This was a well made drama.

Dilraba shines again! As she shows her acting range as our heroine lead as Li Chang Ge.

She goes through loss, grief, growth and love through the story, making friends along the way.
They evolve her character as a immature tomboy who eventually grows to be a wise strong woman.

As she goes on a quest of revenge, and finding her purpose, she eventually learns the secret about her mother and her father+ uncle. She does everything for her country, even though they've gone after her life, persecuted her, out casted her. Eventually she's able to let go of the hate near the end, and is able to find peace & happiness with her life moving forward which was what her mother wished for early on.

It was confusing at first how they started the familial conflict leading to bloodshed, maybe it could've been explained better other than hinting that bad omen was coming.
Personally I've had some gripes initially of how they wrote Mimi's character, which was frustrating at first because of her actions/behavior but the writes in turn use that as a moment to evolve and build Chang Ge by using the situations as tactics and showing her resiliency.

Even Minister Du finds light, even though he was hell bent on getting rid of Chang Ge, even though some of the minsters probably knew what happened between Lady Jin & Li Simin's history. Not sure what his motivation was or how the point of going after Chang Ge with Hao Du (the adoptive son) drove the storyline other than the fact Chang Ge needed to keep moving from one place to another.

Wei Shu character is probably the only one that missed out, on one hand he was being crushed on by Princess Le Yan but only viewed her as a sister, on the other side he probably had feelings for Chang Ge but could not be honest with himself, and also leaned towards sense of duty than his own feelings.

They do payoff most of the storylines that were created, which gives the audience a sense of closure as well as peace.

If theres something to be learned is not to act rashly, not to let your ego get the best of you as it go to Chang Ge early on, and eventually led to Khatun's own downfall, as there is a much bigger picture that you probably can't grasp.

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The story started familiar to another chinese movies that was on Netflix, which was the female lead vandalized the male leads car without knowing who the guy was by accident. They eventually meet do to a series or circumstances, and its her cooking that attracts the guy, who's diet was instant ramen because he couldn't eat anything else.

Dating in the Kitchen was just like that, Gu Sheng Nan is a cute young aspiring cook who by accident vandalizes a strangers car that she was getting revenge for her bestie, but gets the wrong guy. Due to a series of mishaps the two end up meeting due to a fire accident in the side kitchen, as the main lead Lu Jin was a prospective buyer of the hotel, that Gu Sheng Nan worked at, by chance all the other dishes sent to Lu Jin all were not to his taste but her fried rice she made for her coworker suited his palate.

The drama was fun, but with these romantic comedies, they tend to end up being frustrating because they usually follow the stages of love discovery, admitting to love, then challenges to their relationship. Given the social status difference between Gu Sheng Nan & Lu Jin, the story did have its annoying points.

It was quick that their first love challenge Cheng Zi basically bowed out, even though they had the longest friendship, and then introducing Lu Zheng, the half brother who was fighting for his father's legacy as well as messing around with Lu Jin's fiancée at the point of the story was over dramatic.

They eventually migrated from "dating" in the kitchen to other areas to further the story, which doesn't hold true to the title. If it was more "As: I Like You, This is Not What I Expected" as alternatives then they could push the other story plots better.

Zhao Lu Si does a very good job, she's a cute actress in her female lead. Lin Yu Shen also does a good job as the cold hearted serious business first guy.

I wished they did more with the cooking, i think many people would enjoy the thought process, and recipes that would be shown during the process. While its not a cooking drama, it could've used abit more in that environment as the show runner title. Introducing the other points just extends the drama unnecessarily except for the providing fillers and giving the other cast members more of a role. Yes the points to develop the relationship further, but it also makes the story messier to clean up. Like in the case of the half brother trying to steal his older brothers fiancée out of the blue, even though he respected him and didn't really care for her until he was motivated to try to keep his dying father's last wish/legacy.

Overall the show started strong, but then started to wane as it move away from the kitchen to develop other characters, and introduce challenges to their life. It felt like they took a simple romantic comedy and overcomplicated it to make more episodes.

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A story about multiple revenge, and hatred that has built up, meanwhile Jiang Li gets caught in the middle of it.

Probably overly dramatic story plot where girl has crush on boy, who doesn't return the favor.
Eventually the girl gives up, and falls in for another guy years later, who's trying to get revenge for his father.

