pheyie

Yesss, I did watch Prisoner of Beauty and I loved it too! 😍 And honestly, The Best Thing is literally the best thing, lol. 😅

And don't worry, one year in and you've already got great taste. You've got so many good ones ahead of you, I'm a little jealous you get to watch them all for the first time! (Not necessarily my list though, lol.) I really hope you find at least 3 of them that make it onto your list of loved dramas. 🥹

Oh, I absolutely loved First Frost. I think you might too.

I've been watching both K-dramas and C-dramas for over 15 years now (lol). These days, though, I actually find myself enjoying C-dramas more than K-dramas. Maybe it's just K-drama fatigue since that's what I started with. Well... unless we're counting all the Jet Li, Bruce Lee, Kung Fu Hustle, and the other old Chinese movies I practically grew up watching. 😂

I'm always a little nervous recommending dramas because I never want someone to spend hours watching something they end up not enjoying. But First Frost is one I'd confidently recommend.

Some older dramas I absolutely loved, and even rewatched not too long ago, are Nothing But Thirty and Dear Missy. I also really enjoyed Crossroad Bistro. I naturally gravitate toward female-centric dramas because I find they tend to have a lot more nuance, character development, and mature storytelling.

I also loved Legend of the Female General. Love in the Clouds was another surprise favorite. I'm usually not a fan of xianxia dramas, but I had so much fun with that one.

Other dramas I really enjoyed are Shine on Me, Amidst a Snowstorm of Love, and The Best Thing. The Best Thing was especially enjoyable, and I already know I'll be rewatching it one of these days.

Go Ahead is another drama I loved, although I'm not entirely sure it'll be to your taste. It's definitely worth giving a shot, though.

I'm also a huge Zhao Lusi fan, so I've watched quite a few of her dramas. My favorites are Who Rules the World, Love Like the Galaxy, and Gen Z.

Like I mentioned, I really enjoy female-centric dramas, so if anyone else in this thread has recommendations, I'd love to hear them too. Another one I absolutely loved is Fighting Youth. I really appreciated how mature it was. These might not be everyone's favorites, but I genuinely had a wonderful time watching all of them.

Drama list(For easy copying 😊):
First Frost
Nothing But Thirty
Dear Missy
Crossroad Bistro
Legend of the Female General
Love in the Clouds
Shine on Me
Amidst a Snowstorm of Love
The Best Thing
Go Ahead
Who Rules the World
Gen Z
Love Like the Galaxy
Fighting Youth

This might be the nicest disagreement I've ever had online. 😊 Thank you for that. And you're right, I wouldn't have written this much if I didn't care. I went in wanting to love it, mostly for the leads, so the let-down came from expectation, not dislike for its own sake. I loved their chemistry so much, it is why I actually finished it and watched the extra episodes on youtube.

I'll take you up on the rewatch someday. 🙂 And if it still doesn't click, at least it's in good hands with you keeping the count alive for both of us. 😂

This is such a lovely reply, thank you for taking the time. 😊 It's refreshing to have someone offer a different perspective without turning it into a fight about whether I'm even "allowed" to dislike it.

To be clear though, I understood all of these points while watching, my issue was never that they didn't make sense.

With the friends, I followed exactly what they were meant to represent, I just didn't feel the impact of them or their subplots, and I didn't really care about them as characters. And I know that's not a me thing across the board, because I've watched dramas where I ended up loving the side characters so much that I went and checked out the actors' other work. Here they just didn't pull me in.

Same with the police exam. I get why they tied his situation up the way they did, but the route was off for me, especially since he was clearly strong enough to incapacitate his dad, which he actually does later. So it read as odd that this was the wall he couldn't get past. I just think there was a better approach available.

The audit arc is the same story. I still think it ran long and the middle dragged, and understanding the reasoning behind it doesn't really change that it wasn't enjoyable to sit through. 😅 I guess that's simply how they wanted the story to play out, and that version of it just wasn't for me.

I think you said it best at the end: this is a drama where the exact same elements either pull you in or wear you down depending on what you connect with. For you the emotional core outweighed the slower parts. For me it didn't quite, which is probably why I finished it feeling flat while you're on rewatch number three. 😂

Both of those can be true at once, and that's really the whole point I've been making. Thanks for being someone who could just talk about the show. ❤️

Thank you for seeing that. Honestly, I have no idea either.

Not long ago I enjoyed a drama and recommended it to my sister. She found it boring, and we didn't lose our heads over it. That's how it's supposed to go. Yet here people have been hounding me just for expressing how I felt.
I actually watched this one for the leads as well, which is exactly why I said it felt like a waste of their chemistry. I wasn't a fan of the premise, but I stayed for them anyway. In the end it just felt like a waste of time, so I left a comment saying so. That's all it was.
A high rating doesn't mean everyone has to enjoy it. That's how everything works in real life. I don't think some people here realize that.

