Juntos Aqui de Novo (2023)

The chemistry is off the charts but the story left much to desire

Honestly, I was really enjoying the first half of this drama. I loved the flirting stage and the chemistry of the two main leads was really off the charts. However, the back and forth regarding getting together was annoying and I feel like it dragged there. There were all these misunderstandings, and if they just communicated, it would've been solved. Then once it got into the second half of the drama, I found that I was slowly losing interest in the drama as a whole. I would've liked to see more of a honeymoon stage between the couple, but maybe because the whole getting together portion took too long, it just gave them trial after trial. I get that they're supposed to have all these problems, but it was starting to get old. And again, communication is just non-existent and the main leads kept holding back their troubles from one another. So even though I loved the hot and steamy kisses and the fire chemistry between the two, there is only so far that the chemistry can take you. I started 2x-ing the last 5 episodes of the drama just to finally be done with it. It was quite disappointing because I feel like they had such a good foundation to create a drama that had both an amazing, hot couple and a substantiated story. But instead, we got a useless secondary couple that dragged on way too long that I really didn't care for in the end and a seemingly-strong female main lead who ended up always needing to be saved by her knight in shining armor. I really thought that our princess would've been a lot more bad ass, but she was a let-down. The whole Ashers reveal was also anti-climatic and again, they waited way too long to reconnect those dots from the first episode. On top of that, whatever happened to her flashbacks to that accident that, I'm assuming, her dad was in. She had a pretty emotional reaction to those flashbacks but they never addressed it for the rest of the drama.
Overall, if you want really strong chemistry between the leads, and you really won't look too deep into the story, this is a drama for you. Otherwise, I would say pass on this one. I was quite disappointed honestly. I was so excited to watch it only for it to be a bit disconnected and just a let-down. If you made it this far, thanks for reading, and bye for now!

Leia Mais

Not worth the watch..

Their are plenty of slow, boring, non-romantic, non-comedic melodramas out there and ‘Here we meet again’ is no different. This is an absolute bore with too much psycho bs. Unless you like work melodramas with an occasional phone call that allow them to assign romance as a genre, don’t bother. The young ladies will like this drama, the FL is given complete control over the drama with the ML by episode 21 having small cameos to fake a romance.

Genre: work melodrama, strong FL, for women only.

Don’t get me wrong please, the only reason I made it to episode 27 was due to the acting of the leads and some of the supporting cast, The so-called story and the way it festooned along, ever sloping downward was just absolute shit. I really hate saying that it was, but it was. I didn’t pay to watch the ML and FL separated on New Years. Meeting up with the people they work with and calling one another and placing the phone on the table so they can pretend to be together while uplifting music is playing in the background with everyone smiling. What was that for? Then to go to their respective homes separately, she with grandpa and he with his little brother. Why does the genre say, ‘Romantic Comedy?’ The synopsis did not say ‘before the happy ending, you must endure 31 episodes of absolute shit before we will give you what you want. I did not pay you to be lied too. If you can’t put out a good product, get out of the market. I’ll remind you again what I paid for.

Genre: Romance, Comedy as listed on Viki

Go take you push-pull psycho babble and stick it up your ass.

Leia Mais

Excellent because of heart-throb -- Vin Zhang <3

I am suffering from withdrawal from the very charming and very suave and very handsome Vin Zhang as Xu Yan Shi. My O MY, he is the embodiment of gentlemanly gorgeousness! I love seeing him on my screen. He is like a god!

What I love about this drama:
- Vin Zhang, ML, as XYS. Oh goodness. He is seriously a good-looking fellow! His presence and appearance take my breath away. He is well-built and manly. (I loved him in The King's Woman and I am thrilled to see him here.)
- I like how the character, XYS, is written and portrayed. He just takes things as they come and he tries his best to do the right things and the best things possible. It is no wonder that his "underlings" adore and respect him so much. If I had such a capable and sacrificial leader, I would too.
- I like the FL as she is an excellent actress but I wonder if another actress will be even more suitable for her role. However, as she is a fine actress, she does justice to the drama.
- The many kissing scenes are exceedingly hot! Woo hoo! :)
- I like that the leads are truly into each other. They do not fool around with others after making promises to commit as a couple. I like the bit of "healthy jealousy" in that the leads get jealous when there is reason to. They are not crazily jealous and do ridiculous things. I also really like that XYS is secure and that he tells FL to be herself and to show-off her wealth and style if she wishes to.
- I like that, in this show, it is the FL in charge and in control. She is the one who has the immense wealth to be the mover and shaker. Usually, it is the ML who is the "chaebol" type and the FL is the little woman in need of saving and such. Here, the FL is fully independent and fully capable. She does not need a man to complete her life. She is whole and autonomous. I really like this! She wants to be with him because she wants him in her life and not because she requires saving or that she feels that she lacks a man.
- The supporting cast are not the best actors and actresses in my opinion but they try and they are, generally, not hateful. In fact, I am quite fond of the supporting cast. The grandpa is cute. The little "underlings" are quite cute too.
- There are plentiful things happening in the drama which serve well to keep me riveted. I like a good story.
- I like that the bad guys get their just deserts which felt really great!
- The ending is an extremely happy one (for all the good guys)! I love happy endings even if they are cliché.

