A Female Student Arrives at the Imperial College (2021)

How to Date Your Dean

I wasn’t sure to start watching this series or not because most of the comments I’ve read were not favorable. After one episode, it seemed watchable. The plot is rather simple and straightforward, the villain is revealed to the viewers very early in the story, Zhao Lusi is still Zhao Lusi – silly and cute, and the story is non-original with the-hero-gets-the-girl-and-the-bad-guy-vanquishes. In other words, it’s cliché and tropey. Nonetheless, I find Zhao Lusi’s cuteness irresistible.

This is a story of a girl enters a boys-only imperial college and becomes the first ever female graduate from the college. In the process, she makes her dean fall in love with her, giving the viewers a tabooed romantic relationship of a student with a member of the school faculty. At the same time, it also tries to advocate equal educational opportunities for all girls and boys regardless of their family status.

Sang Qi (Zhao Lusi) is said to be different from all the other girls. Growing up at the frontier, she is unrestrained, playful, active and intelligent. Zhao Lusi has everything this character requires. Similar to her previous drama in “The Romance of Tiger and Rose”, Zhao Lusi’s character is still the “Sha Bai Tian” (silly, fair and sweet) character with more bravery, smartness and chivalry this time. Many viewers criticize her for playing the same type of character again and again. For me, it is of course ideal if an actor is given the chance to play a different character so that she/he can widen her/his skills and scope. But on the other hand, this type of character is what Zhao Lusi is best at, probably more so than other actors, giving viewers an excellent and natural performance here. As in most of Zhao Lusi’s dramas with similar roles, she stumbles easily, gets herself all over her man, kissing him unintentionally (or intentionally?), making him fall in love with her, and she him (roll eyes).

Yan Yun Zhi (Xu Kaicheng) is the Dean of the Imperial College. He’s good looking and has a cool demeanor. He tries to be serious but with Zhao Lusi around, who can? I quite like the Yan Yun Zhi character and Xu Kaicheng’s portrayal. However, I find his expression overly joyous as he seems to grin at Zhao Lusi all the time. This, to me, doesn’t fit his supposedly stern and solemn character very well, after all, he’s supposed to be a teaching faculty that garners respect and admiration from his students and other teaching staff. Other viewers feel Xu Kaicheng is not totally suitable for costume dramas.

Comes the antagonist, Zhuo Wen Yuan (Ren Hao) who is Sang Qi’s childhood friend when they both lived at the frontier. He is intelligent and a valedictorian in the Imperial College, at the same time he is a complex and vicious schemer. This is actually my favorite character. Ren Hao has that angelic face that can turn devilish in an instant. His acting is commendable.

My Verdict

This drama has a predictable storyline, slapstick humor, and a dog blood script. The lack of attention to details is blatant (viewers can spot production team members in the scenes, etc). The conversations are comedic. Similar to Zhao Lusi's other rom-coms, this drama is entertaining if you want something to give you a good mood and to laugh about. Don't be too critical and don't take it too seriously. It's not meant to be serious. Acting wise, both main leads and especially the villain are good. The supporting cast is good too (super hilarious).

Despite all the flaws, I have rather enjoyed this light-hearted series.

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"Power Hungry Man Can't Take No For An Answer" <---Should be the REAL title

Lord almighty, where do I begin? I literally just wanted an easy rom-com with no complications. This was not it. I have since heard that most dramas with names longer then hell aren't good; whether that's true or not, I don't know but it's my second time running into a drama with a long title that got this score from me. The plot essentially fell apart after episode 16. More than halfway through the story and all of a sudden heavy palace politics and a nightmarish stalker SML became the prime focus of this at first comedic and mildly inspiring story. When the SML's screen time eclipses that of the leads, I'd say it's a problem.

The screenwriter threw everything but the kitchen sink into this show; crime solving, setting ppl up, palace politics, the stalker SML, romance, jealousy, you name it. It should have been called "Power Hungry Man Can't Take No For An Answer" because that's what the majority of the series was focused on. He turned up literally everywhere at every moment and you were sick of him. However, giving the actor playing him his due, he was a very convincing creep. Literally the worst stalker in all of the costume cdramas I've seen. Characters like his make my skin crawl. Even his demise in the last episode was a serious copout given how much he lorded over the majority of the show.

Had I known it would turn out this way, I wouldn't have started it. The only thing keeping me from dropping it was that I actually liked the protagonists and when I realized they knew how to deal with the creep, I skipped a lot of his parts, plus got into a holding pattern twice by stopping watching the show just so more episodes could release and ppl could spoil when seeing him on screen would be less. When you stop watching a show twice, that's not a good sign.

I'm very picky with the dramas I watch. Usually I only watch dramas that have ppl I follow in them but since it's been very quiet on that front recently, I decided to try something new and though talking and laughing in the comments with other viewers was entertaining, this was a very poorly executed show. If it was going to make the creep the main focal person, then start that at the beginning. Make him the ML or something. Same goes for all the crime solving palace politics stuff. It's like the screenwriter remembered that this story was about a female student being the first to be admitted into an all male college twice after episode 16 and it was haphazardly thrown into small mentions here and there. You completely forgot that that was the main goal of the show; to be a more inclusive school.

Absolutely not a recommendation from me. Don't waste your time.

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