I love this drama. It's my personal pick-me-up on any given Blah-Day. Have already watched it over 5 times, so let me convince you on why you should try peeking in:
He's rich handsome gruff and super competent. She's a sweet naive bumpkin Cinderella (so original yeah :D)... who cares! It works like a charm.
The story telling and editing is crisp, means it won't drag.
The colour palette is comforting and cheerful, means it's all easy on the eyes.
They all are very good actors, means you won't be laughing at the wrong places (like haw haw haw).
And finally its sweetly painful and romantically charming in right doses. And the music is perfect for it all.
The rest is just your personal preference after you've invested in at least 4 - 5 episodes of your life.
1 from my many Favorite Bits: When she dreamily goes "hmmmmm"
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This drama never made me feel like it was a chore to watch since every episode of this 33-episode made my heart happy (and maybe even sad). It has the right amount of fluff and a bit of angst which is the formula for me of being a good drama. It's already a given that I enjoyed Zhang Han's Feng Teng and Zhao Liying's Shan Shan but all the other actors played their characters so well. Special mention goes to: Shan Shan's Dad, Liu Liu (Shan Shan's cousin), and Feng Yue (Feng Teng's sister) are my faves! For the music, I enjoyed the opening theme sang by Zhang Han and also Roll the Dice as an insert song. The only aspect that I didn't give a perfect score to was the rewatch value since watching this at least once is already good enough. On the whole, I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to be in for a good Cdrama to watch and maybe to some who haven't been introduced to the world of Cdramas yet, this is a good one to try!
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Cute Storyline with misplaced scenes
This is a cute drama. The cliche's have been done time and time again, however, it was done well. The cast was solid. Commnication issues between the ML and FL became tiresome after a bit. However, there were scenes and situations that seemed to either repeat themselves or seem like fillers. This could have been a solid rewatch drama if some of the 'extra; scenes were cut. After reviewing a lot of dramas, the layout and pace of this drama makes sense once consideration is taken as to when it was produced. Overall, it is a good weekend watch, if you don't take it too seriously.Was this review helpful to you?
Still trying to find dramas that compare to this one.
My favorite kind of trope is boss/employee rich/poor vibe and I ate this one up!!! I am still trying to find dramas like this one. The male actor also plays in my glamorous life and I loved it. I wish it had a villain female after the male but loses and better kisses but other then that 10 out of 10 storyline and loved how in love the male lead is.Was this review helpful to you?
Speechless
I’m more of a k-drama fan, but I wanted to try out Chinese drama for a change. I absolutely hated how her character was written as well as his. The ML was this dominant self-absorbed maniac who needed to stroke his ego by manipulating and using money threatening her to spend time with him. He couldn’t muster up the courage to admit that he liked her, but rather manipulated her into thinking she was the pursuer instead of him. I didn’t want to look up who the writer for this drama was, but I would feel so disappointed if it was a woman who wrote the FL the way she did. She couldn’t think for herself, and was easily taken advantage of and manipulated into doing things. As if it wasn’t enough to write her character as unintelligent, they wrote her as this naive and clueless woman who moved only at the command of a dominant man. I couldn’t finish the drama because it inferiorated me and was so upsetting. So I stopped at Ep 25 about 6 years ago, and came back to finish it because I like to finish what I started no matter what or how long. Still didn’t like it, but this was my first introduction to Chinese drama, and I didn’t like it.Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
FL character growth
Just watched this for the 3rd time after a 2yr hiatus from dramas overall and fell in love with the characters all over again!Yes, the plot seems cliche - cold, overbearing CEO falls for innocent, bubbly poor girl - but I like the way ML lets FL think for herself. Despite the huge difference in status, he respects her intellect and trusts her to make the right decisions for herself and their relationship, sometimes with a little prodding from him.
*Spoilers ahead*
I especially love the scene where he asks her if he's the one who goes bankrupt and gets buried in debt, would she leave him? Because she was wavering and wanted to back out from their wedding because her family owed him 10 million. Then he didnt just waive the debt, because he knew shr wont feel comfortable with it, but instead pushed and encouraged her to rise to the challenge and solve the problem herself.
** end of spoilers**
I must say that the ML is a huge part of FLs growth - without him, she would have been content to just coast along and stay in her comfortable yet mediocre space despite having the skills and opportunity to be and do better because nobody expected her to, until she met ML.
I also love her parents, esp her dad, for putting the family's pride and honor above all. Though he might have gone overboard in some of his decisions, as a parent, I understand where he is coming from : his child is more valuable than any material possession in the world and he only wants the best for her.
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This review may contain spoilers
Good when watched till the end.
I shall review this series in groups of ten episodes.Episode 1 - 10: I was irritated by the personality of the FL, it’s okay if she was modest and dull, but the way she carried herself was too superficial. I have always liked FLs that are strong, independent and capable. While the FL comes from a small province to Shanghai for work, and was naive and simple minded, although there is nothing wrong with being that, I felt irked by her silly hopping gait and puppet like body language. However, I toiled on to the next set of ten episodes.
Episode 11 - 20: I was happy to see that she got together with the ML, but her self doubt because of the huge intellectual and financial disparity was saddening. I felt touched seeing her face so much gossip and criticism, not only at her workplace, but by her boyfriend’s close people as well. On top of it, I felt angry at the ML for not assuring her and partnering with her in shouldering the pressure on her own, knowing full well she would be suffering because of how far apart they both were, in every way.
Episodes 21-33: Here we see the relationship developing into deep affection, albeit deceit and attempts to harm the relationship, while our FL continues to doubt herself on being a worthy partner for her man. The later episodes show her growing in education and becoming independent, and the ML seeing her grow into a woman he admires, his family seeing her for the woman she is, and wholeheartedly accepting and supporting her. I would have actually given this series only 5 stars had it not been for the later episodes.
