A Girl Like Me (2021)

My First Drama w/ the Two Leads ^_^

I had never watched a drama with these two leads, Gabrielle Guan and Neo Hou, before but afterwards I became a fan of them both and definitely recommend this drama to people who are on the fence. It has great messages about familial loyalty and female empowerment.

In terms of aesthetics, there was eye candy galore. And, the costumes were beautiful. In my opinion, the female lead's in particular were different than the same recycled stuff I see all the time in other dramas. She had a somewhat unique sense of fashion.

As for the relationships within, I liked both couples. The secondary couple was cute and strong in their own way--overcoming their individual obstacles to be together. And the leads... ^_^ Well, what I truly enjoyed the most about them was that they weren't blinded by love. They both had their own motivations and ideals and while they fell for each other eventually and became loyal, they never lost themselves. Too often in dramas, I see a character that when he/she falls in love, they lose everything that made them unique and devolve into just another simpering puppet couple. Such was not the case here, thankfully.

Continuing with the relationship theme, the Ban family was a highlight for sure. They stuck up for each other and had such loyalty amongst them even when they lost everything. How many families depicted in dramas do that? Unconditional support is something we need to see more of as far as I'm concerned.

There's one thing in particular that I want to address. Before I watched this, I saw a lot of mixed opinions about the female lead. Here's my take. In the beginning, she was spoiled for sure (par for the course since she was part of the royal family) but even so, she was still a representation of strong female paving her own path. She wasn't cruel. Unlike the others in her circle, who smiled sweetly and were very polite to your face but were hideous once you turned around. The lead was different. Her only fault was that she was young and inexperienced. She was still likeable though and I didn't find her annoying at all. Then, as the events unfolded in the drama, she grew and became stronger. It was her character journey and it was a great message of female strength for younger girls to watch.

Overall, I liked it so much and will probably rewatch it in the future.

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Strong FL lead, lots of comedy and Family Love!

I picked up the drama because of the high reviews. Even though this was a 40 episode drama, it really didn't feel like it to me. I really enjoyed the pacing, it was slightly slow, but a lot of character development.

I don't have any experience with the actors, but if you like pretty and a young cast, then there's plenty of that. The FL is beautiful and I really enjoyed her dubbed voice (not sure if it's her real voice). My favorite part was watching all of her costumes. I really enjoyed her outfits the best, it was bright, beautiful and very elegant.

The ML in my opinion is handsome, but I really didn't like the long wig they picked for him. It just looked so second male lead to me. I do like it when he wears his formal wig and all of his hair is out of face, it just frames his face better. I also wasn't 100% convinced on his dubbed voice. It was kind of breathy and sounded a little unnatural. I do like that more C drama male actors are going away from that stone-icy face to someone with more expressions.

I really enjoyed the first 30 episodes of the drama. I enjoyed watching the FL get engaged after engaged after engaged. So many guys fell in love with her and it was so entertaining watching her trying to figure out a way out of it. Of course the best part was her character and she was a strong lady and I loved that she knew martial arts (even though her body double was obviously a guy, I wished they got a girl for those parts).

The banter between the main leads is pretty good and the slow burn romance is fun to watch. I enjoyed the side stories as well and it's refreshing to see the FL centered around a positive family! No more over bearing parents to deal with.

The comic relief was great to have because it never made things too serious, but the comedy was never over the top, which I enjoyed.

Overall, it was an entertaining historical drama to watch. It's not a mainstream drama, but I love the strong characters and watching the FL get engaged so many times was too hilarious.

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Fabulous Storyline, Great Cast, Amazing Music

Love.love.love watching this funny, romantic & heartwarming drama. I've watched it twice. Rong Xia and Ban Hua are just the cutest couple.

Love watching the relationship & interaction between Rong Xia and Ban Hua. It started as mutual respect & understanding and finally, it materialized to love.

Rong Xia is a cold ancient man. He has never fallen in love with any women until Ban Hua appears in his life. Once he falls in love, he falls in love hard and he has a great caring & loving personality towards her.
Ban Hua is a sassy strong independent woman, yet she's immature when interacting with Rong Xia. Their personalities and background are different, yet, these traits make their daily interaction and relationship more unique and interesting. Rong Xia and Ban Hua complement each other well as a loving couple.

