I started this drama thinking it will be a cute story with some comedy moments. I also thought the story will be dragged as it was 40 episodes. But the story was much more than what I expected.

Due to my initial feelings that the drama will be dragged, I was getting ready to forward all the meaningless moments, which happened a lot in the first 20 episodes. The first 20 episodes were very dragged and lowkey meaningless and dumb with little to no logic. Nevertheless, I held on thinking it may get better.
Thank god I did, because the second half really touches more on mental health, hardships, and relationship issues, all in the perspective of sports. It was very interesting for me to see how such difficulties are overcome as I am someone who tends to run away from sports, it was enlightening. I appreciate that the writer decides to touch on such topics.
The relationships and friendships were very cute though everyone had their dumb moments here and there. You can't really hate anyone at the end of the series. The character development of each character and wrapping of the whole show is very well done.
The music throughout the show was really cute and it's shot pretty well, the sports scenes are beautiful.
Other than these good points there are many illogical moments throughout the series. But I think it's worth it in the end.

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I was so hesitant to watch this at first because I rarely watch C-Dramas especially if I didn't know any of the actors in the drama. But since I was hooked by the storyline, I got interested and decided to give it a try. And after watching the first episode, let me tell you one thing: I NEVER REGRETTED GIVING THIS A TRY.

First of all, all actors are visuals! Zhang Xincheng (Steven Zhang) and Wu Qian (Janice Wu) are both very great actors as well! One of the reasons why I rarely watch a Chinese drama is because of their somewhat cringey acting, however, in this drama, I never felt any cringey feeling even once!! Their acting was so great, they displayed a lot of emotions, happy, in love, sad, angry and they nailed all of those!

Second, great scenes are everywhere! While watching this, you'll laugh, cry, become sad and angry, and most of all, you'll get butterflies in every episode! YES, EVERY EPISODE! The chemistry of both actors are no joke, their pairing in this drama is soooo on point! No wonder this became a hit, even the director himself said in an interview that the moment he first saw the two main leads, he already knew that they are perfect together!

Third, you might notice at first that this drama has stories like any other dramas have. Childhood friends parting, enemies turned into lovers, YES, it sounds cliche right? But the great acting of Steven and Janice pulled this drama off so well that no matter how cliche some scenes are, it'll keep you watching because you don't want to miss anything!

Fourth, although this drama might be a little bit cliche, this drama has everything that you need; Breakups, friendships unrequited love, third parties, reaching dreams, failing, giving up, standing up after falling down. And the most important thing: LESSONS. I learned and realized a lot of things while watching this. I learned that it's okay to fail sometimes, but what's not okay is giving up for your dreams because it feels like you're losing your soul, like living a life without a purpose. And doing something that you love is much more important because loving what you do will lead you to happiness.

Anyways, this drama is a complete package, interesting storyline, perfect chemistry, good cinematography, etc. So if you're wondering whether you should watch it, YOU SHOULD WATCH IT!

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loved it but…

i really liked the story, university themed and with ice sports, but the last 10 episodes where… meh

i loved the ML, i can’t say the same for the FL that many times got on my nerves, but other times i liked her.

i really liked the character development that almost all the characters got, i don’t know how realistic is it but it was indeed good for the story.

i personally loved the rapresentation of some ice sports and all the side characters, the roommates of the FL are my favs?

i liked how the story wasn’t all centered on the main couple but also showed some side couples cute moments.

so… apart from the FL, what i didn’t liked? the last 10 episodes. they were unnecessary imo, they could’ve finished it without dragging it more and creating unnecessary drama.

in general i would recommend this drama ?

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What's not to love about love?

I watched this series after watching To Fly To You and I thought that nothing could surpass that drama in quality and story line. However, this drama is better than I expected. I love this drama as the plot going up and down with the feelings of the characters made me feel as if I was with them. I have no bad comments on this series as I would put it in my top three favourite dramas to watch and enjoy again. I would recommend this to anyone and everyone. This truly is one of the best series' to binge watch.
Everything from the story to the acting was magnificent. The main leads aren't a cliche couple. This makes the drama much easier to watch in my opinion as there isn't anything that comes close to this.
The music in this series is amazing and I have no complaints at all.
Anyone that asks me to recommend a series to watch will immediately get this, nothing else.