What I do not fancy too much:
- Some parts are a little draggy. But, just use FF button.
- I do not like the bad guys but we need action which comes from villains.

Overall, this drama is a lovely one because of the leading man, Vin Zhang as XYS. He is such a gorgeous gentleman in the show. I want to present him with "Boyfriend of the year (2023) award" for his stunning, convincing and lovely portrayal of XYS.

I love XYS and I love Vin Zhang as XYS! <3

I foresee myself re-watching the lovey-dovey scenes which showcase the handsome ML in all his absolutely delicious glory!

Leia Mais

office romcom with few missunderstanding and separations

Here We Meet Again -8,5/10 -cdrama

office romance drama

both leads know each other from school days and both liked each other but cause alot of misundersandings or hard situations didnt got together and always separated.

Now they meet again at work and maybe this time it will work.
Its not senseless but cant be called clever drama either... still its cdrama it means you get alot cute scenes. Not very funny but got few funny moments.

plot - Xiang Yuan, the eldest miss of Donghe group, is tasked with saving their Xi'an branch from bankruptcy. At this time, she meets her former crush Xu Yan Shi once again.

In their school days, Xiang Yuan pursued Xu Yan Shi with all her might to no avail. Reunited as adults, she is trying to save a company while he is deep in the mud due to problems in the workplace. Despite facing inequality, he is determined to pursue his dream to become a navigation engineer. In the process of dealing with the company crisis, Xiang Yuan gradually learns to take matters into her own hands. The two come to support each other as they realize their dreams.

(Source: ChineseDrama.info)

genre- romance, office, comedy

Leia Mais

The chemistry between Vin Zhang and Janice Wu absolutely carried this drama. If I didn't love them so much both individually and together, I might not have finished this. It's sweet how they fall for each other over and over again; it really feels like they only have eyes for each other.

Janice Wu's Xiang Yuan makes a bet with her grandfather and takes a job in a struggling branch of his company, where she unexpectedly finds herself working alongside her childhood crush, Vin Zhang's Xu Yan Shi. It's nice to see that although Xiang Yuan has grown up spoiled and getting her way, she's kind and hardworking and does take her job seriously. I liked how the events of the past between Xiang Yuan and Xu Yan Shi were gradually revealed through flashbacks. I was really glad that they cast actual teens as the younger versions of their characters--the teens did a fantastic job.

Xu Yan Shi has really faced a lot of hardship in his life; your heart will hurt for him. He's unaccustomed to sharing his burdens with others, and that's the biggest obstacle between Xu Yan Shi and Xiang Yuan: communication. They really needed to be better at talking things out, although on the plus side they did usually resolve their issues quickly. The last six episodes really disappointed me though, because they stopped communicating entirely. They should've worked to find a solution together! And, Feng Jun gets thrown back in the story and his actions and motives made so sense. What was the point?!

I enjoyed the storylines about the company's struggles; it's unsurprising for there to be office politics and rival factions, and there were some surprises I didn't expect. I loved the team that Xiang Yuan and Xu Yan Shi worked with and the friendship that they formed. Gao Leng was a bit over the top but still brought a lot of humor to the story. However his relationship with Chen Shu did become annoying later on and I wish it had developed differently. It felt like everyone just pressured Chen Shu just because Gao Leng was a caring person--but just because someone is caring towards you doesn't mean you have to be in a relationship with them! It would've been fun if there had been more of Xiang Yuan's brother instead of the Chen Shu/Gao Leng storyline. Also, I can't forget Lao Qing, who was probably my favorite character besides the leads! His humor was on point every single time.

I enjoyed the OST, especially Chen Xue Ran's opening song and 心里的流星 (Meteor In My Heart) by 周蕙 (Zhou Hui).

