Wu Fa Lian Ai De Li Zhi Pai (2021)

una buon excursus in Cina

Dopo aver visto tantissime serie TV coreane, questo excursus in Cina ci è piaciuto. Nonostante certe similitudini, parliamo comunque di 2 mondi diversi. Abbiamo apprezzato il fatto che nonostante la serie sia molto "SOFT" è riuscita comunque ad tenerci appiccicati alla TV. Questo perchè contrariamente ad altre serie non ci sono quelle puntate che noi chiamiamo transitorie e/o di riempimento. Quelle che non apportano nulla alla trama/storia e che spesso sono anche ridicole e stancanti.
Qui, comunque la trama offriva 4-5 situazioni degne di essere seguite e che per tanto riempivano bene ogni singolo episodio.

Ammettiamo, che forse il finale è stato un po troppo Happy-Ending, visto che oltre all'amore anche a livero lavorativo tutto è andato nel verso giusto. Insomma, una favola !
Alla fine, a noi interessava vedere se RUO XIN avesse trovato il giusto equilibrio tra la sua razionalità e i sentimenti, se la madre di RIO XIN (tipica madre tossica asiatica insopportabile - almeno nella prima parte della storia) avrebbe capito che i pregiudizzi non servono a nulla e che l'amore non ha età. Il "giovanotto" QI XIAO alla fine, nonstante qualche conferma di immaturità si è dimostrato esattamente quel tipo di persona su misura per una donna con la storia, i sentimenti e il carattere come RUO XIN.

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All too relatable; An open letter/drama to the independent woman in her late 20s and early 30s.

You can be female and focus on your career, but still don't want to be alone.
You can be in a marriage, but still want to be independent and have your own voice.

When women are in their teens or 20s, society and dramas depict a dream-like fairytale that you can have an epic romance, live a dream job or get married, have kids and happy ending.

However,
- What if you don't want to get married?
- What if you'd rather prove that you can hold your own career path?
- What if you don't want kids?
- What if you were a housewife for 15 years and want to pursue new hobbies in your 40s?
- What happens if you quit your job in your early 20s to go travelling and decide you want to work again in your late 30s?
- What happens if you didn't want kids when you got married in your 20s, but now want kids in your late 30s; is it too late?

This drama opens the world to reality yet adds a glimmer of magic which makes it the hopeful story that it is. The idiosyncrasies at every corner of the drama can make one tear and connect with the main cast and say "I understand, I do/say that sometimes". Although subtle, you see it from the first few episodes where the female lead put a timer to cry in the workplace bathroom cubicle or eating instant noodles after work because she didn't have time to cook, to the episodes where she was alienated from meetings or working from the hospital bed.

Romance is the last word I would use to describe the connections in this drama. This drama showcases how relationships develop when people have genuine respect for each other, can work through multiple facades of problems together, support each other, and have the same core values. This is unlike the dramas where main leads fell in love at first sigt or some tug-o-war "I love you but I don't moments". While I acknowledge that there are scenes like this, the responses aren't over-dramatised and situations flow like you are part of the story. Additionally, it also shows what happens after the "honeymoon" period of young love, what struggles does a couple go through in their late 30s? On the flip side to the above, it shows what happens when couples can't resolve these problems together, don't respect or support each other, and push their values on to their partner.

The balance between "romance" and office politics was ingenious. The way the female lead suggests solutions to a problem such as the legal and sales department restructure to the willingness to approach new sales ideas with the support of data. These little details makes it assuring to watch that it's not just pure luck but hard work, effort and tactics by her or her employees that helped her through those work obstacles or political troubles.

As a single working woman in her late 20s while writing this review, the main female lead's rationalism, decisions, determination to stand up for the powerless, focus on her goals yet desire to remain child-like, be with her family and eat junk food, was all too relatable. "Some women have thorns all over their body because they're afraid of being abandoned or hurt". This is the first fictional slice-of-life that I could appreciate and connect to. Would this resonate with me if I was younger or older? I don't know, I'll definitely want to watch again to find out.

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秦岚 is a revelation

I tend to watch K-Dramas, despite being Chinese, so I came into this show without too many expectations. Whatever expectations I did have were completely overwhelmed by the third episode. This is one of the exceedingly rare shows where the chemistry between the actors works together so completely that you can't help but think they have to have at least some feelings for each other in real life. This doesn't just apply to the romantic relationships either, as the friendships, family, and work relationships all come across as genuine and captivating. Aside from the acting, the topic matter (young adult life in a competitive city) and story mesh together so well and is surely relatable for many of us.
For all of the special aspects of this show, the strongest by far is 秦岚's star power. It is beautifully ironic that her hobby in this show is stargazing, as her smile could light up the entirety of Shanghai ~~

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Determination

Okay I did not expect anything wonderful out of this drama, however, I did find myself skipping through some episodes and often fast forwarding a few times.

