292
680
141
13
17
19
12
3
10
33
6
16
1
2
23
37
2
12
8
2
4
5
2
6
10
1
3
4
8
23
20
36
Peaked when the romance was not happening.
I had such a strange journey with this drama - full of ups and downs and changing expectations.
At first I loved the soft angst with no context that Cen Jin and Li Wu delivered whenever they were on screen. The chemistry was undeniable and I could not wait to figure out what happened in the past and how they will fix it in the present. Then the “past” plotline started to have more and more presence in every episode - all cute, no fire. Was I disappointed? Somehow. But the more time I’ve spent watching Li Wu and Cen Jin bond as a family, the more I enjoyed that part of the plot. I switched my preferences mid show. That’s when I started to wish this was not a romance, but a found family trope at its core.
The final nail to the coffin was the big revelation - the explanation of the past conflict that led to the separation. Sometimes the clash is so dumb you start to think ”You know what? Maybe they actually should not be together, make this permanent, let them move on” - this is how it was for me with this show.
And that’s a huge issue, because both Cen Jin and Li Wu were not much outside of their relationship. She had some struggles, he had some, but most of them were not truly developed or solved early on. Any business adventures? I could not care less.
It had a solid cast of supporting characters, but even they lost my interest closer to the end. In the last 6 episodes I was mentally and emotionally checked out.
Acting wise it was great. Michelle Chen did a fantastic job portraying Cen Jin in different stages of her life. Whenever her 20s or 30s, the presentation was realistic. Sure, there were a few scenes where the production team did not quite manage the lighting right, and in her 20s shots she looks a bit too old for the role, but these were literally a few scenes in the whole show, easy to ignore. Daniel Zhou did such a phenomenal job as a teen, I did not quite buy the adult version of the character. While I could see how Cen Jin changed and matured through the years, I did not see the same with Li Wu.
Overall, I think that’s the problem with starting a drama with peak tension - you can only go down from there.
At first I loved the soft angst with no context that Cen Jin and Li Wu delivered whenever they were on screen. The chemistry was undeniable and I could not wait to figure out what happened in the past and how they will fix it in the present. Then the “past” plotline started to have more and more presence in every episode - all cute, no fire. Was I disappointed? Somehow. But the more time I’ve spent watching Li Wu and Cen Jin bond as a family, the more I enjoyed that part of the plot. I switched my preferences mid show. That’s when I started to wish this was not a romance, but a found family trope at its core.
The final nail to the coffin was the big revelation - the explanation of the past conflict that led to the separation. Sometimes the clash is so dumb you start to think ”You know what? Maybe they actually should not be together, make this permanent, let them move on” - this is how it was for me with this show.
And that’s a huge issue, because both Cen Jin and Li Wu were not much outside of their relationship. She had some struggles, he had some, but most of them were not truly developed or solved early on. Any business adventures? I could not care less.
It had a solid cast of supporting characters, but even they lost my interest closer to the end. In the last 6 episodes I was mentally and emotionally checked out.
Acting wise it was great. Michelle Chen did a fantastic job portraying Cen Jin in different stages of her life. Whenever her 20s or 30s, the presentation was realistic. Sure, there were a few scenes where the production team did not quite manage the lighting right, and in her 20s shots she looks a bit too old for the role, but these were literally a few scenes in the whole show, easy to ignore. Daniel Zhou did such a phenomenal job as a teen, I did not quite buy the adult version of the character. While I could see how Cen Jin changed and matured through the years, I did not see the same with Li Wu.
Overall, I think that’s the problem with starting a drama with peak tension - you can only go down from there.
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