Leia Mais

best c drama 2023

best c drama i saw in 2023 the couple happened so naturally that i didn't even miss them kissing

I loved her grandfather so much, I laughed a lot with him he became my favorite by far

i will miss them aa

end 11/06

Leia Mais

A-

This is a very decent Chinese romance drama. Overall it's quite similar to You Are My Glory, but it has more comedy & the setting is different. (entertainment industry vs. corporate environment in this one) Janice Wu is always 10/10 in romcoms & this paring's been quite fantastic. Also I like "faceslaps" in Chinese fiction & this drama has plenty of that.
One big positive in this drama is that the high school flashbacks are quite well done. There are not overly many of them & have proper child actors, which is always nice to see.

So why is it only an 8?

Well, for starters the final 4-5 episodes were quite difficult to get through. The crises were not too serious or anything, but the whole "company's in dire straits" thing was really unfun to watch & then a rocket had been launched & we got fed an incredible amount of Chinese propaganda stuff before the ending credits.

There is also the matter of ML's younger brother. To me it feels like the writer thought the leads are ready to get married, so let's fix the ML's "big problem" before then, I'm quite disappointed with this, the kid was comedy gold, would have much rather watched him bicker with FL, over whatever corporate shenanigans went down.

Also I really disliked most of the songs. Mainland Chinese rock that gets to be on TV almost always sounds really weird to me, but this drama has been perhaps the worst offender so far.

Oh I almost forgot, the drama is full of insane product placements.

Leia Mais

A very good work place centered, love over the long term romance

9/10 is my rating. This is a 2023 Chinese romantic comedy drama series with 32, 45-52 minute episodes.

First I provide a synopsis then review

Synopsis

Xiang Yuan (Wu Qian a.k.a Janice Wu) is living a carefree life as a top gamer/influencer when her grandfather’s threats of blind dates and marriage lead her to strike a deal for her continued freedom. If she can save the Xi'an branch of the Donghue group from bankruptcy her grandfather, and guardian since her parent’s early deaths, will drop the subject of marriage. Grandfather is confident he will win their deal and even gives her three feathers to be used for favors toward accomplishing her mission. She does not realize that the boy she was in love with in school, Xu Yanshi (Vin Zhang), who rejected her before transferring, is now a mature but still devastatingly handsome man, who works at the Xi’an branch of her company. Prior to being rejected, Xiang Yuan pursued Xu Yanshi throughout their school years. Seeing him again she initially takes up with trying to win his affection then remembers a romantic relationship leading to marriage is the very thing she was avoiding. As a brilliant navigation engineer, he is almost single handedly keeping the company afloat. So they must work closely together to save the ailing branch. The feelings that were always there spring back to life only now it is Xiang Yuan that realizes his feelings for Xiang Yuan and seeks to convince her he still is the one for her. Can the two save the company? Will their second chance at romance end happily?

Review

It is overall a feel good love story with a happy ending. The only person the female lead character is a push over for is Xu Yanshi. She is strong, confident and provides instant karma to those who need it. In their younger years she relentlessly pursues Yanshi and is rejected by him several times. When things finally flip and he is the one pursuing her she slowly finds out his feelings ran longer and deeper than the rejections would indicate. We also get to see her grow from a heir without a lot of confidence in her business acumen to a force to be reckoned with who is capable of running the family conglomerate. I liked it very much and would recommend it to others that like modern romantic comedy dramas. I loved several of the OST songs from this.

Spoilers

Toward the end both main characters make some decisions that were inconsistent with their central character traits to that point. For instance Yanshi is suddenly OK with her significant other being gone, long periods of time when she found that extremely hurtful as a child when her mother did the same. I know they tried to spin it that she changed it and now as an adult she finally understands why her mother was so focused on her research, but I don’t care being absent is being absent. They also tried to make it into the love of country and ability to bring your country to the next technological level is more important than personal family relationships, and it felt like it had a very heavy CCP influence on that aspect. Not to say that the United States doesn’t do the same thing with some of the patriotic aspects to movies , but in this, it just felt like they took one direction through the majority of the movie with putting more focus and care on personal relationships to only at the very end make it so that yeah but it’s OK if you’re furthering the interest of the country. That love of country over family was also contradictory to Yancey‘s personality, because that had been his dream early on but so many things in his life had come along that changed his perspective on that it seemed like a reversal. Rather than having his time tied up on a research track and being absentee he could have continued on the business track and still furthered the technology yet had more time with her and their son. They specifically emphasized he did not regret, taking a step back from his dreams to raise his brother and iIn fact, he felt like that was one of his greatest gifts. Therefor it made no sense that he would be an absentee with his child, and would spend less time with his own family to focus on his dream when he quickly altered his goal and dream to raise his brother. So the ending is happy, but would have been better if he had revealed that had been his dream early on but his love for her and being there for his family was his new dream.

