Welcome to my weekly blog post where I give thoughts on dramas I’m watching but not recapping.

This week I really needed a break so didn’t post any recaps or updates. But still, dramas were watched!

I finished:

Hidden Love – 偷偷藏不住  – (2023) Pictured

A recently aired Chinese modern romance drama with 25 episodes.

A young woman develops a deep and long-lasting crush on her older brother’s best friend.

This is basically pure romance done right, with none of the meaningless, frustrating conflicts that writers throw in for reasons I will never understand (I’m looking at you Naked Dining). 

Our male lead is a sweet guy who at first treats our female lead how he thinks younger sisters should be treated, which is to say much kinder than her actual older brother. Growing up, my older brother had a friend who gave me special attention and I absolutely adored him so I can relate to how that attention feels. 

Our female lead starts out hiding her crush because of her age and everyone involved, yet still seeks as much time with him as she can. Eventually, she becomes an adult and he starts seeing her that way and she starts learning more about him as a person.

I know some people couldn’t get into the initial part of the story, with her in high school with an age-inappropriate one-sided crush. For me, that section was all about the painful yearning of that age, stuck waiting to finally be an adult and get to participate in the kind of life that seems just out of reach but also endless years away. She’s aware that she isn’t old enough yet but wants it so badly. 

After that though, it’s two people falling in love and dealing with their realistic personal circumstances, with a lot of swoony moments and declarations and kissing. As usual for sweet-romance-heavy shows, the swoony moments started overwhelming the characters and story so I wasn’t enjoying them as much, but not until around the last episode.

Just as the show didn’t waste time on needless conflict it didn’t waste time on secondary characters. There was just enough of her family and friends and their lives to make the world feel fleshed out but not so much as to distract from the main romance. I found her parents loving but smotheringly overprotective, but she handled them better than I would. Her adversarial-but-loving relationship with her older brother felt very real, as did her brother’s friendship with the male lead.

Definitely worth a try if you’re looking for pure romance.

I started:

Fireworks of My Heart – 我的人间烟火  – (2023)

A currently airing Chinese rescue-romance drama, I’ve watched 21 of 40 episodes.

A fire chief and an emergency doctor reunite 10 years after a failed high school romance, saving lives and getting to know one another again.

The title is a big fat lie, as the relationship part is on smolder while our characters spend most of their time with dramatic rescues. Firefighter Yang Yang seems to attract disasters and the doctor and everyone else should stay far away from him for the sake of their lives.

Most of the show is what I expect from a disaster/rescue show. There are the usual incidental characters behaving badly and causing problems (usually fires). They’re dealt with in the usual cdrama way of receiving a good scolding by our righteous leads and either learning their lesson or getting proper punishment or both. 

The leads relationship is caught in a loop of anger and desire. Our doctor comes from an insanely rich background with an evil and manipulative mother. One of my favorite things about this show is how twisted and strange this family is, within the boundaries of Chinese censorship. They’re very dysfunctional, and her brother in particular seems twisted and broken from his childhood and is a delight to watch. Really, they belong in a gothic story so I love them. 

With that family background, our female lead isn’t likable or socially well-equipped and I love her. Meanwhile, Yang Yang is angry and harsh most of the time, with pretty much everyone around him, though obviously also the bestest and most noble firefighter out there. They keep circling closer to each other, are clearly still in love, but also (rightly) aware that they have terrible tastes in lovers.

The storytelling is choppy in places as it cuts back and forth between the two characters and flashbacks to their high school days when the doctor wore a terrible wig. Side characters appear and fall in love with Yang Yang at first sight and become stalkers. Blind dates are forced on the female lead. Awkward humor with awful soundtrack cues to make sure you are in on the joke abound. There’s bromance and sismance.

This is how I like my rescue shows, ridiculous with high drama and over-the-top everything. If that’s not your taste, you are not going to like this show as it does this on repeat episode after episode. I’m looking forward to seeing our leads suffer a whole lot more in the next 20 episodes.