Kim Yoonmi 김윤미 金潤美

The writing is subtle on this drama, so if you're expecting bashing over the head with THE POINT, you're going to miss the best part of this drama, which is making fun of a lot of dramas. Gu Man, etc. Made fun of a drama from last Year "Our Secret" in a ton of ways.

It's skewering another drama in doing it that way: Our Secret from 2021. Some of the DNA is directly taken from that drama. This entire drama is a subtle subversion of the tropes of Chinese dramas. In this case, they really are capitalizing on making fun of some of the weaknesses from Our Secret with some love. In another words, you really need to be a Chinese Rom Com fan to understand why and how this drama functions.

The whole drama is satire of Chinese rom coms... I think that part of it went over your head?

lol I found another drama this drama skewered and instead of feeling the feels from that drama, I couldn't help laughing for five minutes straight at how brilliantly this drama skewered the other drama. (I'm still laughing). It skewered "Our Secret" (2021). At first I had doubts, but they purposefully matched the robot almost one for one on purpose, and used some of the plotlines from Our Secret and then subverted them. Sometimes one drama can ruin other dramas in the best of ways, and this is definitely one of those dramas.

I'm laughing when I shouldn't watching "Our Secret". If you want to complain how slow this drama is to get to the final confession, it took it from that drama to make fun of it. (not mean-spirited)

Other direct references are in the drama too--somewhat to Reply 1998 (Korean), Put Your Head on My Shoulder, Pretty much all of Gu Man's Modern Rom Coms, etc. The amount of meta in this drama is unbelievably high.

Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0Cs53jXbO0

His voice sounds lighter in tone?

They did make a point about it later on and why it happened. And they had a confrontation and talked it through. But I'm not going to spoil it. I thought the complex reasoning on why and so on could have been explored better, but the justification wasn't bad. It just needed more time to be played out. This is why I said there were some missed opportunities along the way and marked down to 7 on the writing.

But the complaints about the writing early on were not justified. That's because it was playing with given tropes, but no one seemed to pick up on that or give it enough patience to let it play through. And skipping around in this drama even over the parts you dislike really hinders your understanding of the drama. So if people were skipping, I could see how people would say it's written badly. But it's not. It's just really subtle about it.

Now for the other dramas like Eight Hours--skip to your heart's content. TT I regret not skipping some scenes.

And for Double Love it was cut really horribly and I did skip a few times without anything being affected.

Song of the Moon is just dull enough to double knit to.

But this drama isn't that variety. And everything you watch does pan out later and get explained through character very well.

What plot?

FML goes into the world to save MML, but they forgot there was an objective for this around episode 15.

The events make no logical sense. She went to the company to get into the server room, and then totally forgot she had to do that and even told the MML that was her objective and then he didn't do anything either, but spent the rest of the episodes after forgetting her needed his own finger prints getting drunk, etc.

And then they got married in the game, then there wasn't any follow up.

And for a while SML was pining after the FML, but then turned all evil for no reason which was inconsistent with the previous story.

The entire show falls apart. It's so bad me and another person watching it and hanging on are making fun of how terrible it is.

The whole thing ran out of plotting as if they didn't know what to do to get him out of this virtual world a long time ago.

I've put up with some terrible plots in my lifetime, but this one forgot everything in the first half as if they threw away the scripts.

And mind you, I know Chinese plotting very well, and there is none here. I know about different story structures and no, this is not even following qichengzhuanhe well. It's not even following xiqu. I got no idea what it's trying to do. They are inserting filler after filler without rhyme or reason.

Even the other commenter was like, "Hey, lots of inexplicable staring here." And I said, "Well, at least you have lots of flashbacks." (Also filler) (BTW, we were joking)

There is a random amnesia plot cut into the show which has no connection to anything. And the side plots are head scratchers. WTH do I care about the evil people's love plot? Iunno, but they threw it in there anyway. 'cause they could. lol People who watched it early on gave up except me and another watcher.

The good parts of it don't make up for the terrible writing--the acting is OK, and the directing is pretty good. I do like the disability subplot they had going for a while showing that it isn't easy to rehabilitate, etc. But the majority of it is trash and they should have figured out how to focus only on the fantasy world.

It's so bad that I'm tempted to compare it to my Uncle's B-movie, which at least is interesting and has somewhat of a legible plot. (He dunks on it too) This one doesn't after episode 15-ish. What happened to all those solutions and why did they return the body to the lab? Just because they couldn't figure what else they could do with the characters.

