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  • Last Online: Apr 22, 2018
  • Gender: Female
  • Location: American living in South Korea
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Odessa Jones

American living in South Korea

Odessa Jones

American living in South Korea
Falling in Love with a Rival chinese drama review
Completed
Falling in Love with a Rival
1 people found this review helpful
by Odessa Jones
Mar 1, 2018
8 of 8 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 8.0
Story 9.0
Acting/Cast 9.0
Music 7.0
Rewatch Value 6.0
Best thing about this show is that it's genuinely very funny. I've seen so many revenge dramas, but this is a revenge *comedy*. The ending is absolutely perfect and you will cheer that our hero got his (admittedly totally petty) revenge in a very funny way. Yeah, it's low-budget, but they do a lot with what they have. Great characters, including secondary characters like the doctor.

As boys' love, it doesn't always work, as a result of Chinese censorship. The editing gives the feeling that significant scenes and pieces of information are missing. But the writers still got away with a lot of refreshingly dirty dialogue and a bit of skinship. There's chemistry between the actors, although the comic nature of the plot downplays it.

Though I think strong seme/uke dynamics are often a dumb narrative shortcut, they don't bother me much here. The dynamics result in a silly, entertaining power struggle between the two main characters, who are reasonably well developed (for a comedy).

I don't recommend this show if you're looking for romance. That's not the emphasis.

I do recommend it, though, as a well-written sex comedy that plays around with the conventions of boys' love. It's sad that Chinese censorship and the new ban on gay content means that we can't see what Chinese writers and directors could do with the BL genre in future.
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