Decent romance that may be worth your time
Pretty good overall!? The pacing and plot development is pretty good. Since it's only 24 episodes in total, I am glad things are going quickly in terms of plot. There are some parts where it feels like it's happening quite fast and other times where it's a bit draggy. There is a plot twist at the end (last two episodes) but it didn't really feel like it. There wasn't much suspense leading up to it, so I didn't feel the shock of the twist. It was more like "oh... okay." But the ending was happy and rather touching at a point.Besides, the romance aspect is worth the watch. A light romance with good humor. I find myself breaking into a smile because of some of the scenes/dialogue. To add, the OST is beautiful and the main cast is not dubbed!! ❤
The female lead has great chemistry with both male actors and plays the two roles quite well that I can differentiate between the two. I've never watched her before but she's good (not awkward at all). She is especially good at the emotional/tense scenes cause you can see the emotions in her eyes. I already ship her with Chen Mo as Xiao Mu. ?Their scenes are so cute and comedic. I find myself laughing/smiling unconsciously. The actor who plays Chen Mo is a bit stiff at times with his facial expressions and body language but he's still decent. So, I would definitely say the FL is carrying the drama compared to the rest of the cast.
The writer tried to add some angst when the lead couple had a conflict but it didn't really land. The mood felt kind of forced. I honestly like them better when they are being funny and bantering with another. And then the writer also attempted to put conflict between the twins, which worked, but the resolution was a bit too rushed for my liking. Meng Gui's sudden 365 in attitude in the last episode was a bit jarring but I'll take it since everyone got a happy ending.
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Reasonable first half, then draggy
Enjoyed the first half, until they two couples get together. The scenes vary, the activities change, there's some mystery about who-is-who.But the second half dragged horribly. I think there were about three sets, and scenes were mostly talking heads. "Conflicts" between couples were contrived. There were way too many scenes of the individuals staring into space looking vaguely forlorn as their love-partner walked off in a huff.
Acting was reasonably good, particularly Zheng He Hui Zi who plays the identical twins. She plays about a lot of very different roles... the little sister, the big sister, the little sister pretending to be the big sister, the big sister pretending to be the little sister, the little sister pretending to be the big sister acting as a character in a movie, and probably several others.
Both guys were stiff, but I think that was mostly the directing.
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Give Zheng Hehuizi the acting award she deserves ?
Ugly Beauty (2021) is a Chinese contemporary drama that tells the "ugly" and the "beauty" of the entertainment industry.Do not let the somewhat cliché identical twins' plot exchanging roles put you off. This drama is one of THE best in terms of script AND acting!
Just look at the character poster of the female leads' actress, the one and only Zheng Hehuizi who played the roles of Yao Menggui - a rising starlet who is aloof and overly confident, and her twin sister Xiao Mu - gentle and caring countryside girl who now works as a delivery rider in Beijing.
After an accident, Yao Menggui had to leave and let Xiao Mu replace her for her graduation play. But things didn't go as planned, the pretending game went on and chaos followed.
Again, this may sound tropey for some but it's totally UNIQUE. The story-telling takes us to plot twists from start to finish. It's not as grand as those mind-boggling suspense dramas, quite predictable, too, but never one to not leave you surprised.
This will certainly not work had they picked the wrong actress to play this dual role. Zheng Hehuizi deserves to get acting awards, fame, and more challenging roles in the future!
Her portrayal of the twins still leave me in awe! She just switches between 2 personalities so seamlessly - even her tone of voice, and the look in her eyes changes. You can totally tell who is who! And what's more challenging? She has to act out like she's acting as the other twin while assuming that she's still the former one. And, did we even forget that in the drama, her profession's an actress?
Like, she's SUUUUPER TALENTED in acting ? And it's not the overpowering kind. It helped a lot that the male lead's acting and the second male lead's are both lukewarm and matches well with her energy. Overall, the acting is really good. Which it has to be, considering that the drama is about the acting world.
And speaking of the acting world, the drama has successfully tackled the toxic environment of the entertainment industry - fandoms, depressions, pretentiousness, dirty marketing tactics, and more. It tackles each issue carefully and teaches us lessons we should learn in the subtlest way. It's so well-embedded in the story.
Also, it's not just about romantic love. Love between parents, siblings, friends were also portrayed very well. Values such as being filial, honest, loyal, forgiveness, and acceptance.
