What an interesting drama. It took a while to grow on me for several reasons, and I’m not completely satisfied with the result, but by the latter half, it had me laughing out loud, tearing up, and rooting for these characters despite their decisions.

I think the theme of this drama was choice. It tried to convey through various storylines and characters how only you can choose how you live, how you interact with the world, and how you love. Only you have the power to control your life, and you shouldn’t let others dictate it for you — focus on who you want in your life, and let the haters and negative Nancys fall to the wayside. This theme is most explored in our main female character, Ke Ai.

She’s had a rough go of it, our Ke Ai. A top student who couldn’t attend university despite ranking number one in the entrance exams. Having to work and work and work just to pay off the minimum balance of a loan she didn’t even take out; her life is, needless to say, difficult. She has no agency, no choice in the matter, she’s just a slave to her family’s wrong decisions. Then, in walks our male lead, Zi Hao. He picks up her loan’s remaining balance and sets her life on a new path: Now she has to prove herself in a company setting — the job she would’ve probably would have had she not had to drop out of uni. Suddenly, she has some control over her life. She can choose to stay a lowly salesperson, which her current education dictates she should be, or she can climb to the top, where her ability and Zi Hao insist she belongs. It’s her choice — become the person society says she can be, or shun society’s expectations and become something more. It has slow character growth, but it's worth experiencing, I think. It takes a while to get to the meat of her insecurity and why she acts the way she does at the beginning, but I think they did a pretty good job of portraying how hard it is to defy and ignore the people who want to bring you down and believe in yourself in spite of them. Also, to let go of your own self-doubt and let the words of the people around you drown out your own mind’s constant buzz of insecurities.

Another interesting way it had the theme of choice is in its love stories. Of course, Zi Hao and Ke Ai’s love story is pretty conventional — can the lowly girl love the hot shot general manager of a big company? (Though I gotta say, Zi Hao is, overall, an amazing love interest whose support and belief in Ke Ai never wavers. He always has her best interest at heart and does excellently with the usual obstacles of this kind of love story: parents, coworkers, shareholders, etc.) The second leads, Zhen Yi and Zi Jie are much more unconventional and interesting with their choices and outcomes. The story of Zhen Yi and Zi Jie is especially unconventional, and trying not to put spoilers here, but the idea of gender fluidity was explored a bit, and while I think they used the wrong terms to identify some of their identities, they do a pretty good job of showing it’s not about a boy loving a girl, or a girl loving a girl, boy loving a boy, etc., it’s finding someone who you can connect with no matter what their identity. It’s looking beyond all of that and just seeing that person as themself, nothing more, nothing less. There are some points in this part of the story that are too cliché and outdated that they could’ve done without, but overall I think it was done in a thoughtful way.

Then there’s poor Lee Sean’s character, Xiao Gang, who never gets the girl in the end even though he always plays the most multifaceted characters. This time, Xiao Gang is pretty cut and dry — he’s just a really, really good guy who had a troublesome past and prevents him from seeking his own happiness. He’s constrained by his choices because he believes nobody will ever love him (because he wasn’t loved as a child), but eventually shows autonomy and fights for himself. Except, he chooses to honor Ke Ai’s choices above everything else. His choice is to put everyone’s happiness above his own, and in the end even though he’s not rewarded the traditional way, he does gain the family he had been missing his whole life (in a very, very touching scene that had me tearing up). In the end, we're shown the result of the choice he made and doesn’t regret (or, at least, doesn’t go back on it and keep pining after someone he’s let go of), which I admired.

To be fair, though, everything was not well with this drama. One of the biggest qualms I had at first was its tone. It swung from slapstick comedy to serious pretty frequently and without any warning, so the effect was pretty jarring. It had all the classic tropes of a TW drama with the endless sound effects, looping background music, and cliché storyline. The male lead, Zi Hao, is in a position of power over the female lead, Ke Ai, and he isn’t afraid to flaunt it (especially in the beginning), which can lead to some pretty cringy scenarios. Things like ordering Ke Ai to do things she didn’t want to do, forcibly setting up her life (albeit with good intentions) without discussing it with her first, picking her up over his shoulder when she refuses to go places — all of those things that can kind of work in fiction, but give an unsettling feeling because of their implications for real life. Nobody should be treated like a rag-doll without autonomy, and even though Zi Hao does these things with a kind heart, it doesn’t make them okay. This drama also suffers from a lack of communication between the two leads very frequently.

Another problem I had with this drama was its set up. It took waaaaay too long for me to actually care about these characters. That’s because their motivations and ways of thinking weren’t clearly established in the beginning. It took until about halfway for me to have any sort of investment or care about any of the characters. Before that, they were kind of just caricatures, doing things just because it’s expected of a romantic comedy to do so. For example, Zi Hao helps Ke Ai with her loan shark problem and sets her up with a job with his company. That’s all well and good, but we don’t really understand why he did that until much, much later (pretty much the last episode). We can guess that it’s because he likes her, or had a crush on her before, but it’s not clearly conveyed that that’s what’s going on. That’s just one example. There are several. And the tone problem I mentioned earlier doesn’t help much in the way of clearing things up, either. It’s not until the drama begins to settle down and have more serious scenes that it can clearly show us the reasons behind the character’s actions. I’d say Ke Ai suffers from this a lot more than Zi Hao does, but that’s probably because her whole situation is just more complicated than his overall. (Though their romance is super sweet, and their interactions with each other in that regard were done super well, in my opinion).

All in all, I enjoyed this drama despite its flaws. I never considered dropping it, though there were some scenes I wish the director/writer had done differently. It had a good building up of its romances (and some pretty steamy kissing scenes, if I may so so), and some interesting themes to explore. When it dove into explorations of those themes, it was very thought-provoking, and I found myself hanging onto the characters every word. But it could also be very shallow and cliché at times, seemingly forgetting all the deep scenes it had set up just a few minutes ago. I say watch it if you’re looking for a decent TW rom-com. It doesn’t really drag, the romance is cute, and its cast is quite easy on the eyes. ^^