In the end its a love tragedy where no one wins.

11 episodes is short series compared to other dramas, so alot of the plot has to be sped through and then paid off.

Its hard to get attached to one character in the story, you can feel bad that things happened but everyone has ulterior motives, while Jiang Li is just a girl looking for love, unforeseen things happened, where shes not innocent, but she didn't deserve all that punishment either.

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If you're into the recent trend of e-sports dramas, this is the show for you.

Its a light hearted drama that covers the e-sports world from the challenges of the female perspective, in a predominately male dominated industry. While its not entirely about the e-sports world, it focuses on some of the challenges people go through, whether its your gender, your health, life-style, family, mental state well being, as well as gossip news, and especially the challenges of being a female. The drama doesn't over emphasize it, but in today's society at least with Riot Games League of Legends there is high level of toxicity towards players if they know you're female.

The drama was very fun, it had its serious points in order to develop the characters, as well as plot by introducing team as well as personal challenges. It covered both e-sports but also offered a fun romantic comedy that wasn't overdone, but remained within the confines of the story.

Cold hearted guy Li Cheng melts as he gives into his feelings for Tong Yao (Fall into Smiling), which changes him from the guy you saw at episode 1 to the last episode. The chemistry between the two leads was fun, but also not frustrating especially when you're trying to one is hot the other is cold/lukewarm on expressing themselves.

Within the story you see Li Cheng grow with his feelings, even though he started out as a cold hearted guy, and Tong Yao develop as a noob to a professional esports gamer. The animations of the gameplay helped dramatize the battles, which are well done. The other characters like Xiao Pang & Lao Mao provide comedic relief and balance to the cast/team. The plot didn't have any noticible holes, as they addressed most of the points the story brought up.

The pacing of the story was good, it didn't seem overly rushed for the 31 episodes, is there enough story for a second season? Would it be enjoyable as this one? Who knows , but it would be interesting to see that happen as the team is pushing for International aspirations, as well as setup the stage for more female e-sport players.

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I had mixed expectations of watching Love & π. I took a break between the first 10 episodes and the last 7.
Watching back to 1989 with Ivy Shao, I had high hopes for this drama.

The drama focuses on realism in most of its aspects which the struggles of the everyday person, the up and downs of life, and the challenges brought before you. The realism is fine, but not entirely sure if thats what some viewers would like to see when they are looking for a drama.

While there is room for a happy ending, people did suffer along the way.
This wasn't your typical romance, comedy, while it had it's moments, personally wasn't as appealing as other dramas I've recently watched.

I've seen Ivy & Ben in previous dramas, and they finally get their romance together in this pairing.

The story could do a better job transitioning the time jump in years, even with a bit of subtitle mentioning 3 years later rather than the character eluding it to it abit down the story. Hou Zhi's character was abit out of place, many times often the 3rd wheel trying to find his place in the world, not being himself, and then ended up with the bad fate in the end. Does it take someone's misfortune to make people realize and reconcile their problems, could the story have gone another way.

While the title is called Love & π, theres many instances and expressions of love, π is not clearly defined, if π is meant to be circle, then where you started is where you ended up given both Wu Xian + Yuan Yuan, and then Sun Zhi+ Lin Mei. They probably could've done a better job to close it all together for the audience. Its a good story, but if its meant to be something much deeper & more meaning the delivery needs improvement.

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The story falls into your typical drama setup, and given the popularity of adding gaming into the story has been popular especially in 2021 when both You are my Glory, & Love Scenery were released, and previously Kings Avatar, Love O2O.

Both LuLu Xu and Lin Yu deliver good performances as the main characters.

Is this a cheat code to dating a celebrity? No, but it leaves it to the imagination of potential possibilities
Even Dilraba' & Yang Mi's names were mentioned during the drama.

Obviously the selection of music is limited during a drama, however it being about music especially when Liang Chen enters the TV show competition, they could've maybe added1-2 more songs to add more diversity.

It was a good heartfelt drama, with not too many negative moments. While there are some adversities, such as image, other love interests, they were not excessively pushed as other dramas have done.

