venetia eirielle

*spoilers ahead* it’s not the worst c-drama but it’s definitely not the best either. i almost gave up on it barely halfway because it was really slow, but middle to end, it suddenly started picking up the pace. it became so rushed to the point where they put like 4 different milestones in their relationship in the last episode! i feel like most of the first half could have been cut down a lot. i think the production team was trying to create a ‘slice-of-life’ kind of plot but most of the time, it was just boring and slow. especially the parts with the FL and ML. in all honesty, i continued to watch just for the second couple. even that episode with guan fang, his backstory and his grandma was way more entertaining than all the main couple’s scenes in high school combined. also, this ML formula of stoic-faced and dull personality is getting so overused. i compare this drama a lot to ‘a love so beautiful’ because of the main couple’s personalities, but even the characters in a love so beautiful had better personality. su zaizai’s only personality was filming a video diary, food and liking zhang lurang. zhang lurang’s personality is pressure from studying and being pestered by su zaizai. some scenes were cute ig but most of them are just the same conversations over and over again tbh; zaizai being affectionate with lurang and lurang staring at her blankly and replying to her with like two words. overall, both leads have one-dimensional characters. moreover, they barely had any character development and remained stagnant even after they became married, mainly zaizai who was still cutesy and acted like a kid. at least in ‘a love so beautiful’, they added a huge conflict in their relationship that helped them grow and mature, and in ‘a little thing called first love’, the FL slowly became more independent and confident after meeting the ML and learning from him despite there being no major conflict. in this drama, only zhang lurang sort of changed after meeting zaizai (became more confident, shows more emotions). they made zaizai to be this angel sent who’s perfect and always said and did the right things to everyone, which is unrealistic since shes human as well and has imperfections. if this was what the production team was going for, they couldve been clearer in the way portrayed it and not just hint it in the drama’s title, because it just looks poorly executed. just make it an actual angel story like in kdrama ‘hi! school love-on’ lol overall, i would not watch this drama again (only if i start from the middle) but i do get why people would like the show, it’s simple to watch when you just want to pass time and doesn’t make you stressed out or confused with big plot lines and conflicts. i personally think it’s not my cup of tea.