Promise in the Summer (2023)

Simple cute drama

I watched this drama as a full compilation of all episodes in one evening. It is simple, entertaining and perfect if you need to relax and just watch something nice with no need of too much brain.
What I like:
The relationship between people. The parents (specially mom of the ML) love their children and want them to be happy. The relationship of ML and his mom has Europian vibe to me.
The story has no true villains and the drama shows real friendship.
The ML is more airhead than mean and the FL gets him.
The acting of the main couple is pleasant, the girl looks like little bunny.
What I dislike:
The story is super cliché and there is almost nothing new.
The setting of the story is unclear. There should be 20 but they still wear a uniform at school? But the story itself doesn't have a big loopholes only timeframe seems to be messy.

Conclusion
This drama is simple, straightforward and very cute. I can recommend to watch it if you want to relax. Translation is ok and it has effect of good soup - you feel better when you finish. I think it can be watch again just to enjoy the relationship between characters. There are not many kissing and romance, but I didn't mind it at all.

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A short format drama that's actually adorable

I watched this series in the all episodes meshed in one video format which made it a little over 3 hours viewing time. With a break for a snack and to stretch, I was able to watch it like a long movie and all in one morning. It makes a difference in the viewing experience in my opinion so please do search for it in that format to make it easier than endlessly clicking on next video next video, ect.

The height difference between the leads is a LOT so if you find that adorable, this one is for you!

The acting was actually not too horrible considering that this isn't a normal length drama and that the FL was not a seasoned actress, she actually ended up doing a pretty bang up job. The ML actor has been acting for a few years now but could still use a little bit more help, though it might be his character rather than his acting as I haven't seen any of his other work so I can't comment too much on that.

Now for review of the actual story part:

The SFL actually ends up being a pretty nice person later on in the show, which is rather unusual in these dramas as the writers tend to make them annoying and unbearable for waaaay too long, this writer managed to have her do her bad girl part in the early portion and then redeem and change for the better in the second half.

There is no love rival/triangle for the FL, though the ML thinks there is.

There is a childhood link between the leads but they fall for each other way before that's revealed.

The mother of the ML is an absolute GEM of a mom! The dad is so/so after his introduction...then makes a HUGE mis-step that made me hate him for a bit, before coming around in the final stretch and closes out the drama on a high note.

There's a third female love interest for the ML that is not ever even on his radar, he doesn't even recognise her on the first time seeing her after she is introduced to the audience. Don't worry, she doesn't have much of an impact or screentime before she's gone!

There is a lot to love about this series, it's not the most insanely great show I've ever seen...but it's actually a pretty good one for the genre of short format webseries. The story is sweet, short, and funny. Absolutely worth the three hours viewing time if you're interested in these types.

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Sweet, Cute, and Funny Show

I started watching this show on YouTube on April 4th-April 8th! The episodes are 5-12 minutes while they are 7-13 long episodes. A few episodes are funny in episode 8 where Chuxia looks at Qilu, in episode 13 where Qilu tells Chuxia he has her diary and tells her if he has read it or not, in episode 14, when Chuxia is getting the back and sits in the front of the car, and episode 15, when Chuxia promise Qilu that she won't cross the line to disturb him while he is sleeping. It was sweet that Qilu tutored Chuxia, Qilu taught Chuxia to dance, and Qilu applied ointment on Chuxia's hand where she burned from the coffee. They were cute doing the 1-minute touch task in episode 8, doing physical touch with their phones in their hand in episode 10, Chuxia steep on Qilu's feet to dance, and Chuxia went under the blanket and cuddle with Qilu in episode 14. I really enjoy the show!

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Terrible Overall, Easy to Watch

You are on the highway and see ambulances and police cars, possibly even a fire truck. You know there's a car crash and that you should look away. After all, you will only have yourself to blame if you see something terrible, maybe even gory. But you just can't make yourself look away from it. That is exactly how I felt about this drama while I was watching it.

Despite terrible acting, terrible kisses, being full of cliches, it's a super easy watch with some moments I found cute sprinkled here and there. This is my personal opinion and it's not meant to dissuade others from watching the show. If the show is something you think you will enjoy, try it.

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Eight minute episodes? I'm in!

