Hidden Love

DO NOT BELIEVE THE VIEWERS THAT CONFUSE FEELINGS OF FINDING A YOUNG GIRL CUTE, WITTY, AND SWEET GIRL WHEN SHE WAS 12 TO FEEL A SMALL TUG IN HIS HEART WHEN HE MEETS HER AGAIN WHEN SHE’S SEVENTEEN, AND TO FALL IN LOVE WHEN SHE WENT TO COLLEGE AS AN ADULT. The male lead never crossed the lines of impropriety, even when they were dating; he was lovely and respectful towards her. Hidden Love is a great, delightful, and lighthearted drama that will make you smile tenderly at the leading male and female once they become a couple. Chen Zhe Yuan (as Duan Jia Xu) and Zhao Lu Si (as Sang Zhi) have a refreshing, charming, and beautiful engaging relationship that dazzles the screen every time they look at each other. This drama has a great main and supporting cast that delivered a well crafted story of two individuals that, in spite of their age difference, managed to bring about a healthy and beautiful love story. Enjoy it!

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What a bful bful drama.

I never thought i will love this drama so much wen I read the novel. It was so bfully adapted from the novel, rare instance where u can say the adaptation was better than the novel. CZY and lusi I love them so much more from this drama and they made this simple sweet love story so much bful. Also kudos to director also. Such nice execution. I will definitely rewatch this drama many times, it will always be my comfort drama, story, acting, the soothing osts everything was perfect. Also special mention to sang yan (victor ma). He was no lesser star than the leads, his ckt n acting single handedly brought the fun n light moments in the show. All the actors were so well selected n suited the ckts. Highly recommended.

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THIS C-DRAMA IS ***PERFECTION***

This is the most perfect Chinese drama that I have ever watched. I loved every moment of it. It has only been a week since I completed it and I already want to re-watch it!

Why is it sooooo perfect?

1.) THE CAST was gorgeous. Zhao Lusi, Chen Zhe Yuan and Victor Ma, brought this drama to life in such an enjoyable and aesthetic way. The sibling chemistry, the couple chemistry, and the bromance chemistry was amazing all around.

2.) THE PACING. I cannot stress this enough. A lot of C-Drama often fail to catch my interest because they tend to drag and this mainly has to do with the pacing of major events in the drama. With 'Hidden Love,' on the other hand, everything unfolded beautifully, there was NEVER a moment where I was bored, there was something to look forward to with every episode. This is the first time I didn't want this to end, and I even wanted the drama to be longer than 25 episodes.

3.) SANG ZHI, which was Zhao Lusi's character, exceeded my expectations and gave me hope that other C-drama heroines could be just as fantastic. I liked that Sang Zhi was quick witted, intellectually sound, and that she never did anything cringe to express her affections towards Chen Zhe Yuan's character Duan Jiaxu. She kept her cards close to her chest and was smart about how she faced her one-sided crush as a teenager. I love that she understood how to keep things appropriate as a kid/teen and simply wrote her secrets down rather than making things awkward by confessing. I also like there are distinct changes in her way of talking, demeanor, clothing style and behavior as she ages so she doesn't remain feeling like a little girl as the drama progresses. There is a confidence/determination to her as an adult that is sooo charming in her character.

4.) AGE GAP! Given that the plot of the drama is a semi-forbidden romance between a younger girl and older man, the writers did a great job NOT making Duan Jiaxu creepy and inappropriate. I enjoyed the fact that he never saw her as anything other than a little sister until she was a grown woman. Even when they finally got into a relationship their communication on the matter of their experiences in dating and their age gap was a welcome conversation between them. Green flags, truly.

5.) VICTOR MA. I need him to be a male leading his own drama, immediately. He does amazing as the role of the older brother, but he has all the makings for a great male lead. He was funny and believable in all his scenes. I also just have to mention how FINEEEE he is, he was enjoyable to watch in every scene he was in.

6.) MAIN COUPLE ONLY. One of my biggest pet peeves with C-dramas is that they consistently use a second lead couple to fill out their episodes and I am never interested in their story lines. Thankfully, 'Hidden Love,' focuses primarily on Sang Zhi and Duan Jiaxu. There is a teensy bit of second lead romance going on towards the end, but not enough to detract from the plot or the ML & FL's relationship. More C-dramas need to adopt this format going forward because personally I find it significantly more engaging.