Let's actually look at who said what.

Every comment I've made has been about the drama: the pacing, the runtime, the repetition, the tone, the audit arc. Every comment you've made has been about me. You started by mocking me in the third person ("how can she watch 32 eps and get nothing 😂"), then moved to "did you even watch it," "your comment is weird," "swallow that," and now "your opinions don't matter, you're just one person, you're toxic and rude."

Notice the pattern? I criticized a show. You've spent this entire thread criticizing a person. Mocking someone, ganging up on them, and telling them their opinion doesn't count is bullying.
Calling me toxic while doing all of that is projection. There is nothing wrong in disliking a drama and piling on a stranger for having a different opinion is toxic! Plain and simple!

And it isn't just me. I see you under every comment from people who didn't enjoy the show, doing the same thing. Do you really need to fill your life with this much hate over other people's opinions? You can love this show all you want, I genuinely don't mind. But I'm not the one who made this personal, and I'm not the one bullying anyone here.

Have a nice day. 🙂

I really do not care about all of that. Lol.
Taste and commercial success are two different things. View counts and rankings measure popularity, not whether I personally enjoyed something. A billion views doesn't make me like it, the same way a bestseller list doesn't make me love a book.
I watch dramas as art consumption, like reading books or solving puzzles. It's a personal experience, not a leaderboard. You can keep listing stats, but none of them change the fact that I found this one boring.

I actually wasn't going to respond because there's nothing to debate here.

Calling it "one of the best modern dramas of 2026" is your opinion, not an objective fact I need to "swallow."

I watch dramas to be entertained. I couldn't care less whether someone else considers a show one of the best of the year. I like stories I can revisit and feel nostalgic about. This just wasn't one of them, and that's perfectly fine.

What's interesting is that, across all these replies, no one has actually addressed the points I raised. It's just been "Did you even watch it?", "You didn't understand it," and now "Swallow that." None of those are rebuttals. They're just different ways of saying my opinion isn't allowed because you disagree with it.

If you loved the drama, that's great. You don't need me to agree for your enjoyment to be valid, and I don't need your approval to find it boring.

Have a nice day. 🙂

I think we're just going in circles at this point.

You've made your position impossible to engage with. Every time I raise a point about the craft, whether it's the pacing, structure, tone, repetitive storytelling, or the bloated 32-episode runtime, you dismiss it as "just preference." But that's exactly what reviews and criticism are. Whether a story earns its runtime, whether side plots contribute anything meaningful, whether the pacing becomes repetitive, or whether the ending feels satisfying are all valid things to critique. Simply calling them "just preference" isn't a counterargument.

As for saying I didn't understand the story, your own replies show that we understood the same events. We're not disagreeing about what happened. We're disagreeing about whether those choices were executed well. Understanding a story and liking how it's told are two completely different things.

You're right about one thing. My original review wasn't very detailed. That's fair. But instead of asking what I meant, your first response was that I didn't understand the story, the characters, or their circumstances. Then when I explained my issues with the pacing, repetition, runtime, tone, and storytelling, those were dismissed as "just preference" too.

So it seems there's no version of a negative review that would satisfy you. If I don't explain, I didn't understand. If I do explain, it's just preference. If I criticize the writing, you say it isn't "actual criticism." That's not really engaging with my points, it's just dismissing them.

And saying the leads were "wasted" wasn't an insult to Song Weilong or Zhang Jingyi. It means I think they delivered strong performances but deserved stronger material. That's a criticism of the writing, not the actors.

You loved the drama. I didn't. Both can be true without either of us lacking the ability to understand the story.

This comment is wild. Complaining that a critical review of a show isn’t a literal plot summary is a whole new level of missing the point. A review is meant to evaluate how a story works, not act like a Wikipedia recap for someone who hasn’t watched it.

And unironically holding up TikTok edits as the standard for “analysis” is hilarious. TikTok edits are 15-second aesthetic clips and shipping compilations. Of course they look different from a written review that’s breaking down pacing, structure, and storytelling. They’re made for vibes and entertainment, not actual critique.

If you can’t explain why the pacing didn’t drag or why the so-called filler subplots were actually necessary, then just saying the review is “weird” doesn’t really say anything. At that point you’re just moving the goalposts instead of engaging with the actual points being made.

This particular person can’t take criticism. They are under every post who didn’t like this drama as much, being passive aggressive for having a different opinion. Wrote a bunch of comments under mine too.

