This review may contain spoilers
Miscommunications + insecurities -> toxic yet enthralling relationship
The Early Spring is so far my favourite drama of 2026.
Flora is a young, hardworking woman hired by LIME, where she works under her authoritative and assertive boss, Luke, with whom she eventually becomes entangled. During this years-long situationship, they develop deep affection for one another, which is marred by misunderstandings, only fuelled by Flora’s naivety and her feeble attempts to gain clarification, and Luke’s pride and lack of empathy, as well as their combined lack of romantic experience.
Sun Qian and Jing Boran not only did an excellent job portraying their characters through realistic and natural acting, but also had amazing chemistry with one another.
All in all, their flaws make them feel very realistic, which is something that many other dramas fail to achieve. This also applies to the side characters, none of whom felt extraneous.
The only thing I would have loved to see more of would be Sun Yu’s and Zhang Lei’s career advancement. The drama focuses more on Luke’s help, but in the novel, the roommates actually play key roles in Flora’s business development.
As for the storyline, those who have read the novel will have noticed that the screenwriters changed and added certain scenes and scenarios. Although I’m usually not too fond of such changes, I actually think they did a great job this time round, as they managed to tie separate plot-lines and events together, helping the story flow better. The additional scenes also contributed to the romantic build-up, for example the scene where they got stuck in the mountains during a storm.
I also believe that the decision to adjust Luke’s character, thereby making him less of a red flag than in the novel, was the right call.
As for the parts that fell a bit short:
From the beginning, I was anticipating the couple’s period of separation, but when it arrived, I felt that it fell a bit short of my expectations. I would have loved for it to be stretched out more to emphasise the yearning and anguish, especially on Luke’s part. Reportedly, they had to cut the drama down from 32 to 24 episodes, so it would be interesting to know how it would have been in the 32-episode version.
Also, Linda’s and Yilia’s roles felt a bit too condensed. The writers could have used Yilia more to show how her presence fed Flora’s insecurities and essentially widened the rift between her and Luke, leading up to their breakup.
All things considered, I really enjoyed this drama and hope to see more modern dramas like it in the future.
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