I love the ML which is probably the only reason I decided to watch it.

The story line was okay, in the sense that the FL was determined to prove her self in a all male working environment and to get a name for her self, the challenges she faced while trying to climbing the ladder. I did at times find that her mother was a bit to much and very pushy, having been a 33 year old and still trying to treat her as a child, and setting up dates etc. for her and just way to pushy for my liking, at the end of the day she was an adult and had the right to choose her own path. The romance was not a big factor for me, but there personal growth, on their life and work.

Dylan Wang finally got a role, where he shines! and shows brilliant acting skill. His expressions, liveliness is very natural as if it's not acting its real self.

Overall an inspirational drama.

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I beg to differ

After reading the other reviews of this Drama I was hopeful that this might FINALLY be a C Drama free of the patronising patriarchal propaganda that poisons almost every C Drama I've tried to watch. Sadly, it was not. I stuck it out for 10 episodes, but by then I'd had enough - ESPECIALLY of the way the young rookie ML took over the FL's life

Other reviewers have praised this as a realistic office Drama, but I can' agree. The ML is a rookie, very young AND an intern on probation, but despite that, within a month not only is he quite insanely possessive of his boss, he's also compltely forgotten the concept of "personal space" If any PA physically intruded on their boss like that in any of the offices I know, that PA would not last long.

This is a 35 episode Drama, yet instead of taking its time to develop the romantic relationship, we already see the ML portrayed as the physical saviour of the FL in multiple occasions within the first 5 episodes. By episode 10, we're also "treated" to the sight of HIM telling her how to do her job. It's this which was the last straw for me, because it's SO depressingly common in C Dramas - no matter how skilled and competent a woman is at her job, she ALWAYS needs a man to teach her - in this case a man barely out of college and with zero prior work experience at all.

If you're after a Drama featuring a good looking OTP, then by all means try this one. If you want a Drama that gives token lip service to the idea of female empowerment while perpetuating Chinese chauvinism, this Dram would be PERFECT. But if you want Drama that ACTUALLY celebrates independent women who don't need to be protected and tutored by males, look elsewhere.

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One of the best modern cdrama with realistic plot

What i love about this drama is that they're so realistic and not ridiculous at all for cdrama. For once, this cdrama centred around main characters with COMMON ordinary background (not typical cdrama where one of the main character is rich and fall in love with the poor main character). The story also talk about real life struggle for people nowadays in our society. Also, i like the female character so much. Other people see her as 'perfect' independent woman when irl she has a lot flaws. Totally love Qin Lan's acting as Shen Ruoxin. Highly recommended drama if you want to watch slice of life drama.

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So Comforting and Exciting.

I actually had thought of a headline for my review in myb the 33th or 34th episode but ofc I forgot it when I continued watching this drama until the end. But truly this drama was so comforting to me. I've never been so engrossed in each episode of a drama that every time when each episode ended, I would exclaimed... "wait, ended already?". Like it just suck me in. This drama was about Rouxin's overcoming her difficulties navigating her career and her life with her loyal assistant, Qi Xiao alongside her.

Male Lead, Qi Xiao, a young man that only joined a big company to get a job and got mesmerised by his capable lady boss. He was smart, creative, loyal, hard working and quite a smooth talker. Ended up swearing loyalty to his boss, the FL bcs she tried her best to protect him, her newbie assistant when she was kicked out of her position and slowly he got to know her and fell in love with her as a person. You should see how he described her bcs you can truly see how in love he was with her. (I'm very bad at putting all this into words I'm sorry, but he was so amazing to her). Qi Xiao as a man in love, always be there with Ruoxin together solving problems, willing to do anything she wanted, protective of her, worried so much about her and very affectionate. He was so sweet. The length he went through to make her happy my god.

Female Lead, Shen Ruoxin, a woman in her early thirties that was very goal oriented but got derailed bcs of jealous men in power threatened by her performance in the legal department. At first, it seems like Ruoxin was cold and unapproachable to others but actually, Ruoxin was an independent, straightforward, wise, rational, graceful, righteous and courageous woman that strived to do her best in her field. She didn't back down when she literally was kicked to the curb by the company's vice president but she moved forward, learned her lessons and a bit by bit she succeeded advancing her career to the top accompanied by her loyal assistant later her boyfriend, ML Qi Xiao. She was impressed by the persistent of Qi Xiao to be her assistant and she won his loyalty when she willing to put her career on the line to help him keep his job bcs she knew it was unfair that he got dragged down as her assistant. She didn't desire a relationship and marriage bcs she prioritised her career and partially coz of her parents. Gradually, she saw how sincere Qi Xiao was to her, fell head over heels because of his actions repeatedly showed how much thoughtful he was to her, that he accepted and understands all of her as a person. Ruoxin also protective of ML and wanted to do everything that she could to help him.

