Nothing But You (2023)

story about pure love, determination, teamwork

-the cast are amazing, they blended all well
-acting are of professional level by both ML and FL as well as the supporting cast, realistic and just perfect for each role
-story is realistic, not overly romantic cringy or cheesy (it sucks if its too cheesy because that does not happen in real life)
-song sanchuan love for liang you'an is a combination of balance and passion at the same time, its loyal and lasting and persevering
-the story has nice transition
-definitely worth watching it several times if you want to fall in love realistically
-a lot of people do not like older FL and younger ML that is why this drama is so underrated because it received prejudice, give it an objective take not subjective, this is definitely one of the best drama of wu lei, i like his determination here
-the only chinese drama i put on repeat mode
congrats to wu lei and yutong , hope to see again in another drama in the future!!!

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Best Drama about Healing, Growth, Love, Life, Dream and Career

Very satistied with all aspects of this drama.
The dialogue, characters, story development, acting, chemistry, friendship, romance are the best.
Everything has each portion in balance, thanks to the writer of this drama for making the great storyline.

Although it is slow burn romance, but the progress of their romance is amazing and heartwarming. I love the ML who are sure about his feeling despite 10 year old gap with FL. When they talked about the past, I know that they can't be separated hahahah.

All in all, I love SSC and LYA. Best drama of 2023, no maybe for me one of my all time favorite C-Drama.

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Most realistic modern Cdrama

I am sure now, if Leowu chooses a drama it is going to be great without any doubt. His acting is so realistic and mature despite his age surprises me at times but given he was working in this field since his childhood days makes sense but what surprised me a lot was acting of FL. I have seen her dramas before but this time it felt so refined. Excluding the tennis bully guy who felt little extra with his character (or maybe his character was written in such a way that it felt little overboard) rest of the cast did an amazing job in the drama.
It has been a while when I last watched a sports drama and enjoyed it thoroughly. The story is pretty simple but you will find yourself engrossed in their struggles to achieve their dreams in their respective feilds. The show is very encouraging and portrays a good deal of struggle faced by women in corporate world without any filter. Office setting looked really realistic for the first time in a Cdrama. However just like any modern drama there is a catch. Whenever FL's stepsister's scenes came into play it went back to the cliche rich guy poor female storyline with the same modern Chinese drama vibe that we are all familiar with. Nevertheless I enjoyed the second lead but if I skip all their scenes I don't think it will have much impact on the main storyline of the drama. I loved the interaction of all the badminton players and their dynamic was superb. I came to enjoy amazing acting of ML but stayed for realistic vibes and encouraging storyline of the drama. The efforts of the actors to portray a realistic sports world and their hardwork is mind-blowing. Special mention for dialogue writers. I loved main couple's interaction so much. At times it felt hilarious but deep in so many ways.
Even if you are a sports drama fan or not I am sure you will enjoy this simple, realistic amd sweet drama just like me.

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Slow burn romance

"Love makes you become a better version of yourself."

Likes
1. I like sports themed dramas about team work, managing the club, beating the odds to be successful. But i didnt like the constant power grabbing of Young Space even til the end.
2. I like Liang Youan and Song Sanchuan and their slowburn romance. It sometimes just becomes frustrating when Sanchuan always tries to be the man in the relationship,gets pressured and melts down and ruins everything. It shows how young and immature he still is and makes me wonder why a grown mature woman would like him other than his earnest love for her. I think in real life they prolly will last for a few years but will eventually break up. But i also like tnat they shown 2 years progression of their relationship and that Sanchuan has grown up too (but 24 yrs old is still a baby!) Their romance seemed genuine and passionate at the start but at the end they were too cringy and cheesy to watch.
3. I like the other characters in the drama. The bestie and the coach. Jiaojiao's progression from a spoiled brat to a family man. Liang Tao from being an annoying attention hungry vlogger to a serious career woman who found her place. The sisters reconcilation. Jiaojiao's family dynamics, esp Jiang Jie becoming a better guy.

