AlternativePerspective
This review may contain spoilers
How to outwit your frenemies & enemies and bag yourself a Prince
I choose to watch this drama thinking I was in for a lighthearted rom-com between 2 young actors, working as farmers labouring in some rural province of China. Turns out, it wasn't. The title is rather misleading. Although the setting starts off in a farm (a virtual computer game farm, to be precise), the story is really about how the female protagonist, the underdog stacked with the odds against her, schemes her way in order to survive and thrive. Her male lover is an undercover prince, who takes on the identity of a humble farm boy. He becomes her brainy side-kick and partner-in-crime.
The Meta-context
Lian Man Er, portrayed as your average girl-next-door person, is invited to beta-test a company's new computer game that is set in a virtual Farm. Once the game begins, she is parachuted into a rural farming village as a player with a mission to earn 1000 taels of money. Every new character in the computer game is always introduced by their names, and every episode concludes with a total tally of money that Lian Man Er has earned or expended in her account.
Obstacle 1: The Heroine's Toxic Family
The bulk of the drama's storyline quickly becomes engulfed by the petty rivalry and silly squabbles between Lian Man Er's family members. The only saints in her family are her long-suffering parents, her cute little 7 year old brother and a mild-mannered weak cousin. The rest of her biological relatives, from her grandfather grandmother, aunties, uncles and cousins are portrayed as lazy, gluttony, dumb passive useless and scheming personalities who go all lengths to frustrate Lian Man Er's morale and diminish her hard-earned money pool to line their own pockets.
Obstacle 2: The Hero's Undercover Takedown
Shen Nuo, the Male lead of the drama, is an undercover spy sent from the palace sent to find evidence against a marquis, who is secretly accumulating wealth to mine weaponry to wage war against the Emperor. He is picked up by Man Er while on the run, and makes use of her hospitality to claim a resident status on her family's farm in order to keep a low profile and gather more intel about the marquis's secret plans. As an "ordinary plebeian" who makes a sudden appearance in town, he faces difficulty establishing links to the illegal business organisation that is funding the marquis's political rebellion.
Obstacle 3: The Couple's neverending obstacles and challenges
In order to earn money to fulfil her game mission, Lian Man Er has to constantly hatch multiple businesses, from selling roasted peanuts, then to selling fresh leafy greens, then to selling grape wine brandy and then setting up a restaurant in the city. Every one of her successful business plans is always met by competitor saboteurs and internal espionage, but Man Er and Shen Nuo have a very winsome way of working together to outwit their rivals and dissenters while achieving their own goals and bottomline. Their like-minded thinking and easy-going partnership is what builds their chemistry, and eventually the bud of romance.
The Romance
Lian Man Er meets her prince-charming in a forest when he is severely injured and on the run. Out of compassion or perhaps his sheer good looks, she takes him (a complete stranger) in and allows him to stay on the farm when he agrees to help her breakaway from an arranged marriage. Shen Nuo continues to hang around the farm to help Man Er & her family, contributing more of his brains than actual hard work. Their budding romance experiences a short disruption when Shen Nuo abruptly disappears from the village without a proper farewell because he is unable to disclose his mission to Man Er and her family. When he abruptly reappears back on the farm and finally reveals his true identity and agenda, Man Er accepts him without much resistance and readily assists him in his undercover mission. The only rival for Man Er's affections is her goody-two-shoes kind-hearted neighbour, Youheng, who silently yearns for Man Er from afar, as most wallflowers are scripted to do. Thankfully, there is no other toxic romantic-rival to make the story defocused from its existing sub-plots.
The (Virtual) Happy Ending
An abducted family member gets rescued by Man Er, the mastermind enabling the illegal ore-mining scheme gets nabbed by Shen Nuo, the villagers get to return to their homeland and Lian Man Er's toxic family members magically morph into angelic souls who forgive each other's past transgressions over a heartwarming family reunion dinner. Shen Nuo disappears to return back to the Capital and returns years later to reunite with Man Er on the farm, promising a more committed relationship in the near distant future. But why not now, we wonder? All seems well.
