Perfect Match (2025)

Story with strong FLs sabotaged by irredeemable men being presented as their romantic partners

I was very excited for this drama but have come out of it disappointed. However, I'm already seeing people blame the criticizers for "not understanding this is realism and in real life back then men were horrible." I LOVE historical chinese novels to the point I've machine translated hundreds of them (yes I'm addicted) and one of the prevailing themes is always how women's lives were horrible back then and the men largely neither prioritized nor saw women as their own people worthy of respect. They were meant to be obedient, sensible, virtuous, gentle, generous, and basically never show any dissatisfaction. Their lives were easily discarded or kept imprisoned or slaving away in the women's inner house, never living for themselves.

And so yes I UNDERSTAND that the men in this drama so far show the same tendencies and are rather realistic of their time, but that doesn't mean we, the viewers, have to like it for the romantic partners of our female leads. I know that there will likely be character growth for these men, but I don't really care. No amount of character growth will make me like the second sister's pathetic, cowardly, cheating husband who tormented her to the point she chewed her mouth bloody with pebbles to cope. No amount of character growth for that noble brother law of the emperor will make me like him simply by the virtue of the fact that he tried to seize a woman like she was property and make her his concubine, and had he succeeded he would have become a proponent of female slavery and martial rape. No amount of "misunderstanding" or reasoning will make me like the husband of the first sister who (spoiler from teaser) BEATS HIS WIFE TO THE POINT THERE'S BLOOD? There's no going back for me after they've already shown these parts of themselves. I don't believe in second chances for men who are like this. These are not "character flaws" you can come back from.

Maybe if the story was about them divorcing these so called "perfect matches" things would be different, but that's not how it's being presented.

The only one that I'm still on the fence for is the character played by Wang Xing Yue and that's because it does seem like there are some misunderstandings at play and it is true that he was "asked" to meddle in his cousin's affairs by his aunt and repeatedly by his cousin. It doesn't seem that he helped due to actually caring at first; the first time he helped it seemed he did it for the sake of the family's reputation and after that it was a matter of personal pride, competing with the third lady. That isn't enough of an excuse for me though; he knows how awful his cousin is and knows how he must be treating his wife for him to spiral like she does, but he still seemingly has no empathy for her. His advise is from the perspective of making things easier for his cousin, but never thinks of what his cousin's wife must be suffering. And yes, you can ask: why would he? The wife is no one to him. But that's where I think a lack of basic human empathy shines through and a lack of willingness to see the plight of women in this world. He is not an idiot, and he himself employs women in his business without having them resort to selling their bodies. He should know better.

Then there's the whole competing with the FL with their business. I get it. I get that his pride is wounded and that he's annoyed that the FL got one up on him by snatching his manager and painting. No one likes being tricked or taken advantage of. It also makes sense that he wouldn't just sit there and watch her steal his customers because that's his source of income. But again, I felt like there was a certain lack of empathy in how he employed methods. These are 5 girls and a widowed mother with barely any funds and nothing to rely on, trying to make a decent living. He knows this and he knows their difficulties, because he explains this to his mom when she's angry to calm her down. Yet he still was rather callous in how he dealt with them.
There's still room for hope in him toning down that arrogance and using some damn empathy, but what he's done has already left a sour taste in my mouth.

I don't expect men in historical dramas to be feminists. But it's a valid criticism when dealing with a drama centering around women, where the audience is largely modern day women. The writer isn't from the song dynasty, the writer is from the modern day era. The reason so many historical chinese novels get popular is because they promote modern values within the historical context and it's what makes the characters stand out. Some of the most popular fictional historical MLs are popular precisely because they are a breath of fresh air for their time. One of the reasons I loved Duke Su (past character of WXY) was because he supported women's wrongs lol! If I wanted to just watch shitty guys do shitty things, I would just go outside. When 3 of the MLs so far seem unbearable and the main one is precariously sitting on the fence, you know that the writer could have done a better job setting them up.

I am a big fan of Wang Xing Yue and was really looking forward to this drama so I'll give it a few more episodes, but yes as of now I'm rather disappointed. It sucks bc the chemistry between WXY and LYX is GREAT and they do have a lot of potential. I just can't get over this writing. I can maybe root for their pairing but every other pairing sucks big time.
The one positive thing I will say is that all the sisters are fantastic: strong, smart, brave, resourceful, hard working, survivors. They're working their asses off and they don't take mistreatment likely, but all the more reason why I think they deserve better. If you consider this drama as a story of 5 sisters doing whatever it takes to survive in a shitty world with shitty men surrounding them, sticking together and protecting each other, instead of a romance, then the drama might be worth your time.

Note: this review may be updated if I continue watching. For now, paused at ep 4.

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