michelleoc
This review may contain spoilers
For me, this drama was irritating
Positives first:
1) Tan Song Yun as Ning Meng was excellent. Her growth from secretary to investment person was interesting to watch. This was a character that depended upon herself to succeed. She wasn't whiny, stupid or over-the-top in any way.
2) The character of Ning Meng (when she wasn't making bad relationship decisions). She was not the typical damsel in distress character.
3) The clothing that Ning Meng wore. Mature, classy.
4) The friendship that ultimately is developed between the ML and FL.
Unfortunately, the list is short for the positives. The negatives far outweighed them.
1) The character of Lu Ji Ming. I think that Ling Geng Xin did a good job portraying him, but this man was abusive, plain and simple. They made a point of saying, multiple times, that she had worked for him for three years, so she'd been putting up with this for quite a while. He was mean, and the name calling was terrible. He called her stupid, saying she had no talent, and could not be successful at anything other than being his secretary. It's bad enough when it's just the two of them, but when he bad-mouths her to her new boss, I thought he'd progressed to a new level of low. Then he basically stalks her and tries to convince her to come back and work for him!
2) The excessive amount of push and pull in their relationship. It was just one drama after the other designed to keep them apart. An editor would not have been remiss here. I mean, it seemed like filler just to complete the "required" number of episodes. Each time there would be a glimmer of hope, I would look at what episode I was on and think, "Okay, what bad thing is going to happen next, they've got a bunch more episodes to fill." This would have been so much more enjoyable with half the episodes.
3) To call this a slow burn romance is not correct. They finally got together in LITERALLY the last five minutes of the last episode. There was no burn, no sizzle, no spark, no flicker. Personally, I think to call this drama a romance at all is misleading.
4) I appreciated their chemistry once they became friends. I liked that the FL was the one to come to the aid of the ML and to stand by him. However, since I watched this show looking for romance, I was sorry to not see any romantic chemistry between them.
5) The handling of the physical and/or verbal abuse. There is never an excuse. I really didn't like the turn the writers took in trying to explain away the ML's verbal abuse "I was raised that way", etc. Just once, I'd like to see a character realize how wrong he was and sincerely apologize.
For anyone that has been patient enough to read this review, I'd say, decide for yourself whether to give this drama a try. Typically, I don't love C-dramas because of the length, dubbing, characters being apart more than they are together, ridiculous costuming, etc. I have seen a couple of C-dramas that I really loved, but most, not so much. So, if C-dramas are what you gravitate to, you might like this one.
1) Tan Song Yun as Ning Meng was excellent. Her growth from secretary to investment person was interesting to watch. This was a character that depended upon herself to succeed. She wasn't whiny, stupid or over-the-top in any way.
2) The character of Ning Meng (when she wasn't making bad relationship decisions). She was not the typical damsel in distress character.
3) The clothing that Ning Meng wore. Mature, classy.
4) The friendship that ultimately is developed between the ML and FL.
Unfortunately, the list is short for the positives. The negatives far outweighed them.
1) The character of Lu Ji Ming. I think that Ling Geng Xin did a good job portraying him, but this man was abusive, plain and simple. They made a point of saying, multiple times, that she had worked for him for three years, so she'd been putting up with this for quite a while. He was mean, and the name calling was terrible. He called her stupid, saying she had no talent, and could not be successful at anything other than being his secretary. It's bad enough when it's just the two of them, but when he bad-mouths her to her new boss, I thought he'd progressed to a new level of low. Then he basically stalks her and tries to convince her to come back and work for him!
2) The excessive amount of push and pull in their relationship. It was just one drama after the other designed to keep them apart. An editor would not have been remiss here. I mean, it seemed like filler just to complete the "required" number of episodes. Each time there would be a glimmer of hope, I would look at what episode I was on and think, "Okay, what bad thing is going to happen next, they've got a bunch more episodes to fill." This would have been so much more enjoyable with half the episodes.
3) To call this a slow burn romance is not correct. They finally got together in LITERALLY the last five minutes of the last episode. There was no burn, no sizzle, no spark, no flicker. Personally, I think to call this drama a romance at all is misleading.
4) I appreciated their chemistry once they became friends. I liked that the FL was the one to come to the aid of the ML and to stand by him. However, since I watched this show looking for romance, I was sorry to not see any romantic chemistry between them.
5) The handling of the physical and/or verbal abuse. There is never an excuse. I really didn't like the turn the writers took in trying to explain away the ML's verbal abuse "I was raised that way", etc. Just once, I'd like to see a character realize how wrong he was and sincerely apologize.
For anyone that has been patient enough to read this review, I'd say, decide for yourself whether to give this drama a try. Typically, I don't love C-dramas because of the length, dubbing, characters being apart more than they are together, ridiculous costuming, etc. I have seen a couple of C-dramas that I really loved, but most, not so much. So, if C-dramas are what you gravitate to, you might like this one.
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