7.) BROTHER'S BEST FRIEND. I didn't know that this was a trope that I would thoroughly love, until watching this drama. I need more dramas about girls falling in love with their older brother's best friends, because I ate it up in this drama. The overprotectiveness from the brother was adorable, and the anticipation of him finding out once they got in a relationship was just EVERYTHING, I could not get enough.

8.) NO GIMMICKY COMEDY. If you've watched C-dramas as long as I have you probably know the difference between a drama that is playing up the comedy aspect and ones that feel more natural/realistic in their interpretation of funny moments. 'Hidden Love," is a blend of both with all the right characteristics, the comedy wasn't gimmicky or annoying but relatable and genuinely got a laugh out of me. It also had its moments of really bringing you into the tense melodramatic scenes without feeling overwhelmingly heavy with tension and anxiety. It was perfect in its execution of each character interaction, and this enhanced the viewing experience immensely.

9.) CINEMATOGRAPHY. Beautifully shot, especially Zhao Lusi she looks absolutely flawless in this drama. There is quality to every scene and it definitely makes the drama that much more addicting. You simply cannot detach your eyes from the screen.


Please watch it. It was absolute perfection in my humble opinion. I never rewatch dramas and I'm itching to rewatch this one. You won't regret it. Its officially my favorite C-drama .

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Well deserved ratings

This review is going to be a long one.

"Hidden Love" is one of those dramas that really deserve all the attention, popularity and love. Ever since the beginning of the drama, I knew it would be good just by looking at our two main actors - Lusi and Zhe Yuan. Everybody probably already know they are good at acting and it seems repetitive of me to always rave about their skills but they are so on point in this drama, I am blown away everytime I watch them.

Before this drama, I watched "Our Secret" (multiple times) and was really impressed with Zhe Yuan from there. It's quite rare to see actors who can portray such good expressions through their eyes. It's as though you could feel whatever he was feeling at that moment by just looking at his eyes. There are so many scenes I really, really love from Zhe Yuan in this drama.

1. When Jia Xu was sitting outside of Sang Zhi's house, starring into the sky. I immediately felt how burdened he was, lonely and just sad. He wasn't crying, his face was calm, but his eyes - you can feel how tired he was, trying to shoulder everything that is happening around him.

2. When Jia Xu opened the red packet Sang Zhi slipped in his pocket. This is another moment where he was feeling extremely tired and lonely, unwilling to go back to his hometown to face the gazillion problems waiting for him. When he opened the red packet and read this simple message from Sang Zhi, through his eyes, you can really feel how touched he was. The warmth that one simple message brought to him.

As for Lusi, it's no secret that she is a very happy-go-lucky kind of girl. Perhaps, even in real life, she seems like a person who would bring joy to the people around her. With dramas like this, I can imagine it'll be very difficult to portray this cute, innocent girl, without coming out as annoying. I've seen so many dramas where the female lead would always act cute and innocent but resulted in being cringy, annoying and (honestly) stupid. Lusi really has that capability to make you really like her without making you feel like she's forcing to be cute. Her character in this drama is someone who I really like, too. Protective, strong, well-loved and understanding. There are too many scenes from the drama I love with Sang Zhi in them but I guess my favourites are these:

1. When she confronted Sang Yan for hitting Jia Xu. She was unafraid to stand up for herself and for the people she love. The moment when she was trying so hard not to cry while telling Sang Yan that she wanted to cut contact with him was so impactful.

2. When she was in high school and cried the moment she saw her brother at the airport after thinking that Jia Xu had a girlfriend. Honestly, if you look at the scene, it's really not something we would cry about because she was just a kid who misunderstood her crush having another girlfriend. You can't even call that a "break up". But when she cried, it was so sad, you couldn't help but cry along with her.

On the topic of Sang Yan, I think I'll miss the siblings relationship more than Jia Xu - Sang Zhi relationship. The way Sang Zhi and Sang Yan interacted with each other are honestly so, so, so real and relatable. This is one of the best sibling-relationship I've ever watched in the drama land. They would fight like cats and dogs, most of the time they are incapable of speaking politely to each other, they complain to their parents about each other all the time, but when one of them is in trouble, the other person will always be there to support.

