Fun & heart-fluttering

This show seriously shot its way up my list of favorite web dramas so fast. It's a travesty this couldn't go on for longer because I'm such a huge fan of this enemies-to-lovers (or more specifically annoyer & annoyee relationship) trope and I feel like this drama did it absolutely flawlessly.

The plot was straightforward and it had its cliches, but the drama didn't feel recycled at all — it was so refreshing, the leads absolutely killed their roles, and I just really loved how the story and relationship developed between the characters, who were simultaneously polar opposites and like two puzzle pieces that fit perfectly together.

The cinematography was also really good; it's not high production by any means but I really loved the symbolism of different colors as well as how the show edited SW and JY's scenes to parallel or contrast them.

It's also rare we get to see side characters get their due in these short shows, but Semantic Error really did an amazing job on the minor characters revolving around the leads; they not only had their own personalities and lives either, but I also just felt like their scenes were just as interesting and fun.

Overall, such a good drama with the perfect balance of fluff and tension. Definitely one I would return to watch.

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Heartwrenching at certain points

I honestly have to say that Jang Ki Yong totally stole the show for me. From his first scene, I knew that he and Ji-an would have some sort of history, and indeed he turned out to be the most layered and gray character. He had one of the best development arcs I'd ever seen, and the acting was top-notch.

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the development between the leads as well, but it just didn't captivate me the same way, save for a few scenes that were actually really touching.

I wish I could rate this higher but it actually took me so long to get through this drama, and even mid-way it was hard to find the motivation to keep going. I think part of this was the amount of time dedicated to the side characters — while some did grow on me, especially when they interacted with Ji-an in later episodes, for most of it I didn't care much for many of their scenes and it just very disjointed from the main storyline.

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Potential

My 5.5 is not to say that I didn't enjoy this — it was a light-hearted watch and the aesthetics of it are so beautiful. I was even okay with the weird documentary format that worked in some places but didn't work in others because somehow they got "footage" from before and in weird, personal places, and somehow they were indirectly talking to each other as interviews bounced back and forth.

The part that turned me off the most was the plot and character development, which needs a lot of work. It was like they had 4 pairs of characters but only thought about 1 of them, and even the story for that main pairing was dragged out and very thin. I was more invested in all of the other ships and they either didn't get a storyline across multiple episodes or just didn't play a role in the story at all.

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As a historical and cultural marker, this film is pretty famous and has a lot of symbolism and motifs of modernity, tradition, Westernization/globalization, repetition, reflections, class struggles, and the circularity of life that are really interesting to break down in a culture class. I appreciate all the little foreshadowing in dialogue, and the parallel of different storylines.

Whether I ENJOYED watching the show is a different matter altogether. It was definitely long, and a lot of the time it was hard to be truly engaged. Some of the acting was kind of cringe, from over-the-top sobbing to stiff dialogue.

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I honestly went into this with low expectations, considering the reviews and the blurb, but it turned out to be better than I expected. I appreciated that the characters were dealing with very real life issues like finding a job, being motivated, etc, and some subtle humor was actually decent.

As expected for a short web drama though, it didn't get to explore these things in depth as much as I wished it did, and the ending felt very bubblegum as everything just suddenly started going right.

The more action-packed plotline was also a nice surprise — it's rare that web dramas try to explore a story that needs so much backstory. Sadly though I felt like the resolution was very deus ex machina, and it had no lead-in or sufficient explanation.

I also really didn't like the side characters, and maybe part of it is just that there were way too many, and they all seemed to be dealing with the same issue of not knowing what you want to do in life. And the robot would solve it for them — it all got a bit repetitive.

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I'm a sucker for high school / college dramas, but not ones that span a long time. So obviously I had mixed feelings about this before I even started. To be honest, I had gotten it all spoiled for me, and knowing that the ending was unsatisfying, I ended up skimming the entire drama.

If you asked me to describe this drama in one phrase, I'd scream "SECOND LEAD SYNDROME." Lu Zhi Ang was undoubtedly my favorite character, and it hurt knowing that he wouldn't get the main girl, when he was SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE MALE LEAD. And as much as I liked Yan Mo, I usually never quite like the second love interest as much, especially for a character I was so invested in. I never really cared about the main ship either—in fact, I've gotten a little tired of the "strong and silent" type of boy being the love interest, and I felt like Zhi Ang was just so much more lovable.