Dislikes
The story is too long. They could have stopped when Sanchuan successfully won and became the no 1 player. The last 10 eps were extended and were unnecessary unless you love them so much and you dont want the story to end.

Rating: 8.5/10

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A little boring, but hey, there's Leo's Abs!

It was okay. I only watched this for Leo Wu (as I assume everyone else did too). I saw Zhou Yu Tong in Begin Again and thought she was cute in that one, I really wished she didn’t cut her hair. She would have looked more youthful, but I guess that wasn’t the point.

There are some things I liked about the drama and somethings (most things I found boring). And I love boring, low angst dramas.

1.) Age-gap dramas are hit or miss for me, I guess because I actually look up the actor’s real age in real life and see how close they are to the characters they play. Leo does play his age, 22 to 23 but Yu Tong (FL) doesn’t, she’s 28 and plays a 32 year old (shaking my head). I guess they didn’t want someone that looked too much older? But of course she looks young, she is young!

2.) A sports storyline is also hit or miss for me. The ML starts out playing Badminton and has a mental block, he can’t play well because he has trauma. I really didn’t care for this storyline and oh boy did they use this storyline for a long time. Kind of basic right?

3.) The show was kind of boring. I don’t know how much drama that can be stirred up with a bunch of tennis players, but the drama was focused more on the corporate side, who owns the players and so forth. So the political side was not my jam. I kind of wished the drama was between the players (more than what was played out), but I guess the script writers were trying to be different.

4.) The chemistry was luke-warm at best and the leads kissed a lot! I was really surprised on all of the skinship scenes, looks like Leo is growing up or is feeling the pressure to do more physical scenes. Even though we get plenty of hugs and kisses, I wasn’t truly convinced on their “romance”.


I liked…

1.) They didn’t re-use a lot of clothing and it was super modern. Makes me want to wear sportswear and work out.

2.) I liked the secondary couple, the rich-young “Prince” and spoiled bratty sister. They had most growth in the storyline. I found it cute the way he teased her and she kept on telling him he was a joke. I stopped fast forwarding and watched their parts.

3.) There’s plenty of fan-service in this drama. Leo is shirtless a lot, his shorts are very short and you will always see some form of abs or thighs. So, there you go. I also liked the second male lead was very masculine and not the usual, super skinny look. It’s okay to eat!

4.) The drama is low, even though I found the overall show boring, the angst was low and so it was fairly easy to watch. I do like the later episodes where everyone is finally coming around and you get a lot of happy moments.


Overall, watch the show for the leads, if you are a fan and want to see Leo’s abs, then this is for you. If you don’t really care for sports theme dramas or the actors, then it’s okay passing on the drama.

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A Rare Gem

This drama one of the few storyline that’s so complete for main leads and also second leads (step sis & her bf) & third leads (e.g. father of ML and parents of FL and even parents of 2ML!) Cannot imagine how other drama can’t have such good & complete production like this! ?

The chemistry of main leads and second leads and even third leads (bestie + coach pairing) is good…such a surprise that every of their micro expressions are well portraying their characters and good captures into the drama! Even when taking screenshots during drama watching, the well done cinematography makes it perfect shot.

Feeling connected in every episodes (regardless on the romance, life, family parts) and myself being a non tennis player (TBH am non athlete of any category!) is totally glued to all the parts with competition (good directing & editing!). It’s really hardwork & team effort as after checking the behind-the-scenes (BTS) clips, ML was sweating so much during the tennis playing that at some point he didn’t even have his makeup put on (too much sweat cannot even keep it on!) Imagine the amount of real exercise involved to produce this drama!?

