1
depressed
Starts strong but gets messy; Cast and "old-cdrama" vibe should be only reasons to watch
This won't be a very detailed or comprehensive review - more of just thoughts after finishing the drama and hopefully it can help someone decide whether or not to start it.
The production quality is what you would expect from a 2012 drama. It was fine for the time but watching it now, you'll realize that it feels a bit dated. Office cdramas are becoming more and more common and China especially churns them out in bulk. If you want the "best" use of your time based on 2020 quality standards, this isn't it. Although new office dramas often are "brain-numbing" with their use of tropes and drag (especially ones to try and make them 40+ eps), unfortunately, this one is in the same vein. You'll find your common tropes: love triangle, detestable family members, naive female lead, SML that some people love while others hate, and office-politics (control over company, etc).
So what should be the reason to actually watch this instead of the more recent office dramas that have 8.0 and higher scores on MDL?
1) The actors and actresses. Zhang Han and Joe Chen are really the saving graces. They're both popular and acted their roles well. Godfrey Gao was very stiff. His looks are plainly one of the main reasons he was in this drama. His character is supposed to follow a redemption arc / growth arc but I don't think his performance was compelling enough. As a result, the love triangle from a viewers perspective was very one-sided. Other than his appearance, there wasn't much going for it and Zhang Han's character was obviously the better choice to root for. One neutral comment I have is that I liked that this wasn't dubbed for the leads, made the show seem more immersive. However, it's a mix of Taiwan and China actors/actresses so the accents differ and this might throw you off if you watched many c-dramas.
2) If you want to watch a show with that "feel" of an earlier c-drama. Although different premises, I want to compare this to Beijing Love Story (2008). It has that "early-stage c-drama" vibe which heavily relies on typical (and often frustrating tropes). Both were immensely popular with Chinese audiences when they aired so they definitely have something going for them (at least back then), but as for whether they're worth watching now, there are present-day choices.
3) The plot? Maybe you read the synopsis and thought it was very intriguing or the trope was something you wanted to see more of. For me personally, other than the cast, I thought it was going to be interesting to see the romance of a "hidden" best friend and how he protects her but then later on, FL flips the situation and helps him out. Unfortunately, this aspect was very underwhelming. The romance was average and as the show progressed, more of the cliche and frustrating tropes appeared. The romance and relationships take a backseat to the business politics. The show continues with the love triangle for way too long that it loses its freshness and interest. Lastly, the relationship of the FL and ML becomes messier and weaker (might be because of presence of SML, maybe the stubbornness of primarily the FL). The relationship feels driven by the ML while the FL, who was supposed to become a stronger character with a more active role did not seem to achieve that goal. In my eyes, the ML had the short-end of the stick (imbalance in the relationship) while the FL remains pretty naive.
Conclusion: I wouldn't recommend watching this show unless you want to watch for one of the 3 previous points (or you completely ran out of things to watch). It's watchable so I guess I can consider it aging well enough, but even modern day cdramas have very typical issues so older cdramas that aren't exceptional fall deeper with respect to these issues too (cliche, draggy, unrelatable characters, tropes, frustrating). Even with all these "flaws" I mentioned, it's by no means a bad drama, but consider alternatives if you're looking for an office cdrama.
The production quality is what you would expect from a 2012 drama. It was fine for the time but watching it now, you'll realize that it feels a bit dated. Office cdramas are becoming more and more common and China especially churns them out in bulk. If you want the "best" use of your time based on 2020 quality standards, this isn't it. Although new office dramas often are "brain-numbing" with their use of tropes and drag (especially ones to try and make them 40+ eps), unfortunately, this one is in the same vein. You'll find your common tropes: love triangle, detestable family members, naive female lead, SML that some people love while others hate, and office-politics (control over company, etc).
So what should be the reason to actually watch this instead of the more recent office dramas that have 8.0 and higher scores on MDL?
1) The actors and actresses. Zhang Han and Joe Chen are really the saving graces. They're both popular and acted their roles well. Godfrey Gao was very stiff. His looks are plainly one of the main reasons he was in this drama. His character is supposed to follow a redemption arc / growth arc but I don't think his performance was compelling enough. As a result, the love triangle from a viewers perspective was very one-sided. Other than his appearance, there wasn't much going for it and Zhang Han's character was obviously the better choice to root for. One neutral comment I have is that I liked that this wasn't dubbed for the leads, made the show seem more immersive. However, it's a mix of Taiwan and China actors/actresses so the accents differ and this might throw you off if you watched many c-dramas.
2) If you want to watch a show with that "feel" of an earlier c-drama. Although different premises, I want to compare this to Beijing Love Story (2008). It has that "early-stage c-drama" vibe which heavily relies on typical (and often frustrating tropes). Both were immensely popular with Chinese audiences when they aired so they definitely have something going for them (at least back then), but as for whether they're worth watching now, there are present-day choices.
3) The plot? Maybe you read the synopsis and thought it was very intriguing or the trope was something you wanted to see more of. For me personally, other than the cast, I thought it was going to be interesting to see the romance of a "hidden" best friend and how he protects her but then later on, FL flips the situation and helps him out. Unfortunately, this aspect was very underwhelming. The romance was average and as the show progressed, more of the cliche and frustrating tropes appeared. The romance and relationships take a backseat to the business politics. The show continues with the love triangle for way too long that it loses its freshness and interest. Lastly, the relationship of the FL and ML becomes messier and weaker (might be because of presence of SML, maybe the stubbornness of primarily the FL). The relationship feels driven by the ML while the FL, who was supposed to become a stronger character with a more active role did not seem to achieve that goal. In my eyes, the ML had the short-end of the stick (imbalance in the relationship) while the FL remains pretty naive.
Conclusion: I wouldn't recommend watching this show unless you want to watch for one of the 3 previous points (or you completely ran out of things to watch). It's watchable so I guess I can consider it aging well enough, but even modern day cdramas have very typical issues so older cdramas that aren't exceptional fall deeper with respect to these issues too (cliche, draggy, unrelatable characters, tropes, frustrating). Even with all these "flaws" I mentioned, it's by no means a bad drama, but consider alternatives if you're looking for an office cdrama.
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