Ban Hua has a very close & loving relationship with her parents, younger brother, fraternal grandma, her Imperial Uncle and her 2 personal servants. They all spoil & dote on her. It's so heartwarming to watch how cute her family members interact with Ban Hua and Rong Xia.

Though I hate watching the (not so bad) scheming in this drama, on the other hand, it strengthens the bond and love between Rong Xia and Ban Hua.

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Thrilling, funny and romantic

From an only-romantic-watcher perspective
The drama has a balanced amount of comedy, thriller and romance.

THE STORY:
The story is quite exciting, starts of with the romance of our leads, when four dominant families Yan, Ban, Shi, and Xie try to maintain their power in the court, and Ban family, the family of the female lead, struggles through troubles and try to solve them with the help of the male lead. Then male lead tries to find out about reason behind the death of his family, Rong family. After that the story is about the power struggle in the palace and second prince's plots to take over everything. In this last part of the plot, the drama becomes darker and a lot of serious troubles occur.
The romantic relationships are interesting and very entangled between different families and between good and bad people. The good thing about the plot is that neither evils or good people are hopeless or overpowered. Both sides have their side enemies and struggles.
They are some senseless incidents throughout drama, especially in the 4th quarter, but overall the plot is solid and exciting without much fillers or dragging periods. The story is not very smart are complicated, but it's easy to follow and makes sense. I will give it a 9.5/10.

THE CHARACTERS:
Rong Xia (male lead): He is very smart and never gets manipulated by others. He never gets behind villains mentally or strategically. He is somehow dull and passive, and can't express himself very well. He is neither a romantic freak nor a warrior, he is a scholar. He is not vey good at martial arts, though have some fighting scenes. He is very gentle and handsome that even though the second male lead is very nice, you can't let female lead be with anybody else.
Ban Hua (female lead): She is very bossy and straightforward. She has a huge amount support from a lot of people and has a very high self-steam and pride. She literally does anything she wants, talk and behave however she likes. Mentally and physically strong with good martial arts skills. She is very beautiful, and also looks very sexy and attractive when becomes shy in romantic moments. Her red glossy lipsticks are a bit strange at first, but soon becomes very attractive.
Jiang Luo (2nd prince, the main villain): He is very stupid, but has smart people alongside, guiding him and making plots for him. He is very evil, but also very funny. He is not likeable, but when the comedy moments come, he acts very well that you cannot stop laughing.

THE ROMANCE:
Our main lead start to admit their feelings somehow soon and the start of the drama is almost all about them finding out about their feelings. Most of the drama is about their love being tested and them cooperating to win over the troubles and villains. They have a lot of screen time and work a lot with each other, but female lead is so bossy and hard to get (despite the fact that she chases the male lead first) that male lead waits and struggles a lot to completely win over her. She hates male lead keeping secret from her (even when she herself keeps secrets from him) and even after a misunderstanding is solved, she is still mad for some time.
One annoying thing about the romance was that after a misunderstanding is solved, we don't have any passionate reunion. They still are somehow on the breakup stage while naturally and gradually come back together. I felt a bit disappointed.
They have enough kissing and hugging. Kissing are bad, if you compare them to dramas like General's Lady or Love By Hypnotic. It is more enjoyable watching them staring at each other rather than kissing like that. No passionate or steamy kisses.
Overall the romance is enjoyable and intense, but not passionate.
The side couple are very cute and I enjoyed their story a lot. Wan Yu is so cute and Ban Heng is very adorable and nice. They don't have much screen time, but it was really worth watching.
In this drama everybody goes into a pairing, even our villain couple are with each other in the end.

THE ACTING:
The acting of female lead was very good, I went back to see her cute or sassy expression over and over again. Male lead's acting was not bad, but his character didn't allow him to express himself a lot. But, he could transition from a calm scholar into a jealous or protective lover very smoothly and naturally. Complementing such a bossy and bold female character is very hard. You can't be very aggressive and overprotective and should let her do her things in her own way, while you should maintain your manly character, or it becomes awkward or boring. He wasn't overprotective and in the same time his role was so dominant so that even the very strong female lead couldn't succeed without his help.
Main villain is funny and disgusting at the same time. He acts very well that in comedy moments, you totally forget how evil he is. Female lead pestered and outsmarted him a lot.
Other actors played the characters very well, especially Ban family members were very adorable.

