I must say, the fact that this drama has created so many terrific long-form reviews here, speaks highly of this series value alone. I watched the YouTube review/rant that is linked above and wondered if that woman watched the same series I am currently watching. Respectfully, I cannot disagree more with that review. Simply said, I don't think she "gets it". The OP on the other hand clearly watched and was able to understand the events played out over 36.5 episodes. Her study of it here is really well thought out.
At any rate, in watching the show, what strikes me most and is almost completely UN-mentioned here is how SMART ShuYi is. Think about it: She's a double-major in both Finance & Journalism. That alone is pretty impressive to me, as I think of myself as a fairly intelligent guy and as an Accounting Major, I HATED my Finance/Econ classes...they clearly deserved the nickname of "The Dismal Science". So the fact that she probably excelled at both majors says a lot about her. Although the show gives us a good view of how competent she is at her job (working long hours, scoring coveted interview subjects, writing well-received articles, etc) we don't really get a chance to see her intelligence in her field, compared to her sometimes-futile & hap-hazard efforts to deal with her love life. We occasionally get glimpses of her intelligence (and drive), like when she goes off to launch her investigation on automotive battery safety and her give-and-take interview with the battery mfg.
But instead, we are presented pretty much with her as an 'up and coming excellent journalist'. And that is accurate, but doesn't really tell the whole story about who she is and why this very intelligent woman struggles so much with dealing with her emotions vs. her professional goals/needs. I really would have liked to seen what her 5-year relationship with her ex-boyfriend was like: We know he was two-timing her while they were in college and that he ultimately cheated on her again afterwards. What was their relationship like? How much effort did she put into it, given her career goals & drive? (I suspect, not much effort at all). I think that would have given us better background on her as a person.
All that being said, I still like this series as a study of how two very intelligent but very different people become attracted to and slowly orbit each other, while struggling to understand their motiviations in doing so and how to deal with emotions they are not used to or comfortable with.
koreanbosuji:
