Irreplaceable Love (2020)

Unsatisfying Slow Burn Drama

I started 2x speed at one point and then eventually fast-forwarded on 2x speed. I mean, the drama is passable as a slow burn kind of drama IF you want it to be, but there's barely any development anywhere. With these types of drama, you have to deliver it in either the workplace, family drama, or love line. I think it did terrible in all three aspects as it felt anti-climactic and unsatisfying. I wanted to enjoy it, but I didn't.

STORY-ACTING-REWATCH VALUE
I think it had an interesting start and premise. The acting wasn't bad either. I've seen a few of Sun Yi's work, she hasn't blown my mind, but she's doable. It was my first time watching Bai Jing Ting, and I would like to see more from him. I wouldn't recommend anyone to re-watch unless they enjoyed it. I barely finished, but I've made it a goal to try not to drop dramas this year and I was already knee-deep in this drama.

OVERALL RANT (major spoilers, proceed with caution)
More things happening to the protagonists and extra drama in the storyline doesn't make it more climatic and enjoyable to watch. It felt draining episode after episode to want certain things to develop, but they don't. Four example rants with SPOILERS:

1. Them overcoming their "sister-brother" relationship could have been a lot better. We waited for a good maybe 16 episodes for Luo Shu to realize his feelings for Chu Yao. Then in episode 19, Luo Shu confesses, but Chu Yao doesn't confess until episode 32. They're "together," but not really, and they finally get approval from their dad in episode 44. And honestly, I felt no chemistry between these two at all. Maybe because we already see them treating each other as mutual siblings, I didn't feel the chemistry. Like he always calls her 'big sister' and she calls him 'little brother.' They help each other out and always put each other first, but that's it. It's not a make my heart pound or go 'aww' kind of moments. They had a lot of head-on shoulder moments, but that was like the main skinship. Even in the last scene where Chu Yao had her head on Luo Shu's shoulder, their body was so distant, it looked so awkward to me.

2. So, why play it out like Luo Shu was doing so well in the business industry, in the beginning, to make him fail at every turn? He's this smart guy who dropped out of college and had a business idea/product that was at one point worth 10-12 million dollars. We see them building this business idea/product for so many episodes with the big corporations, investors, and competitors against them. The writers build it up so well that we expect them to prevail, as they're a small group who are smart and resilient. Then BAM! chaos hits, and he gave it all up for Chu Yao. What?! Of course, he starts over, but it's just not the same anymore, especially when he already invested so many episodes in his pivots and all. They never gave him a satisfying comeback.

3. Why did they never try to get help for the mom? Instead, they let her live a life of ignorance like that. The mom is probably the most fragile character ever as she needs to be protected in a bubble and cannot do anything or see anything. If they truly love the mom and Luo Shu, they would want him to have his identity and for their mom to recover. Luo Shu went through an identity crisis so often that it wasn't fair to him as an outsider. He had no responsibility to treat this family with so much thought and care. They never gave him an option to leave, and when he would leave, they would pull him back to appease the mom. Also, if they were to help the mom and reveal Chu Chen's death, Chu Chen would finally rest in peace. The family can now hold his death anniversary and visit his grave. However, this doesn't happen, so poor Chu Chen is just forgotten.

4. What's with this never-ending phase of antagonists and the world against them? Even Zhi Mo became the bad guy?! Did we need another reason to have another antagonist at that point of the drama? No, the writers could've just closed up loopholes and tied everything up to make it all good.

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After interesting beginning, ending flops.

I thought the beginning had an interesting premise. Being a romance drama I expected the plot to have many twists and turns until the ML and the FL found their way to true love. The drama got more and more interesting for me as each episode unfolded. I enjoyed the young man's perseverance as he was thrown obstacle after obstacle trying to block his professional success. I both loved and hated all the attempts to keep the young couple from finding the love they had for each other. NOTE: Though the Ml and the FL portray brother and sister at home for the sake of the mother's mental health due to her real son's death in a fire, these two are not blood-related. There is NO incest in this drama. That said, we come to the ending. With all the drama that followed our young lovers, we expected a happy ending. What we got was junk, totally un-necessary, and an anger-provoking conclusion. As the story got near the end, I was thinking of a very good rating but the ending completely blew it.