Good things:
- Female lead's custom's are stunning. She looks gorgeous in them.
- Male and female lead are both smart and complement each other very well, each one has the thing the other one lacks.
- Main Leads have a lot of screen time and work together a lot.
- Second Main Lead is very nice and never crosses the line.
- Villain is funny.
- Female lead's family are so cool and loving. They love each other a lot and only care about the family, not wealth or power.
- Main Leads are very beautiful and handsome.
- Story makes sense. (but not very surprising plot twists or sophisticated story)
- Adorable side leads
Bad Things:
- Some senseless incidents throughout the story.
- Female lead is a bit unforgiving and male lead is a bit unexpressive.
- Bad kissing.

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Pretty mediocre drama. Chemistry between the main leads is majorly lacking.

After seeing the good reviews for this drama, I decided to watch it however it didn't really meet my expectations. It starts out a bit slow in my opinion and there wasn't anything about the story that captivated me or intrigued me particularly. Pretty average and mediocre - I think with the initial setup of the political warfare and even Ban Hua's strong personality, it could have been a much more interesting drama if they did it right.

I did really like Ban Hua's character who was VERY different from the usual FLs. She was strong headed, spoke her mind and could actually fight! Her personality reminded me a bit of Qu Xiao Tan from The Eternal Love other than the fact that Ban Hua didn't need the ML to save her. So I definitely liked the little bits of role reversal between the FL and ML.

HOWEVER I feel like the ML was a bit lacking. Yes the dude is very cute and handsome but I feel like his acting was a bit bland. His personality didn't really show a guy who had a tragic past - I felt like they could have given him a bit more spark and oomph considering what he had gone through. The actor seemed pretty unnatural whenever he had romantic scenes with the FL. Like the kissing was disappointing AF. It's one of those dramas where they kiss and it seems like they're having an awful time doing it. The chemistry between Ban Hua and Rong Xia was very lacking. I didn't feel any sparks and it seemed like they were better off being friends than being lovers. I liked their friendship at the beginning but once it got romantic I think that's when it got boring.

Overall, it's not a bad drama. I've definitely witnessed worse but it's not a drama I'd try picking up again nor is it something I'd recommend. I'm kind of disappointed because I think if they played it right, this drama could have been really good because it had pretty interesting elements.

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Why is the male leads' face beat? Flower boy!!!

I can't but help to overly notice that the males leads fact is beat, meaning he is wearing women makeup and wearing it well. I am not into feminine looking men. Also, in the first 18 episodes he gave the female lead a weird look (innocently confused). At first I thought it was the way that the male lead character was acting due to his position (I didn't dislike it). However, it wasn't until episode 19 that I realized it's because the of his eyes (maybe the actor had eye surgery and they look super wide). Overall, the drama is good. I like that the female leads character isn't the traditional damsel in distress character. However, I dislike how they feminised the male lead character. Additionally, I disliked how the characters mentioned in almost every episode how attractive each one were, and how much money the female lead character and her family had (felt redundant and shallow). Lastly, I liked the strong relationship that the female lead had with her family.

BTW, whoever retouched the dramas' MDL picture did not do well. The female lead is pretty, why make her look like something else (an alien)?

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More badass female lead and strong couple drama that will stay strong forever please

Looking for a drama that has everything you want in it? Then yes this drama is for you. It wasn't even in my to watch list at all, I mistakenly clicked on it on YouTube and then I was hooked. The leads are so cool and not stupid but actually do understand and compliment each other. This drama is really good, it has everything you wished for in a drama, I'm glad that I gave it a go as usual whenever I see comments. Hope people will give this drama a chance and not let other people opinions spoil something you will like or enjoy. I did very much enjoyed it and will be rewatching it in the future.

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Boring

Dream concept was good but the director didn't synchronised well with the story . Stretched the story too much. Unnecessary scenes were there. The character I like the most in the the drama was the one who played the role of Lead actress brother. Others were also good but the story writing was not powerful so the actors didn't do much . Sometime I felt female lead did overacting .
I didn't like the story . Till 16th episode I felt that I just bearing the episode . Actually I was not enjoying watching it. So dropped it.story was personal state so by readi g other views of this drama , I found that 50% of people liked this drama and 50% not.

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I thought I was gonna hate this but ITS SO GOOD

Okay y'all im a fan, this series definitely beats other genre of drama. The industry should focus on making quality series like this than the rushed one. I can't describe in detail how good this is but if you're like me that spend time scrolling in drama-list looking for non-cliche series then this one is for you. This drama is definitely a high-budget and well-thought one from the music to the props, the story-line and the script is also not cliche. I definitely became a fan of the male and female lead after this series, their chemistry is through the roof and the male lead is definitely well-casted for this drama like he the character is made for him.

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Que garota!

Uma ótima história. Ela é destemida, corajosa, forte e classuda. Ele é mais frágil, mas não vacila no amor por ela. É divertido, mas tem uma parte muito, muito triste, preparem os lencinhos para o fim da vovó!!! Ela é tão fofinha, as vovós não deveriam morrer, nunca!
Tem um elemento que eu gosto particularmente: O príncipe estrangeiro. Sempre agrada aos olhos, deu uma peninha, ele nunca teve chance.
Uma história de justiça, de usurpação de poder e de família, o da protagonista tem um amor muito bonito.
Tem uns finais que eu acho que poderiam ser melhores: O do prícipe herdeiro/imperador e do SML, Shi Jin, eles mereciam muito mais!!!

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Una donna indipendente, ma purtroppo non basta per fare un buon drama.

Ennesimo tipico esempio di come un drama possa cominciare benissimo per poi perdersi gradualmente nella seconda metà e scadere, negli ultimi episodi, nella farsa involontaria.

La prima metà è veramente ottima: divertente, con personaggi interessanti, specie i due protagonisti. Amiamo l’indipendenza e la spavalderia di Hua Hua, ci appassioniamo ai segreti di Rong Xia e agli intrighi di palazzo, ridendo delle molte situazioni divertenti. Poi cominciano gli infiniti ostacoli posti artificiosamente sulla via della coppia, i colpi di scena assurdi, i voltafaccia e il susseguirsi di villain a ripetizione, con qualche conversione sulla via di Damasco.

Le situazioni si ripetono, le trame si infittiscono senza essere interessanti, tutto diventa noioso, i personaggi agiscono in modo illogico, assurdo, a volte completamente inverosimile. Ci sono persone che tentano di prendere il potere senza avere assolutamente alcun titolo per farlo, e gli armati le seguono. Personaggi di stirpe si aggirano da soli senza alcuna scorta. Persone di tutti i generi, perfino stranieri, si presentano improvvisamente in riunioni militari senza essere fermate né tanto meno annunciate, e così via delirando.

Peccato davvero, perché musiche, costumi, ambientazioni e cinematografia sono molto belli. Si vede che non è una produzione di basso budget e il buon inizio lascia talmente ben sperare che la cocente delusione della seconda metà sa ancor più di tradimento.

Sugli attori ci vuole una parola a parte. Molto brava la FL, un po’ meno Hou Ming Hao. Stento veramente a credere che abbia solo 24 anni. Le sue foto di qualche anno prima erano di un ragazzino bellissimo. Credo che successivamente abbia subito delle operazioni al viso. Pochi anni dopo, perfino sotto tonnellate di trucco sembra una vecchia dipinta male. E quel che è peggio, la metà superiore del viso è virtualmente immobile: praticamente recita con la bocca e gli occhi, le guance sono granitiche. Di fatto, è una maschera. Mi piange il cuore a vedere tanti ragazzini rovinati così.

Menzione d’onore, invece, per l’attore che interpreta il secondo principe. Lui sì, che muove “tutto” il viso, e la differenza nella recitazione si vede, eccome! Molto piacevole anche l’interpretazione di tutta la famiglia Ban. Piccola nota a parte: gli attori parevano avere poca voglia perfino di fingere di baciarsi.

Insomma, ottima la prima metà, noiosa nel mezzo, pieno di assurdità e intrighi artificiosi nella fine. Un vero peccato, ci volevano almeno 5 episodi in meno. Sfrondando un po’ il finale sarebbe stato veramente un ottimo titolo. Così, siamo solo sulla sufficienza abbondate. Peccato.

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