Its interesting that they met in the first episode during a flashback moment, where Lin Yu's character remembers because that's probably his first time hearing her music, and eventually developing his celebrity crush, but Liang Chen doesnt. While it was also obvious how Lu Jing discovers who Little Box was because she forgot to turn it back on, if you missed that scene they never really recap/explain it again.

The test of any relationship is long distance, at least in drama. It was evident in "You are my Glory", and it brought back nostalgia when Lin Yu in "Put Your Head on my Shoulder" left to go abroad for sometime, and then eventually came back.

Overall, it was a warm but simple romantic comedy. The soundtrack it what originally led me to watching the drama (Liu Yuning did the intro song for You are my Glory, and credits song PYHOMS)

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The drama was very well written with multiple story/plots inserted that were paid off.

Not particularly interested in Chinese Fantasies & haven't seen Eternal love from 2017 to understand the context of this drama as many characters were carried over, in some cases their personalities do differ slightly.

It does fall into the drama-sque scene, as the heroine over time is able to whittle down the the male lead's cold emotion-less heart over centuries of time and turned him into love sap.

Jumping from one story to another you had to remember certain key points, which they pay off, which was very considerate not to leave the viewer hanging, and gave a sense of closure to the story.

Maybe the only thing missing was going abit more into Bai Feng Jiu's ancestral powers/background and her fox powers, which they basically held off to the very end, given that they basically have access to fate, and all sorts of knowledge, something like this should've been known or documented.

If the author's goal was to make Bai Feng Jiu the key to Dong Hua's unlocking heart, and the key to solving his problems, they accomplished that. Dilraba plays Bai Feng Jiu's role well into the context of the story defined/time/societal role, it does not show case her wide range of talent as her previous work, but she shines as the main character.

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The story became somewhat predictable, where people meet, get stuck together due to unfortunate circumstances, then eventually fall for one another. All the guy had to do was call his mom, and the whole story would've been different. The plot/basis of the story is similar to other works that have been done before, so it lacks originality.

Compared to the dramas and their length, theres not enough time for character development.

Its a nice movie to watch, personally I prefer to see Dilraba's work in dramas where she can develop her character and shine.

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The story development between both main characters were well done., the areas of improvement was the whole Company v Company war that was on and off. The friends/side character romance was abit annoying to watch, mainly because of their immaturity/behavior.

Dilraba & Johnny does shine in this drama, having seen Dilraba's work out of order from You are my Glory to Hot Girls to Sweet Dreams to Pretty Li Hua Zhen definitely shows her range of acting prowess, as well as ability to captivate the audience's attention. I would rank her performance here 2nd behind You are my Glory.

The one area they could've gone into more about was how the two companies got into competing, other than the fact one guy wanted to get revenge for Si uei, the daughter of one of their teachers that passed tragically. That story was brushed over, even though that's the main reason those two companies got into fighting one another to start with. Otherwise their feud is very pointless, as Bai Sai's chairperson eventually just gives up because (1) his competitor helped save his butt (2) his wife was about to divorce him. So the reason for all this feuding has to be significant like Bai Sai wasn't favored by So Yue, or they were ex lovers and she passed, so he was bent on revenge or something.

Regarding with the conclusion, it ended where it started which was perfectly fine, not everyone will find love & happiness, some are destined to keep searching. I did like how they kept to the title of the show, which was Love Designer, which could have several meanings ofc.

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Yang Yang & Dilraba have amazing screen chemistry together, which made the story much more enjoyable and heart warming.

Coming from someone who's seen Kings Avatar, and haven't seen any of Dilraba's work prior to You are my glory, I enjoyed the gaming aspect that was part of the plot for the first half of the story.

The first half was primarily about Dilraba's character. The "glory" was Yangs character, while the 2nd half was more about her being his glory.

I can understand those who can relate to China's space race from a sense of pride/honor standpoint, however it was boring story plot direction for myself, but they needed to go towards this route to lean on the "glory" theme.

Overall I enjoyed their chemistry together, and would've loved to see more development of their relationship.

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Having watched You are My Glory, Hot Girl, & Diamond lover, i'm impressed with Dilraba's range of acting.

The story started off strong with its quirkiness and romantic comedy aspects, as the episodes went the audience was more drawn towards Zhang Vin's character, as they developed his relationship and personality more. In comparison to Peter Sheng, who was basically hung up on his old image of the girl from his memory., only to realize the girl he wanted was always in front of him.

