phoenixfrost

Haha, that was a Dongfang Qingcang moment there at the hallway 😂 I just love how this drama keeps serving laughs in the middle of angst. Shi Yue is also low-key funny, being so clueless about what’s going on between Shi Yan and Shu Yi.

Shu Yi is among the most exasperating characters I’ve come across in cdramas. Her self-centeredness on New Year’s eve and her internal conflict in ep 26 stunned me, making me wonder whether I read the subtitles right or whether the subtitles were right.

Bai Lu deserves an acting award for making this flawed character somebody the audience can root for.

Looking forward to your review of ep 27 🙂

indeed! ☺️

Your goosebumps-inducing comment brings back how much I love this episode.

Episode 26 is a masterpiece. Many misunderstandings unravel but as many tighten their noose. It's a fast paced sequence of gripping revelations, comedic confusion and heartbreaking deduction.

Shu Yi is finally forced to be true to herself, though at a pivotal moment, when Shi Yan asks her to choose between him and her ex, she still manages to lie to herself. Grrr! The way she tells Shi Yan the truth but her internal struggle showing on her face makes it look like she is not truthful is a showcase of Shu Yi's frustrating labyrinthine psyche.

I also love the way Shi Yan tries to sound and look pathetic to his niece to wrestle information about Shu Yi's feelings about "the uncle" from her, and clueless Shi Yue, eager to be useful, is not aware of the misery she is inflicting on him when she tells him "the truth" that is far from it, tainted with Shu Yi's previous lies. Shi Yan's hand showing how the fight goes out of him is disheartening. Masterful writing!

Shi Yan's deduction that "what you wanted was never me" is utterly heartbreaking 😭 This is what breaks him. He can take Shu Yi using him for any purpose. What he can't take is the thought that she loves somebody else.

On the plus side, her guilt over her reasons for approaching him proves she's not as callous and insociant as she appears.

It’s not that we ignored your first comment line. It’s everything against what we believe to be fair and responsible judgement of dramas. Thus, in my comment, I pointed out what constitutes fair and responsible judgement - try to understand the story and don’t skip scenes. Nobody is disallowing you from just watching a few scenes of a drama. But do you really think it’s fair to REVIEW and RATE a drama based on just some scenes, without even trying to understand the story and characters? As somebody else pointed out, it’s like a judge who makes a decision without considering all known facts about a case.

Thank you, you took the words out of my mouth 🙂 Imagine rating a drama based on a few scenes 😣 Another proof of why drama ratings are not to be trusted 😣

She is an enigma, a conflicted and flawed girl. Not the typical perfectly sensible can-do-nothing-wrong cdrama female lead. Which is what gives this drama its unique and fascinating flavor. She thinks she has things under control, that she can be a heartless career-focused girl and can chase a guy to serve selfish interests. But her inherent good nature and heart constantly struggle with her fantastic notion of herself as a femme fatale. In all her dealings with men, she never gave any indication that she loved other men than Shi Yan. She only ever showed platonic feelings for Yu You and Yi Yang. So, deep in her heart, she was loyal to Shi Yan.

Then you shouldn’t have been bothered by the business talks if you were SINCERELY just looking for their scenes together. As it is, you came off sounding like the many antis who just want to pull this drama down.

Every episode has scenes that show how their relationship develops. You'll miss a lot if you skip scenes. The business talks serve to heighten the characters' dimensions. Through them you'll find out how intelligent and forward-thinking Shi Yan is, how intelligent Shu Yi is, how compatible they are in terms of intelligence, interests and values. By watching how Shi Yan stands up for a struggling start-up, you realize he's a loyal and dedicated nurturer. By witnessing how Shu Yi defends Shi Yan's principles when he was low-key insulted by a corrupt CEO, you'll realize why Shi Yan loves her so.

Skipping scenes will also be a deterrent to getting the feel of the characters and mood of the drama, especially the campy humor. If you are not able to get the humor, I doubt you'd appreciate this.