The Reality
Man Er is brought back to reality once she completes her game mission and is sad to leave behind the virtual farm village world. The last scene is intentionally left ambiguous and open-ended: Will Man Er ever meet her prince-charming Shen Nuo in real life? I am left feeling utterly unsatisfied with such an incomplete ending.
The Bad Parts
The biggest weakness of this drama is it's setting. Most of the story revolves around how a Heroine meets her Hero and how they overcome their struggles and outwit their enemies together. But their relationship and romance (as the Title suggests) has no closure. Instead, we find out from the bonus special episode that Shen Nuo is actually the CEO heading the gaming company. Does this mean that he controlled the game settings all this while he was also a player in the game? What was the whole point of the game challenge? Will they ever continue to build their romance and live happily ever after after the computer game ends? The ending was so ambiguous and unsatisfactory because it did not answer these key questions, it makes the computer game meta-context feel pointless and irrelevant for me. This drama could have just focused on the Farm instead of trying to add a computer meta-context setting to make the story feel different.
The second issue with the drama is that I found many of Lian Man Er's family members scripted to be so unbearably toxic and grew tired of their petty politicking and fast-forwarded many of those scenes. I wish this drama could cut back on the toxic family squabbles and give more screen time to the key plot.
Which is the 3rd issue I have with the drama. The illegal ore mining scheme is stuffed across the last few episodes and the actual mastermind villain behind the supposed political rebellion does not even make an appearance in the show. Instead all we see are his cronies, the leader heading a powerful network of businessmen, deploying their wealth and resources to execute the illegal ore-mining business.
The Good Parts
This drama is a mini-masterclass about politicking your way out of sticky situations, whether it be a toxic family or unfavorable business and living conditions. The female protagonist does this very successfully with her smarts, sass and big sunny smile. Personally for me, Man Er and Shen Nuo's couple chemistry whenever they had level-headed strategic discussions on how to deal with different challenges were the real gems of this show. They would make fantastic MBA professors. So perhaps the title of this drama could have been Slaying it on a farm, albeit a virtual gaming one.
The Meta-context
Lian Man Er, portrayed as your average girl-next-door person, is invited to beta-test a company's new computer game that is set in a virtual Farm. Once the game begins, she is parachuted into a rural farming village as a player with a mission to earn 1000 taels of money. Every new character in the computer game is always introduced by their names, and every episode concludes with a total tally of money that Lian Man Er has earned or expended in her account.
Obstacle 1: The Heroine's Toxic Family
The bulk of the drama's storyline quickly becomes engulfed by the petty rivalry and silly squabbles between Lian Man Er's family members. The only saints in her family are her long-suffering parents, her cute little 7 year old brother and a mild-mannered weak cousin. The rest of her biological relatives, from her grandfather grandmother, aunties, uncles and cousins are portrayed as lazy, gluttony, dumb passive useless and scheming personalities who go all lengths to frustrate Lian Man Er's morale and diminish her hard-earned money pool to line their own pockets.
Obstacle 2: The Hero's Undercover Takedown
Shen Nuo, the Male lead of the drama, is an undercover spy sent from the palace sent to find evidence against a marquis, who is secretly accumulating wealth to mine weaponry to wage war against the Emperor. He is picked up by Man Er while on the run, and makes use of her hospitality to claim a resident status on her family's farm in order to keep a low profile and gather more intel about the marquis's secret plans. As an "ordinary plebeian" who makes a sudden appearance in town, he faces difficulty establishing links to the illegal business organisation that is funding the marquis's political rebellion.
