Professional Single (2020)

Cute but goes downhill...

Okay so first,
I love watching cdrama having the concept of university-related. So that's why I wanted to watch this series.
It also helps my Chinese better.
I love the character development especially when you see them getting to like each other.
My favourite part of the whole drama is the roommates friendship, reminds me of my friends and I got emotional when they were always there for. Yuan qian.
The music is very calming and fits the concept of the drama.
Okay now about the cons...
This drama is practically similar to all Chinese dramas... A cold-hearted talented man and a bubbly cute short girl. Its getting a bit boring for me tbh but I'm fine with it since I like kind of like dramas like this. BUT compared to other dramas, at least their bond and character development get stronger.
Okay straight to the point what I'm trying to say is...
Their relationship is toxic as soon as they for together.
Okay LIFE LESSON: If a man forces himself on you that is considered harassment/ sexual assault. It's not cute and not on.
When I saw the kiss, at first I'm like is this supposed to be cute? Cause it just looked... Wrong in all ways.
Okay, the female protagonist is cute but the male protagonist...
Don't get me wrong!! I love Aaron Deng, watched him on idol producer. Though his character is just no... At first, I liked his character because you can see him slowly grow interested in yuan qian. But as soon as he gets together with yuan qian... Oh boy! He practically controls her! When she asked for his permission I was like something not right. As well he keeps forcing her to PDA even when she tells him to keep it private. I get he was confused but he should be understanding and respect her decisions.
He literally makes yuan qian AVOID her childhood best friend just because of his own selfish reasons if he owns her. He's like No touching, no hugging, no talking, no nothing because her childhood friend is a BOY. He always invades her personal space, like when she was calling song siyi with earphones, she signaled him 'no' because she was talking to siyi privately but he just took the earphone to hear their conversation.
Like that's not cool, it's NOT cute just creeper as hell.
As well when he told the hotel service person to tell yuan qian there was only one room left that's messed up ... Cause she seemed very uncomfortable that she kept persisting for a room for herself which is COMPLETELY FINE! But no, she was uncomfortable because things were gonna happen in that room and guess what IY HAPPENED, I bet she WASNT SURPRISED.
Qin shen acts very childish, very manipulating. Usually, its the girl that is mad at the guy but somehow every time yuan qian does something without his "CONSENT'' he would get pissed?
Okay, I recommend you watch ep 1-15 and TRY TO AVOID EVERYTHING AFTER THAT, it progressively gets worse. I feel so bad for yuan qian kinda wanna just help her.

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Slow even for a typical Tsundere

LIKES:
Cinematography (location settings & colour palette)
Acting was decent for what they were given in terms of script.
Story had potential in the first 5 episodes and then the writing got typical and crappy.
Music was okay, but not memorable.

DISLIKES:
WRITING
Dragged out beyond belief.
Usual cliche’s and trope for ML & FL, typical tsundere (red flag type). [No one likes jealous guys who are insecure and can’t trust their partner at all. This trend for the rest of the drama turned him into an ugly guy. (And there was no backstory on his side to explain why he was so jealous and mistrusting.)]
Starts out very high school-ish with the “romance” between ML & FL, definitely not college level.
The sculpting class worked on the same heads for more than half of the episodes.
FL not well cast, even though she is a decent actress, looked way too young (including wardrobe and makeup).
Also FL & ML had no character growth, but some of the supporting characters do.
Slow moving in terms of story and character development, I almost dropped it.
DIRECTING
Some scenes it took way too long for the actor or actress to respond, that it was laughable.

OVERALL:
FL & ML didn’t have chemistry, but they tried. The writing gave them very few chances to make romantic connections. Was this originally a manga? Because the script/writing is terrible and ridiculous. I don’t recommend it to anyone that is older than 13.

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Cute college romance featuring an aloof tall guy and a short clumsy girl who fall in love

Reasons why I liked this drama:

1. The main couple have great chemistry with each other

He's super tall and she's super petite. She's SUPER clumsy and he's constantly having to rescue her. It's a bit cliched but they look so cute together and it's entertaining to watch them interact and how everything plays out. It's pretty obvious from the first few episodes that they like each other, but it's not insta-love and the lead-up to them dating is fun to watch. The drama is full of situations where they share cute moments together or show that they like each other in small ways... like him picking a water out of the trash can.... or giving her a rock. HAHAHA.

