Ting Jian Ta De Xin Sheng (2024)

Cleverish plot with humor and some romance and mystery.

(I rate vertically filmed micro dramas on their own sliding scale). General spoilers below. Made me chuckle or laugh out loud multiple times. Overall smartly written and quite enjoyable and satisfying; left me with a smile on my face. Gu Ming Han's facial expressions as the ML are fantastic and so fun to watch (a large part of the high rewatch value for me).

I loved the premise and thought the show did a good job with it. It was fun and interesting that the ML could hear all the FL's thoughts, and the audience gets to hear plenty of the ML's thoughts too. Because the FL gets reborn in the body of a girl that was lazy and desperate for attention, it takes her awhile to change people's opinion of her.
The mysteries of who was behind what schemes was pretty quickly obvious to the audience, yet the leads figured things out at a believable rate and in a logical way (especially the ML).

Though this has a higher rating on my personal sliding scale, my guess would be that the ML may turn some people off. Because the overall tone of the show stayed light, I enjoyed this despite the ML acting like more of a d*ck than he needed to (with his words) for about 2/3rds of it (not sadistic, though there are choke holds very early on before he starts believing the FL is a different person than before). He does start to redeem himself and I can imagine him fully redeeming himself over time (we just don't see their life past their wedding). His actions improve fairly early on as he gets over his suspicions of the FL and starts to like her, but his words send mixed signals as he tends to mask his intentions; he'll protect her, but then make light of it. Two things I appreciated about this character that many in vertical dramas don't do: 1) It's a process, but the ML is willing to question his perception of the SFL and starts to put his guard up around her even before he fully believes she's as bad as the FL's internal thoughts indicate. 2) Later on, he recognizes in his own thoughts that he has some work to do to win over the FL because of how he's previously acted (though his words still take a while to catch up).

There are a couple moments of sexual tension, a couple suggestive lines, and a satisfying lip press kiss near the end. The FL shows and has thoughts about desiring the ML too. Happy ending with their wedding and another brief lip press.

All actors were good and fit their parts well. The SFL and SML have some psychological issues and try to murder multiple people to get what they want, but they stay plausible and believable (did not turn into caricatures).

Watched with good English subtitles on licensed channel @RomanticDramaTV (浪漫短劇社RomanticDrama) in Nov 2024:
https://youtu.be/crwP_GO0OYo?si=kc8O7c1IK5OQ43RJ

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