I've hit a wall trying to find a good romance that isn't long and drawn out, with so much filler that all I do is fast forward through most of it. I found this on Prime. 24 episodes of about 8-15 minutes each. I figured I could commit to this, and if it was terrible, not too much of my life was wasted.

I was pleasantly surprised. It's a cute storyline (but uniforms in college, is that a thing?).

Aside from the problems I had with it:
-It contained not one, but two girls that were willing to do anything to get the guy.
-an overbearing father.
-an arranged engagement.
-acting by most of the adults was bad. The way they talked, the way they moved, just not good.
-the male lead, Ma Hao Dong, had one expression, and when he talked, he talked like he had lockjaw.
-a couple of very poorly executed kisses
-typical tropes like only one hotel room, one mattress when they go camping, you know the drill.

There were things that I really liked:
-Liu Nian as Chu Xia (FL) is adorable, I mean seriously! I loved watching her.
-the main couple together was so cute. She's outgoing, he's stoic. He keeps asking his friend and his housekeeper for advice.
-I love when there's a height disparity between the leads. She was so tiny.
-I loved his mother. Rather than what we normally see, here we have a mom wanting what her son wants. She was very sweet and was so caring of both her son and Chu Xia.
-one of the irritating girls that wants the ML redeems herself
-I was able to put my remote down and give the fast forward button a rest
-I found myself smiling, a lot, while watching this

So, if you have a few hours to spare, want to just enjoy yourself and turn off your brain for a while, you might enjoy this.

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I just finished watching the 3 hour version on YouTube. It wasn't a full length drama that was edited to 3 hours. It was the full compilation of 8 minute episodes. As such, a lot of development that you would have gotten in 18-20 40 minute episodes was understandably missing. Even with overused plot devices that we have seen in other dramas, it was still enjoyable. The female lead was cute, the male lead wasn't too much of a jerk, and there weren't any over-the-top evil characters that make you say enough is enough and drop the show (as happens to me with many Chinese shows).

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The c-drama cure for haphephobia!

This short-episodes drama is quite enjoyable, although for the impatient international audience of WeTV who rely on subtitles, there’s already a 3-hours+ "movie" edition, compilation of all episodes, paring away episode intro and end credits. On the minus side, this "movie" edition suffers like many such ones of sound trouble on the YouTube post where I watched it: dialogues sound tinny, while some of the music and even speech gets muted away. If it was not for subtitles, and expressive acting, it could be very annoying to be thus interrupted in the flow.
The original short 8 minutes episode series is still airing on WeTV international app with English subtitles, so I was re-watching parts there for a more comfortable sound experience. It's the type of drama one can enjoy while snacking or breakfasting, or at pauses on a commute.

The story of Promise in The Summer (初夏的甜蜜约定 / Chu Xia De Tian Mi Yue Ding) is rather simple, and not too choppy, despite the use of some flashbacks to highlight some past events and more recent ones in order to underline the lead characters' actions. Generally, it develops pleasingly, if not unexpectedly, since this is a variation on well-known stories, going back to the HanaYoriDango/ Meteor Garden/ Boys Over Flowers phenomena. Nevertheless, the expected tropes are not too many: accidental kiss, color spills, spoon-feeding, visit to the amusement park (on double date). Product placement is refreshingly almost absent.
It is a new variation on the story derived from the web novel "Master Devil Do Not Kiss Me" (恶魔少爷别吻我) by Jin Xia Mo (锦夏末), that already spawned a successful 2 seasons drama adaptation under that title in 2017, featuring at the time Xing Fei (An Chuxia) and Li Hongyi (HanQiLu), in 46x25’ episodes, and another take in 2018, titled “The Demon Master”, featuring Yu Xintian (An Chuxia) and Jia Zhengyu (Han Qilu), in a 3seasons, 46x22’episodes Tencent/MangoTV series. But the latter drama script is closer to the MG/BOF drama model.

Despite several points in common (including some that are more pleasing here than in MDDNKM, such as the waltz scene) "Promise in the Summer” stands alone quite well on its own. Some of the story takes place in a fictitious private college, where the protagonists attend a class in Finance, but apart from desk, classroom, and a Theater side activity, we don't get much information about the college. Just enough to justify categorizing the drama as a youth-university romance, with a mystery to be solved, although the mystery is not a big surprise.

