Love Behind the Melody (2022)

A little hidden gem of 2022

Actually I've never wrote a review before and never have I ever thought that one day I will. But I felt obliged to write a review about this drama, because I think that people are missing it out and the ratings aren't that good.

I had a blast the last 3 days watching this little gem. If I was to come across this drama or someone recommended it to me, I don't think I would have watched it since I'm not a fan of musical genre. But I'm thankful for the autoplay of youtube that made me watch it ^^
From the acting, to the aesthetics and finishing by the music, everything was on point! Once you watch it , you can't tell it's a low budget drama. 24 episodes is the perfect number for this drama. It could have been even limited to 20 but I don't mind watching my beautiful couple for an extra 4 episodes XD
The Lead Couple did a great job, I was shocked when I knew that the FL is a 2002 liner, cz she nailed it! She looked so mature and well role fitting .AND So did the ML.Their chemistry is incredible.And their relationship is one of the mature,respectful and where mutual trust reigns relationships.There weren't any misunderstandings,nor cliché romance,nor obsessive love.In Short, my definition of a successful relationship.
The second couple was so adorable as well.My favorite roles are Xin'er and the ML servant XD theyre' the best! The comedy is so good.
This drama has the fantasy effect also since the FL is a pipa (chinese instrument) player of the 21 century who went back to the Sheng Dynasty in ancient China as a pipa player as well, where she got to meet our ML who is a talent recruiter and the master of on all girls' orchestra back then. The FL had to finish the girl's will in order to come back and so the beautiful journey begins.
Overall, who ever is looking for a sweet, delightful and stress-relieving short drama to watch I highly recommend this drama ^^ You won't regret it !
PS: even though the subtitles suck but you'll get the point :D

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Humorous, Beautiful Romance, Super Cute, Fine Acting

I love this delightful drama. It is visually aesthetic, the plot is light but deadly, the romance is cute and satisfying, the acting is on spot and convincing, the comedy is oxymoronic and can be ironic, both male and female leads are good looking, and the second couple is adorable. This is a story about a group of young and talented musical instrumentalists coming together and forming a girl-only heavenly orchestra during the fictional Sheng Dynasty in ancient China. There, little fox meets old fox.

Li Sasa (Bao Shang’en) is an excellent first seat pipa instrumentalist. One day while performing, she mysteriously time-travels back to 1,000 years ago. To return to her present life, she needs to divorce a man who mistreats his wife, Li Runiang, her other self, and then to seek out and marry Li Runiang’s true love. After divorcing her good-for-nothing husband and losing everything, Li Sasa is desperate to find shelter so that she can find Li Runiang’s lover. Impressed by her talent, she is taken in by Lu Jingnian (Wu Chengxu) who is in need of a pipa instrumentalist for his team to take part in a very important competition in front of the Emperor.

Lu Jingnian seems like a Casanova on the outside as he’s loved by all the girls in town and he’s very kind and nice to each one of them, and with his colorful and flowery outfits, he earns the nickname “flowery peacock” from Li Sasa. Lu Jingnian is also very intelligent, crafty and cunning, thereby is double named as “the old fox”. Bringing her present-day directness and smartness, Li Sasa seems like a “little fox” to Lu Jingnian. But behind that flamboyant façade, Lu Jingnian is a devoted man, just like his father who finds life meaningless when his wife dies, and follows her in death soon after.

Lu Jingnian has a noble but dangerous mission to accomplish. As he and Li Sasa encounter problems with their team members, mysteries and dangers, each time Li Sasa assists Lu Jingnian overcome the problems, and in turn, Lu Jingnian selflessly saves her multiple times. They fall deeply in love with each other. When Li Sasa realizes she will leave Lu Jingnian and back to her modern life one day, she’s torn. She knows Lu Jingnian would be devastated to lose her. What follows becomes very heartbreaking and the story is being told beautifully with coherent logic.

I must applaud these two very young actors, Bao Shang’en 20, Wu Chengxu 22. This is Wu Chengxu’s second drama playing the main lead and Bao Shang’en’s debut. Their acting is natural and very believable. Despite their relatively inexperience, they have worked hard and put up an excellent show, making viewers falling in love with the characters instantly.

The overall acting by other cast members is good with some more convincing than others. The costumes and interior wall decors are very colorful and beautiful which match well with all the exquisite classical instruments. The ensemble is picturesque, and it feels like looking at a historical painting.

