The story was all over the place but entertaining nevertheless - never a dull moment or predictable. The chemistry…
You can try
Ancient Bracelet. It's a good step-down ---> 1) pacing is brisk, show is predictable enough to skip around if you need to though 2) A new ML to check out and see what you think 3) A little hair o' the dog on that cheese.... the cheese is there, but understated and way way scaled back from Affinity 4) Chemistry is there (spice levels TBD because im only partway through) 5) Puts you firmly back in wuxia territory and kind of cools you off so you can concentrate on something longer to watch after.
Watching When Destiny Brings The Demon but also reading When Master Longs For Salted Fish at the same time, and the web novel is WWAAAYYYY better than the show.
If you haven't checked it out, My Fated Boy is so so good, and there is mass chemistry, and I am like 85% sure the kiss on that last ep was a french kiss. His FL there is way way easier on the nerves than the FL from Speed and Love.
Or try I Love My President Although He Is A Psycho, another top contender for King Cheese Of All Time. Super batshit, overloaded with cheese, and surprisingly deep psychologically also.
Or how about Love On The Edge Of Divorce, or Playing House, both of which are fast paced eye candy short length c-dramas with good humor and smokin hot ML's (lacking spice, but cheese factor and humor and chemistry on point and awesome ML/FL performances kind of make up for it)
Or chill out with some fine aged Luo Zheng, my favorites are Skip A Beat (there is a scene in it that's like a Must See scene, so freakin hilarious), Time To Fall In Love, and Nothing But You... but whatever you watch, don't watch Perfect Her or Spring Burning). And if you are familiar with Luo Zheng's work already and haven't checked out Restarted Love, DO IT. He plays it serious on that one, and it's actually not bad. But it's too heavy as a chaser for Affinity so i'm digressing here...
You could go Japanese and watch Learning to Love, that was very tightly paced and has sort of like a cheese sensibility without being actual cheese, so another good stepdown. All angst, no spice, but really really good.
Or go old school and watch Que Sera Sera, that has maybe possibly the hottest kiss scene i've ever seen in a drama, with Eric Mun doing what turned out to be the best acting he'd ever do, everything was downhill for him after that. I blame the fact that he got a RL gf and settled down, but I could be wrong. Anyways. Que Sera Sera is sort of in the makjang territory, and although it can get a touch draggy in the middle/end, and it veers stupid at the end like most dramas do.... that one kiss scene is just not to be missed. Worth everything else just for that. Wew lawd! I mean, maybe the Jesse Ren one was better in Embrace In the Dark Night, but... it'd be a tough call to decide which for me was hotter. Same with that last kiss in My Fated Boy with He Yu.
Or! If you are truly a brave soul, and you can track it down, you could try watching The Rose, I LOVE THAT DRAMA SO HARD!!! It is cheese central, the ML, Jerry Huang, is the worst actor, and literally everyone else in the drama is a GREAT actor, it's hilarious. But it's also freakin twisted as shit, FL comes this close to gettin it on with her half brother. The conversations some of the characters have with eachother is just.... i mean how do i even explain. I can't even explain, its just insane. And one of the best dramas I've ever watched, solidly in my all time top ten.
First she gets monoxide poisoning from a tea kettle on the stove in a huuuuge house, and now she's in her bedroom with an open woodstove going and she's just sipping tea.
I was definitely planning to watch it, but your review makes me want to start it immediately. I’ll try to restrain…
idk if you managed still to abstain till it's finished, but this is a total binger. I don't know why i keep doing this to myself lately, starting a show before it is concluded. In retrospect i should have waited and then watched them all at once.
And he's like "after breakfast, I'll feed you a few more pills." And I'm like 😮😮😮😮😳😳😳😳🫢🫢🫢🫢🤪🤪🤪🤪.... and then she wakes up and i'm like "coughcoughcough ahem, well yes... thank god for that, I mean... good thing that wasn't real, I'd never want to watch a drama where the ML drugs the FL obviously, obviously....."
this is honestly one of the best things i've ever seen, and to all of you who rated it below an 8, you have NO TASTE, you don't even know something genius when it's staring you right in the face.
