8.5/10 os my rating. This is a 2011 Taiwanese romantic comedy drama with 84 approximately 45 minute episodes.

First I will provide a unique synopsis then review

Synopsis

Ke Wei Xiang (Chris Wang) and Song Yi Jie (Annie Chen) never envisioned themselves married to someone they had been promised to in the womb, I mean how old fashioned! But when Yi Jie gets to know and love Wei Xiang’s grandmother who professes to have a terminal illness, they decide to marry to fulfill the grandma’s wish. The young pair, who likely never would have selected each other on their own, marry but have a secret agreement to divorce in a year. Wei Xiang’s idea of his ideal match is very different and Yi Jie is avidly pursuing a legal degree. Will this “only to fulfill Grandma’s dying wish” arrangement become real?

Review

The romance between the main couple is believable and cute. The family dynamics are frustrating at times but also heart warming. There are a lot of really long scenes where it was a character reflecting on this or that, and I actually fast forwarded it through a lot of them because they felt really unnecessary. Eight four episodes is a lot and I think they could’ve easily reduced the length of the series if they had cut a lot of those things out or at least shortened them. Overall it was very good, definitely worth watching, but only invest when you’re ready to watch a really long series. I wouldn’t watch it again any time soon because it was just a lot, but it is good enough to rewatch at some point. I recommend it to people that like family dynamics, contract, marriages, growing through conflict and sweet love stories. The ending is happy although somewhat abrupt.

Spoilers*

I thought the level of filial behavior the elders expected was borderline abusive. On one hand I loved the granny (Tan Aizen) but at the same time, I thought what she expected her grandchildren to do to be filial and grant her wishes was ridiculous. She also was watching them to the extent that she invaded their privacy continually in many ways. She was cute and her behavior was cute but there were times when it wasn’t cute and she was just being nosy bossy and a bit of a bully.

We Xiang was wrong to let another woman so close to him, even though it was a fake marriage. Even in a fake marriage, it would be humiliating for people to think your spouse was getting it on with another woman. He used the excuse that he had to do business with her, and that may have been so, but he still could’ve kept a professional distance from her and he let her get in his romantic space way too much. Later in the series, when he fully fell in love, he was willing to burn every bridge so as not to be misunderstood. So it showed he should have known letting another woman that close was not appropriate. So when he set really clear parameters and definitively stated it was not going to happen, I was glad they turned it around that way.

Ko Wei Cheng’s (Kunda Hsieh) mob Princess girlfriend, Fang Hsueh Tu (Chen Mei Yang) was just straight up, mean to him most the time. Although he was a bit of a ladies’ man and not very responsible, that didn’t excuse her behavior. She both physically amd emottionally berated him. If she was angry, she let her thugs beat on him. I felt sorry for him at so many points. I wish he would’ve told his family what was really going on when they were first encouraging him To date her. I did not like that they met because he bullied her and that she then grew up to bully him. That couple and their relationship was built on violence,

We Xiang’s mother, Fang Xue Ru (Yang Chieh mei) liked a girl that was clearly a snobby person just as she was over someone her son and most of the family had chosen. It was heart breaking when Yu Jie would be trying so hard only for her mother-in-law to harshly criticize everything she did mostly because she liked another girl better. I liked that Yi Jie’s ex boyfriend told the being evil mother-in-law off. I wish the Ko family were told more of that back story about what was going on with him and exactly what he did to Yu Jie. I also liked when Yi Jie’s mother, SongLin Hao Yun (Yang Li Rin) told Xue Ru off.

There were so many lies and deceptions in this one. It made the Ko family seem bad. They clarified and resolved the lies and deceptions still it seemed that was their default solution to everything.

It ended so abruptly I actually ran it back to be sure I had not accidentally forwarded it. After all thet we do not get to know if she ever passes her bar? We got to see everyone else with their children but not the main couple? I felt cheated.

#InBornPair
#ChrisWang
#AnnieChang