Genre: Friendship, Comedy, Romance, School, Life, Youth, Drama, Family
Episodes: 36
Main Cast:
Lai Guan Lin as Liang You Nian
Angel Zhao as Xia Miao Miao / Xia Liu Shui
Wang Run Ze as Lin Kai Tuo
Chai Wei as He Xin
Synopsis:
Tells the story of an ordinary girl who falls head over heels for the most
popular guy in school. Xia Miao Miao is a shy, artistic student who develops a
crush on a handsome, talented classmate and embarks on a journey of
self-discovery through college. Because of Liang You Nian, Xia Miao Miao
decides to make a change. Through the help of her friends, she starts to learn
about fashion, join school clubs, and studies hard to raise her grades. Her
ordinary life becoming more colorful by the day.
My Thoughts:
I stumbled upon this while checking Netflix for pretty much the first time. The moment I realized this was an adaptation of one of my favourite stories of all time, I immediately placed it on a priority in my watch list, especially so, that this is a drama and not just a 2 hour movie. I expected the story to flesh out and to have more screen-time for the couple and some more interactions.
This story was based on the Thai Movie of course, and I loved that movie a lot. It was pretty fun to notice some parts of the movie being played out in the drama. Like hey, this is that scene or can't wait for that scene to happen. Despite so, they arranged the plots and scenes so well that they made it their own story and not seem like just copying and dragging it out. The new characters were a plus and every character was well-developed. The flow of time was pretty smooth but sometimes I'm lost because they tend to skip a lot at times.
On the characters, I only noticed the actor for Liang You Nian was Lai Guan Lin after awhile, which made me pay more attention to this drama since I knew WannaOne but not that deep. But he acted really well, I liked watching and noticing the scenes where he gets jealous and where he enjoyed being the centre of Xia Miao Miao's attention. His facial expressions were on point. The other actors also acted so well that together with the good shooting of the scenes, really brought the drama to life.
A certain plot point that I feel kinda disappointed by was Xia Miao Miao's transformation. In the original, the before and after were so different that you would think they were a different person altogether when they're not, which really brings impact into the transformation. In this drama, not so much, and it's a gradual transformation. Besides another thing is that Xia Miao Miao's personality is so different that I would say if you watched the original and this drama, you would probably understand what I'm saying. It creates a different mood and picture of her. But like I said earlier, this is one of the things which made me this drama, a unique story of its own even though it's adapting the movie.
One of the things I loved here was that the couple scenes are lengthened and more in depth with more backstories and hints here and there. The original had so little screentime for the couple which made me feel so dissatisfied but I got my dose of what I needed here. They adding more couples also improves the dynamic of the story as there was more to see. I liked how they explained how Liang You Nian fell in love with Xia Miao Miao much more than an album of pictures with messages, and that they both actually dated for quite a few episodes.
This drama was such a refreshing take on the movie and I simply loved it a lot. If you're a fan of the original, do watch this drama. It's as good as the original. There are parts where the original is better but this drama is more than 10x longer to watch than the movie so there's more to see and more to enjoy. Have fun drama-watching!