Overall, since this series was shot around 2014, it is not as fast paced as the shows today, still it had a charm that kept me going from episode to episode, feeling happy for the couple and how their relationship grew.
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Not perfect but entertaining and a strong finish over the last few episodes.
Not perfect. The characterization of the ML was almost cartoonish (cold, emotionless stoic-to-a-fault CEO) at times and often not really believable as someone anyone would like. And the SML & SFL characters and romance was often very annoying and fueled with tropes. The script writing was very good up to episode 20 and then took a nose-dive over episodes 21-24. But then it bounced back and was pretty solid through the final 9 episodes and especially the last 3-4.In particular, Xue Shanshan's steady growth as a character carried the show even through the low points of the story. She has very visible and realistic growth from the bubbly naive young girl at the start to the mature woman she is at the end. Yet even as a mature woman she still retains the charm that entranced the ML (and the viewers) from the beginning. Ziao Li Ying delivers a fantastic performance in a role that is very, very different from say, the grumpy overly-serious swordswoman of Legend of Fei, or the clever, revenge-motivated assassin of Princess Agents.
The rest of the cast is solid. I do think that Zhang Han was given a rather tough role to play as the near emotionless Feng Teng. The script writers made him so extremely tightly wound at times that it was painful to watch Zhang struggle to make him seem like a human and not a cartoon character. I don't blame the actor. You can tell that the script that was given defined him this way. It's (as mentioned at the start) probably the biggest drama trope weakness of this series. But fortunately it was more than balanced by the fun of watching FL's counter point character. And even the ML character finally showed a lot of growth over the last few episodes to make sense.
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Different Romance, But Interesting
I consider this pretty much a pure romance drama. The female lead was very pretty with a very expressive face. I loved her! Male lead wasn’t permitted to show much emotion, apparently. I felt the personally of the two leads were quite unique to the dramas I have watched so far. The conflict and misunderstanding between the two leads came primarily from their almost total lack of communication. They almost never talked casually. Never talked when something upset them. Never talked when one wanted to know something. There was a lot of inner talk from the female lead. But she didn’t speak out loud. This couple interacted a lot over eating. Eating was important to the story. The ML, being a rich CEO, always seemed to wait for FL to make the first move in the relationship. It was weird. He had no game. Didn’t take her on fun dates. Didn’t give her flowers, jewelry, balloons, nothing to woo her. Anyway I could go on. This relationship was really weird, but also strangely entertaining to watch. There was a lot of growth to the major characters in this drama. One thing I found boring was the long relationship chats between the girl friends. Went on too long. Yawn. This gave you insight to the Chinese way families interacted. The sometimes huge expectations the parents had for their children’s future, and the way the children were expected to follow the rules of their parents, even if it was against their own dreams and wants. In the end, looking back, it was definitely worth watching, but not rewatching.Was this review helpful to you?
Looking for fluff? Look no further
I usually stayed away from C-Dramas due to weird and convoluted plotlines, messy characterization, long and stretched episodes count and whatnots. This, however, was the first one, that being such a refreshing watch, it changed my opinion on C-Dramas completely.Watch this for romance and fluff, this won't disappoint! Romance is really well done here and the main leads have a real good chemistry. Even the secondary main leads have good chemistry.
The story is simple but its done beautifully. There are cliches sometimes but they all get resolved in a very positive manner. There is angst too, many a times, but the end to that angst is very rewarding. This is exactly how a good story is written. I was engaged throughout and it also never left a bad taste in my mouth.
Characterization, on the other hand, was done amazingly. Most characters if not all were likeable in their own way. Very rarely did I find myself getting annoyed by a character's decision and that too for a very short period of time.
FL's character for one was really likeable. In some scenes she was super adorable tbh. Real good performance by Zhao Li Ying.
ML, on the other hand, was a bit too stoic. He needs to learn to communicate more, caused too many misunderstandings needlessly.
SML was okay throughout. His character did develop a bit later on.
SFL, though, was the one with the most character development of all. She actually matured from a childhood infatuation to real love. Quite a major character development right there. Despite many hating her for her selfish decisions, I empathize with her situation and understand why she did what she did. Amazing acting by the actress Li Cheng Yuan.
All the other side characters were likeable too, no complaints nowhere at all.
Overall a super sweet and super fun uplifting show.
This might be my first time rating a C-Drama above 8, but this deserves it without a doubt. 8.5/10
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Really great!
I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of this drama. No regrets! It was cute and fluffy, with no angst. The male lead was really thoughtful, helping the female lead grow into an independent and successful woman by showering her with wisdom and love. I discovered this while watching "The Story of Minglan," which features the same female lead. Her acting was so good, but I got stuck in a rut, so I looked up her previous works and found this one. I have to say, I felt 33 episodes were not enough. I would have loved to see them have a family of their own and go on a picnic with their little one and the male lead's sister's son as well, the whole family together having fun in the end. What an ending that would have been!Was this review helpful to you?
The first episode felt very rushed but after that the whole drama felt slow. I skipped through so much because of how boring it was. While there were a number of cute scenes, it wasn't enough to maintain the drama. The last few episodes were quite interesting and cute but getting there was such a struggle.
The Story:
Honestly, the majority of the plot can be summed up as 'girl doesn't know what her boyfriend means/is thinking but never asks him (and seems to ask everyone else).' Miscommunication is a staple in drama but this was so incredibly dull and boring and played to the point of stupidity.
The fact that Shan Shan is adorable is all that kept me watching it at first. By episode 8 I was fairly certain I wanted to drop it and at that point stuck it out purely out of stubbornness. There were some storylines that were a little more interesting but even so this drama was simply not a hit for me.
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