This review may contain spoilers
The Romance Wasn’t Great But That’s Perfectly Fine!
DISCLAIMER: I wrote the majority of this review before I finished watching this series. I had many, many, many thoughts while watching and I truly needed to get them all out before I forgot.
As you can see by the title, the romance in this drama was half-baked and wholly underdeveloped BUT I still enjoyed it. As the resident romance girl, this is not my usual type of drama. I need my romance; I need to be able to inject it into my veins. Give me my fix! However, I didn’t mind the lack of a proper romance. It’s the most bizarre thing. Also, there may be a lot of contradictory thoughts in this review but I promise it will all make sense. Just remember what nuance means but also remember that two things can be true at once. We live in a world of shades of grey, so nothing is black and white.
Lu Jiaxue represents the decadent, seductive, and delicious darkness that we would all like to tap into. He’s batshit crazy! He’s absolutely, positively obsessed with Yining and it actually served for a rather interesting drama. I’ve never fallen prey to the Second Male Lead Syndrome but he got me. Somehow some way, he dug his claws into me! I founnd him intriguing and he actually checks off every checkbox when it comes to yanderes (for me). I have never, up until this point, watched a drama that has ever provided me with my favorite performance of this type of character. I’m very nitpickey and highly critical of everything when I watch dramas, so there’s always something missing when it comes to these types of characters in live-action dramas. Contrary to popular belief, I LOVE male characters like this BUT I’ve just never been presented with one in a live-action drama before and I’m kind of circling the drain as to what I should do with myself now.
The actor who played Lu Jiaxue was really good; this was my first time watching him in anything and I’m pleasantly surprised by his performance. I legitimately thought he was older than he actually was and I love that. He didn’t look like a pretty face adorable soft idol that we usually see in these dramas and that was a huge draw for me. His performance was so unsettling and unhinged, which suit the role very very well. A soft, pretty faced idol would not have been able to sell this role because this character required a level of insanity that most popular male leads of recent years have yet to achieve.
I say all that to say this – I started this drama for Zhang Wanyi, so my love for him combined with my fascination with Lu Jiaxue gave me very complicated feelings. Two things can be true at once and it’s important for us to remember that, yeah? While I started watching this for ZW, I can honestly say I enjoyed this love triangle a LOT. Typically, I haven’t enjoyed a love triangle since circa 2009. So yes, it’s been a LONG time. However, I enjoyed the complicated dynamics of these three characters. It was actually pretty exciting to watch and I never thought I’d say that.
But here’s where the contradictory viewpoints begin. While I did enjoy the love triangle, I can honestly say I didn’t ship Yining with either of these men. Isn’t that funny? I don’t know, but there was just something missing with Yining’s relationship with Shenyuan that didn’t hit the necessary notes for me. It wasn’t the idea that they were ‘siblings.’ [Spoiler alert: we know they have no blood relation to each other and weren’t even raised as such.] However, there was something about their interactions with each other that just didn’t do it for me. Chemistry is subjective, so some people may have seen some chemistry between them but I honestly don’t know if I would say they lacked chemistry. I simply don’t know and I’ve never been in this position before so I can’t explain it. I have nothing to compare it to.
Some others have mentioned that maybe it was due to the length of time it took the writers to allow them to grow as a couple. It’s like the writers didn’t allow the audience to watch the relationship blossom over time. It took too long to develop a reciprocal relationship. Sure, it’s obvious that Shenyuan is interested in her like that but Yining takes WAYYY longer to see him in that light. Shenyuan was arranging his last rites to leave all of his worldly possessions to her because he didn’t think he would survive what he intended to do; but earlier in the same episode, Yining was questioning what type of woman he was interested in. She assumed he was interested in someone but it never dawned on her that he was talking about HER, which means she wasn’t envisioning herself in that role with him just yet. And this was welll past the midway point of the drama.
(Sidenote: there were a few moments later in the series where he seemed like he wanted to tell her the truth and she would cut him off by changing the subject. It’s almost like she knew what he was going to say but she didn’t want him to say it. Those moments only served to confuse me even more when she randomly admitted to ‘fancying’ him out of the blue. There was no build-up on her part. She just randomly admitted it to her stalker in the heat of the moment and then she told Shenyuan.)