2. There's no love triangle

Although there are other people who are interested in the two main leads, there's no false hope or leading anyone on. Yay!

3. Character development and communication in the relationship

Communication is so important in a relationship and so is standing up for yourself. In typical drama fashion, there was a situation when they were about to start dating that could have the potential to be a huge misunderstanding / source of them not being together but I'm really glad that didn't happen. I feel like that is a common trope but they used it in a way that felt actually meaningful because the FL was able to grow and realized she was being unfair to her boyfriend and you also got to see the ML being patient with her, but also calling her out on what she was doing. (Not trying to spoil anything so this is very vague)

Things that could have been better:

-the ML feeling jealous over the FL seeing her male friend / making up ridiculous rules
I think this is fine before they start dating, because he was afraid that she was going to end up with the other guy, but if you're already dating, then I think that there needs to be a certain level of trust. I wish that dramas would normalize having friends of the opposite sex while having a boyfriend and it being OK.

-things wrapped up too quickly / not enough backstory
I usually prefer shorter dramas (16 episodes) and find Chinese dramas too long but in this case I actually wouldn't have minded it being longer. I feel like some of the conflict was resolved too easily between other characters at the end and I wish they gave more backstory into the ML's high school days. I was also expecting to see the ML's family but that didn't happen.

-fat shaming
One of the FL's friends had a chubby face and one of the guys kept on making fun of her weight and I feel like that was part of her "character". Asian standards are so unrealistic and I wish they didn't use that trope. She looked perfectly healthy and she wasn't even fat, just not super skinny.

Categories: Light-hearted, sweet romance, college, coming of age, fluff, cute

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It was chill & drama free BUT stay away from this type of ML

I started this drama because I saw a very short edit that kinda looked cute.
Normally I don't watch dramas that I didn't research but I wanted to try this.
I actually have not seen any of these actors before (which is something I really like because it makes the characters more believable to me, since I have no memory of another character/drama attached to their face).

My preference at the moment is a clever, not-hyper tempered FL as well as an aloof ML (aloof = neutral; not interested but also not mean; might appear cold but is not bullying FL or something). - I was pleasantly surprised when both leads seemed to be just that, especially the ML because he seemed very unbothered but also wasn't mean or anything.
But at around ep 10-15 is when things turned bitter (for me)

My critique points (spoilers ahead):

- the story could have easily been told in 12-16 episodes; no need for 24
- superficial / too short of a back story of FL & SML (did not give us enough context to have SMLS)
The SML character was added like a copy & paste because of course every drama like that needs a SML who likes FL and then gets his heart broken (according to the writers)... this drama really really didnt need a SML but they still added him and only gave him the scenes he absolutely needed and not a minute more. He was only there to push the story of FL & ML forwards and get his heart broken. I didnt get Second male lead syndrome at all because he had no uniqueness and his purpose was all too obvious.

- I never realized when and why the FL started liking ML; felt like she just did because the script said so

- Male Lead character + acting
- the weird skinship / body contact between the two leads


Ok, these last two go hand in hand but I don't think I've ever seen such uncomfortable "cute" scenes. The way the ML is touching her (holding hand, hugging, putting his hand on her head, kisses, nose rubbing) were VERY strange... a bit as if he is forcing himself to do so.
I was alright with the height difference, since I normally love that but in those scenes it was if he was a stick and he often starred into random places while performing a "cute" scene. What made this even worse (in a way) is the fact that the FL's acting was good/believable. So in those scenes it felt like she was giving us her all but he was forcing himself to do so. Very strange.
I love scenes like that in dramas but this was sooo off that it started to bother me more and more. It felt incredibly unnatural on his side.

This was my first time seeing this actor and in no means do I hate him or do I just think he a bad actor. At least not in the normal "bad actor" way. I thought his character was just aloof in the beginning but as they show went on he didn't have character development but rather he showed his true colors(character).