They probably could've developed the female lead + her old friend who came back for her relationship further, instead of banking on 10 year memory of each other. Zhang Vin's character from a story standpoint was kind of annoying, behavior was over PDA, which would question would someone really be able to act like this in society, or over dramatization for a story point.

The major love challenge was getting together, usually there are two obstacles, in your typical drama, getting together and finding ways to keep together through obstacles. The latter they kinda rushed through, would've loved to see them develop things further.

Overall the first 20+ episodes were good, the story hit a drag point where they didn't develop explore the relation further, other than use the typical distance move, get back together and then phase out, which many dramas have a tendency to do.

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Having watched Eternal love of dream before watching Eternal love there are differences to the story.

Both stories are centered around the female lead primarily of the Bai/ Fox Clan.

The flaw with stories is how they jump time, its more voiced that a character is going thru a t trial, or that 1 day is 1 year etc.

In terms of the story and plot of Eternal Love it appeared more fluid than Three Lives, Three Worlds, The Pillow Book 2020 version.

Both stories ended on positive notes, and in some cases happy endings.

Changing casts for Eternal Love vs Three Lives, Three Worlds, The Pillow Book/ aka Eternal love of Dream did make inconsistencies to the story, if it was intended to be a sequel there appeared to be major flaws, as the stories can overlap, there was no need to. (I.E. Wayne Liu's character is Kunlun, but hes demon prince in Love of Dream)

Eternal love is more on a serious story note than Eternal love of dream in terms of the main character.
Did we need Dong Hua *& Bai Fung Jei 's story in Eternal Love, no. It seemed more like a filler/side story that drama tend to over use. Like how in Love designer drama, personally I didn't care for the BFF's romance, at many times it became annoying, Eternal Love didn't get to the annoying state with Vengo + Dilraba's characters, but from a script/story standpoint probably unnecessary, given that they ended up with their own story plot in Three Lives, Three Worlds, The Pillow Book/ Eternal Love of Dream, where they dive much deeper, and didn't even have any continuation from Eternal Dream.

Su Jin/ and Xuan No's roles did get annoying over time, Bambi Zhu did play similar beotch/ jealous type role in Sweet Dreams also,, while understandably Su Jin's role was she'd do anything for love, even though Yeh Hua basically figured her out the whole time, but gave her space.

Overall, it was very enjoyable to watch, more so that Three Lives, Three Worlds, The Pillow Book, even though I've been watching these fantasy dramas purely to see Dilraba's performance.

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The story is pretty weak, if your in it for watching the stars, or looking for a cuteness out of the couples its fine.

They reused the office building that was in the previous drama "Use for my Talents (2021)" which was a better drama than this.
Yi Da Qian gets more of a better role here than Love Designer, but the relationship they set him up didn't care much for.
Imo, they tried to make Jiang Yi Cheng's character style look too much like Yang Yang's, which didn't seem unique or appealing.
Bambi Zhu got to star in her own drama, in a role where she didn't act like a beotch like in Eternal love or Sweet Dreams.

The story starts off strong, but rapidly changes as Li Lu no longer is able to continue her ploy as she gets exposed. It then follows the typical drama plot where you try to get the cold hearted guy to break and fall for you, and then eventually when it happens, they have trouble maintaining that love.

Love causes you to do alot of dumb things, but Li Man's character was just too full of it, making things too obvious, especially without someone who has abit of power/money, she could get other people to do the dirty work. Her story could've been better worked out, chasing after a man who's married recently doesn't make much sense, especially if you've disappeared without a word for 3 years, after causing a workplace mess, if you think you can just "slide right in" then there are obvious problems. Also, anyone knows if you delete something from a computer server there are log in records, data backups, besides the camera they had focused on the work area so they had plot issues.

The story eventually diverges from programming as it focuses more on the main characters relationship, then jumps back near the end with Li Lu starting the tutoring program.

The ending with the issue with other company was rushed, and seemed more like they just wanted to tie loose ends with the story, which is a pacing and design issue.

The drama suffers from a lack of organization, as it has diverging stories that they all try to pay off in the end.
At many points it just felt frustrating to watch because the story wasn't vetted out, mistakes were obvious.

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