It is too bad that the story ended the way it did. I thought the acting was good, the drama throws one back and forth with joy and frustration. I loved the performances by all the characters. The title says it all, there is an irreplaceable love between them and they come to show it, to live it. It was marvelous right up to the last episode and then...

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so promising....but uhh

I am truly shocked. Just finished the last episode and am truly shocked. It's so abrupt but it's finished? I was sticking in it to see the ML and FL figure out their relationship/life and communicate, but no it just ends. And they just type out what happens to the antagonists before the final credits?! I have never seen a tv show that is so long and relatively well written like this one end so poorly/open-endedly. The story rating just plummets because of the end, but would have otherwise been great. Did they run out of funds or something? I just...I am still truly shocked and don't know how to feel right now.

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Overstretched and repetitive plotline

This show really could have been 20 tightly run episodes and it wouldve been a masterpiece because the first 20 minutes of this really draws you into this world, after that the plot just runs around in circles and if you skip a couple of episodes it dosent feel like you missed anything ( i did that)
My biggest problem of this show is han zimo, since this is spoiler free all i am going to say is that he starts out as one of the most annonying character that have ever graved my screen and in the end.... HE STILL IS!
Han zimo is the embodiment of those jerk/abusive/toxic/annoying/clingy male leads in rich guy Cdramas if they never got their character growth.
Great job to the actor but im never rewarchung this again because i just hate how that character was written since he wasnt even initially an antagonist in this so so i felt bad hating him more than everyone who was actually being bad
Also, ALL of the relationships in this show are toxic and we never got to see a healthy one
Now that ive finished writing this ive changed my opinion, i dont like this show

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Unexpected but interesting

this drama i can say its have boring story/plot but same time its interesting , if you looking for love drama romantic drama then i suggest think twice cause this don't have that in-love & lovey dovey feeling drama at all, most of this drama is fighting for business,marriage issue, mom unstable mental . Tbh most of the episode i play skip scene cause there isn't any stuff to watch about most of the episode, the stress its real especially when there's a Mom that have unstable mental *clean sweat*.
what most unexpected is the ending. can't say its a happy ending can't say its sad ending too , this drama ending depend how the way we watch , me personally its a sad ending.
Why is my rewatch value is 3.0 its because i personally don't watch drama that i have watch already so... Yeah

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Review

I have found this drama really interesting. The way the characters are portrayed is really well done. Here are the pro's and con's of this drama so far:

PROS
The storyline is excellent. When the male lead puts his life on hold to help his best friend's family out, I found was really noble and made the storyline a whole lot more interesting.
I do really like the way the protagonists in the drama evolve throughout the drama. Some things are never what they seem which makes the drama a whole lot more enjoyable. I like that in every episode there is something new to discover.

CONS
Sometimes the clueless nature of the characters is a bit annoying. The female lead only follows her heart only after certain circumstances. The antagonists really get on my nerves.

Overall this drama is terrific so far. I personally am enjoying it. There is no incest in this drama whatsoever. The male lead is the female lead's deceased brother's best friend and has to act as her brother due to the female lead's mother's health problems. They don't have any blood relation. I would definitely recommend this drama. I hope that this review was helpful. If there are any major spoilers by any chance I apologize, although I tried really hard for there not to be.