Overall, it's such a beautiful story with not even one dull moment - 24 episodes are all jam-packed with plot, comedy, romance, and suspense. It's nice to see a drama that doesn't overly make one character evil but rather make them a 3-dimensional character with flaws and stories to tell.
MUST WATCH! ? I hope more people discovers this gem. And I want more Zheng Hehuizi ? You can watch it on YouTube wuth English Subtitles.
PS. The OST is also a HUGE plus
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Nice beginning but later got annoying
I loved this drama at the beginning. It was really nice and I loved the love story between the younger sister and her love interest.I also love how the drama depicts the hardships of the entertainment industry.
Also that actress deserves an award. She plays the roles of the two sisters perfectly well, it feels like it's not the same person. And the fact that she acted as one sister pretending to be the other is just incredible. And she was also able to act movie scenes inside a drama, that girl is talented.
But, here comes the but.
I got really frustrated as I continued watching, why were there so many quarrels between the couples.
Also her elder sister is just evil and the fact that she keeps taking her sister as someone she should be close to is just...
I mean it's not complusory to be so close to her sis especially when her sis is such a dangerous person... could never be me.
I feel really sorry for the person that is dating her elder sis in the drama, her character is just terrible. But then again, he likes her for who she is and probably knows how to tolerate her.
Overall the drama is okay but I would not be rewatching it, except for a few of my favorite scenes.
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This review may contain spoilers
Unpopular opinion: I like the Second FL (the "evil" twin)
This show was really well written and deeper than I had expected it to be. It has an interesting premise and starts off with a gripping mystery that catches the viewer's attention. The entire show managed to keep my interest despite some cliche love scenes. The storyline is very interesting and I enjoyed watching the evolution of the twins' relationship. The FL's acting is amazing, being able to portray two twin sisters that have completely opposite personalities. Her microexpressions and whole aura is completely different when she portrays Xiao Mu vs. Yao Menggui. However, the ML's acting is really bad--his face has the same expression the whole time. I honestly don't know why they picked him as ML, maybe because he looks handsome? The second ML had more expression but his character was a little off.*BIG SPOILERS AHEAD*
I actually really like the character of the second FL, Yao Menggui--she is interesting. The show portrayed how she grew as a person and even though she made some very selfish decisions and even did bad things, she did love her sister and she changed for the better in the end. A lot of people think she's crazy, but the show actually demonstrated a plausible reason why she is like that. She was a child devoid of love and believed that only through manipulation, she was able to gain the love of adults who generally favoured her more mild sister. While they were together, Yao did protect her sister from bullies and that could have been a lot on her shoulders. A lot of people thought it was crazy when Yao tried to kill Xiao, but at that point, Yao thought Xiao previously tried to kill her (the car crash) and take her spot. If you believe your sister tried to do that to you, would you still consider her as a sister?
Was Yao a perfect sister? No. But she is an imperfect human like all of us. Let's stop expecting FLs to be saints. She has a hard exterior because she lived her life feeling like she needed to hide her true self in order to not get hurt, but inside she is not completely terrible.
In that same line of thought, I can understand why the second ML Song Ci likes Yao Menggui. She is interesting, has many layers, and he is intrigued by that. She presents a challenge for him, and she's not like all those girls that just fawn over him because he is handsome and famous. How many of those people like him for who he really is? She is one of the few people that doesn't put him on a pedestal. I love the part where Xiao Mu realized that she may have put Song Ci on a pedestal and that is not true love. I find this point insightful: love is not just based on superficial impressions of another person--you can't just evaluate a person when they're at their best, you need to see them at their worst.
Overall a really satisfying watch!
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This review may contain spoilers
female lead takes place of her sister who's a celeb
Storyline is pretty cliche! Female lead has a twin sister who is a famous star. Female lead takes on her sister's identity.This drama started out so well! really enjoyed it but the later half was such a disappointment!
Female lead is your average plain jane who delivers food. Sister is a famous celebrity. Her sisters gets into an accident and has her twin sister aka female lead replace her to act out her final project in college. Male lead is a paparazzi , who is poor and has debt. He wants to get more news on the female lead so he pretends to be her assistant. The male lead slowly falls in love with the female lead. The female lead discovers that she wants to be an actress. She films a movie in her sister's name.