Some people think something has to be serious to be good, well you're WRONG and this deserves a TEN.
This is the most creative thing I've seen in a very long time, and you name me ANY other show like it. It's like Hunger Games, Dr. Who, Embrace In The Dark Night, Speed and Love, and Pee Wee's Playhouse had a baby. It is zero percent boring. It is 1000% sexy. It is well acted in the extreme. And you have no freaking clue what's going to happen next.
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Ancient Bracelet. It's a good step-down ---> 1) pacing is brisk, show is predictable enough to skip around if you need to though 2) A new ML to check out and see what you think 3) A little hair o' the dog on that cheese.... the cheese is there, but understated and way way scaled back from Affinity 4) Chemistry is there (spice levels TBD because im only partway through) 5) Puts you firmly back in wuxia territory and kind of cools you off so you can concentrate on something longer to watch after.
Watching When Destiny Brings The Demon but also reading When Master Longs For Salted Fish at the same time, and the web novel is WWAAAYYYY better than the show.
If you haven't checked it out, My Fated Boy is so so good, and there is mass chemistry, and I am like 85% sure the kiss on that last ep was a french kiss. His FL there is way way easier on the nerves than the FL from Speed and Love.
Or try I Love My President Although He Is A Psycho, another top contender for King Cheese Of All Time. Super batshit, overloaded with cheese, and surprisingly deep psychologically also.
Or how about Love On The Edge Of Divorce, or Playing House, both of which are fast paced eye candy short length c-dramas with good humor and smokin hot ML's (lacking spice, but cheese factor and humor and chemistry on point and awesome ML/FL performances kind of make up for it)
Or chill out with some fine aged Luo Zheng, my favorites are Skip A Beat (there is a scene in it that's like a Must See scene, so freakin hilarious), Time To Fall In Love, and Nothing But You... but whatever you watch, don't watch Perfect Her or Spring Burning). And if you are familiar with Luo Zheng's work already and haven't checked out Restarted Love, DO IT. He plays it serious on that one, and it's actually not bad. But it's too heavy as a chaser for Affinity so i'm digressing here...
You could go Japanese and watch Learning to Love, that was very tightly paced and has sort of like a cheese sensibility without being actual cheese, so another good stepdown. All angst, no spice, but really really good.
Or go old school and watch Que Sera Sera, that has maybe possibly the hottest kiss scene i've ever seen in a drama, with Eric Mun doing what turned out to be the best acting he'd ever do, everything was downhill for him after that. I blame the fact that he got a RL gf and settled down, but I could be wrong. Anyways. Que Sera Sera is sort of in the makjang territory, and although it can get a touch draggy in the middle/end, and it veers stupid at the end like most dramas do.... that one kiss scene is just not to be missed. Worth everything else just for that. Wew lawd! I mean, maybe the Jesse Ren one was better in Embrace In the Dark Night, but... it'd be a tough call to decide which for me was hotter. Same with that last kiss in My Fated Boy with He Yu.
Or! If you are truly a brave soul, and you can track it down, you could try watching The Rose, I LOVE THAT DRAMA SO HARD!!! It is cheese central, the ML, Jerry Huang, is the worst actor, and literally everyone else in the drama is a GREAT actor, it's hilarious. But it's also freakin twisted as shit, FL comes this close to gettin it on with her half brother. The conversations some of the characters have with eachother is just.... i mean how do i even explain. I can't even explain, its just insane. And one of the best dramas I've ever watched, solidly in my all time top ten.
(....shit.)
BRING IT
BEST DRAMA AVAR
Some people think something has to be serious to be good, well you're WRONG and this deserves a TEN.
This is the most creative thing I've seen in a very long time, and you name me ANY other show like it. It's like Hunger Games, Dr. Who, Embrace In The Dark Night, Speed and Love, and Pee Wee's Playhouse had a baby. It is zero percent boring. It is 1000% sexy. It is well acted in the extreme. And you have no freaking clue what's going to happen next.
Please cast Yan Zi Xian as ML, I would love to see him in one of your projects <3