In her mind, this was still very much her brother while he’d stopped thinking of her as his sister episodes ago. And if we’re being honest, I don’t think he ever really saw her as his sister, even before he found out that they weren’t biologically related. Which is … asinine because no one would outright ignore their blood ties to their family even though said family treated them like crap. Like sure, you may cut off all contact with them because you want nothing to do with them but you wouldn’t go so far as to completely sever those ties long enough to become romantically and sexually attracted to someone who, for all intents and purposes, still shares the same blood as you. That makes no sense! Don't try to wrap your brain around this because it doesn't make any sense. So, the brother/sister angle isn't what makes this drama fall apart. No, that's too simple; it's much more complicated than that. It's the handling of that arc that makes the drama fall apart.
I watched Si Jin before this so I have to make the comparison. By this same point in Si Jin, the main couple were already locked in together. While the relationship wasn’t necessarily flawless, they were already exchanging love declarations and fighting enemies together as a team. Their relationship was blossoming and running concurrently alongside the overarching plot. That didn’t happen with this drama. The overarching plot was moving along nicely but the main couple’s relationship was moving at a snail’s pace. The romance was not moving and shaking like it should be. Honestly, while I loved seeing more of Lu Jiaxue, I DO agree that they spent way too much time on him and not enough time developing the relationship between the main leads.
As for Yining’s dynamic with Lu Jiaxue, the chemistry was definitely more potent. Watching the two of them interact was exciting and exhilarating. Their scenes together were the most interesting and enjoyable scenes in the entire series. However, Lu Jiaxue was chasing a woman who never truly existed. The woman [or girl] he fell in love with didn’t exist and I feel that he never truly accepted that, which is why he was so willing to obsessively search for her for God knows how long. I've seen some people say that he essentially groomed her and I can't honestly say they're wrong. I simply can't agree or disagree with the notion either though because the writers left so many unanswered questions about their earlier dynamic up in the air. Sure, we can posit that there's obviously an age gap here. I'm not arguing against that, but there's just so many things that were never quite clear.
Now that I've mentioned that, let's jump into some of these questions. 1) How old was Yining when she met Lu Jiaxue exactly? 2) How long were they "together" for Yining to admit that they loved each other? 3) When Lu Jiaxue showed up right after Yining fell off the cliff, had they been separated prior to that or what was that about? 3b) The man was blind the last time he’d seen Yining, which is why he didn’t know what she looked like, so when was his vision restored exactly? 4) After falling off the cliff, how much time had passed and where exactly was Yining hiding that whole time? She didn’t go back to the side yard but she also didn’t go back to the main yard. So … where was she that entire time? It’s obvious some time had passed so where did she go? There wasn’t much clarity regarding the timeline of their ‘relationship.’ The timeline was very hazy and convoluted.
Also, another unpopular opinion – I did not care for the secondary couple. They were cute, they were fluffy, they were a breath of fresh air. However, they did absolutely nothing for me. Nothing at all. I couldn’t connect with them. As individual characters, they were okay but I couldn’t resonate with them as a couple. I didn’t find them interesting. I skipped through most of their scenes the closer we got to the end. Besides Lu Jiaxue, my second favorite character was Lin Hairu. From the moment we met her, she just seemed like she was over everything and I deeply connected to that. Ultimately, everyone started to annoy me by the end of this series though. I mean, EVERYONE. I blame the writing because everyone suddenly became over-the-top caricatures of themselves by the last four episodes and I was over it.
Now, onto the questions everyone wants to know the answers to. Would I recommend it? No. Would I rewatch it? Also, no. The latter half of this drama was a STRUGGLE to get through. Also, pay close attention to my headline above. The romance in this drama is abysmal. This is NOT the drama to watch if you’re looking to get a pure romance fix. They took too long to get to the romance aspect of their relationship and they speed ran everything within the last 9-10 episodes of the drama. The overarching story/plot isn’t all that great either, if I’m being honest. I’m always picky when it comes to these 40-episode count dramas and I always approach these questions with that in mind. Do not waste your time with this unless you truly want to.
