An lian: Ju sheng huai nan

To me this is the best series that i have watched so far on netflix. The plot was great as well as the actors who portrayed sheng shuainan and lou zhi.

It's a very simple love story but I loved that every character was well written and had layers to them. It's interesting and every turn to the story makes sense and you keep rooting for the characters to have happy stories. I enjoyed this a lot.

A pretty delightful love story between college students. The first half of the drama was quite sweet and joyful, but turned into boring ending finally. The young actors and actresses were bringing more fun to this drama, as they offered vivid performance. It seemed like the bright color tone was set up to match the theme of the drama, and I enjoyed the beautiful scenes. However, the drama failed to show audiences that both the girl and the boy were from northern China: they tried to use the accent sometimes, but it only made it feel like fitting a kid's feet into an adult's shoes. I would like it more if they could just keep it simple.

Sheng turns to say something and Luo isn't there. "Why are you walking behind me?" "I guess I'm used to it," our FL replies.

In UL, both of our leads need to come 🐣 out of their shells. Zhu Yan Man Zi (Love Endures, Women Must Be Stronger, The Hypnotist) is our FL, Luo Zhi. She's clever, cerebral, composed, and classy. She's downright chaste, but even moreso, she is candid and considerate. She has enjoyed Sheng Huai Nan (Zhao Shun Ran from Memory Lost & Alliance) and crushing on him from afar since HS. Sheng never noticed her - She was always behind him somewhere. He did notice the 🐓 however. When she put on the chicken outfit, she wasn't such a chicken anymore, and she approached him. The presence of a large 🐓 ended up being a great distraction that gave Sheng a leg up in an uncomfortable situation. When he removed the 🐔-head to thank his savior, viola! There's a /girl/ here.

The handsome Sheng, who has had to deflect unwanted advances his whole life, doesn't realize that he DID notice Luo in HS. They were anonymously exchanging notes about schoolwork for a period of time. Luo knew who her pen pal was, but she prefers clandestine operations, so she never revealed her identity. The first year of college was uneventful, but now the 2nd year has started. She un-chickened the 🐥 inside her that one day, and since Sheng lifted that 🐔-head, she's been walking around exposed. Guys are noticing her now, like Sheng's BFF. Hiding is Luo's safety mechanism. Luo prefers the periphery - a 5 meter minimum distance from Sheng; anything else is super-duper uncomfortable. So, when he asks her to accompany him to the amusement park on a group outing, she declines. "He is a victorious general in the examination field. But on the field of love, he is utterly defeated."

There's nothing more tantalizing than a club that won't have you as a member. As a professional woman-deflector, being turned down is something new for Sheng. Who is this 🐤? He can't help but be interested...

UL is a 2019 release that is rated 7.8 on MDL. It is 1 season consisting of 24 30-40 minute episodes. It is NOT to be confused with the 2021 release that is of the same name, rated 7.5 on MDL with 38 episodes. {Why do they do that? China put out two versions of Love 020 in the same year. Hollywood has the same problem with overlapping similar projects.} Sheng's BFF, Zhang Ming Rui, is played by Zhang Yi Chi (Rattan). The more he talked, the more I loved his voice. Credit when Gu: Actor, Li Jin Zhe (Zhong Guo Di, The Youth Memories), plays CEO Gu. He exudes sex appeal and it surpasses his mere looks. Part of it is his dreamy voice. This is director Ding Pei's first effort. She has nothing rated under 7.5 on MDL and, given the acuity of UL, I will actively seek out this director's works.

UL2019 is slow and steady. It moves at Luo's pace. Simple, cheerful piano and strings accompany the scenes, making it feel like romance-improv night at the coffee house. There's °slow° that's infuriating and °slow° that's relaxing - and it's widely up to individual taste. UL works because the characters are well formed while the tempo, softly spoken words, and the soundtrack are like a caress. °Slow° works; Slow-and-stupid doesn't, and UL is never stupid. That is the value in this show - The actors are fine. The story is uneventful. The pace is plodding... the value here is in the writing: It is the witty dialogue, the intellectual quotes, & the insightful commentary on humanity that make UL worth a watch.

They end up involved in the drama club and put on a production of Shakespeare's 12th Night. {Apparently, 🇨🇳 is in love with Shakespeare ↪ and Shakespeare's works seem akin to China's historical pieces in many ways.} The translation-of-the-translation is beautiful:

✏ Women are not big-hearted. A woman's love is like a person's taste. It can be tasted on the tip of the tongue but not in the organs. My love is like a hungry sea, which can digest everything. Don't compare them to each other ✏

❣ I know how women love men. One of my sisters fell in love with a man ❣

✏ And what was her past? ✏

❣ It's blank. She never told anyone about her love, and she let depression bottle up inside of her until it destroyed her, ruining her beauty. She pined away. Illness and sorrow tormented her while she waited patiently, smiling despite her sadness. Doesn't that sound like true love? ❣

Thus is their version of 12th Night and, quite obviously, some of the inspiration for the show. Actress, Zhu, is marvelous in the scene. She's acting as a person who pretends to be acting but what she's saying is true, so she's not really acting. Anyway, the acting is great.

