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Love Contract taiwanese drama review
Ongoing 20/23
Love Contract
6 people found this review helpful
by qkhitai
Sep 30, 2014
20 of 23 episodes seen
Ongoing
Overall 8.0
Story 8.0
Acting/Cast 7.0
Music 6.5
Rewatch Value 4.0
Not a typical teen romance, inasmuch that it takes itself quite seriously - as someone else has said. It's quite a mature story and the writing is really intelligent. At first it seemed like it would be a retelling of The Taming of the Shrew, but it quickly developed into it's own story - although still remaining quite Shakespearean. Although others here have mentioned that it's really slow and dull, I honestly didn't find that. Whilst I felt the two lead characters were a little flat (Mike He the better of the two), the supporting cast were quite gripping and there was enough going on to keep me invested - even if the show wasn't great at tying up loose ends for subplots. Under the surface, it discusses quite a few deeper themes that don't get explored so often. Gender and misogyny in particular are issues that are really probed into by the show's subtext, and it makes for quite thought provoking viewing. Whilst it would be a stretch to call it 'feminist', it's quite blunt in tarring men with a bad brush from the first episode to the last. It also lapses into surrealism a little bit, which is really unique. Whilst other shows have dream sequences, flash backs etc, this show tackles them in quite a different way and they can be very strange at times, which definitely kept me watching. Again, I didn't find it slow - to the contrary I found it pretty well paced. Everyone developed at a reasonable rate and enough time was devoted to everyone to see some good character progression from both the main and supporting cast. It also wasn't too predictable and when you thought you had the show figured out, there still managed to be some shocking twists and turns. Everyone here seems to be complaining about the ending, but I loved it - very intelligent end if you pay attention to it. Acting was a mixed bag, but reasonably solid - Mike He and Ariel Lin as I mentioned had their bad moments. Music I can't say I enjoyed too much and the editing was also quite shoddy at times - especially at the end. A few good songs though and they were used well at times. Not particularly keen to rewatch it anytime soon though - maybe because it's a bit darker and more mature than the average romance shows I watch. Overall though, I was really impressed by this show. The intelligence of the writing and the solid story structure were great, whilst the show in general just felt really well fleshed out. I wasn't as invested in it as I could have been, which is unfortunate, but I still feel this is a very underrated show and definitely one of the best I've seen.
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