Memorable Quote -
“I’ve already married my Third Brother. I won’t leave with you.”
As you can see by the title, the romance in this drama was half-baked and wholly underdeveloped BUT I still enjoyed it. As the resident romance girl, this is not my usual type of drama. I need my romance; I need to be able to inject it into my veins. Give me my fix! However, I didn’t mind the lack of a proper romance. It’s the most bizarre thing. Also, there may be a lot of contradictory thoughts in this review but I promise it will all make sense. Just remember what nuance means but also remember that two things can be true at once. We live in a world of shades of grey, so nothing is black and white.
Lu Jiaxue represents the decadent, seductive, and delicious darkness that we would all like to tap into. He’s batshit crazy! He’s absolutely, positively obsessed with Yining and it actually served for a rather interesting drama. I’ve never fallen prey to the Second Male Lead Syndrome but he got me. Somehow some way, he dug his claws into me! I founnd him intriguing and he actually checks off every checkbox when it comes to yanderes (for me). I have never, up until this point, watched a drama that has ever provided me with my favorite performance of this type of character. I’m very nitpickey and highly critical of everything when I watch dramas, so there’s always something missing when it comes to these types of characters in live-action dramas. Contrary to popular belief, I LOVE male characters like this BUT I’ve just never been presented with one in a live-action drama before and I’m kind of circling the drain as to what I should do with myself now.
The actor who played Lu Jiaxue was really good; this was my first time watching him in anything and I’m pleasantly surprised by his performance. I legitimately thought he was older than he actually was and I love that. He didn’t look like a pretty face adorable soft idol that we usually see in these dramas and that was a huge draw for me. His performance was so unsettling and unhinged, which suit the role very very well. A soft, pretty faced idol would not have been able to sell this role because this character required a level of insanity that most popular male leads of recent years have yet to achieve.
I say all that to say this – I started this drama for Zhang Wanyi, so my love for him combined with my fascination with Lu Jiaxue gave me very complicated feelings. Two things can be true at once and it’s important for us to remember that, yeah? While I started watching this for ZW, I can honestly say I enjoyed this love triangle a LOT. Typically, I haven’t enjoyed a love triangle since circa 2009. So yes, it’s been a LONG time. However, I enjoyed the complicated dynamics of these three characters. It was actually pretty exciting to watch and I never thought I’d say that.
But here’s where the contradictory viewpoints begin. While I did enjoy the love triangle, I can honestly say I didn’t ship Yining with either of these men. Isn’t that funny? I don’t know, but there was just something missing with Yining’s relationship with Shenyuan that didn’t hit the necessary notes for me. It wasn’t the idea that they were ‘siblings.’ [Spoiler alert: we know they have no blood relation to each other and weren’t even raised as such.] However, there was something about their interactions with each other that just didn’t do it for me. Chemistry is subjective, so some people may have seen some chemistry between them but I honestly don’t know if I would say they lacked chemistry. I simply don’t know and I’ve never been in this position before so I can’t explain it. I have nothing to compare it to.
Some others have mentioned that maybe it was due to the length of time it took the writers to allow them to grow as a couple. It’s like the writers didn’t allow the audience to watch the relationship blossom over time. It took too long to develop a reciprocal relationship. Sure, it’s obvious that Shenyuan is interested in her like that but Yining takes WAYYY longer to see him in that light. Shenyuan was arranging his last rites to leave all of his worldly possessions to her because he didn’t think he would survive what he intended to do; but earlier in the same episode, Yining was questioning what type of woman he was interested in. She assumed he was interested in someone but it never dawned on her that he was talking about HER, which means she wasn’t envisioning herself in that role with him just yet. And this was welll past the midway point of the drama.
(Sidenote: there were a few moments later in the series where he seemed like he wanted to tell her the truth and she would cut him off by changing the subject. It’s almost like she knew what he was going to say but she didn’t want him to say it. Those moments only served to confuse me even more when she randomly admitted to ‘fancying’ him out of the blue. There was no build-up on her part. She just randomly admitted it to her stalker in the heat of the moment and then she told Shenyuan.)