Avalanche. It's like a meal that looks pretty and then you're all excited, then you find out it's raw in the middle.

The usual set up of Zhao Qian Qian 's shows are that English/Lit/Humanities student of some sort, really interested in writing stories is in love with Top tier cold-hearted, but smart Science type.

They took this trope and twisted it. So now, it's girl that has science abilities too in a medical field, so she probably will be a top-earner. Later, she discovers she's not "doing it for men" but herself, which brigs back some feminism. This spins it away from Qian Qian's usual plotting.

Similarly with Gu Man... Gu Man's typical plot involves, lowly girl chases after top guy who is good at everything. And everyone CARES A LOT about the rumors. Love OXO is like this. The first two episode play heavily with the trope, but then spin it on its head quickly and make it so that the FML, Lu Wan Wan, doesn't really want the relationship, and Ren Chu, ML, doesn't really want it either, which then induces laughs as they try to get out of it.

The drama plays with other tropes along the way and then *exposes* the problems with them, questions them, subverts them, and then manages to ask questions about it.

The acting definitely helps this along with exaggerated versions of some of the character types. Admittedly, you won't get this if you've not consumed enough Rom Coms. But if you have the skewering of rom coms is a lot of fun. They even feature some of the rom coms they reference while lovingly making fun of them.

In this way, you discover that Lu Wan Wan is competent, but super timid. And Ren Chu is maybe too confident and too narrow-minded. So together, they don't have one who feels superior to the other and they genuininely work on problems they have together for one another. Seeing two introverts on screen is refreshing to me. Most of the time they make one an extrovert.

Plus Ren Chu's shut downs on Second Female Leads are hilarious. Most of the Second leads don't survive that well in some of the funniest scenes.

So yes, the writing is good, but probably won't suit those who like their humor low brow, slap stick, obvious, done a thousand times, or haven't watched enough Chinese rom Coms to get the jokes. Writing I'd rate a 7/10. Some minor missed opportunities. Acting is around 8-9/10. Directing is well-matched and also rate about 8-9/10.

The missed opportunity, to me, is seeing better the motivations of the evil women in the show. I keep hoping they subvert the flat trope and no motivation.

Edit: They did add some motivation for one of the SFL later, but I thought it could have been slightly done better. They then took shots at the "Best friend knows love better" trope in the sweetest way possible. Every subversion comes with sweetness and a better message about love.

I disagree that this drama is fluff. It's taking a lot of shots at rom coms with love, and sure, the humor is subtle, subversive and deadpan, but it makes me laugh harder. No one is keeping track of how many dramas they've skewered during the course of this drama?

The writing is pretty good, but it's not low brow, obvious type of humor.

The acting, the directing and the writing are fairly good. But I admit you kinda need to have watched a fair amount of Chinese Rom Coms to get some of the jokes they push under your nose.

They take shots at Gu Man. They take shots at Zhao Qian Qian. they make a ton of references at Rom Coms, and then the humor is taken from taking those tropes and subverting them until you're spinning and trying their best to give it an unexpected or realistic twist to it.

Is the drama "Perfect?" No. But for every trope they tackle, they make fun of it with a lot of love.

The drama I've decided is more like Taro flavored cake. Has some substance, but did you expect the taro to be there? No. Why is the taro there? It's not a cotton candy drama with all sweetness and fluff and it does thematic development around its theme well, such that the second-hand cringe is high.

They also take direct shots at Rom Coms without feminism considered several times over, shooting dead center of what is wrong with that ideology, but disguising it through awkwardness of first love. And for its subtle hand I like this drama. I'll post examples in the spoiler reply.

I hope I don't eat my words later, but First Love (Chinese drama) 2022 is doing pretty well. No immense cut scenes, so far, and contrary to the reviews on the show, I think the writing is pretty good. I do admit you won't get the majority of the jokes if you have't watched enough Chinese Rom Coms, but if you are a junky, you'll recognize the subversions and references the drama makes. The humor runs a bit deadpan and super subtle, but if you get it, it's a laugh every episode, at least. The drama takes the most shots at Gu Man's previous works, but with a lot of love, I think. There's also shots fired at Zhao Qian Qian's Put Your Head on My Shoulder and other oddball references to Rom Coms, but it's played subtlely. So it might take the typical trope, and instead of playing through the usual trope end, it might give it a more realistic flavor. It also fires shots at dramas that don't take a feminist stance along the way, which I honestly love through the subtle subversions and poking fun at them (But again, with love). It easily passes the feminism tests by the end of the second episode, I would say, though most of them pass by the first. (Mako Mori gets a clean pass later. Sexy Lamp and Bechdel gets passed in the first episode)