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An Ice Rink Worth Sliding

Overall, this drama is surprisingly good. The synopsis is kind of on the basic side but the story telling and the morals told from this really outweighed my initial judgement. Acting was for the most part very natural with the exception of a few scenes that felt odd but for a good intention of adding comic relief. Speaking of comedy, this drama has one of the most diverse cast of funny yet likable side characters I have seen from a drama for a long time. To top off 'icing' on the cake, the songs in this one were also worth a mention although they aren't on the highest tier.

Specifically, the music and background sound design was a bit plain but provide a very real atmosphere and tone to the scenes, which this drama tries to do. Throughout the story, it tries in many directions to motivate and captivate the audience with relating the common day-to-day struggles we endure. Our careers, our passions in life, the depression some of us face, our loved ones, our friendships, the importance of family, are just some of the motifs this drama offers to bring to life. Throughout the time of every person's life, they will face highs and lows and this drama depicts that picture perfectly. At one point, I actually was on the borderline of crying and that is rare among dramas in this age.

In summary, I would describe this drama as a drop of fresh dew from the 'icy' early morning - it's full of positive life messages as well as subtly emotional scenes very relatable to many problems we face in the current age. The ice theme also fits excellently whilst adding an unique touch.

-Spoiler Alert-
This is my personal list of rewatch value for anyone interested:
1) EP 17 – Shaohua Festival. Features Huanhuan crying happy tears after acknowledging Liao’s romantic gestures, the nerdy roommate online chat containing some interesting and inspiring bits and Yui Wei’s cute interaction with the Shi Jia in peppa pig mascot
2) EP 23 – Li Yubing’s parent misunderstanding of his sexuality and first kiss scene. Additionally, some may find the ice skating team field trip bit to be enjoyable
3) EP 24 – Weiwei saving Li Yubing and Tang xue’s secret meetup and Tang xue’s roomate ‘punishment’ for hiding the relationship from them
4) EP 27 – Tang Xue father’s confrontation (quite sad and relatable), and Bian cheng’s defeat and exposure was quite satisfying
5) EP 30 – One of my favourite episodes. Weiwei and Zhou Ran’s character development and Li Yubing's attemp to help out his friends by consulting manager Ma
6) EP 35 – YuYan’s full recovery and his reveal to YuBing to help him get together with Tang Xue
7) EP 40 – Bian chang’s character development and all side character couple scenes. Overall story resolution

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not my favorite

Skate into love was a very light hearted and cheesy drama about young people trying to fulfil their dreams.

I want to start off by saying that it took me like a year or two to actually finish it. This isn't entirely the drama's fault, but goes to show the the length of it, if nothing else.
There were a lot of moments in which I thought: "top 10 things that would never happen". This was more bearable spmomewhere down the middle of the show, when things got quite interesting and I could overlook all the flaw this drama has. However, just like the first few episodes, the last few were really unnecessarily long. This is something about the plot I have to critique.

To my surprise, the production was actually quite interesting? The way Yu Yan's struggles were portrayed made me cringe, but I thought it was quite impressive regardless.
This brings me to the acting itself. I think that in terms of fitting into certain archetypes, all the actors did a good job (bold Tang Xue, strong-willed and teasing Li Yubing, shy Yu Yan..). Their acting didn't seem affect me emotionally. Apart from some of the cute scenes, I didn't care for the charactes all that much.

The OST's were a nice addition! Not every single one seemed to amuse me, but these were overall rather catchy and fitting!


Overall, this dramas was just alright. If you feel that this might not be your jam, I reccomend watching it as a background show while dodging something else. I don't think I will ever rewatch it, but I belive there are many people who could enjoy it.

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Just see there are so many people talk about this drama in social media like Facebook and Instagram. I don't have any interest to watch because the genre is about skating sport. But yepp just watch it and totally worth it. I love how the story keep balance between sport and romance and the skating looks so fun tho. The plot is really predictable like another typical Chinese drama but I don't say it was not good.