Obstacle 3: The Couple's neverending obstacles and challenges
In order to earn money to fulfil her game mission, Lian Man Er has to constantly hatch multiple businesses, from selling roasted peanuts, then to selling fresh leafy greens, then to selling grape wine brandy and then setting up a restaurant in the city. Every one of her successful business plans is always met by competitor saboteurs and internal espionage, but Man Er and Shen Nuo have a very winsome way of working together to outwit their rivals and dissenters while achieving their own goals and bottomline. Their like-minded thinking and easy-going partnership is what builds their chemistry, and eventually the bud of romance.
The Romance
Lian Man Er meets her prince-charming in a forest when he is severely injured and on the run. Out of compassion or perhaps his sheer good looks, she takes him (a complete stranger) in and allows him to stay on the farm when he agrees to help her breakaway from an arranged marriage. Shen Nuo continues to hang around the farm to help Man Er & her family, contributing more of his brains than actual hard work. Their budding romance experiences a short disruption when Shen Nuo abruptly disappears from the village without a proper farewell because he is unable to disclose his mission to Man Er and her family. When he abruptly reappears back on the farm and finally reveals his true identity and agenda, Man Er accepts him without much resistance and readily assists him in his undercover mission. The only rival for Man Er's affections is her goody-two-shoes kind-hearted neighbour, Youheng, who silently yearns for Man Er from afar, as most wallflowers are scripted to do. Thankfully, there is no other toxic romantic-rival to make the story defocused from its existing sub-plots.
The (Virtual) Happy Ending
An abducted family member gets rescued by Man Er, the mastermind enabling the illegal ore-mining scheme gets nabbed by Shen Nuo, the villagers get to return to their homeland and Lian Man Er's toxic family members magically morph into angelic souls who forgive each other's past transgressions over a heartwarming family reunion dinner. Shen Nuo disappears to return back to the Capital and returns years later to reunite with Man Er on the farm, promising a more committed relationship in the near distant future. But why not now, we wonder? All seems well.
The Reality
Man Er is brought back to reality once she completes her game mission and is sad to leave behind the virtual farm village world. The last scene is intentionally left ambiguous and open-ended: Will Man Er ever meet her prince-charming Shen Nuo in real life? I am left feeling utterly unsatisfied with such an incomplete ending.
The Bad Parts
The biggest weakness of this drama is it's setting. Most of the story revolves around how a Heroine meets her Hero and how they overcome their struggles and outwit their enemies together. But their relationship and romance (as the Title suggests) has no closure. Instead, we find out from the bonus special episode that Shen Nuo is actually the CEO heading the gaming company. Does this mean that he controlled the game settings all this while he was also a player in the game? What was the whole point of the game challenge? Will they ever continue to build their romance and live happily ever after after the computer game ends? The ending was so ambiguous and unsatisfactory because it did not answer these key questions, it makes the computer game meta-context feel pointless and irrelevant for me. This drama could have just focused on the Farm instead of trying to add a computer meta-context setting to make the story feel different.
The second issue with the drama is that I found many of Lian Man Er's family members scripted to be so unbearably toxic and grew tired of their petty politicking and fast-forwarded many of those scenes. I wish this drama could cut back on the toxic family squabbles and give more screen time to the key plot.
Which is the 3rd issue I have with the drama. The illegal ore mining scheme is stuffed across the last few episodes and the actual mastermind villain behind the supposed political rebellion does not even make an appearance in the show. Instead all we see are his cronies, the leader heading a powerful network of businessmen, deploying their wealth and resources to execute the illegal ore-mining business.
The Good Parts
This drama is a mini-masterclass about politicking your way out of sticky situations, whether it be a toxic family or unfavorable business and living conditions. The female protagonist does this very successfully with her smarts, sass and big sunny smile. Personally for me, Man Er and Shen Nuo's couple chemistry whenever they had level-headed strategic discussions on how to deal with different challenges were the real gems of this show. They would make fantastic MBA professors. So perhaps the title of this drama could have been Slaying it on a farm, albeit a virtual gaming one.
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