Plot Twist aka spolier alert. Her sister is actual a bitch and try to scheme her, basically have the female lead to act for her and then the twin sister goes onto expose the female lead. The drama was cute and sweet up until the female lead's twin sister came back.
Then it became weird... Where the female lead knew about the male lead's true identity. The female lead goes back to the simple life with her dad ,but then decides to pursue acting because of her dad's sickness . ( she needed money)
The second male lead likes the evil twin sister and they eventually get together and become a couple.
The weird part is that the evil twin sister got a lot of the limelight/spotlight. Like the same actress played both sisters and she baiscally got to kiss the two male leads. ( wasnt a fan of) The evil sister and the 2nd male lead got together before the leads did. They focused on the evil twin too much, stole the show. The storyline also becomes weird and choppy.
I like the leads romance! they are a very cute couple. They have good chemistry. Not a big fan of the evil twin and 2nd male as a couple.
Towards the end the drama gets even more skewed.....
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Story: Let me tell you, this drama has one of the best storylines ever. Of the many Chinese dramas I've watched, this stands out so much. But yes, the couple conflicts were a bit draggy, but I think it's bearable. It's not cringy, just funny. I've watched dramas that a cringy for real. But this drama turned out great.
Cast: So the sisters are basically polar opposites. I found it hard to digest the fact that both were played by the same person. The actors did a beautiful job. I'm giving 10/10 for that
Music: Now the OSTs turned out pretty good. I don't have words to describe this. It's just wonderful and calming ?
Is it worth it? Maybe. It's got romance, a decent storyline and mystery so it might be refreshing
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Simple and Nice Story
I watched this drama because the drama was short which contained only 24 episodes. Since I dislikes to watch the dramas that contained long episodes, draggy and have the bad storylines. So I choose to watch this.For the overall, this story was not bad and also had a happy ending for all casts.
I do not want to write the storyline as you can watch it by yourself. But I just want to share that I love the second lead which were Song Ci and Yao Meng Gui. Song Ci was a nice man amd have a sweet smile. He also loved Yao Meng Gui so much even he knew YMG was an arrogant and dominant women.
The OST also was the best. It really suitable with the drama.
A lot of kiss scene happened since there were two couple in this drama.
I watched all the episodes and only skipped the scene that was not interested to me.
Thank you for reading my review (:
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Strong plot. Archaic artistic taste. Problem with ML's acting skill.
(1) Story [+]I'm very impressed with the plot. The plot is superb and very well presented. They set the knots all the way from the beginning to end which makes the viewers surprised all the way through. All the unexpected plots are conveyed at the right time. Their rhythm to reveal and resolve each knot is very well done.
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(2) Character Design [~]
Great design for the FL and ML's characters. Most of the characters in the drama, even the supporting roles, are properly designed. The only problem I have is the design for the 2nd ML. I think it's about the acting skill of the actor who plays this role, too. The drive of the 2nd ML to love the 2nd FL is not convincing at all. With a shallow design that only aims to force the character into feeling love without a proper background to solidify the conviction combining with the not-up-to-the-standard acting skill of the actor, it makes this character to have a pretty vague existence.
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(3) Acting [~]
The best acting skill in the whole drama is the FL. I would say she's the one who carries the whole drama project to not sink. In the drama, she plays as an actress who performs very well. This kind of role is frightening for the one who takes it for sure as the viewers will have a question in their mind all the time while watching that whether the actor/actress really portrays the role up to the level that the role claims to be. There's some scene that the FL has to perform a difficult scene and I wonder myself in which way that she would play it out. I feel that the scene is truly a difficult one, adding up that the story has to emphasize to the real viewers that the scene is extremely difficult before letting the FL rolls things out. I feel for the FL here that this is surely super challenging for her. What if she didn't nail it... the conviction in her character would be dropped a lot. But the FL made it properly. I cried a bit there though fully knowing it would come out something that way. Gotta praise her.
The ML, on contrary, has a very low acting skill to take a leading role. He overreacts at times, underreacts other times. His acting is unnatural and unbalanced to the FL. The way he tries to be the ML apparently makes him look just like make-believe. He tries to be calmly cool in the ML style, but it's unnatural and makes him look underperformed, emotion-dropped, unbalanced. His energy incompatibility makes him be like an air pocket in his scene.