If I am to nitpick on one thing that I think probably is a bit off in my opinion, is when Sang Zhi and Jia Xu got together. It's really just a preference thing. After seeing how well Jia Xu treated Sang Zhi as a brother during the beginning of the drama, it's difficult to accept how he could switch from brother mode to I-love-you-only mode so quickly. I understand, Sang Zhi has obviously grown up and was treating him differently. It probably makes more sense to me if Jia Xu didn't treat Sang Zhi that well at the beginning. Instead of Sang Zhi's "second brother", if he was more like Sang Yan's friend, it'll probably be easier to accept how Jia Xu could change his feelings like that. I love the beginning parts more than the later episodes, to be honest. Probably also cause it reminds me of when I was a child and had a crush on my brother's friend, the whole concept seemed very relatable to me.

The OSTs. Oh gosh, the OSTs! They are so good. I feel like everytime when I was immersed in the drama and cried was 60% cause of the cast's acting, but 40% cause of the music accompaniment. My ultimate favourite song from the drama is Forever Star. When this song plays in the drama, I get the goosebumps, especially during the scene when Jia Xu opened Sang Zhi's red packet in the airport.

100% recommend this drama. It's really not the typical high school drama that is probably 70% cringe and 30% real story. This one has so many depth and layers to it that it really hits differently.

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Adorable

The show is mostly understated. The leads are believable as high schooler/college student in the beginning and as more mature budding adults in the later episodes. When the FL does cute stuff - for instance when she doesn't want to leave her angry brother alone with her boyfriend, but they wont listen to any of her protestations and she just whines cos she doesn't want to go - it is cute, and you don't want to slap her and say "Act your age". LOL
The ML carries off the mushy stuff without making me want to throw up.
The FL lead's family is adorable. The parents dont over react, the brother is such a goof foil for the FL in their arguments. Her friends are cute AH.
Overall, I am not sure how I managed to watch 25 episodes in 4 days - but here I am - a great watch

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Best romantic C-drama to watch

I never write reviews, but this drama deserves one. From the start to the end this C-drama got me hooked up even tho I'm more into K-drama.
The chemistry between the lead and the simple yet so touchy story line made me feel so many emotion, from laughing to crying, I felt every line the characters were saying. I really don't know how to describe it but the acting is so great that every emotions could be felt behind the screen.

Honestly, I gave up so many dramas and especially C-drama because of the low acting or basic story line but this one is a must watch, from the start to the end. I feel like Hidden Love will never be replaced in my heart.

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Secret Crush of a little girl

To me, this drama is very very very much good. Everyday I waited to see the uploaded new episodes and now finally it has finished so I am feeling that somewhere in my heart a bit of sadness giving me pain. Zhao Lusi is my most favourite actress. She is the reason that I became interested in cdramas. I have seen all her dramas. All the dramas may not be perfect like this drama but her acting is always good 👍🏻. Of course she made a great improvement in acting. In this drama she portrayed Sang Zhi character veey nicely. Her LLTG drama was also a famous and fabulous drama. Now if we talk about Chen Zhe Yaun, I think he is also a good actor, good-looking. I saw his first drama Our Secret, it was also a amazing and fantastic drama. He also made some improvement. As Duan Jiaxu, he acted perfectly. Zhao Lusi and Chen Zhe Yuan were looking perfect together in drama. In my eyes, Zhao Lusi is the only one who fits Sang Zhi character the most perfectly.
And finally this drama "HIDDEN LOVE" is really a masterpiece. I wish that this drama ratings can go upto 9.5 . Future readers please increase the ratings.

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MAKE YOU FEEL LIKE POP ROCKS, STRAWBERRY, BUBBLE GUM *easily best c-drama of this year* must watch!!

I don't know how to explain my feelings about this but literally everything about this drama was amazing.
Maybe you can see this as a general youth drama but but their acting and the subjects they deal with have made the series warm to your heart.

Their acting was so good like.. it was so natural. The way zhe yuan expressed his feelings, the way lu si showed sang zhi's love for jia xu so clearly in his eyes, the chemistry of the two was truly incredible. Even their bickering and being jealous about each other was so cute.