My Verdict

I have absolutely enjoyed this under-the-radar drama. The classical ensemble reminds me of today’s the 12 Girls Band of China. Visually, it’s beautiful and the ancient music is soothing. The romance is cute and humorous, and the acting and story are better than my expectations. Though some scenes are cliché and tropey, I love how the writer uses idioms to express the musical terms, and how coherent the overall storyline and logical the plot are. Cheeky instrumental music with animal sounds are widely used to match the funny scenes. Red eye and fake dimple makeups for the girls take a bit of getting used to for me.

Sacrificing one's life for love seems romantic but unthinkable. Though many people continue to live a fruitful life when the love of their life dies, many also die with their loved ones simply out of broken heartedness. Here, the ending of the ancient lovers feels like the butterfly lovers to me. Having said that, this is not a sad ending story (read comments below for my interpretation of the ending).

Yes, this is a wonderful little gem not to be missed. Romance buffs will love this story. Strongly recommended.

BRAVO!

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Fall deeply with the melodious musical performances and Love that goes beyond a Lifetime.

Are you all ready to experience such great musical experience which highlighted the greatest strength of this act above all?

This drama doesn't go all smoothly for me from the very beginning till the end and I admit that I have had a fair share of displeases and hopes for this piece yet I'm here trying to tell people my insight and experience just to let you all know that this is a drama still worthy to watch 'once' even after all that.

Wanna start this review by shoving to people what this story is ahead amongst every music related dramas out there. Pitch-perfect is probably the most fitting word to describe how grand and intricate the music used in this piece. It was a combination of various instruments played simultaneously to create an immense melody that entice the music in me. Just the fact that the production and editing team managed to record and put such music altogether is already a great feat for me.

Character profiling and development of this story is something I really like as well. I just love the progress the musicians went through to build their relatonship. They went from having some serious bad blood for each other to being dependable comrades.

Another good asset of this drama is the 2nd couple who conquered almost 50% of this show. I honestly felt like they made this story more interesting and exciting to watch with their dorky antics that focuses on food, love and FOOD overall. Hahaha! They even saved this story from some droughts caused by the Main lead's somewhat lacking obstacles in love.

Lack of 2nd Male lead... Honestly, up till this point I still can't accept that this drama got bland because of the Main lead's lack of love hurdles that can twist and make the story more interesting. I just hated how the FL has to experience pent up emotions because of jealousy yet has to understand the ML because he's doing it for a reason. While the FL needs to bear just being alone without any possible 2ML to divert her attentions to. She was robbed off basic rights right there and that's very unfair! It was also a missed for a possible satisfying turn of events.

Lack of effort from the ML— He's smart, calculative and and heck even got the advantage since he got lot of ladies admiring him but the heck! when will he start to actually put an effort? So far, all the chances were either push infront of him by someone or served by the plot instantly. Wasn't he simply dumb at that point?

Lastly, the Ending! This is another drama saved by the ending. I almost lost half of my interest during the last 8 episodes but the final 2 episodes just keep it all together for me. They served. and even went to great lengths by giving us happy ending.

PS. Female lead CARRIED! She's elegent, classy and stunning. An ALL-KILL!! God knows how her visual while playing Pipa on Ep.1 still haunts me because of how alluring she was in it. ♡

Story - 8.5, This everything considered honestly. Still very satisfied and pleased on how good they were in presenting the musical aspects of this drama and even nailed the ending. However, I still can't ignore the fact that I got bored for various reasons specially because of MLs lack of common-romantic-sense and oh well, let's admit it, Favoritism from the Writer. + Lots of cringey scenes. Overall a decent story.

Acting/Cast - 10, I love the casting overall. They're already serving visually but what I love about them the most is their facial deliberation of emotions. You can all see through it just by how they make great use of their eyes and face to make a statement. Would've been even more perfect if they use their real voices. Damn, over dubbing!

Music - 9.5, I actually hated the opening. It do fits the early and mid theme of the show but I just never got used to it. The reason why I'm giving it this high score despite all that is because of its overall musical presentation. It was a chef kiss.

Rewach Value - 6.5, I just won't. I feel like I have had enough of this drama and wouldn't watch it the 2nd time. Ever.

