Dropped (sort of)

Name: Suddenly This Summer
Writer/director:
Date: April 2019
Number of episodes: 35
Genre: Romance, Slice of life, Youth
Based on book/manga?: Not sure 

Why did I press play? The plot and name sold me. 

Thoughts:

The drama feels contrived, therefore I am not sold on it. While watching, I keep thinking. What’s the point of this story? What is the purpose? What is the message it’s trying to tell? It falls into many camps, that the genre and direction aren’t district. This ambiguity is significant because it a more serious drama. The marriage interviews are somewhat of a novelty, but feels more like someone had a “cool idea” of doing that, instead of it being significant. If you’ve been married for four years, and have known each other for 13. It’s unlikely you’d focus and care that much about interactions in high school, so much has happened since then. Knowing they have a happy ending somewhere makes watching the story more stressful.

As mentioned above, this is a more serious drama, by the end of the episodes, there is a light foreboding and not many laughs. You can feel the stress of their impending misunderstanding/”break-up” hovering around.

This drama is good in the sense that the melancholy draws you in and many experiences of the characters are eerily relatable.

The good

• The acting is spot on! No matter where the story goes, it’s relaxing that each actor can handle (and handles) their characters marvelously. They do such a good job, that it’s evident these are real people (characters) that have so much depth and we only get to see what they choose to show us.
• No character is shallow or two dimensional.
• Despite not hitting the mark, there is something special, unique about this story.
• The characters are just so amazing. Apart from the love triangle girl, I love every character and one hogs the scene, because they are all awesome. The writers did a superb job on characters development.
• The interjected humor of the class mate being Yan Mo’s uncle.

The bad

• A few loopholes
• The dreamlike cloudiness they put over the high school days. It’s were most of the story takes place – can’t they give us a clear view?
• How depressed Qiao Yi is and the strain of the teenagers family situations.
• The inconsistency of Yaun’s character once he enters university. During high school he easily gave girls the could shoulder in favor of He Lou. But at university he is sporadically now okay with being close with another girls and letting her get away with throwing tantrums in his dorm room. The Yuan from just a few months ago would never do that. It is thrown in to create drama, which is a shame.

Who are the main characters? Who plays them?
Zhang Yuan played by Bai Yu
He Luo played by Bu Guan Jin
Feng Xiao played by Lu Peng
Li Yun Wei played by Zhang Yun Wei
Zhao Cheng Jie played by Fang Wen Qiang
Zhang Wei Rui played by Yang Yue

Theme: Believe in yourself and navigating love can be wonderful and painful.

What’s it good for? To watching something lighthearted with just the right touch off melancholy to draw you in.

In the new Drama Delight shop, you’ll find a delightful bookmark and postcard. Personally designed by the author of DramaDelight – me!