Boring and underwhelming

I was 22 episodes in when I decided I just can't take it anymore. I dropped this drama. The only thing that really kept me watching was waiting for Sang Yan to show up on screen. He made everything more interesting and was the perfect big brother character. Loved him!!

To be honest, I felt like CZY character was lacking. He seemed too perfect but with an unfortunate family situation. And the chemistry between ZLS and CZY was nonexistent. I didn't feel ANY spark between them. ZLS character had like 0 personality as well. She was just cute and whiny? The side characters were also lacking and to be quite honest - just straight up bad.

I kept watching thinking oh nah this will get good - how can it not? It has such high reviews! But episode after episode, I was just sitting there like okay? That's it? I don't have much to say right now other than I'm just really disappointed in this drama. If you like light and fluffy dramas though a better one to watch would be "When I Fly Towards You" - all the characters in there were so fun and enjoyable.

This show was just not doing it for me.

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Waste of Time & Potential!

I did it. I finally watched every single episode without skipping. I was miserable, but I did it because I really love Bai Lu & Dylan Wang. I wanted to give them my full attention until the very end.

This drama had so much wasted potential. I even took down some notes on my phone while I watched. How could a drama with such an amazing cast be so terrible! Okay it's time to let it all out.

Negatives:
- Unnecessarily long staring/pondering scenes. LIKE SUPER unnecessarily long.
- Yi Yang was a useless character. He added nothing to this show. Pure annoyance. This guy couldn't and wouldn't take no for a damn answer.
- Lack of communication within all of the characters. Everyone pretty much knew each other but didn't know that they all knew each other mutually. Does that make sense? Like with Guan Ji and ShanShan... why didn't ShanShan tell her best friend ShuYi that she knew who he was? And even towards the end when GJ and SS got together, she didn't even tell ShuYi until she found out for herself. I actually liked this couple in the beginning, but boy oh boy were they so damn annoying later on!
- Speaking of ShanShan - she gave the WORST relationship advice to ShuYi. And it doesn't help that ShuYi is so dumb. They're basically dumb and dumber, except dumber is giving dumb advice. HAHA.
- Nobody is straightforward with their feelings except the niece, ShiYue.
- So much hesitation with talking & texting. I can't tell you how many times they typed out a decent message but decided to delete it and not send it.
- Many many missed opportunities to clear up misunderstandings. MANY!!!!
- ShuYi's Mom meeting ShiYan was SOOOOO disappointing. We didn't get to see her true reaction to him really being ShuYi's boyfriend. That scene was so boring and the Mom just left right after? What the heck was that all about?! They could have made it so much better. I wanted to see her surprised, but instead she just looked bored and annoyed the whole entire time she was at the house.
- The wedding scene with Tang Yi and her hubby was so awkward. They didn't even kiss... they just hugged it out?! LOL.
- Ending was disappointing and felt empty.

Okay that's enough negatives, now onto the positives:

- I really enjoyed ShiYue's character. She seemed to be the only one giving decent advice, had her head screwed on, spoke her mind most of the time, straightforward about her feelings, great friend and so fun!! Loved her character.
- Great kiss scenes between ShuYi and ShiYan.
- Aesthetically pleasing actors & actresses.

Overall, this was not worth the watch. 36 episodes was way too long. This definitely could have been 20 episodes or less. What a frustrating drama with wasted potential. Disappointing!

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An Unforgettable Story

* THIS REVIEW HAS SPOILERS! *

I initially started this drama because I wanted to watch more of ZLS work! I started Hidden Love first, but dropped it because I personally didn't enjoy it. I started this drama and I am so glad I did.

This was an unforgettable story. I enjoyed every minute and watched all 56 episodes without skipping. Each and every actor/actress played their role amazingly. The Emperor was one of my absolute favorite characters. Zicheng was such a stoic, devoted, brutal character - just wow! Niao Niao was funny, clever and strong.

