It's good enough to kill time

If you like in-house fighting, ensemble casts and multiple plots this might be the one for you. The first few episodes almost turned me off. It was messy for lack of better words. But once you get passed it, things started getting better.

It's my first time seeing Ren Min in anything but I've seen many people praising her acting chops before. So color me surprised that I find her acting only passable here. Plenty of it has to do with her line delivery. (I've seen many comments on her high pitched voice but that's a non-issue for me, how can I fault her over something she's born with.)
Instead her intonation and inflection feel flat to me and lack of emotion. This flaw is especially exacerbated because her dance partner in this drama Zhang Wanyi is streets ahead of her in terms of voice acting. It's one of his strong points. This is one of the rare instances that made me wish they dubbed the FL. In terms of acting, many times I feel like she's cosplaying here. When I'm told by the script that the FL is smart, I expect layers but her Luo Yining lacks depth and charisma. It's a pity because I have a feeling that this is not her in her full capacity.

Zhang Wanyi is an excellent actor. And I have to give him the most credit because he’s my biggest motivation to keep tuning in. As an actor he's grounded, understand his character well, and very good at conveying emotions through his expressions and small gestures. In this drama I want Luo Shenyuan to succeed more than anything, for his family who always looks down on him to eat crow and for his enemy to fall.

The chemistry and rapport between the leads are nice and easy which I think is fitting because they started as faux siblings.

Lu Jiaxue is supposed to be a domineering character and Chisa did a good job to make me feel really annoyed at how overbearing and oppressive Jiaxue is.

As an ensemble drama, the other supporting characters are good and mostly suited their roles. You'll like the ones you're supposed to root for and will most probably hate those you're meant to hate.

In conclusion, this series is a bit frustrating for me because it has potential to be so much more, but it's not. But the good parts outweighed the bad parts so it's still worth to check out.

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