Let's talk about the cast. I really love all the cast in this drama especially the main cast, janice wu and Steven Zhang. Their chemistry keep me asking myself why can't they just being a real couple already. They are so match to each other. Kudos to people in charge to choose the cast. Not to mention how good the support role in this drama. All of them are so good like they are really talented actor/ess.

Overall I like this drama. Still can't move on with the main cast T_T. Not gonna mention the ending is actually suck but doesn't mean that's not a good ending. Hope for a season 2 where they can be a champion and getting married UwU

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I am not sure how to do this review any justice,

I loved how this drama wasn't a typical "coming-to-age" story. I feel that a lot of the cta stories are very cookie cutter and deal with how high schoolers deal with the struggles of making friends, fitting in, getting good grades, maintaining relationships with friends, as well as learning self love (and most likely the love of the popular boy.) It is very cookie-cutter. So I normally don't go for these kinds of dramas, BUT ultimately decided to because I love Janice Wu and her love interest played Ice Hockey for their university. I love hockey and thought that this drama might be different as we usually see these coming to age stories with shy average women. Tang Xue (Janice) was far from that stereotype. She was very strong inside and outside and stands up for the "weak." Even if she doesn't know if she'll be successful in "saving" them, she still tries, as she emphasized the saying, "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take." She was a tad airheaded when it came to her romantic relationships, but she never did anything on purpose to hurt someone.

I also loved how this drama was a love letter to Chinese winter sport athletes (as well as non-winter sport ones), specifically their ice hockey team (both men and women) qualifying for the 2022 Winter Olympics, disguised as a simple coming to age romance drama between a woman speed skater and the university's "Ice God," who happened to be childhood "friends." I like to think of it the same as Janice's last drama, "The Brightest Star in the Sky," as I believed it was a publicity stunt to "show the life and struggles" of Z.Tao trying to make a comeback in China. I loved it nonetheless, and that also goes for this drama as well. It was unique as it was told from the point of view of athletes. I always feel that coming to age stories and dramas are very cookie cutter, as they made the main actress a universal average joe of a woman so the audience can relate to her in some way or another. This drama was not like that, as they decided to choose to be more specific with all their characters, and I honestly loved this moreso because I was able to identify with these characters as I was also an athlete all my life, and played in college. Not to the extent of being a world record breaker like Tang Xu, or an "Ice God" like Li Yu Bing, but in a way, being an athlete comes with its own struggles that we all face.

And going off of struggles, it was nice seeing how everyone kind of represented a different person and their struggles of being an athlete and wanting to follow their passions. Tang Xue was a world record breaking athlete growing up until she injured herself at a competition, that ultimately discouraged her from continuing to speed skate. It wasn't until she got to college that she was reminded of her passion, and she had to make the choice of either forever quitting or train to maybe get back to where she used to be. Li Yu Bing's major physical struggle didn't happen until the later episodes, so I am not going to talk about that because it is a spoiler, BUT he did suffer internally throughout the 40 episodes - even though Li Yu Bing was the school's "Ice God" he still had a voice (an 8 year old self) always in the back of his head filling his mind with doubt that he wasn't good enough. Which made him a little impulsive. We only really see it in the beginning of the drama and at the end, but I think he had it hard because the few struggles he did face, were pretty harsh. Then we have my favorite character, little lamb Yu Yan. Yu Yan had transferred to the university to help bring their ice skating team win. Unfortunately, Yu Yan had become a zombie in his own life, being told what to do, where to go, and what to eat. But even though he struggled to find his own passion in Ice Skating, he was a HUGE motivator to other people including Tang Xue when she decided to train again. It was almost like he gave the perfect advice of what passion was and how to build on it to make you a better person and athlete, but it was hard for him to follow his own advice. His story was one of the more difficult ones to watch, but I was super proud of him at the end of the drama. Of course we have minor characters Wei Wei, who only wanted to be the very best, and Jiang Shi Jia, who just wanted to play hockey after graduation, but at what cost. I also liked how they threw in other non-athletic minor characters such as Tang Xue's best friends who were in the medical and veterinary science field as well as Tang Xue's cousin and Tang Xue's old love interest who are both in the journalism broadcasting field.