Overall - 8.5, It was a roller coaster experience when it comes to my satisfaction for this drama. It has its ups and downs but what made me kind of indifferent from this show is it's lack of solid romantic build up. The 'Love' on the title felt shallow because of the shows lack of actual romantic color despite having lots of interactions from the Main leads.

IF you find my review helpful please let me know.

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dont watch if you are expecting romance

Dont watch if you are expecting romance! there is hardly any. The story id quite touching but its horribly depicted.

Like the female lead gets transported back to the older age because she is also a plays the pipa. Her soul gets into the body of Li ru niang, who knows how to play the pipa. In order for the female lead to go back to her own life, she has to help Li Ru niang complete certain things, like divorce her husband and find the person that saved her in a fire long ago and marry him.

There is the rivalry between the right and left music group. The main story focused on revealing the story and who was behind the fire, which caused thirteen musicians to die. The evil character is the second male lead's dad. He's an uncle figure to the male lead. ( although i still never really figured out why the evil dude had to do that...)

The right music orchestra is lead by the male lead. He is handsome and flirty. The female lead is bold, proud loud and has wits.

Its like the story had to things they were trying to show, first is about the fire, second is the female lead's journey to find her way home aka find her lover.

Honestly this drama would have been a lot better if they has just stuck to one plot! I wish there was more romantic and kissing scenes. You could feel the chemistry but because there wasnt too much screen time of them being close...

For a 24 episode drama it fails... I'm sorry

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The engsub not so good?, but this drama is so good ?

Love this cdrama! ❤️
I love the main female and main male, their chemistry so ??
The main female is so pretty, is she is new actress? She's nailed it!
Maybe i'll be her fans from now on ?


Ps: sorry for my bad english ✌? hihii
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A Quick Watch Gem

I accidentally found this drama because of Bao Shang En, her eyes are so lively and she's so pretty and I'm immediately curious about her as an FL in this drama. Surprisingly, this drama is pretty good!

The main theme of this drama is music, so there's a lot of music playing scene. Their scenes in the music academy are my favorite, with it's detailed set and red-orange-yellow-white color palette, pretty casts and pretty clothes, all of them are so easy on the eyes and gives me comfort. The friendships between the girls are heartwarming, and we went through all their arcs in this.

Our FL is a pipa player, and her classic aura fits the pipa both in modern and ancient times, so beautiful! Her acting is good and her chemistry with the ML is really palpable, their romance is one of the most interesting thing in this drama that kept me watching, besides the transmigration theme (and of course the looming probabilities of a dramatic goodbyes)
Our ML may seem familiar to you, because he played in Decreed by Fate! He's really good in this one too.

The casts all act well, and even if this is a low budget drama (cmiiw), it feels really enjoyable and compact. Our main couple is quite literally a power couple, enemies to friends to lovers, and I love watching them bicker before falling in love.

I put 7,5 in the story because watching it with subtitle in YT feels kind of confusing to me, like it looks machine translated and a bit hard to understand the sentence as a whole. I feel like I did not fully understand what the whole story is about, but I had a big picture of what's happening. The conflicts are not dragged much, and I like the ending a lot.
I skipped every so often because the pace is kind of slow and there are a lot of characters and side arcs, but it doesn't really matter much to your watching experience.

I would recommend this as a leisure watch in between work, if you like a simple costume themed drama with beautiful set ups.

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Better than I thought it would be.

This is probably the best drama of the year, I would love to share this drama out.

Storyline: Though there isn't many serious plot in this drama, it is still a very good storyline. It is less irritating and enjoyable to watch. What makes the storyline interesting is that this is a drama that actually involve music, which makes it unique. Usually dramas with music involve wouldn't still care to use too many involvement with music, but this drama involves music throughout the whole drama. This drama did very good on balancing music and romance together.

The two main character has a good chemistry, and well fit for each other. The songs that was played was very great!. I really want to like the ending because it is a happy ending. But I prefer being it to stay in the historical time than the modern time.

Overall, everything was excellent. Wouldn't regret watching!

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Finished it and loving it!! ?

Even though some say this drama lacks of romance, but for me it is enough. Sometimes love isn't only shown by kissing or else, but you can still feel love by the way people look at each other, their attitude, and also both ML and FL has good chemistry that makes their love seems deeper. I'm looking forward to their future projects as they really such a good actor and actress!

