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The Heart of Genius chinese drama review
Completed
The Heart of Genius
14 people found this review helpful
by Emi
Aug 6, 2022
34 of 34 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 9.5
Story 10.0
Acting/Cast 9.0
Music 10.0
Rewatch Value 9.0
This review may contain spoilers

If you could travel to a parallel world, what would you change about your life?

Lin Zhaoxi (LZX) is a graduate of philosophy from a prestigious university who is seemingly overshowed by her genius father Lin Zhaosheng (LZS) and equally brilliant love interest Pei Zhi (PZ). She and superstar classmate Ji Jiang (JJ) find themselves in a parallel world and must figure out how to return home. Honestly, this drama was an absolute joy to watch.

Story wise, this drama was fantastic and despite being about parallel universe, the story managed to remain grounded in the things that mattered. The Parallel universe was a way to help Strawberry Lin Zhaoxi grow in character and confidence, and Pei Zhi to be able to come to terms with his father's death. I have to say given that Strawberry world PZ and Cheese world Pei Zhi both were so stubborn about wanting to stay in the others' world, I think they are both similar in their selfishness. I do wish the story had showed us more of Cheese world's PZ after he returned but the story just ended there. Also, I have to say that the naming of the worlds, Strawberry and Cheese was so simplistic but it worked so well in helping to tell which world they were referring to.

I also have to commend LZS the father because he was an awesome dad to LZX! He put in 200% into his daughter and while he was unconventional, he loved his daughter more than anything or anyone including himself. I loved watching him grow to accept LZX as his daughter in the Cheese world. I also found it funny how he basically switched jobs just to follow her wherever she went. It was so touching.

I also like Snape (I don't recall his name) but I think he was a fantastic character in that he resembled LZX in a big way. LZX was overshadowed by her dad and PZ all her life and Snape more than anyone could relate to that. That's why I loved their little talk in the hospital.

I also must talk about PZ's biggest fan, Zhang Liang because he was fantastic. I liked that they didn't make him hate PZ out of jealousy because that would have been pretty one-dimensional. He admired and wanted to be friends with PZ more than anyone and I loved his adult version even more. It was also funny how he hated and was lowkey jealous of LZX because she had PZ's attention and love which he thought was wasted on her. He genuinely liked math as well and that was nice to see even though younger him was a little brat.

One thing I disliked was the love triangle they tried to force with Ji Jiang because it was never hinted at till they return to their world. It was completely unnecessary and could have been avoided. But I guess they had to give a reason for JJ to remain around LZX so they just went with that.

Acting wise, I have to praise the child actors for this drama because honestly, they were all fantastic and really hard-carried. Young LZX was an absolute unit second only to the cheeky but adorable child actor playing JJ. Then we also had young PZ who was able to emulate the character of a young, doe eyed genius who comes across LZX and was completely taken by her. It was precisely because of the young PZ that I was able to understand the reasoning behind Cheese world PZ setting everything in motion just to be with the LZX he knew and loved. I don't blame him too much because I also felt a strong bond to their younger characters that I was super sad to see them go. Unfortunately the chemistry between the adult versions of the characters wasn't as strong but that's okay. Their performance was still okay.

Music was the bomb!! I'm still looking for one of the OST's. I hope I find it.

Overall, an excellent drama. Reminds me of reset which is odd because they have little in common. But I have to say, China really rocks at this genre. The ability to combine simple everyday stories with time travel/parallel worlds is an art.
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