I definitely love that this drama also showed other couples struggles and how they got back together , Ziyan (FL's bff) with her husband and Su Yang (Qi Xiao's bff) with Sijia.

Special shoutout to Qi Xiao's mom for being so supportive of QX relationship with Rx, trusting and loving her son so much. Well... Unlike the other mom *eyes rolls* but thankfully she came to her sense bcs she got to witness how they love each other.

Love most of Rouxin's office attires and ofc Qi Xiao, fashionable as always.

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Occasione mancata

Nonostante io abbia iniziato questo drama principalmente per ritrovare Dylan Wang dopo aver visto Meteor Garden, la trama mi incuriosiva molto, specialmente per la differenza di età tra i due protagonisti e il fatto che fosse la donna la persona più adulta. Purtroppo però il drama è davvero lento e decisamente troppo focalizzato sulle questioni lavorative, lasciando poco spazio ai personaggi, alle relazioni e ai diversi temi che emergono (es: la frustrazione di non trovare lavoro, l'indecisione sul mettere al mondo un figlio, ecc.).
I protagonisti mi piacciono però non sono riuscita ad affezionarmi, li ho trovato piuttosto piatti e monocorde. Di conseguenza, a mio parere, anche la recitazione ne ha risentito visto che non vi è stata l'occasione per gli attori di esprimersi al meglio.
Ho deciso di droppare il drama perché davvero soporifero, ad ogni finale di puntata non avevo la minima curiosità di sapere come proseguiva.

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I could not be rational.

[I respect other reviewers and their individual choices. There are plenty of dramas out there to suit every taste. Direct your support or lack of to the drama itself. If you support this drama, good for you and please continue to. Please write your own good reviews. If you do not support this drama, please also write your own review. We are reviewers. Not personal attackers. We review. We do not attack. Reserve your opinions for your reviews and not for the reviewer who is responding to the drama itself and not to other external aspects. I am responding to this drama that I have watched and I am not personally attacking any actor or actress in real life as I do not know them at all and have no grudges against them. It is all based on this particular drama only/ this particular reel life only.]


I wanted to watch this drama because the premise looked interesting and I wanted to watch Dylan Wang. However, after sitting through the whole of the first episode, I must confess that I couldn't go on.

What I consider okay:
- The FL is very decent. She can act. She was all right.
- Dylan Wang is pretty cute. I must confess that I have not watched anything with him in it (yet) and I plan to.

What I don't like:
- The plot about the woman at 33 being very old and that she has 'no more market value' and that she has to quickly settle for any available man and quickly get married and settle down and give birth to a kid or two etc. I could not take such annoying ridiculousness. A woman has choices (just like a man). A woman is settled enough with or without a man. A woman is complete enough with or without a man. I could not see how I could sit through several episodes of such old-fashioned thinking / nonsense and so, I had to stop watching this drama for my own sanity.
- Pushy men with old-fashioned thinking. Pushy men who use "because I love you" as rationale for all the ridiculous things that they do. Pushy men who disrespect women. Pushy men who are also self-absorbed, self-entitled and self-serving.
- Annoying parents / elders who use emotional blackmail and who push children / the next generation into unhappy or unsuitable relationships / marriages simply because they think that it will be a disgrace to have such an old and unmarried daughter (or son). It is crazy. Isn't it better to be happily single than unhappily married?
- Irresponsible shareholders who run off and leave others in the lurch. (Dylan Wang's business partner ran off, leaving him in the lurch and creating a complete mess too. Terrible!)


[I respect other reviewers and their individual choices. There are plenty of dramas out there to suit every taste. Direct your support or lack of to the drama itself. If you support this drama, good for you and please continue to. Please write your own good reviews. If you do not support this drama, please also write your own review. We are reviewers. Not personal attackers. We review. We do not attack. Reserve your opinions for your reviews and not for the reviewer who is responding to the drama itself and not to other external aspects. I am responding to this drama that I have watched and I am not personally attacking any actor or actress in real life as I do not know them at all and have no grudges against them. It is all based on this particular drama only/ this particular reel life only.]

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Promising storyline

Love Dylan Wang so much! For being such a young actor, he’s truly promising. Everything he’s done so far has been phenomenal. He’s young yet experienced, unique yet charming, kiddish yet handsome. I find him very entertaining to watch. He seems to play this character pretty well. Looking forward to watching him develop this role and seeing the rest of this drama. This is the first time I’m watching this actress. I hope I like her. So far I like her strong character. She seems like a smart business woman who will stand up for herself. I sure hope she follows through.

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