- very bad communicator
- controlling

... EVERY ounce of communication was started by the FL and in return he was controlling to a point that it was bothering the viewing experience.
How is this attractive? Why would the writers think we like that kind of ML?
I tried to be civil but damn those last few episodes she was scared to professionally work with a guy that liked her (but she already turned him down) because her BF (ML) forbid it and said she is not allowed to look at him for longer than 5seconds.
I'm not talking about cute jealousy but she was genuinely worried about his reaction and in many scenes she asked ML of permission to meet people or do something. MAJOR RED FLAG

and one more thing...
there were MANY good moments for a first kiss. One that was even started by the FL but the writers thought it was a good idea to skip all of them and then use the most toxic moment for a forced first kiss?? like dayum. From that moment one is when I felt like the drama has turned toxic and bitter. Not all the time but it just had that aftertaste that bothered me a lot. In a way the ML was too realistic but not in "slice-of-life" real but rather... oh he is one of *those* jerks that are aloof but behind that they are just controlling and toxic. I highly doubt this was the intent of the producers but the combo of script and acting made it that way (to me).

END NOTE:

I don't fully hate this drama because it didn't infuriate me. There were no bully characters and it felt drama free.. which was very nice. It had a chill, superficial vibe that wasn't very deep. I'd say it's a good drama if you just wanna turn off your brain for a bit and want something light that isn't overly stupid or cutesy.
But it has sparkles of controlling behavior coming from the ML left and right, but since he is pretty aloof most of the times you can ignore it. I just criticize it so harshly because I am writing a review.

... I also read up on the actor afterwards and found some not so good accusations. I guess I can't be too mad about the character his played here then, right?

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Sighhhhh

Idk if I’ve watched entirely too many Kdrams that I can’t seem to really enjoy Cdramas because I keep comparing them. For some reason I can not enjoy the Cdramas that take place in modern times. Almost EVERYTHING annoys me especially the females. It seems like everything is overly exaggerated from the way they talk to the way they run off when being bullied, and even the level of “timidness” is overly exaggerated. Now I can binge watch Cdramas that takes place during the “costume period” all day and night but these modern Cdramas be too much. Anyway this particular drama was no different from the other Cdramas I’ve tried to watch. The FL was obviously annoying to me as well as almost everybody else. I just couldn’t enjoy it. I could tell it had potential but the over-exaggerations overshadowed the show for me. I really wish the creators of Cdramas would compare their “modern dramas” to the “costume period dramas” the only difference should obvious be the time period.

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just a fluff journey of knowing to loving

●HOW I CAME TO IT
With all the hype on SNS I started watching it. So as I finished this drama I had some feeling here jotting them down as my review.

●STORY
a well written synopsis, two students studying sculpture, fall in love as the time goes by.

●PLOT VIEW
Yes the story is that much, whatever anything else is written in synopsis is just exaggeration to the characteristics of the role played by leads. Because I found them to be just as normal students like me.
The synopsis is saying, god like existence, come on man, he is handsome accepted, discipline and perfectionist yes other than that he is guy in his 20’s attending university.
About FL it says headstrong personality, I don’t agree to it, as when she falls in love she behaved as one lovestruck girl trying to impress her BF. She was kindhearted I would say, she has the heart where she didn’t want to hurt anyone.
Synopsis also say students who overcome many difficulties to pursue their artistic dreams, excuse me each student weather they are studying art, sports, medicine, engineering, commerce or anything, everyone has to face difficulties. Somebody has been a lot of pressure on the students since the early age, coz there is so much competition in the present day. But still if one put efforts they definitely get to eat the fruit of success.
And about the story there is nothing new two people start on bad terms but with ongoing interaction they fall for each other.
Some scenes had no work for story they were like plot fillers. There were many aspects in the story which did not have a proper closure and done by narrative. Then why was it even written. The ending was too rushed.

●ACTING/CAST
The cast is well picked. They acting was very natural, I could feel the chemistry since episode 1. it never felt like they were acting, I felt as if they are from my college and am witnessing their love story.
Many audience loved the height difference, I too liked it but by the ending when ML picked ML as a child in the rain scene got me cringed. That didn’t feel romantic at all.