This drama has it all for me.
- Great story
- Amazing talented actors/actresses
- Made me laugh and cry
- Great character development
- Slow burn
- Action!!! (Honestly one of my favorite scenes was when Zicheng killed his Uncle - holy moly)
- ML is totally devoted and won't let any other girl in his way

My only complaint is that we never got the wedding scene we deserved! I think the ending was a bit rushed and honestly a few more episodes would have been nice to tie the story all together. But a happy ending nonetheless.
A must watch! Quite possibly the best drama I have ever watched!

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Pei Wen Xuan deserved better!!

Just finished this drama and it lowkey felt like a chore to finish it. The story was a bit boring yet interesting enough to finish it.

I found there to be very little chemistry between the two leads, but their acting was good enough and I felt the respect they had for each other as actors. ZJM could work on her facial expressions a bit. More feeling!! Some of her crying/sad scenes were not convincing enough to me except the one where SRQ revealed everything to her in that cave. I liked her acting there. I enjoy a good crazy dramatic scene (ahem, Consort Rue). ZLH needed more screen time!!

Li Rong was such a selfish person with big trust issues (understandable). Her character was so annoying and she did not deserve Pei Wen Xuan's love!! He was way too good for her. PWX loved her way more than she did. I do appreciate that they had good communication in certain scenes and cleared up some misunderstandings. And like many other's already talked about, Su Rong Qing had too much screen time. He was pretty much the ML in this drama and the whole story felt like it revolved around him.

I loved the other supporting characters like Qin Zhen Zhen, Shangguan Ya and Su Rong Hua. And the actress of Consort Rou played the heck out of her role! She was a very convincing psycho! LOL

What bugged me was in Episode 35 where they switched Prince Su after he passed away with someone who was basically the same person. That was ridiculous. But then suddenly everyone knew he was imposter? They just knew!! There was no big reveal so it was underwhelming. And nobody really mourned for Prince Su except the Princess Hua. Consort Rou was so fixated on power, she mourned for like a few minutes and then boom - back to being power hungry.

Also, goodness gracious SRQ was basically half of Ep 40 with his dramatic antics. And near the end 3 years into the future, where the heck was Li Rong and Pei Wen Xuan's kid?!

I do enjoy a good political drama, but this one dragged on. This shouldn't have been 40 episodes long. 30 episodes would have been fine. I do believe this is worth a watch if you like the leads. Who knows, you might enjoy it more than me!

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Boring and cringeworthy acting

I have been binging ZLS dramas ever since I fell in love with her in LLTG. ZLS cannot even save this drama for me. I can't even get past episode 4.

The story is so dumb and the ML looks like a big tall kid and it's so awkward. His acting is so stiff and I just don't find any appeal with him. And the sound quality on this show is so bad!!! I cannot stand poor sound quality. I even tried watching on different websites to see if it was just VIKI, but it's everywhere.

So FL meets this guy by crashing into him on her scooter moped thing. She takes him into her home without knowing anything about him and starts caring for him. He catches her kitchen on fire, floods her house, etc. The thing that irritated me the most was when he flooded her house she was barely freaking out. The damage that floods cause is crazy! She should have been infuriated but instead (out of her good heart I'm guessing) cares for the ML because he's like having a panic attack bc of the water and then everything is pretty much okay after that. Like seriously.. the flood was caused by a damaged kitchen sink faucet and there was SO MUCH water LOL. How?! I think it would take a much longer time for it to get THAT flooded... and were there not any neighbors who saw the water coming out the door of the apartment? Zzz.. soo dumb.

There was another scene where he put a metal utensil in the microwave and it caught on fire. Then later on in another episode he suddenly knows how to cook and makes a rice cooker meal. Like bro... you know how to cook this nice little rice cooker meal but you didn't know not to put freaking metal in the microwave? Even if you're supposedly so rich & don't use microwave at home, it's universal common sense!

Just too many things irritating me in this drama. It was also poorly paced in my opinion. I'm all for slow burns, but this was almost moving too fast in my opinion. You barely know this guy!!! AGHHHHH. Okay I'm done.

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