uoow

I finally got around to finishing the drama, and it makes me sad that it's over. When I first saw the Reuters videos of it last year, I thought this would be a cute, youth drama. I WAS WRONG.

I never expected to be met with trauma and sadness to the point that I thought this was more like never-ending sadness.
There's some inconsistency with the story; for example, Zhou Wan is a top student, and it doesn't really make much sense that her school wouldn't bat an eye at her missing the gaokao and skipping school, especially given how much China values studies.
I know they probably had to change a lot due to the censorship, but also to avoid "promoting" bad behaviours like smoking. This did create some plot holes in the end, which is a shame.

I personally wished they would develop the 2nd couple more because they were quite cute but didn't get much attention. I honestly got bored after the timeskip when they started to talk more about the business side of things; I guess it's more a me problem.

I saw a lot of people complain that the flashbacks were too long and dragged but I think it's necessary because we need to know what happened in the past then just directly showing the present but i feel like they couldve avoided this by doing a half and half situation where they showed the past then present but overall I didn't have much problems with it despite anxiousness of notknowing when the seperation woukd happen.

The revenge did feel rather underwhelming knowing that the Lu family was the cause of Zhou Wan's misery, but it's a modern show so the best she could do was crush his role at the company, tho it did feel like the revenge was kinda sidetracked sometimes.

The ost's were so good and amazing and they added a lot to the scenes and overall vibe of Never-Ending Summer. The acting was great; Zhou Keyu did amazing and Bao Shang En did fantastic as well. One scene in particular that stuck with me was when Zhou Wan ended up in the hospital due to a gas leak she wasn't paying attention to because her grandma had just passed away and she shouted, " I can't live anymore, I'm only 18"something along those lines that I cannot remember lol. That scene struck me hard because I'm close in age to Zhou Wan and I've had my ups and downs with my mental health that made me want to leave. So I related a lot to her in that moment despite how different our struggles were.

The chemistry was amazing that I wish they would get cast in another modern drama together cause the chemistry is there!!!
I gotta say that this drama made me fall in love with Bao Shang En! Especially the way she smiles and talks, omg I'm obsessed, and I tried to watch Generation to Generation that aired before this and I couldn't really get into it. I gotta also mention Zhou Keyu's English scene and the way he spoke in English was so attractive that I'm obsessed lol.

The cinematography was beautiful, especially the past episodes in their youth; it really felt like it was a never-ending summer by how bright yet sunny it was. It really made me wish that my youth was like those summer days lol. Sadly, it does fail during more emotional, sadder scenes because it didn't feel like the event that was happening was sad.

I wanna talk more about the characters now; Zhou Wan has been misunderstood so much by people on this site and social media that it reminded me of my girl Wen Yifan. So many people don't understand her decisions and complain or believe that she has the right to be with Lu Xixiao and so on but many people don't bother to see beyond that tunnel vision they formed.

She was just a kid when her dad's business failed and he died; then her mother abandoned her and left with her dad's insurance money to go find sugar daddies. She was basically left with nothing with her grandma but it didn't matter because she had her grandma with her. That all changed when her grandmother got sick; she became desperate and reached out to LXX as a desperate mesure because she was racing against time. Either she let her die or get money to help her get surgery.

So many people thought she was a villain for hurting LXX so much but they never tried to understand that she was desperate to save someone she loved and dare I say love makes us do all sorts of crazy things. This is why critical thinking is pretty much gone nowadays, when people never bother to think beyond why she did that? She knew it was wrong, she hesitated but desperation makes us do the worst things even if it's morally wrong. After all, she was just 17-18 when it all broke down. No child should suffer that but our world doesn't create a system that is fair to everyone. These are the same people who want more complicated characters in media, but the moment they are a woman, suddenly that empathy is gone out the window.

Lu Xixiao was rather someone who had a selfless love. He didn't care that Zhou Wan lied to him if that was what it took to let her stay by his side. I admire him for that quality cause I couldn't. That was, I guess, what led many people to think that Zhou Wan didn't deserve him or that he needed to move on. Honestly, it was sad seeing him being hurt this much by the breakup, but it doesn't really give you the right to whine about that, because one might think that you would want him to end with you because you "can treat him better". Not to mention what his grandpa said was really cruel to a girl who just went through a traumatizing moment

I gotta say it really felt like two lonely hearts that got attracted to each other lol. It was crazy when I found out that in the novel, LXX took the stab for Zhou Wan because he didn't want her to leave him, which was crazy to me. In the end, she still left, and he had a stab wound, so it didn't work out lol. The novel version of him must have been, to a certain extent, a red flag.

I know a lot of people hated Jiang Yan because he was annoying, but I related a lot to him, especially being a coward and feeling helpless. Many people needed to remember how insufferable his family situation was. He had a mother who was breathing down his neck because she couldn't accept her wedlock child to be mocked by the Lu family and his illegitimate blood because it would be admitting defeat and admitting that he was illegitimate and thus lower than the rich Lu family, who were better and smarter. So she had to raise him to be a smart and proper child because he NEEDED to be successful, not a maybe but a definite one, even if it meant his mental health hit an all-time low.

His dad wasn't a help either because he kept pressuring him to be a good child but also the connecting link to him and his mother because his mom decided to never speak to him, but it seems he still had lingering feelings. He had to be a good, obedient child because whenever Lxx, his legitimate son, wasn't there, he was the backup.

So he was basically the rope in a game of tug-of-war. How would you feel if you found out your dad was the reason you got the job and the girl you loved for so many years licked the guy that you were compared to your whole life because you were "illegitimate"? I could never because it sounds so insufferable tho I relate a lot to his situation; what makes it sadder is how confident he got after the timeskip. All for that to crash down because of his father.

It felt like the sadness was just never-ending lol. I liked this drama, and I'm definitely gonna miss hearing the beautiful ost's and cinematography of summer. I do gotta say that I did wish we could've gotten a wedding scene because there were Reuters videos of them doing a wedding for promo, so I kinda wish they ended with them in their wedding attire riding off in the sunset, but it's fine, the documentary, I guess.