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Wow finally another review. I have reviewed a drama on here for a while now. But here it goes. I will do my best. I started to watch this drama because I saw that the male lead was Bai Jing Ting and Sun Yi. I have not seen another drama with him in it since Rush to the Dead of Summer (was a good drama btw. Very sad, but good). I have seen Sun Yi in many drama before and she always did an amazing job in my opinion. I think that so far the drama is not to bad. I have seen a lot of trailers on youtube for the future episode so I kind of know what will happen.(DW I will not spoil anything for people who have not seen it yet) But overall the drama is okay so far. I think that the plot is good so far, but lets' see how the whole drama plays out. I do wish that in one of the future episodes that they will talk about what exactly happened to her(the female leads) brother. I also wish that the mother will recover. I am going to clarify one thing though... I have read through the comments on this drama and people are saying that they want to drop this drama because there is incest. There is absolutely no incest in this drama at all. The FL (Sun Yi'S Character) and ML (Bai Jing Ting's character) are NOT BLOOD RELATED. He took the place of her brother to help a close family friend out. Which is why I stated that I hope the FL's mother recovers so that she can live in reality and not a dream. I hope that the drama will continue to impress me as it has so far. There is a lot I would like to say, but I want to wait until it ends to give it a true review.

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Overstretched Storyline, Too Many Sub-Plots

I had high hopes about this drama because of the ML. The story was interesting at first but seemed overstretched, with so many sub-plots and conflicts that slowed down the pace, hat I already got impatient and lost interest as early as Ep10.

The early episodes built up the characters of the ML and FL as brilliant and achievers in school. But, as the story progressed, they didn't seem to be such. I found the FL irritating because she eventually became timid and lacked self-confidence - so different from the feisty girl in Ep1. The ML started off as seemingly successful but was overcome by business and personal problems that his "brilliance" from the first few episodes eventually dimmed.

Even the side characters have huge, stretched conflicts and plot twists. As a result, the story of the lead characters came out as lacking - that when you reach the ending, you'll be left hanging and wondering why it ended that way. (Yes, I jumped from Ep10 to Ep44 with the hope that the ending might have redeeming values. Unfortunately, I was disappointed).

It also didn't help that the lead actors have zero chemistry. And, was posing as the dead son really the only solution to the mom's illness? Despite this, though, I still like Bai Jingting.

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Encore une déception

Il y a si peu de choses à aimer et si tant à détester dans ce drama. Le synopsis me semblait une bonne idée. Une famille qui perd son enfant et qui le remplace par son meilleur ami afin de protéger le mental très instable de la mère (un peu tordu, il est vrai). Pourquoi pas. Cela aurait pu donner une histoire familiale intéressante et touchante. Cela n'a pas été le cas. Loin (très) de là.

Si je devais résumer l'échec de ce drama, si je devais dire ce qui fut le summum de la frustration serait le lead masculin. Détestable? Bien au contraire, et ce fut là le problème majeur de ce drama.
Il est adorable, intelligent, altruiste et raisonnable (surement un peu trop). Qui aurait été capable de porter son fardeau avec autant de sourire et de nonchalance? Qui aurait pu se mettre en arrière et jouer l'entremetteur de la femme tant aimé avec tant d'abnégation? Pas moi. Luo Shu accepte sans broncher de ne plus être lui, de ne plus avoir de réelle identité juste pour une famille qui n'est pas la sienne. Il se fond dans cette famille et la quitte pensant encore et encore à ne pas les blesser. Et lui? dans toute cette histoire, il perd presque tout. Sa compagnie, sa propre famille, son lui majeur.

J'avoue, je n'ai juste pas pu voir ce personnage continuer à essuyer revers sur revers. Je ne suis pas très fan de ce genre de drama, où tout va mal, où rien ne brille si ce n'est à la toute fin (et encore). Oui, j'aime lorsque le lead accumule les victoires, je sais, pas très amusant, mais moins frustrant. Et dans ce cas il accumule tout sauf les bonnes choses!

Tous les autres personnages qui gravitent autour de lui sont inintéressants voire agaçants comme Han Zi Mo. Le couple qu'il forme avec Chu Yao était vraiment ennuyeux. Zéro alchimie (-20 même). Aussi bien pour le couple secondaire. Et le couple tertiaire (est-ce un mot, hum???).

En un mot, décevant et vraiment mauvais.

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