We do get a lot of the cliche coming to age conflicts and villains in this drama with love triangles, but I liked how the mains had one thing in common, which was their passion for their sports, that they all understood a common struggle and knew how to comfort one another as well as be there for them. It was very comforting and nostalgic for me to watch as I remember the struggles I faced as a team player and a captain. The struggles of figuring out if that sport was something I wanted to train for and continue after an injury, or after graduation. I enjoyed this drama a lot more than I thought I was going to because even though it was a cheesy webdrama with extreme situations at times, they got the feelings and struggles of what it is to be an athlete right.

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Feel Good, Inspirational Sports Story

This was a fun watch. I really enjoyed the main couple (played by Zhang Xin-Cheng and Janice Wu) and the second couple (played by Qin Tian Yu and He Xuan-Lin). The writers invested the characters with interesting and non-vanilla personalities.

My main point is don't expect something really different or with too big an emotional impact, but just watch it to enjoy the story.

The Good Stuff
- Pleasant story and fun characters
- One of the story’s goals was to be inspirational
- Trauma, but not too heavy IMHO

The Sub-Optimal Stuff
- A bit too long. At the end I was kind of glad it was wrapped up
- Some uncharacteristic choices by the characters, such as a pointless lack of communication leading to a break up. I think what the FL did was wrong (if understandable) and this was never acknowledged.
- End was a nice wrap-up but… a tad weak - like I’ve seen in a lot of dramas recently. I don’t get it. We need a bit more of a splash for an ending!

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nice drama to watch if you wanna pass time

i watched this for the main leads but im glad i did , i actually watched this when it aired but i forgot most of it so i rewatched and this review is as tho it was my first watch. now i might be a littleeee biased because im an ice skater so this was really enjoyable to watch for me in terms of the skating and ice hockey element because i love ice sports a lot, so on the sport side of it i think it was portrayed well! well the ice hockey scenes were a little unrealistic but ill take what i can get

anyway onto the rest of the plot , the leads had great chemistry and so did the second leads , i actually was more invested in their relationship at one point cuz it was super cute haha , steven is just an amazing actor he can play any role and i feel like the casting was done really well for this drama because if someone else played their roles i dont think it would have been as interesting - only downside to the romance side of the drama is the lack of communication between the leads nearer the end of the drama was annoying like it was easily avoidable but dramas gotta stick to the cliches lol

ost - i enjoyed most of the songs! nice ost

acting - really liked the casting for this drama it was well done and i liked the cast a lot

plot - not the best but not bad either! i enjoyed it overall but think the ending could have been developed a bit better , and the middle was a bit draggy but nonetheless i didnt skip much

cons - the weird dude who liked the FL was annoying as hell and was so unnecessary to the plotline

overall nice watch n id rec if u like ice sports + romance

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I live for these cheesy youth dramas. The story is everything you expect and more with this like It Started With A Kiss nostalgia (but that's what I say about all dramas when they grow up with each other and their basically destined to be together) LOL. This is just that. You have 2 childhood friends that were not on the same understanding and they grow up and fate brings them together. They both have the same passion which is one thing and it's ice. Ice skating, hockey, etc. They're also both very mature and understanding so that was cool but then there was that ALL THIS CRAZY RANDOM STUFF IS HAPPENING FOR NO REASON AND IT DIDN'T NEED TO BUT IT HAPPENED ANYWAY and it is what it is. Lol. Anyway, the chemistry was there though.

As far as the acting, I like both the FL and ML, separately. I was quite skeptical about the two coming together in 1 show, as a couple at that but in reality, it really worked out. The chemistry was nice. I also adored the friends. I loved the teams. I really liked the parents. I wasn't even really mad at the "bad" characters, but I was like, yo you're spending so much time together, why not be together? Lol.

Loved the music, it was spot on.

I probably wouldn't rewatch it just because it's a unique story that was kind of long but overall, I liked the show. It was worth watching and getting off my list.

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