●MUSIC
The OSTs are very soothing and amazing. BGMs are also nice.
The opening track is beautiful with great melody. Hearing it gives sweet feeling.
The closing track is in english. Its rhymed like a poem making the intensity of songs more soothing and getting it struck to one head. Yes it gets encapsulated in the mind quickly, as its easily understandable.

●REWATCH
I would say no as its really didn’t hit me like I expected. Even-though it had beautiful scene which is there in most romcom. So its like a repetitive thing.

●APPRECIATION
the romance part is done beautifully. Maintaining the light and fluff of the series.

●CRITICISM
The art of SCULPTURE, I wished if they gave some extra inputs about the industry instead of showing the students making mud statues. there could have been classes about different varieties, layouts of sculpting. i was really disappointed in that.
there was scenario where they want to participate in competition, but hell what happened, no finished statues, nor the competition. the sculpture background was just used as setting there was no depth in that.
also FL passion for oil painting, nowhere seen, she had always been into mud and statues.
SML setting of sport was good but then they turned him into a celebrity, no depth for the sport background.
this drama is not what i expected it to, like the passion of dream or extraordinary storyline or some plot twist. disappointed.

●FAV SCENE
First Kiss
When FL tries to spy on ML
Hotel room scene during the rain

●QUOTES
You are no longer a straight steel man you are straight titanium man.

●AFTERTHOUGHT
Single since birth, this statement I completely disagree, I mean no one starts dating when they are born. One starts dating when they find a suitable partner whom they can like and love.

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A drama worth watching

Just completed watching this drama, I was eagerly waiting to watch this drama as it was aired during my exams.
I must say this is really a sweet drama after Put your head on my Shoulder, this is my favorite College drama. I like how they have not exaggerated things it has right amount of everything.
The ML is cold yet sweet and his affection for the FL started right from the 1st Episode. He is just really really handsome and such a caring boyfriend.
Talking about the FL she is really cute her smile and dressing sense was really nice.
All the actors gave justice to their characters , the ML and FL both are really adorable the whole drama was fluffy , filled with comedy and romance not a typical Romcom but it was worth watching ❤.

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Cute, Sweet Romance

Although it seems like a cliche romcom, it's actually not. Yuan Qian is not typical stupid naive female lead and Qin Shen isn't typical cold,rich male lead. He only acts cold with people he has no interest with and always opens up with the female lead. Finally a male lead who just completely and utterly ignore his admirers. And that killer smile of Aaron. He is a total eye-candy. The leads have amazing chemistry. They are one of my favorite otp. Whenever they are on the screen I can't stop smiling. The transformation of Qin Shen from straight up professional single who thinks dating is just a waste of time to a naughty lover is really fun to watch. Overall Professional Single is exceeding all my expectations for a campus romance drama.

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I love the show so far with all the confusions and playing hard to get and value of friendship is really amazing I love it they should come out with a season 2. The cast they put together did a job well done themselves I usually don't watch dramas or Korean or any kind of show that I don't know what they are saying but this one really caught my eye but in my opinion they could have made the main roll characters together from the start and they could have made yuan qian or however you spell her name make he choose directly and not making the boy she likes uncomfortable or making things difficult just because she wants to maintain 2 things at the same time.

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Cute show but...

I really liked this show in the beginning but then it dragged on for so many freaking episodes before they got together! The two main actors FINALLY got together in episode 17!!! Really? And her wanting to keep it secret because of the other girl who was not truly a friend was crazy and I do not blame the male lead for getting pissed because of it (I think the secret went on for almost 2 episodes. So that got tiring fast!). Also, I don’t think it was right for the female lead to not make it clear to the other guy that she was not interested in him even when she knew he was in love with her. I was proud of him for the way he handled it though. Love triangles piss me off half the time. Especially when the leads do not make it perfectly clear they are not and will never be interested! Ok! I am done with my rant.... other than those things...

I really do like the show. The leads are so cute together! I LOVE the height difference!

I really do enjoy the acting. I think so far they did a good job. I have been holding off on episode 21-22 because I want to wait for the last two episodes so I can finish it.? I know weird logic but that is me. ?

Would I rewatch it? When the show has ended and I have seen the last episode I will come back to let you know.

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