The romance of main leads have many depths along the episodes as FL let down her guard when with ML (she was skeptical at first due to their age and positioning at work) and having trust in their relationship, also their age gap doesn’t pose major threats (also appreciate how the script did include some challenges arc for them to overcome!) and plenty of good kisses. It’s very realistic when FL is in love with ML, her portraying of the character when totally in love will sometimes be childish (yes, it’s true!) and at some point be afraid of losing each other but her growth of letting him personal space shows her maturity as well. Like how some parts both main leads were teasing each other abt FL being elder sister while ML is being younger bro…(in the night scene after ML practiced tennis while FL waited on at the snack bar) truly only when a couple doesn’t care about all those labeling can jokingly say it out aloud…kudos for main leads having done this impromptu (yes it’s done without any script and BTS capturing their good chemistry whereby they just thought about adding it for more feel, indeed it works so naturally!)

A rare gem as not often seeing drama with each characters (including side characters) showing development along the episodes and in here they’re not just taken as sidekicks to be fillers of the main leads! Most importantly, also good ending for main leads and other second, third leads! Worth the watch ^U^

And ofc bcos of the drama feel good, I can’t help checking out the OST songs after watching..

P.S. Be forewarned of FL & ML’s bed scene…just in case if many could be thinking this is a family drama and watching with family…lol…anyways, it’s a sweet moments and the aftermath of the scene is totally not the usual storyline in most scripts! Watch it to know why ya…

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The 10 year age gap is nonsense and triggering me big time.

FL and ML had pretty decent chemistry and I don't get the whole highlighting of 10 years age gap cause it such an exaggeration and an obvious lie. I would understand 5 years or lesser gap but 10 is stretching it.

The FL is really pretty and they really tried to make her look way older based on mature make-up and clothing. Personally I hated it since the clothing and make-up tried to compensate for the age gap thingy and it didn't highlight FL beauty and made her so mature and on some scenes the make-up looks so thick but oh well that's the whole point of it all anyways.

ML is so feral. Wu Lei just convinced me again with his impeccable acting. I love his character here cause I think its the closest to his personality in real life, being goofy and all. He really embodied his character on every drama he starred in and yep I'm so whipped for his character and also him as an actor. I didn't even saw a glimpse of the previous character he portrayed from different drama and that's saying something.

Plot is good. I love how it was written and it really just didn't focus on love line but also friendship and I'm weak for that. There are only minimal plot holes but I think I can live with it. It's mostly centred on coming of age and achieving one's dream so it was actually inspiring. It was a bit idealistic on creating the FL character though like gurl gave up career for loyalty and she's not just practical. It's just rare to find someone in real world that's willing to chose happiness over stability especially when she's supposed to be in her 30s, idk maybe I'm generalizing but yeah that's just my opinion. It's fictional anyways and it's meant to be inspiring.

Ending was cute. Full of heart-warming lessons.

Verdict: Likeable TV Series.

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Just when I started watching this show I asked the comment section for spoilers, "when do they get together?" "Will the annoying bosses ever go away?" I've gotten confusing answers to both of these questions. Now that I've seen the whole drama, I know why. You An's former bosses really do keep popping up like jackrabbits -when they really shouldn't anymore- wasting screen time & the answer to "when do they get together" is just really confusing. Is it ep21, 26 or 30? And what has happened in the episodes in between? I'm still confused about which episode they really get together in, but I do know that between these key episodes pretty much nothing romantic has happened. I think maybe the writer kind of hoped we would forget about progress, so they could get together again, twice. (or a lot of filmed scenes have gotten axed ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

