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Hidden Love chinese drama review
Completed
Hidden Love
11 people found this review helpful
by michelleoc
Jul 23, 2023
25 of 25 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 10
Story 10.0
Acting/Cast 10.0
Music 10.0
Rewatch Value 10.0
This review may contain spoilers

Lovely

There are spoilers interspersed throughout my review, because some of them were things I liked, some I didn't.

LOVED:
1) Zhao Lu Si as Sang Zhi. She is so beautiful and bubbly, I felt she was perfectly cast for this. Finally, a show in which they didn't put her in a lot of oversized outfits.
2) Chen Zhe Yuan as Duan Jia Xu. I've not seen him in anything before and I loved him in this. First, he's gorgeous. Second, the character was a warm and caring person.
3) Romance chemistry - just wow! The ML said things that most women would love to hear from their man. The way he looks at her, sigh. Good kisses.
4) Story - knowing someone for a long time and developing a relationship. For the most part, this was handled well.
5) Victor Ma as Sang Yan. He was a terrific character. The dynamic between him and his sister, and him and his friends was such fun to watch.
6) SPOILER: It seems like most romances have a secondary female that used to be a girlfriend that comes back after years and wants to pick up where they left off. She thinks she's entitled to him because she wants him. FINALLY, this show portrays the female the way I feel about the secondary women in other dramas. She's a stalker and not-just-a-little unhinged. And I love how the FL told the stalker's friend to go with her to get some counseling! END SPOILER.
7) Ending - I cried.
8) The voices weren't too terrible and the roommates weren't stupid and irritating.
9) The focus was on the romance of the main couple. Not a lot of wasted time.
10) She met him when she was in middle school. The way they handled her crush, her youth, and how he felt about her was handled well. This could have been kind of creepy if he liked her too soon. And the progression of how his feelings changed made sense.
11) The brother's reaction to finding out his friend was dating his sister.
12) The fact that the ML didn't drink alcohol.
13) I know it's not realistic, but I love when the people haven't had relationships before. When he came out and said he'd never dated...he got me!

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: (SPOILERS THROUGHOUT)
1) Sang Zhi acted in a very immature fashion when she was younger. I get that she was young, but when a girl has a crush on a guy, especially an older guy, she does everything she can to demonstrate how mature she is.
2) She's had a crush on him for literally years. She grows up, he confesses his feelings, and she says she needs to think about whether she likes him. I wanted to smack her upside the head. I felt so bad for him, but thank goodness he was patient. I think he knew, even if she didn't say anything. I was mad for a couple of episodes.
3) Her friends saying she needed to "test" him, and her doing it. Game playing in a relationship isn't a good thing, and it, again, made her look really immature.
4) Her making herself cry (when she was younger) to get her way. Once she grew up, I felt that she was still trying to manipulate people.
5) Them saying they would be there for each other, but then keeping things from the other because they didn't want to bother/overwhelm them.
6) One of the last episodes, he's alone in the living room drinking. She comes out and asks him about it, and he never opens up about what the problem is. AND, I really had a problem with the fact that the first time they were intimate he was drunk.
7) Parents, especially, complaining about the age difference. It was five years, people!

Kudos to the writers for not making this a long and drawn out story. My fast forward button got a good rest while I was watching this. It's low angst, light, fluffy, cute, and all the other things when you don't want something heavy. It's one of those shows that I put off, thinking it couldn't possibly be that good, and then I was disappointed when it was over. I will definitely be re-watching it at some point in time.
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