A Fun & Funny Meet Cute Turns into A Generic Rich Businessman Fights to Stay on Top Drama

When I heard about this show and found out it was adapted from a movie, the first thing I did was to watch the movie. This show was smart enough to get through most of the structure of the movie in the first 4-5 of episodes, have the characters quickly establish their attraction to each other, and have slightly different motivations than the characters in the movie. This made it easy for the show to become its own. The setup is the same, rich businessman who is thinking of buying a hotel falls in love with the food cooked by a member of the kitchen staff and due to wacky mistakes/coincidences, the kitchen staff member, Gu Shengnan, ends up cooking for him, Lu Jin, to pay off a debt. However, unlike the movie, Nana isn't happy with her position at the hotel, Lu Jin isn't antisocial and super-focused on his work to please a parent, and both characters start to have romantic feelings for each other much sooner. Also, unfortunately we have the (horrible) best friend whose personality is completely different from the one portrayed in the movie, the mandatory second leads to stand in the way of the OTP, and the loyal employee and relative. The acting throughout this drama was good even when a number of the characters were only there to progress the plot. The chemistry between OTP was good, not Bai Lu/Xiu Kai levels, but still believable that those two characters were attracted to each other. By episode 10, we have our established couple, the pair that will make the relationship a square, and Nana's work antagonist. Nana's work issues are quickly resolved by a couple of episodes and then you really don't see her at work as much- bye bye food porn. Then at episode 14, the show starts to turn into something else and the focus is more on Lu Jin. And because he's so good at his job, his antagonist comes from his family. And it goes downhill from there. I was set for this show to be an 8.5. A solid number, but the writing in the 2nd half of this show doesn't work well and diminishes the overall quality of the plot. It's comes off as very forced and predictable, as characters continue to devolve to hit the plot points for the story. So predictable, that you aren't surprised when characters disappear and come back as a couple. I'm not going to complain about how inaccurate the story is about the job of a hotel-employed chef. I've rarely seen any drama that gets it right, most shows aren't The Wire. As for the music, there were four songs that I can remember, but the standout is definitely Your Smile which is the end theme for the drama. The opening theme is Love is For You; then there's Zhao Lusi's I Like You, and the autotuned Falling in Love. All contemporary and fitting for the drama. To end, I'd watch full episodes of 1-14, then I'd start jumping around watching scenes from the rest of the other episodes. Regardless of my disappointment, I mostly enjoyed this show and would love to see Zhao Lusi and especially Lin Shen. That man has sex appeal.

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