If you're not interested in the business talks and are planning to skip scenes, you might as well not watch the drama at all.

Only For Love is airing in a Korean platform right now and it's #1 in the platform!

https://x.com/bbbeee_my/status/1802609334578545018

There you go, it's clear what makes Dylan and Bai Lu stand-out in C-Ent. Their beauty comes from within 🥰 And that's the kind of beauty that can clobber any criticism of external physical flaws.

The speculation on the mean celebs are so close to mine! Well, I had three suspects based on what I had read on social media (before I swore off most of social media) but 2 of them are the same as reported.

They confessed to each other in ep 19

There are real eunuch characters in this drama. The ML's aide is one, and he has a romantic interest. The romance between the leads was based on a real-life scandal which is one reason this drama was strictly censored.

This drama was created before Dylan's popularity exploded in Love Between Fairy and Devil. There were no expectations about its performance. It is a low-budget drama which is probably why it dared to delve into taboo or unpopular themes such as an affair between a eunuch and a noblewoman as well as forgiveness instead of revenge. The artistic depiction as opposed to glossy, gaudy and bombastic touches of high budget dramas was actually what charmed me to this drama. Despite its low budget, this achieved high-budget-level success, performing better than many high-budget dramas. It is second only to The Knockout for the number of new subscribers to iQiyi.

try The Rational Life where he plays a sweet and fine young man.

i separate actors from their roles. For example, I loved Alan Rickman in Sense and Sensibility but didn’t like him in Harry Potter.

Kudos for being considerate to fans of dramas you don”t like. I try to do that too. When I don’t like a drama, I drop it quietly, I don’t even give it a rating, mindful that people have different tastes so I try not to ruin others’ enjoyment.

Had I depended on online scores for my drama selection, I would have missed a lot of my favorite cdramas that rated low on Douban like Princess Weiyoung and The Sword and the Brocade. Eternal Love also used to have a low Douban score but is climbing its way up. What I do now is watch the first few episodes and the last episode, if available, to decide whether to continue watching a drama through to completion.

These YXHs and similar entities that thrive on spreading fake news are choking social media to death. I have abandoned most social media except mdl and twitter. I'm staying on mostly to battle fake news.

Peter Ho was meant to play a disgusting psycho emperor. Since that was how you saw him, it means he did his job well, as what a good actor should do.

ikr? The story and characters are fascinating, unique and three-dimensional. Unfortunately, it seems cdrama fans prefer cookie-cutter stories and characters. I have gotten used to inaccurate drama scores, not only due to this preference of typical fans but also because of dirty politics in cdramaland where antis abound, rabidly rating down dramas of artists who are perceived as competitors of their favorites. Furthermore, a notorious breed of netizens called YXHs have popped up in China and probably has crossed to other countries. These maggots are paid to blacken or not blacken (for a price) artists and their dramas. So, I have stopped believing online drama ratings that are open to the general public. A lot of these ratings are too high due to rabid fans or too low due to rabid antis including paid netizens. Ratings that are just right are in the minority.

But no worries. This drama got its just reward. It is a low-budget drama that attained high-budget-level success. It is second only to The Knockout in terms of attracting new subscribers to IQiyi. And it’s among the most successful cdramas in 2023 that garnered more than a billion views during its run.

"Ambushed by her feelings" is indeed an apt description for her state of mind after meeting Shi Yan. She prides herself with being a career girl and probably never thought there would come a time when she would prioritize her heart over career. I love how subtly the drama showed her heart thawing. When the scandal about the shareholders in Shi Yan's company erupted, she was concerned about how Shi Yan was feeling, not giving a thought to how the news would affect her online magazine. The old Shu Yi would have had an opposite reaction. Distraugt over Shi Yan's coldness, she broke down at the office, in front of Yuling, of all people. Her emotions have totally taken over, making her ill.