Love and Redemption is easy to get into as there is a nice pacing throughout the beginning of the story, accompanied by nolstagic bgm and a strong male lead who is able to convey emotions very well with his microexpressions, leaving no one doubting his pain and suffering in any form- emotional or physical, nor his affection for the FL.

Enter the FL. In my opinion, FL (Crystal Yuan) qualifies to be in the running for the worst actor award in a cdrama with her inability to emote and her excessive use of eyedrops that ironically highlight how poor her acting is than aid with any emotional scene itself . I will say she does have strong chemistry with the ML which is probably one of the reasons why it was easy to get hooked onto this drama if one is able to switch off when she had a crying scene or a scene where she is meant to act betrayed but just looks constipated.

I need to mention the actress who played SFL Ling long did not fare that much better than Crystal and Mingyan had a pretty useless existence in this drama despite being on the posters and all.

Side characters Brother Liu and Tengshe were a much needed presence and comic relief to this drama and helped pushed the story forward with renewed energy and charisma.

As for the narrative itself, there were lots of plot developments that make love and redemption quite an interesting journey, however it's a shame that this drama couldn't be the masterpiece it could have been because logic and character development were thrown out the window, with the story relying instead on misunderstandings to drive it forward.

You can watch this if you enjoy fluff knowing its just fluff and if you want to know what propelled actor Cheng Yi to his current fame. Just know that you WILL need to practice restraint when FL appears (post beginning stage) because you will wonder how she was ever able to become an actress and why nobody in her inner circle had the integrity to stop her from choosing this profession.