Prince Coffee Lab (2018)

Story 6/10
PROs
I love Gao Xing. Her cheerful personality makes everyone smile. Her bluntness about her emotions is something enviable. She isn't afraid to tell everyone upfront how much she likes them. Qin Zhe Mo, Jiang Shang Wu's cousin, is also a beautifully woven character, initially Gao Xing's crush. Gao Xing and Qin Zhe Mo's friendship is honestly so cool. They tell each other about their love lives over dinner and they both know how much the other loves their significant other. Whenever Han Xiao misunderstands Gao Xing's and Qin Zhe Mo's relationship, Gao Xing would always meet up with Han Xiao to tell her that Qin Zhe Mo really loves her. I loved the ending of this drama, especially the trip Gao Xing and Jiang Shang Wu takes to find a certain type of coffee bean. The drama really describes, in much detail, how to make coffee.

CONs
Jiang Shang Wu's personality is terrible. He's yes and then he's no. They were in the boss and worker zone, then friend zone, then family zone. His sole reason for not being in a relationship with her is his dislike for her tomboy nature, which does not make sense because he keeps on thinking about her. In the Korean drama it made sense because Han Gyul had to reconsider his sexual identity, which is not a simple understanding. In this Chinese remake, Jiang Shang Wu clearly knows she's a woman, so he's not facing a sexual identity crisis like the show suggests. I disliked how Gao Xing had to apologize to Jiang Shang Wu all the time for hiding the fact that she's friends with his cousin, which is a ridiculous reason to break up with her.

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I don't usually like watching remakes because most of the time they turn out to be disappointing but I gave this a try anyway.

What I like about the drama is that they certainly added things that made the drama better or make it their own. I like how they improved the story with the supporting characters. I also liked how they didn't exactly copy events from the original drama and added their own. The design of the places were interesting, especially the main character's house and the coffee shop itself. And I also like how they really focused on coffee and added more interesting things regarding coffee.

However, they made a big change about the male main character that affected the plot greatly. The drama followed the plot even though they made a lot of changes but it was a huge mistake to change the female main character's gender from hidden to exposed. She was regarded as a tomboy from day one. Everyone knew she was a girl but their attitude and behavior towards her was the same in the original drama when they thought that the main character was a boy. I was baffled to see that the male main character's biggest crisis was that she was a tomboy and she didn't tell him that she went to the exhibition as a companion of his cousin. I don't know if it's really a huge problem to not fall in love with a girl just because she dresses like guy or acts like a tomboy in rl. In the drama, nothing supported it and nothing made the male main character feel pressured to not fall in love with a tomboy, unlike the original story. This was really poor writing in my opinion.

I like everything except that part I mentioned above. This drama is still nice to watch and I did like it. I commend this drama for trying to be its own even tho it's a remake. They had flaws but still had other things that made it special. Thumbs up for this remake.

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