In her mind, this was still very much her brother while he’d stopped thinking of her as his sister episodes ago. And if we’re being honest, I don’t think he ever really saw her as his sister, even before he found out that they weren’t biologically related. Which is … asinine because no one would outright ignore their blood ties to their family even though said family treated them like crap. Like sure, you may cut off all contact with them because you want nothing to do with them but you wouldn’t go so far as to completely sever those ties long enough to become romantically and sexually attracted to someone who, for all intents and purposes, still shares the same blood as you. That makes no sense! Don't try to wrap your brain around this because it doesn't make any sense. So, the brother/sister angle isn't what makes this drama fall apart. No, that's too simple; it's much more complicated than that. It's the handling of that arc that makes the drama fall apart.
I watched Si Jin before this so I have to make the comparison. By this same point in Si Jin, the main couple were already locked in together. While the relationship wasn’t necessarily flawless, they were already exchanging love declarations and fighting enemies together as a team. Their relationship was blossoming and running concurrently alongside the overarching plot. That didn’t happen with this drama. The overarching plot was moving along nicely but the main couple’s relationship was moving at a snail’s pace. The romance was not moving and shaking like it should be. Honestly, while I loved seeing more of Lu Jiaxue, I DO agree that they spent way too much time on him and not enough time developing the relationship between the main leads.
As for Yining’s dynamic with Lu Jiaxue, the chemistry was definitely more potent. Watching the two of them interact was exciting and exhilarating. Their scenes together were the most interesting and enjoyable scenes in the entire series. However, Lu Jiaxue was chasing a woman who never truly existed. The woman [or girl] he fell in love with didn’t exist and I feel that he never truly accepted that, which is why he was so willing to obsessively search for her for God knows how long. I've seen some people say that he essentially groomed her and I can't honestly say they're wrong. I simply can't agree or disagree with the notion either though because the writers left so many unanswered questions about their earlier dynamic up in the air. Sure, we can posit that there's obviously an age gap here. I'm not arguing against that, but there's just so many things that were never quite clear.
Now that I've mentioned that, let's jump into some of these questions. 1) How old was Yining when she met Lu Jiaxue exactly? 2) How long were they "together" for Yining to admit that they loved each other? 3) When Lu Jiaxue showed up right after Yining fell off the cliff, had they been separated prior to that or what was that about? 3b) The man was blind the last time he’d seen Yining, which is why he didn’t know what she looked like, so when was his vision restored exactly? 4) After falling off the cliff, how much time had passed and where exactly was Yining hiding that whole time? She didn’t go back to the side yard but she also didn’t go back to the main yard. So … where was she that entire time? It’s obvious some time had passed so where did she go? There wasn’t much clarity regarding the timeline of their ‘relationship.’ The timeline was very hazy and convoluted.
Also, another unpopular opinion – I did not care for the secondary couple. They were cute, they were fluffy, they were a breath of fresh air. However, they did absolutely nothing for me. Nothing at all. I couldn’t connect with them. As individual characters, they were okay but I couldn’t resonate with them as a couple. I didn’t find them interesting. I skipped through most of their scenes the closer we got to the end. Besides Lu Jiaxue, my second favorite character was Lin Hairu. From the moment we met her, she just seemed like she was over everything and I deeply connected to that. Ultimately, everyone started to annoy me by the end of this series though. I mean, EVERYONE. I blame the writing because everyone suddenly became over-the-top caricatures of themselves by the last four episodes and I was over it.
Now, onto the questions everyone wants to know the answers to. Would I recommend it? No. Would I rewatch it? Also, no. The latter half of this drama was a STRUGGLE to get through. Also, pay close attention to my headline above. The romance in this drama is abysmal. This is NOT the drama to watch if you’re looking to get a pure romance fix. They took too long to get to the romance aspect of their relationship and they speed ran everything within the last 9-10 episodes of the drama. The overarching story/plot isn’t all that great either, if I’m being honest. I’m always picky when it comes to these 40-episode count dramas and I always approach these questions with that in mind. Do not waste your time with this unless you truly want to.
Memorable Quote -
“I’ve already married my Third Brother. I won’t leave with you.”
Was this review helpful to you?