The drama starts really slow, the first 10 or so episodes are rather draggy. You could call it super slow burn of course, but it's not like the romance is really slow, it's just there is so much focus on sports that the padding kind of makes it feel like it is slow burn, when it's actually quite fast based on the OTP's scenes & their actual progress in relation to what has been shown to us. This wouldn't be a big problem, if the show was a strong sports drama, but it's really not. As many other reviewers have claimed before me, I have also played -some- badminton, tennis & I'm still following the ATP tennis scene. In my opinion this was not very good. Talking about 190km serves & then showing me a 130km serve, or showing me how the racket hits the ball & then showing me how the ball lands, with flying balls rarely shown is something I've found rather jarring. I understand the difficulty & the actors really did a reasonable job mimicking professional tennis player mannerisms, but the action itself is either not shown, or is at a very low level. (by low level I mean far worse than me after 6 months of playing tennis at age 19, forget professional..) Even if we ignore the lack of immersion during tennis games, there are plenty of other problems that are difficult to gloss over, at least on the sports front. (for example I agree with the coach etc that switching from Badminton to Tennis, especially at 22 is a fool's errand, though I can easily accept this much fantasy in a cdrama romcom)

I talked about FL's bosses being super annoying before, but the whole wildcard plot dominating the final episodes is utter garbage. The sudden appearance of an intelligence insulting contract & the events that follow, including, but not limited to a 2 year separation plot, are just not good. This is not the "intelligent adult romance" I've signed up for.

The noona romance itself, apart from the pacing issues was quite enjoyable for me, the fluffy scenes in the second half were all great, my need for sugar has been completely satisfied. I wouldn't say that the actors had earth shattering chemistry, but they did a reasonably good job overall.

TLDR: The show had it's good moments, but Meet Yourself is a far better mature romance & Falling Into You is a far better noona-sport romance. (the romance is only a wee bit better in Falling Into You, but the sports part is leagues ahead)

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A lot more than you...

This is a pretty decent drama, the characters are lovable have pretty good character development and the story is pretty interesting both the underdog sports part as well as giving it a business angle rarely seen on screen. So it felt kind of fresh in a way and gave a more wholesome puzzle than most sports dramas.

The chemistry between the leads and the surrounding couples is also really good, they have pretty predictable plotlines but one of the side couples actually left me wanting more and if I am honest was actually more interesting than the main couple. I also loved the take on divorce this show has. It also offers a whole lot of lovely come backs and polite ways of telling men that the universe does not always revolve around them...

The friendships and found family in this are pure gold! They are probably the selling point of this drama way beyond both romance, bromance and fight the corporate jerks in this.

No one annoyed me, and it was not as draggy as many other 30+ episode dramas are. However it would have been a lot better and maybe even gotten a 9 if they cut down the episode count to 24 by skipping some of the unnecessary twists and filler scenes that did not add a lot to the plot but where there... Or just by switching out the unnecessary and added more time to the less explored couples of the show.

Part of me wants to give this a 7,5 for its unnecessary parts, however the over all feel, lack of annoying over the top characters makes up for that.

P.S I also learned the rules for tennis so it is even educational

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sport, age gap, mature, but lacks youthfull spirit

Nothing But You (2023) - 8,5/10 cdrama

I will compare this drama to :Falling into you: which got very alike theme, but with little different focus.

This drama is quite intelligent and mature - sport,age gap romance drama.
It got nice scenes and interesting characters which got more than one dimension thinking.
At other hand story even though intelligent it lacks spark at least for first half of drama. Later on it gets better.

Age gap romance here was nice, but again it lacked youthful spirit of young counterpart. Like I mean in Falling into you. ML really used his youth to make Fl fall for him.
At other hand ML in this drama used more reserved style of being near her, helping her and letting her know he likes her. After it he +- left choice to FL. But FL had problem with age difference which means whole romance was progressing quite slowly.

Overall if something I liked sport part, friendship and romance part. Problem was with :bussiness: part of drama which was quite lot and wasnt really interesting.

plot is quite complicated.. like its more like slcie of life story after one :mini plot: it change to other
plot - FL is 24/7 secretary for one of bosses from some sport gear corporate. She is busy 31y old career woman, wishing for some love. ML is 22y old professional Badminton player which got talent, but is unsuccessful cause of mental problems. FL and ML meets thanks few projects on which FL works. FL notices ML talent and later on she decides to help him get over his problems.

genre- sport, romance, age gap

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