FL has endearing eyes and good chemistry with the ML, through touches more than kisses (very few and not the ravenous kind). Han Qilu (韩七录) seems cold, tsundere, "wooden" and overbearing, sometimes almost autistic-behaving, even clueless about how to behave as a boyfriend, needing help from a classmate to express repressed sentiments. But he does thaw up pleasingly (such as in the waltz teaching scene).
An Chuxia (安初夏), the “Cinderella” sudden housemate, has been expressly commissioned by QiLu's mom to conduct desensitizing of the young man for his haphephobia, that causes him to react with skin allergy to the touch of women, except from FL of course. Having discovered this, the mom and therapist of ML have decided on "exposure therapy: In this form of treatment, you’re slowly exposed to the feared situation [in this case, touch]. With a trained therapist, you can create a safe environment in which you can slowly allow yourself to become more comfortable with your fears. Repeated positive experiences through exposure may slowly change your negative emotions toward touch."
This type of phobia and cure is not exactly new in C-dramas. You can find it in the first series of “About Is Love”, among other ones. It was also briefly implied in the first episode of “Master Devil Do Not Kiss Me”, but strangely, not really used then as a lever to develop that story (and the mom of that Han QiLu did not seem to be aware of her son’s condition).

The young actors are very handsome.
• FL is played by 22 years-old actress-singer Liu Nian (刘念). When she was 17-year-old in 2018, she joined the Japanese idol girl group called AKB48 (formed in 2005, with teams which can rotate performances and perform simultaneously at several events and "handshake" events, where fans can meet group members; their highest selling single, "Teacher Teacher", sold over 3 million in 2018). Simultaneously, she tried her luck in v 101 China (rather than in the South Korean television competition Produce 48 of 2018 where 39 members of AKB48 took part) and later again, in Produce Camp (2020) Chinese competition where she 'made it to the final broadcast finishing with the rank of #12". This is Liu Nian's first experience as c-drama FL actress, and we shall perhaps see later how well she did in her previous support role in Destiny of Love (a costume drama starring Darren Chen and Huang RiYing, that wrapped filming 2 years ago already, but still is awaiting release).
• ML, 24-year-old Ma HaoDong (马浩东) had five previous lead roles in c-dramas, while still ' currently studying at the Beijing Film Academy majoring in performance art".
Supporting actors, apart from the as usual, doting mom (uncredited), are:
• Huang YunYun (黄云云) who plays Mo XinWei (莫昕薇), a classmate who is at first infatuated with the ML (but does not stay so for long, becoming a friend instead),
• Jian ZeZheng (建泽正), playing An Chenchuan (安辰川), a young bakery owner classmate who doesn’t have a crush on FL but is a good friend of both ML and FL characters).
• Zhang Xintong (张新童) who plays Xiang ManKui (向蔓葵), a heiress who appears in the last part of the drama, as the fiancée suddenly chosen for him by QiLu’s father, for business alliance.

The names of these characters will sound very familiar to those who watched “Master Devil Do Not Kiss Me”, and/or “The Demon Master”, but these are mostly just namesakes. This pared-down cast, and story, not using gossip mongering, painful breakups, vicious bullying and scandals, has in fact a better flow and leaves audience with a nice sense of completion, differently from the half-baked end in the 2017 drama.

The music is well-timed, songs don’t clash with dialogues, and the waltz is simpler than the expected Strauss numbers. They are sung by singers who are already known to perform drama OST, such as Zhong ShuTong (钟抒瞳) who sings the end theme “The Sleepless Night” (睡不着的夜晚) and Wang Ziyu (王梓钰 aka LIAN) who sings Dawn Of Dreams (梦的曙光).

Baidu informs that the Directors are Dai Xifan (戴希帆) and Sheng Han (晟菡); screenwriter is Sheng Han (晟菡); Producers are Huang Jianan, Wang Fuping, Li Qiyi (黄嘉楠、王付平、李骐屹); and chief producer is Ke Jiasheng (柯家生). These are not well-known names. The drama started filming in September 2022 in Qingdao.

“The Promise in The Summer” is not an unforgettable masterpiece, but it is a well-made variation on the old story, with no over-ambitious message, and it can even be re-watched with enjoyment for the light fluff and humor.

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