Starting with “I don’t want to make this an argument” right before dropping a full lecture is classic faux politeness.

Saying that criticizing the script is “disrespectful to the actors” is also a false equivalence. You can appreciate the hard work Song Weilong and Zhang Jingyi put into their performances while still pointing out that the writing and execution let them down. I design software, and if I spend weeks building an app with a clunky UX, clients aren’t going to overlook its flaws just because I worked hard on it. Effort doesn’t automatically make the final product immune to criticism.

Dismissing pacing issues and repetitive storytelling is also an easy way to avoid engaging with actual criticism of the writing. A show having fans doesn’t suddenly make a bloated 32-episode runtime immune to losing momentum.

And ending with “it’s free speech, so have a good day!” isn’t really taking the high road. If seeing someone analyze a show’s structure bothers you that much, it’s perfectly fine to scroll past instead of trying to police how other people discuss a drama. Have a good day as well!

Watching all 32 episodes is why someone forms a detailed critique, it’s not "insane" just because it differs from your experience. Saying "did you even watch" is just a lazy way to shut down conversation when you can't handle people having a different take on the pacing and execution.
Also, a predictable ending is about overall narrative trajectory, not whether a specific trope like a wedding happens or not. People are allowed to analyze a show critically without you invalidating their time or talking down to them just because they didn't love it as much as you did.

Funny how you latched onto one sentence and conveniently ignored everything else I said.

My review also said:

* Half the series was spent auditing.
* The story became repetitive.
* His friends added nothing to the plot.
* The supporting characters, including his friends and the woman he kept helping, didn’t contribute much to the story either and there were a lot of scenes with them in it.
* It was unnecessarily drawn out for 32 episodes.
* The tone was gloomy from start to finish.
* The ending was convenient and predictable.
* The male and female leads were wasted.

Yet somehow you skipped all of that and decided the police exam comment was the only thing worth responding to.

Even then, he wasn’t completely without support. Uncle Zhou, a father figure and police officer, was willing to help him. I never said his situation was easy, I said there were other avenues besides going back to Zhang Bin.

And the whole “you didn’t understand the story” comment is a strange conclusion to jump to and a pretty big assumption. Disliking a story’s pacing, tone, or narrative choices is not the same as misunderstanding it. Someone can fully understand a story and still think it’s repetitive, poorly paced, and not enjoyable.

You liked it. I didn’t. That’s all there is to it. Not everyone in this comment section is going to like it and that doesn’t translate to not understanding the story

Finally finished this, and I ended up not liking anything about it. It was just a whole lot of nothing happening. Half the time was spent auditing.

The guy could have just taken the police exam again, but instead he got involved with shady businesses. He was moody the entire time and barely did anything. His friends also added nothing to the story.

It was just really boring, ngl. I didn’t like the premise at all. I genuinely don’t know why I finished it. Maybe I was expecting some huge payoff, but the ending was just… there. Convenient and predictable.

Quite disappointed. A waste of both the female and male leads, in my opinion.

The audit made up the whole movie after they got over their parent's abandonment. It was just not fun to watch. Not quite sure why i finished it tbh. I was bored.

I am a fan of the actors, but not a fan of this premise. I dislike watching small town underground gang issues. so i am not enjoying this as much as i want. I am quite tired of this audit nonsense

Thank you so much for giving me better context. 🙏🏼

Poor continuity.

The abandonment issues in this series are outstanding. I have never seen parents abandon their children while still keeping in contact with them the way they do here, especially the FL’s mother. She acted more like a stepmom than her biological mother. I actually had to search online to confirm that she really was her mom.

So many scenes didn’t make sense to me either. They just happened, and I wasn’t sure why or how. The girl jumping from the roof felt so random. Locking him up also felt random because I don’t understand why he needed the boy for his meeting. That just wasn’t a good enough reason for me.

It was just a combination of so many things thrown together.

Once they got older, thank God it became a little more interesting, except for the heavily manufactured moments between them that were clearly there just to create tension. None of it happened naturally. 🫠 They also spent way too much time on their lives as teenagers when everything was much more interesting once they became adults.

I thought I would enjoy this, but I really struggled to finish it. With how confused I was, you would think it was my first time watching a Chinese drama, when I have been watching them for over 10 years.

It did get better towards the end, but only because I persevered. They really need to do better with the storytelling. I did like the chemistry between the leads, and that was honestly the only thing they had going for them. The series was just a combination of tropes we’ve seen before. It could have been much better, but for most of it, it just wasn’t it.

I actually enjoyed this. Not sure why people were angry about them not getting together sooner, I think it wouldn’t have been fun as much as it was. we saw it progress and that was better than them jumping into the relationship. It was very realistic the way it all progressed.