Shout-out to the music! They used perfect background music for every scene! Just by the music itself, it's worth a 10!

The clothing, makeup, set, and cinematography tone is lovely, such a pleasing in the eye...

The main plot is great but I think it need some kick on it...

Also because of bad subs, I can't seem to understand some scene, like the ending one where Emperor gave LJN a book or something...

So overall, 8.5/10 from me. ?

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To watch only for Wu Chong Xuan and traditional instruments.

Isekai or TT series (it's confusing), where a contemporary musician (the FL) takes the place of a “period” pipa player. She joined a music academy, reserved for nobles, and directed by the ML. Everyone is preparing for the selection, aiming to perform in front of the emperor.

PROS:
+ with Wu Chong Xuan as ML, who has an absolutely cute smile (๑◔‿◔๑)
+ Light tone, production which accentuates the Comedy side
+ Beautiful highlighting of instruments and traditional music
+ costumes and makeup consistent with the targeted era.
+ Very nice Opening OST

BUT:
# brainless storyline. Who is the screenwriter?? It gives the impression of a high-schooler or student work :)
Nothing is coherent or credible... It's deeply annoying ლ(ಠ益ಠლ I know that the final twist (but No spoiler) justifies this shaky story, but that doesn't make the series any more enjoyable to watch.

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Série isekai ou TT, où une musicienne contemporaine prend la place d'une joueuse de pipa "d'époque" . Elle intègre une académie de musique, réservée aux nobles, et dirigée par le ML. Tout le monde se prépare pour la sélection, visant à performer devant l'empereur.

PROS:
+ avec Wu Chong Xuan en ML, qui a un sourire absolument craquant (๑◔‿◔๑)
+ Ton léger, réalisation qui accentue le côté Comédie
+ Belle mise en valeur des instruments et de la musique traditionnelle
+ costumes et maquillage conformes à l'époque ciblée.
+ Opening OST très sympa

MAIS:
# storyline brainless. Qui est le screenwriter ?? Cela donne l'impression d'un travail d'étudiant :)
Rien n'est cohérent ou crédible... C'est profondément agaçant ლ(ಠ益ಠლ Je sais que le twist final (mais No spoiler) justifie cette histoire bancale, mais cela ne rend pas la série plus agréable à regarder.

=> A voir uniquement pour Wu Chong Xuan et les instruments traditionnels.

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Absolute Gem!

I haven’t enjoyed a show this much in ages! This was a pleasant surprise from the very beginning. The visuals were absolutely top notch throughout the series, the acting great, the comedy worked and the story was something different.

This was lighthearted but still had a compelling and believable love story for the leads. Their chemistry was real and when they kissed, I felt it!

The secondary characters all felt real and evolved during the series. It was nice to see the threads of the storyline come together in small ways, and not all at once. As in, why was the music minister the music minister. What happened to the guy with the scar? Etc.

Highly recommend this show to anyone!

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No Plot, No Problems

I was looking forward to watching this drama because the ML was also in a very sweet and charming drama I enjoyed called, Decreed By Fate". Unfortunately, this drama comes nowhere near, "Decreed By Fate" and became so intensely dull within just the first few episodes, that I had to drop it completely.

Firstly, the good news is the FL isn't wooden, unattractive, or annoying as many if not most Chinese costume drama FLs are. She is interesting, smart, witty, talented, skilled, and not a push-over victim. The main lead actress is talented and I look forward to seeing more from her in the future.

My main problem with this drama is that there is no plot. When I say no plot, I mean that other than the time-traveling instrumentalist trying to return to modern time, there is really no plot at all!! The time-travel element itself is bizarre, as it isn't well explained nor well executed here (again, no real plot). The ML, other than being serious eye-candy, and a decent actor, is quite boring as a character. Though compared with most MLs in costume dramas, he at least isn't stoic and cold. The actor playing the ML, from what I have seen, is a gem of an actor, and though he is still very young, I am expecting his star to rise in the next few years, and am grateful for that.

Still, even with the main leads being a cut above the usual costume drama actors/ characters, without an interesting plot, the drama goes nowhere and relies on antogonist antics, rather than interesting situations for plot points, which gets boring.

I really wanted to love this drama, but without a good story structure, I just can't. This is one of the most boring non-melodramas I have ever seen, despite the stellar cast, cinematography, and performances.

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