The role of 2nd ML isn't up to par either, but I don't think we can solely blame the acting skill here as I said on the above topic that the character design of this role is originally not strong/good enough.
For the supporting roles, I'm quite satisfied with almost all of them - the ML's friend, female director, FL's company CEO, FL's gay manager and acting teacher. They did a great job.
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(4) Artistic Taste - Clothing & Music [-]
Damn... this is a story of a top-class actress who grows up abroad, but her fashion design is terribly, terribly horrible. Her costume is 很土 - very outdated and unfashionable. Her clothing materials are of low quality. I don't know it's this bad because this drama is a low-budget project or the costume head isn't up to his/her job description.
The music is very archaic, outdated, old-fashioned. No taste in music either.
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An interesting ride...The curveballs kept me wondering wth else could happen in just 24 episodes.
Would I watch it again? Probably not. It's not bad, but the drama has MAJOR plot holes that are never fully explained - it could have been a great drama if everything was explained, but they throw you a curveball, brush it off, and then throw you another curveball again. It's a 24-episode drama, but they probably would have needed 40 episodes to flesh out all the unanswered questions I have that they just glossed over. If you're looking for something that passes the time then sit back, relax, and watch this, the curveballs do keep you watching. If you are a person that methodically criticizes dramas and plot lines you will probably find this incredibly frustrating.There was nothing wrong with the acting it really just feels like there wasn't enough time to properly explain the story. Also. if you are looking for a heavy dose of romance you aren't really going to find it here -yes there is romance and a few kisses, but I found myself caring less about Xiao Mu's relationship storyline. They were good together but not as interesting as Song Ci's romance storyline, which honestly seemed to have more of a spark.
Definitely watch, it's an interesting ride that doesn't get boring, but this for me was more of a show-hole filler...a drama that I'll probably remember because my brain still can't fully comprehend Xiao Mu & company's almost complete lack of reaction to the Yao Meng Gui "birthday party" curveball... If you watch the show you'll understand what I'm talking about. It left me wondering WTF is wrong with these people??? - like, was I the only one that would have been majorly traumatized if this happened to me, yet every character barely seemed to bat an eye...and no remorse seems to be shown and no explanation was given (unless I completely missed it) that can justify Yao Meng Gui's escalation of that scene.
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The first 14 episodes were great...and then it gets too crazy for my taste
The first 14 episodes were very interesting to watch, as it shows the female leads growth and how she learns to act step by step, putting in all her blood, sweat and tears. The romance is adorable and eventhough there are 2 episodes where the couple encounters a misunderstanding, it is quickly solved. Now here is the problem, the female lead is an extremely lovable and caring character whom I am pretty sure everyone liked...until episode 15. Due to her sister's harsh treatment of her, she switches going to the extent of injuring herself, pretending to be cute and sad on TV for an increase of fame (and not the kind of funny version where the revenge is satisfactory). In summary, she has gone psycho and takes pictures of her self made injuries, posting em on the internet. The Male Lead is completely freaking out wondering what her sister has done to the woman he is in love with.ACTUALLY SCRAP THAT...she's not that bad...the SECOND FL and SECOND ML are even more nuts...instead of the FL I think those 2 are the psychos.
The S-FL pretends to be the FL and sleeps with the S-ML, IDK if he noticed or not but he has some serious problems too.
I am scared to continue waching...the S-ML to destroy himself further...and the S-FL can actually just go kill herself. She can srsly just kill herself and for the cherry on top have someone slap her/punch her in the nose before she dies.
IDK...some chinese drama's are getting really weird these days...OH MY GOD...'Young and Beautiful' that drama is also messed up.
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Concept is is good but problem in execution
Reason to replace the sister can't able to engulf. Totally senseless. Few romantic scenes balance the drama otherwise nothing new had been seen . What I think that the actors themselves not able to connect themselves with the characters they were playing and as a viewer I am also not able to connect myself with the characters and their story . At some point to look like the main leads doing overacting. Not enjoy watching drama much. because of these reasons I watched this drama in one go . In starting of the drama ,it had shown that first male lead's life was destroyed by her sister but how it had not shown so this part confused a lot . May be it had shown as I skipped many parts of the episode so may I missed the mentioned reason.I didn't like the drama .
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