I still really liked the first half of this drama. If I wasn't someone who just HAS to finish everything till the end, I'd have stopped at the episode when they graduated college. Honestly, that's what I'd recommend too. Although the high school parts had some cliche plotlines (ex: cheating on a test), I still liked how pure it was.

The last 6 episodes were the worst. Everything was really random and extreme, and the sort of mellow and slice-of-life drama I'd been watching suddenly became a soap opera where everything went wrong without any good reason other than to make things tragic. I also HATED Qi Qi's character arc—she was another one of my favorite characters and she was completely ruined.

Also, I felt like there were so many unnecessary flashbacks. I swear I watched Yu Jian with Qing Tian's interactions a million times, and it was always the same scenes over and over again. There were also so many flashback montages for the main leads and for Zhi Ang and his mom, and they were always the same scenes. I also was lowkey weirded out by the flashbacks of how Xiao Si's parents fell in love: I wish they had gotten actual young actors instead of just doing things like putting the mom actor in a pink doll dress and giving her pigtails.

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Not as good as its prequel

While I liked the overall vibe of these movies and how they were a mix between romance, life, and action, I just didn't connect much to this movie's plot. I wasn't a huge fan of Chungking Express but it was still better — I felt more invested in the stories and the characters had more personality to them. The stories felt more organized and I connected to what they were feeling more.

Even then, however, I have to give credit once more to Kaneshiro Takeshi, who had the most intriguing part of the movie and certainly did his character justice. I wish we saw more of his character.

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Fluffy but mediocre plot

I really liked the vibe of this drama and the fluffiness of scenes — the relationship between the leads and the second leads are adorable, and the bromance and sismance were also really nice.

Though I like individual scenes though, some things just feel really cliche and hard to believe when it came to plot, and development of the story was sometimes lacking cohesion — some things that happen are unclear and led to cliches that I didn’t need. I have to admit that the premise of the drama requires some suspension of disbelief which I had trouble with, but over time I got used to it.

Other than that, most of the obstacles were handled well, but I felt like the last few eps of this drama fall into a melodramatic progression (to be honest a lot of Chinese dramas fall victim to it) but there were the very dramatic tropes of kidnapping, noble idiocy, corporate corruption, etc. All of these are just really annoying and unnecessary to me.

Lastly — I have to say that the OST for this drama is really good, but sometimes doesn't match the scene well.

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It's missing something

This one got really glowing reviews so I was quite looking forward to it, and while I still like the essence of the plot and the chemistry between the leads, it just feels like there's something missing. Maybe it was the writing or the editing, but I constantly felt like the show was missing scenes or having really important reveals happen off-screen. I was looking forward to a lot of identity reveals — each of the leads and the villain — but they all turned out very underwhelming, like the characters found out off screen and then the next scene was them just stating it.

The plot itself is interesting but it was also written in a weird way. I wasn't sure how the leads found out about the villain, and I wasn't completely sure about the antagonist's motivations either, compared to a drama like The Untamed drama where got to see exactly how the leads worked together and how things went wrong. There are characters who I thought would end up playing a bigger role considering how much screentime and importance they were given, but they turned out to just be a subplot and not at all tied to the final arc, which ultimately felt quite rushed.

Overall, I think there's a story here, but from someone who hasn't read the source material, the drama itself is not executed that well outside of the two leads.

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Simultaneously good and bad

So for a short drama there are parts of this that are genuinely impressive — the cinematography is good, the sound mixing fits the vibes, and I admit...some steamy scenes were great and a breath of fresh air from the cutesiness that c-dramas usually stick to.

With that being said, it felt somewhat overdone. I lost count of how many times the ML kabedonned our FL or pinned her wrists down, and because the drama WAS so short, I felt like we really needed to just cut some of the kiss scenes and just work on the plot more.

There are moments where the story jumps around; it's not crazy and you can still follow the overarching plot (which is actually quite solid and needed more screentime), but I was still left feeling confused as to when we got from Point A to Point B.