At first I was worried that sang zhi was not yet a minor, but I was very relieved that nothing was as we feared. I think this was one of the most ambitious series of the summer - in fact, many of the summers. Their chemistry was so good that I hope we can see the two of them as partners on a project again.

Also, I think sang yan (victor ma) really shines in the drama. They played so well that they really were like siblings with lu si. And i don't even know why i thought like that but am i the only one that expect sang zhi's friend yu xin would end up with sang yan lmao 😂😂 i think i really want him to be happy with someone and show off about this to sang zhi😂

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The best of the best drama there is.

Wow, this drama is the best of the best there is. Watching the character grow up from when she was a child to a college-graduate student is a journey worth watching -- plus the relationship she has with DJX. It's pure, simple and no overboard extra characters that will lead to major misunderstandings b/w the two leads. ZLS and CZY played their characters really well. This story will take you through a rollercoaster of emotions that are relatable to real life and there are a lot of "life quotes/lessons" to be learnt from this drama.

I'd definitely recommend this drama to anyone who haven't watch it yet -- who's looking for a light-hearted, fluffy, sweet, funfilled, romantic, and growing up journey type of drama. It may contain a lot of your type "trope" expected in a drama -- but it's something where you can relax, enjoy the ride and bring back memories of not just your childhood life but the journey from that to a young adulthood life too. The story between Sang Zhi & Duan Jia Xu will take you into a world where you can escape from your everyday "busy" lifestyle into a world "where dreams, love, etc" can be found. You will be so absorbed into the drama -- that you'll find yourself to be happy with them as well as also feel the sadness when they are feeling sad too...all the different emotions can be found throughout the drama -- and this is one great journey worth joining & watching again and again.

The drama ost - are prefectly played throughout the whole drama itself and worth listening to.

Well done Zhao Lu Si, Chen Zhe Yuan, Victor Ma and the other cast members, director, and screenwriter of this drama!! You guys did well!! A round of applause to all of you for your hardwork in bringing this story to life!! Well-worth it and deserves a 10/10 rating no doubt from me and many other viewers who love this kind of story!! Sweetness all around!!

P.S. (Bonus) I love how there's a special with the main leads giving each other positive feedback to each other and some of the other actors/actresses too in the story to each other too!!

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A drama that is sugary sweet but delivered so we believe its real!

This drama deserves a 10 because it is perfect for romantic junkies like me. If you want a story that focuses on the main couple and explores how the became a couple, this is it.

The music was perfectly timed an presented to support the relationship. The acting from our leads was wonderful and compelling and their chemistry was off the charts. They conveyed the myriad of emotions of their journey with beautiful facial expressions that pulled me in every time. I believed in their love.

This is not new or groundbreaking story and for some it is actually a problematic story. The part that attracts me if the way the drama lets me experience the emotions the characters are feeling. We feel their butterflies and frustrations and feelings of inadequacies and yearnings and hope and desire to loved and be loved. From beginning to end the actors portray a scenario that unfolds to explain the POV of both of the people in the relationship and how they get to the point of being the ones for each other. It kind of sacrifices any other story lines to just focus on our leads.. There are short scenes of side stories but they were really only to support the main couple . I could see the potential for criticism to say these were just "forgotten" but I was too invested in the main coupe to really care.

So this is not even a flaw for me. In my opinion this allows for the main characters to be fully developed. By this I mean that at the end, I believed that even though the ML was older his life circumstance led him to focus on survival so his romantic/emotional age was actually less than his real age. The same with the FL - her princess life gave her so much security and safety to be who she wanted to be. We also learn early on that she is intellectually capable so this coupled with her freedom of expressions helps her to study and learn from her experiences. She is able to analyze situations and critically think through problems which in a way bridges the age gap. I totally believed that his emotional age and hers where much closer and made them well-suited and no issues with a romantic relationship.

A romantic relationship that they are fully committed to an expend all the passion and energy in their heart and soul to secure and maintain and be happy in. That is the sweetness and also the pure fantasy of this drama. The portrayed sincerity which these two bring to their relationship makes us believe it could absolutely be real. I really enjoyed that ride and will definitely watch again. In my books they deserve a 10/10 for delivering this so well.

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