The MML and FML have good chemistry, the directing has some special flourishes I like, and it's kind of refreshing to have the characters both competent/awkward in the relationship, but in different ways and also introverts? The Second and third relationships aren't boring and manage to say something new about First Love, as a theme. The Forth one is kinda required, but they background it hard because they know it is annoying. So try it if you are a rom com junkie.

It is Slice of Life, so it might seem slow. It's not a heart pounder, but it definitely delivers on feels.

Love triangle between FL, ML and SML. I wouldn't recommend watching, because it has a good start and then becomes increasingly nonsensical. It's not "turn off your brain." type, it's more like you have to deliberately shut off your brain cells while you go "Wait, what happened to XYZ subplots?"

I'm powering through Episode 24. TT Rescue me from this chasm. It would have been better if it were 8 hours long.

She makes commentary about it in the voice overs that she already liked him, but in the flashbacks, it shows he especially went to attend her competitions, but neither got a chance to chase the other, but it shows that it is mutual by about episode 8. He flirts back with her in episode 9, and then by episode 10, they both have hints the feelings are mutual.

It's actually mutual love at first sight. But you don't find that out until a little later. But yes, fast romance.

Overall, it's a "I need to burn time and I'm doing other things" sort of drama. If you squint hard, it's easy to pick up some errors. Programmers are going to be frustrated watching this drama besides the blind worship of them (lol the jargon. Someone is hacking your system and you talk about data sets? BTW, this is not part of the problem, so is not a spoiler.) But if you kinda want something to numb your brain for a time, it's not a bad drama.

Drama starts fast and then slows down to take stock for quite a few episodes.

Plot summary of the first episode (Loose one so it doesn't have major spoilers). 'cause it's not clear.

Ye Tian, a game designer and gamer, has always been a gaming competitor for Bai Wei, a professional gamer, ever since they met. After taking the gaming champion title back from Bai Wei, Ye Tian disappears. Bai Wei sets out to discover why. So she sneaks into the hospital where he is staying, and finds his body and a console. She discovers that he is trapped in a game of his own design, a world called Pangu, and wants to escape. Bai Wei becomes determined to help him to escape the game and come back to his body, but in doing so, finds love with him.

As I said, it's only based on the first episode. 'cause beyond that people scream "Spoilers, how dare you," etc.

Synopsis based on watching first episode only:
Xiao Wu is playing as the double for the Main Female Lead character on the set of Sword Saint, a Wuxia drama, but through an accident, kisses the main lead, Zhao Luchen, the main lead. Wu Di, who is playing the main lead, but can't do maritial arts, has a crush on Luchen. Wu Di and Xiao Wu fight every day on set.


Xiao Wu happens to be a writer, and when Luchen reads her novel, which turns out to only be a premise, it turns true.

Adopting a nephew--I don't think there is precedent in Korean history. There is a case of a Queen (new one) adopting the King's son. But it's likely he'll be regent unless he becomes despot.

Did you mean the crown prince is out of the picture? BTW, it's Seongnam corresponding to: 성남. Seongnam is how it's spelled in Revised Korean romanization, which is the government standard.

Seongnam would be regent, until the Grand Heir comes of age. They might kill the Grand Heir for labor law reasons though. TT I saw other shows where they clearly did it for that reason.

The top added description has a spelling mistake... "losing" not lossing. Plus there are factual errors. Wang Zheng is the name of the idol, not the King/Emperor. The Emperor hasn't been given an official name yet. There is extraneous prose as well.

So editing it...

After losing everything in her life, Yao Liang Liang's apartment fuses with the Emperor's of an ancient kingdom allowing them to travel to both worlds. There she meets a future emperor, who coincidentally looks like her favorite idol, Wang Zheng. And she looks like his former betrothed, who has gone missing. So they make a pact--he'll give her money which she needs, and she'll act as his Queen. But as they help each other gain what they want, they also fall in love.

(This should be shorter than the more detailed one I wrote below, but at least it isn't wrong, has spelling errors and extra wordy.)