The acting is also inconsistent. There are some very impressive moments, like a particular crying scene for our ML. But every single character feels a little stiff at some point and the dubbing doesn't help at all.

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Good vibes, bad pacing of character development

I think this drama had a very good start and I didn't mind that there would be another guy to pressure our leads, even though we all knew he had no chance. Just overall, I really loved the vibe of the show as well; the music and soft cinematography were really comforting, not to mention how the chemistry between our leads was off the charts.

The ending felt a little rushed, however. I'd say that the show was decently paced until the last episode, where the main leads went through getting back together, breaking up, some individual character development, and then getting back together again.

I feel like the contents of the entire last episode should've been distributed more evenly throughout all the previous episodes and the amount of love-triangle scenes could've been lessened (and I'm saying that as a love triangle enjoyer).

Hyunseo's insecurity problem should've prevented them from getting back together in the first place, and the ensuing episodes could have been spent on communication and her trying to work on that, rather than having them get back together first and THEN bringing back the insecurity issue to break them up again. With so much being stuffed in the last episode, there also just wasn't enough time to have the leads communicate more, and it made their final reunion feel abrupt and unearned. If we'd seen more character development outside of the romance it would've helped as well — like seeing Hyunseo's journey with the piano and Suho's journey with trying to find happiness in the little things again after working so hard the past few years.

Overall, I still think this was a light watch; Steve Noh is fantastic and I would love to see him in more melodrama/romcoms because he was great at both emotional and comedic scenes. I've loved the softness of both this series and the prequel Soundtrack #1, and I hope they follow this up with another miniseries.

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Inferior to S1 in every way

It was really great being able to revisit these characters that I had grown to care for but the first word that comes to mind when I think about this drama is "unnecessary." Season 1 left off in a great place and I felt like this season had no idea what overarching story it wanted to tell, it left some beloved side characters in the dust, and it also gave up on the past-present parallels.

Our main character went through a lot of character development in the first season, whereas in this one I felt like for everyone we pretty much ended right where we started. Conflicts that seemed to make little sense (as the result of actions that felt out of character) were introduced and then resolved at the end, expectedly.

One thing that I loved about the first season was the way it tied the present timeline into the past. In every episode of this season it was like they tried to do the same thing but couldn't quite think of a story. The scenes jumped back and forth a little more haphazardly and I struggled to understand why this flashback was being shown or honestly what was even happening.

Because of the wishy-washinesss of the plot, it also just felt like many important characters and relationships were sidelined.

I will say that the acting still stays pretty consistent and I still love the casting of the main female lead and her younger self; it just feels so natural with the way they talk and argue and act and it really pulls me in.

It's a great drama to learn about the little bits of Taiwanese culture and language but as a drama I think the first season was way better.

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Plot vs. Plot Triggers

To start with, the world-building was a little confusing, but it definitely definitely grew on me. I grew to enjoy the different rules, aesthetics, and customs in different Clans — it's sad that we rarely see all of the groups get together because so much of the story is focused on individual characters, but as a backdrop they were still great to see.

The characters were plentiful but not confusing (at least not once you got used to them) and I particularly liked the female lead Baiqian, who was a strong female lead both in name and in personality. The relationship with Yehua was also great — a male lead who was so faithful and never wavered is always so satisfying to watch, even though there were some scenes where he was forceful and it made me uncomfortable.

Other than that, there is one thing that really bothered me and that's how the plot points were triggered — always by the cliche backstabbing, jealous, second female lead trying to sabotage the main leads' relationship. I've always been very annoyed by how the misogyny present in the writing of second female leads, and it was so obvious in this drama. It felt like there was an entire magic world and a faction war out there and yet everything was triggered by the pettiness of female characters. There had to be over three of them, and I honestly can't think of many female side characters that were genuinely good and important. I'd rather have the Ghost King or another antagonist be the main plot-driver.

Still, I think this drama played on tropes pretty well — while amnesia and time jumps usually bother me a lot and still sometimes felt convenient or rushed, I understand how both of them were an essential part of the plot and were explained generally well.

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