Luo Yao Knew What He Meant (2023)

triangles or misunderstandings that drag too long... look elsewhere.

If I had to use three words to describe this drama they would be soft, fluffy and heartwarming. It falls into a very well known category, which is Coming Of Age School Drama, but unlike so many others before it, it does not care to create unnecessary plots where our leads suffer too much in their relationship (by breaking up out of nowhere, for example) or act stupidly for the sake of creating conflict; one of its greatest strengths is that characters trust each other and as a result, they won't blindly believe what outside forces try to convince them of when it comes to one another, which is something that happens way too often in dramas like this one.

Are there misunderstandings? Of course, but misunderstandings *are* a part of life and having them in small quantities in dramas and done realistically adds to them, and When I Fly Towards you manages to sprinkle them in a way that feels organic enough that you believe it could easily happen in real life.

This drama is something to watch when you need something cute and uplifting with the certainty that good things will keep happening as you watch and problems will be solved. It's comforting and wholesome, and manages to be those things without its characters leaning too much into being cheesy, corny or cringeworthy. An amazing feat, without a doubt.

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Typically I don't like watching high school cdramas, because censorship makes it near impossible to portray a reasonable romantic story in them and also they often have content involving parents & teachers that I abhor.
This drama is a standout in in this genre in the sense, that they've shown innocent but very sweet high school dating. At times I was wondering how this passed censorship. Then later on ML's momster came and forced a 1 year separation, so everyone could focus on their studies & then I thought "okay, so that's how". There were also various moments in the drama, when the leads were vehemently denying their romantic involvement with each other, but it was never in doubt. It was very strongly implied that they knew each other's feelings and they did everything dating teens would do, other than skinship that is.
(This is the second crama I've seen that is like this, the other one was 'Meeting You')

Basically the show can be split into three parts.
1) The kids getting to know each other. (first 5-9 ep)
2) The friend group of 5 enjoying their best life. (this is very close to 10/10 amazing)
3) College, young adult life (last 6-7 ep)

I would say 1) is not great, initially I found the show to be the most typical Chinese high school drama I have ever seen. I was fully prepared to drop it, but I did not really have anything else better lined up & I needed something to watch during my late night workout sessions.. Upon reaching 2) I was very surprised, suddenly everything started working for me and it felt like I'm watching a different show, where EVERYTHING is better, including the acting, the editing and even the background music inserts. In fact episode 10 is one of the best cdrama episodes I have ever seen, it was absolutely magical.
After the forced separation we quickly transitioned to college life & adult dating. While I tend to enjoy a simple, fluffy and complication-free happy ending, I felt 3) to be lackluster in many ways. I really liked the second couple & they barely had scenes there. Much of the non romantic plot earlier was involving ML's brother & momster. FL did not meet ML's mom during the adult part of the show, at least other than us seeing the mom sitting there at their wedding there has not been anything else. The brother also only had like one line during the wedding, would have been nice to see what happened to the genius. Also there were at least two occasions when I felt the writer set up some big cathartic faceslap moments and the then things just fizzled out, not cool! Give me my loud slap! To sum it up, in 3) we just went through the motions without enough emotional impact. (well there was a little of that in the finale, maybe)

Anyway despite the negative points this one is absolutely worth watching, perhaps even just for the bromances, but to me 'A Love So Beautiful' -despite that annoying Wu Busong and the breakup- is a much better cdrama that is largely similar to this one, but feels far better overall. It's better acted, has several really epic moments, the final episodes are very satisfying and it's amazing from episode 1 onward etc etc.
Of course if I started to compare it to the best university/young adult cdramas then it would just fall short.

TLDR: It's the second best high school cdrama I've seen, but usually high school cdramas suck, so 8/10.

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Sweet like sugar

I would say that this drama is like the embodiment of youth. It's so bright and heartwarming, really makes you want to go back to high school. It's fun, romantic and just chill, you mostly get to see the daily lives of four students. I think that their school days are what I always wanted and thought high school would be like (it's not), so it makes the audience really happy. Overall it's pretty light and there aren't any big obstacles, but I still think there are some important messages in this drama that will stay in your heart. This is probably the most heart-fluttering drama I've ever seen, just because it's so fresh and they're so young and naive. I also loved the cute qoutes they put at the end of every episode.

If you think this drama sounds interesting, definitely give it a try, I'm sure you'll like it a lot too! <3

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SO GOOD

WHAT THE EFFF… JUST FINISHED THIS. omg this drama is such a light hearted (FR LIGHTHEARTED. LIKE NO NAD PARTS) and sooooo sooo freaking sweet. lurang and guran MANN THEYRE SO CUTE. UGH I NEED ONE OF THEM IN MY LIFE. SO FREAKING SWEET. theyre both such green flags i’m actually sobbing. also this dramas like FILMING quality was SOO good like. literally straight out of my pinterest board. OH MAN I WISH I COULD HAVE A RELATIONSJIP LIKE RANGRANG AND ZAIZAI. UGHHH SUCH A FEEL GOOD DRAMA. ONE OF MY FAVS. screamed. squealed. THE WAY THE BOYS LOOK AT THIER GIRLS… LIKE WTFFFF. I NEEEEEED THIS IN MY LIFE. SO GOOD. SLOW BURN. SO GOOD.

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Again, Miao Yi is incredibly funny. If you want a funny, smart, and kind character that doesn't feel forced or even stupid, she's the right fit.

And the male lead, oof, I've been obsessed with Zhou Yiran since FIYS for absolutely no reason. His acting skills are amazing and his character here is so cool and serious that is heart-melting when he starts falling for Su Zaizai. I'm looking forward to his next work.

The storytelling in this drama is great, the writers were able to capture their growth through time very subtly, it's just like watching them grow and mature in front of our eyes, especially romantically.

The second leads have some amazing stories. Normally, I find it very hard to get involved in SLs stories, but not in this drama. The writers didn't only give them a relationship out of nowhere just to say they did it (something like this happened in Exclusive Fairytale, Miao Yi's new drama), all of the supporting characters have depth and we get to know them well.

Honestly, Friends to Lovers isn't my trope, but this C-drama flew fast to my top 3 favorites of all time.

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The fairytale of fairytales...

*minor spoilers*

I really wanted to give this drama an 8 but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this drama had noticeable flaws and maybe that's because the Reply (kdrama) series that it resembles, did so well.

The biggest detriment for me was that this presented as the fairytale of all fairytales and for me being older, wiser and more jaded, know that these situations aren't always going to come up smelling roses. There are inevitable struggles in life, unexpected hurdles that everyone has to face and in this, there weren't any big challenges. Everything just happened, quite quickly. Time changes didn't do anything except give secondary characters less screentime. I wished they did more with them because it became apparent that no one else had a story other than the main leads.

And I compare it to the Reply series because they tackled the issues of growing up head on, they didn't sugarcoat anything. Reality set in and in WIFTY, it never happpened, the fairytale just continued. It never came back down.

But if you want a nice, easy to follow, no worries drama to watch. This is perfect. But if you want something more realistic and a bit funnier, the Reply series is the way to go.

7.5/10

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