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A Love So Beautiful:
So I watched half an episode of this about a year ago, then noped out because I could not handle the secondhand embarrassment. After I watched Go Go Squid though, I wanted to watch more dramas with Hu Yitian who happens to be the male lead in this drama, and then I read the fan translation of the web-novel this is based on which was cute, so I decided to give it another chance.
This drama follows our main couple through high school, shows a series of scenes of them in college, then timeskips ahead to when they meet again three-ish years later. Our main female lead (played by the actress who plays the lead in the Meteor Garden reboot) has, for whatever reason, developed this unrequited persistent crush on our main male lead and chases after him all through high school (made easier by the fact that they’re neighbors). She’s very much a 傻白甜 character, I feel — “silly, light-complexioned and sweet”, one of my least favorite character archetypes in Chinese dramas, but she’s less annoying than most embodiments of the archetype. I think it’s because even though 90% of her actions in high school are designed to result in the maximum amount of hijinks and secondhand embarrassment (ok it’s really that I couldn’t handle the secondhand embarrassment, I feel like that was the main strike against her), even though 90% of her interactions with the male lead seem like borderline harassment sometimes, she’s a really decent friend (to the male lead, but also to their other friends).
The one thing A Love So Beautiful does really well is build a very solid cast of friends — even though it’s a romantic drama, it’s also a slice-of-life story about a bunch of high school students. Hijinks are as much about them as about her. Then when it moves past high school and moves on to college (when they finally start dating and are very briefly happy before they break up), she seems to mature a little (largely I feel like because she has Found Her Thing — art), and then of course the post-college version of her is the most mature, all of which I greatly appreciated because dear GOD the amount of sitcom hijinks in earlier episodes made me want to shake the female lead sometimes. The progression of maturity can be tracked by her hairstyle. (Having watched a lot of these dramas that start in high school and end post college, the female lead’s hairstyle tends to be the main marker of the passage of time.)
Overall, I liked the drama. Despite tripping my embarrassment quick a few times, the drama was really sweet when the couple was actually together. And they had sex! OK, it sounds weird when I say it like that, but I’ve been watching so many cdramas I’ve started noticing when / whether characters have sex in the drama. I think it’s because Love O2O was so chaste and made a Really Big Deal of how chaste and the virginal the female lead was that I started to keep track. Anyways, the characters in the drama actually have sex (when they are adults and out of college) in a scene that comes from the book and the morning-after bit is really sweet (as are all of the scenes when they’re actually together). I actually think the drama was stronger than the book in many respects. The book doesn’t have the entire cast of friends and also the male lead is more of a dick in the book. Meanwhile, the drama gives the male lead a very heartwarming confession speech at the end that melted my heart.
Final Verdict: Would Recommend (but only if you’re already a fan of the genre)
So I watched half an episode of this about a year ago, then noped out because I could not handle the secondhand embarrassment. After I watched Go Go Squid though, I wanted to watch more dramas with Hu Yitian who happens to be the male lead in this drama, and then I read the fan translation of the web-novel this is based on which was cute, so I decided to give it another chance.
This drama follows our main couple through high school, shows a series of scenes of them in college, then timeskips ahead to when they meet again three-ish years later. Our main female lead (played by the actress who plays the lead in the Meteor Garden reboot) has, for whatever reason, developed this unrequited persistent crush on our main male lead and chases after him all through high school (made easier by the fact that they’re neighbors). She’s very much a 傻白甜 character, I feel — “silly, light-complexioned and sweet”, one of my least favorite character archetypes in Chinese dramas, but she’s less annoying than most embodiments of the archetype. I think it’s because even though 90% of her actions in high school are designed to result in the maximum amount of hijinks and secondhand embarrassment (ok it’s really that I couldn’t handle the secondhand embarrassment, I feel like that was the main strike against her), even though 90% of her interactions with the male lead seem like borderline harassment sometimes, she’s a really decent friend (to the male lead, but also to their other friends).
The one thing A Love So Beautiful does really well is build a very solid cast of friends — even though it’s a romantic drama, it’s also a slice-of-life story about a bunch of high school students. Hijinks are as much about them as about her. Then when it moves past high school and moves on to college (when they finally start dating and are very briefly happy before they break up), she seems to mature a little (largely I feel like because she has Found Her Thing — art), and then of course the post-college version of her is the most mature, all of which I greatly appreciated because dear GOD the amount of sitcom hijinks in earlier episodes made me want to shake the female lead sometimes. The progression of maturity can be tracked by her hairstyle. (Having watched a lot of these dramas that start in high school and end post college, the female lead’s hairstyle tends to be the main marker of the passage of time.)
Overall, I liked the drama. Despite tripping my embarrassment quick a few times, the drama was really sweet when the couple was actually together. And they had sex! OK, it sounds weird when I say it like that, but I’ve been watching so many cdramas I’ve started noticing when / whether characters have sex in the drama. I think it’s because Love O2O was so chaste and made a Really Big Deal of how chaste and the virginal the female lead was that I started to keep track. Anyways, the characters in the drama actually have sex (when they are adults and out of college) in a scene that comes from the book and the morning-after bit is really sweet (as are all of the scenes when they’re actually together). I actually think the drama was stronger than the book in many respects. The book doesn’t have the entire cast of friends and also the male lead is more of a dick in the book. Meanwhile, the drama gives the male lead a very heartwarming confession speech at the end that melted my heart.
Final Verdict: Would Recommend (but only if you’re already a fan of the genre)
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