Rain Shen (Alliance) plays Luo's roomie, Jiang Bai Li. Each of these girls is getting major interference from the exes of their love interests. The always composed Luo doesn't handle attention, nor interference, well. ("You are too cautious!," Luo's mom laments). Hanging around Sheng, the campus lightning rod, is crossing a wide and dangerous road for a timid 🐔 like Luo. She had reinforced her protective bubble-of-isolation over & over again. It's talon-proof. This is just another form of pride, and it will alienate a person. People can be horrible, but isolation becomes a sickness in the bones. Too much alone time will make a person very, very off-kilter ~>> weird. It's difficult to find decent people. When we do, we shouldn't shut them out over fear. That is what Luo begins to do with Sheng, once he notices her. As Sheng makes overtures, Luo becomes terrified and shrinks away.

Nevertheless, things get cluckin, and they're going well. Her shell starts to CRACK. At the first sign of static, Luo runs away like a roadrunner. The agenda-driven mean girls are hen-pecking, and try to make it look like Luo manipulated a situation. Sheng's forced to "major" in interpersonal analytics that semester in order to sort out fact from fiction. Part of the sorting process is managing fear. The mean girls played on his fears. Author Terry Goodkind writes that people will believe a thing because they want it to be true or because they're afraid it's true. Fear is useful if it guides us, but not if it rules us or turns us into fodder for manipulation.

The Legend of the White Snake is brought up as an analogy. Per Wiki, it is "a Chinese legend centered around a romance between a man named Xu Xian and a female snake spirit named Bai Suzhen. It is counted as one of China's Four Great Folktales." In the show TLOWS-4.5, unrequited love turns a young girl into a villainous monster; she is a constant pest and causes lots of trouble. Sheng's friends keep bringing it up.

Before the end, Sheng's 🌏 will crack. Towards the close of the series, they get into a drama that seems plucked out of nowhere. There are a couple of tiny hints at a family issue from the past, but the build-up is insufficient. That last story arc didn't play as well as the rest of the show. It is worth noting that the secondary romances aren't bad, but they aren't nearly as good as the primary one.

Now for some Scooby Snacks:

🍗 They each buy a seed with a word burned into it. When the seed grows, the word appears on the plant, itself. How awesome is that?

🍗 They are in law school and they do a mock trial of the OJ Simpson case.

🍗 Always dignified, even though she is a bit 🐓, Luo won't be pushed around. "You have to try this drink or your life won't be complete," Sheng urges. "I prefer a flawed life," she shoots back.

🍗 I love how the walls in the girls' dorm are a tribute to Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. Luo frequently mentions the anime Only Yesterday which is a 1991 Ghibli movie. Sheng also likes the film.

🍗 "Misunderstandings happen when two people are not direct with each other. It results in frustration... Face him bravely," A wise friend cautions.

🍗 They are studying for the upcoming Marxism exam. "What's Marxism?" One of the guys wants to know.

🍗 On break they don their HS uniforms and sneak into class together. Cute.

🍗 "When an attractive man tells a lie, he can be quite good at it." Luo is warned by a woman who got burned.

🍗 Have you heard a quote from Mencken? "A man makes love by braggadocio and a woman makes love by listening. Once a woman passes a certain point in intelligence, she finds it impossible to get a husband. She simply cannot go on listening to men without snickering."

Thank goodness our capable Luo didn't pass that point. She's been a 🐓 that moved like a 🐢 all of her life. But, in the second year of college, she crossed that road & joined the human race.

(more) QUOTES📢

People expect too much of women.

Heaven favors the courageous.

〰🖍 IMHO

📣7 📝7.5 🎭7.7 💓7 🦋5 🎨5 🎵/🔊7.5 🔚7.5 ▪ 🌞4.5 ⚡1 😅2.5 😭2.5 😱0 😯2 😖0 🤔5 💤2

Poli-wagging 1/10. They discuss Marxism. One of her professors says he was labeled as an intellectual and was about to be locked up! Yes, this is what is is to live in 🇨🇳, but it shocking they allowed that in a show.

Age 12+; Rated TV-PG-13: Parents Cautioned

Re-📺? This was great to watch once

In order of ~lite & trite~ to ~heavy & serious~ you may also like:

💓 - C🇨🇳: A Little Thing Called First Love 8.5; Find Yourself 8.9; The Romance of Tiger and Rose 9.8; The Sleepless Princess 9.1; Wait, My Youth-8.4

K🇰🇷 : A Witch's Love 7.8; Love To Hate You 8.9; Touch Your Heart 8.2; Crash Landing On You 9.1; Oh My Ghost 10; Be Melodramatic-8.7

It's Okay Not to Be Okay 9; Hospital Playlist 9; My Mister 9.5;

Romance junkies only - My Secret Romance-7 (if you ff thru overdone flashbacks), Boys Over Flowers-8 ~ melodrama to the max, The Bride of Habaek-7, Heirs-7.3, That Winter, The Wind Blows-7, Something in them Rain-9, C🇨🇳: Well-Intended Love-7.5 Rom-porn - extra points for the dopamine, When I Fly Towards You-7.8, Wait, My Youth-8.4, A Little Thing Called First Love-8.5, Find Yourself-8.9,

It's a must watch romance drama for anyone who is currently interested in the genre.

The best thing about this drama is that it portrayed the real world relationship of college students. Couple goes through the difficulties of life. Have fun, trust, misunderstood, argue, fight and then get together like in the real world. And it was all portrayed beautifully with the likeable and easy to attach to characters. You will go through the rollercoaster of emotions when you watch it. It will make you laugh, cry, irritated and love.

Although the series was beautiful, there is a lot that could be improved. It has an happy ending, but it still feels rushed. The dialogues could be improved as well. Overall, you will enjoy watching it.