I thought what Yanshi’s mentor said to Yuan about being selfish, and, holding Yanshi back from his dream, was not only uncalled for and unmerited, but extremely rude and unkind. Later they portrayed it as he was really embarrassed about it when he realize that wasn’t the case but I wanted the moment where lead guy set him straight and said yes, that was my dream when I was younger, but now that I have Yuan my goals have shifted. That would have been more satisfying. I also thought that it was his mentor being selfish and living vicariously through Yanshi that resulted in him pushing so hard for Yanshi to join the academy.

I could see her point that she did not want him to give up his dream to help save her family’s company. What thought he should point out was that if he pursued his dream and her company went bankrupt when he could have saved it - he would not have felt good about that either.

#JaniceWu
#HereWeMeetAgain
#WuQian
#VinZhang

Leia Mais

On the ups and downs of modern love with a strong female lead . . .

The first half set in Xi'An is strong. Xiang Yuan, the high energy 'princess,' is assigned to a regional, failing subsidiary of her grandfather's company. There, she reunites with Xu Yan Shi, a former school genius now fallen from grace, This is an excellent core plot about how corporate spaces with their jealousy, mediocrity, and office politics can ruin talent. Additionally, Xiang Yuan is a great character - with family and friends, ambitions, ethics and intelligence. She is not just the muse for Xu Yan Shi.

Unfortunately, the show falls apart as they transition to Shanghai. The secondary romance never really gets off the ground and 'villains' pop on and off screen with no real logic to them. One highlight, though, was Xu Yan Shi finally seeing the university classmates who ruined his life reap the consequences of their own character flaws.

The main leads are attractive and competent. Vin Zhang playing the serious and 'old soul' lead with just the right touch of fire, and Xiang Yuan mostly succeeds in being high spirited and naive while not crossing the line into childish. The secondary characters and actors here are not memorable.

The music and credits are average, and there isn't much I'd rewatch. I grade on other criteria:

Complex Themes - 8.0
It's state propaganda sure, but the depiction of soul crushing office politics was well done and realistic. Greed and power often do override any desire to recognize great talent and create great products. I also appreciated the realistic depiction of the difficulties of modern relationships, the travel, lots of time apart, extremely hectic and busy with work lives that are emotionally draining.

I will always appreciate plot lines around supportive friends and I found that theme particularly touching here.

Complex Characters/Growth - 7.0
Xiang Yuan learns to transition from the girl who would throw away cake if it came an hour late, to someone who can be patient and persist. Xu Yan Shi recovers from his career set back and is forcibly pushed to realize his dreams of being a pioneer in Chinese technology.

Complex Women/Women Centered plots - 6.5
Xiang Yuan is a good role model of a modern career woman. Otherwise, her relationships with her women friends are fairly superficial. In her family, she is the only woman, on her team there is only one other woman and they barely interact, there is the typical middle aged woman villain etc.

Production Values/Cinematography - 8.0
The clothing here was excellent. There was the occasional misstep, but generally very fashionable and fit the main leads well. The sets, cars etc. were also well done and felt 'in the real world' for the most part. Otherwise, this was not very creative or cinematic.

Leia Mais

A light-to-medium romanctic comedy

The only reason I rated this show so highly was because of Bin Bin.
He's a terrific actor in each and every show I've seen him in, and this is no exception.
He carried this for me.

Characters:

ML is a very smart and capable IT programmer/designer. His ambition is to help build satellites/satellite navigation systems.
FL is the rich grandchild of a conglomerate owner with no great ambition in life.

Plot:

ML and FL are old high school classmates. She chased him but he seemingly turned her down.
They part on bad terms.
The show opens when they meet again at a subsidiary of Grandpa's conglomerate.
He's the leader of a tech team whose talents have been overlooked in favor of those with better connections.
She joins the company as a deputy team leader after betting with her grandpa that she can build up the failing subsidiary within a year before HQ decides to close it permanently. In exchange for doing so, Grandpa will stop pestering her to get married.

If I had to encapsulate the story in several words: The struggles of succeeding in business and achieving our dreams against a backdrop of workplace politics, financial struggles, and family struggles. And finding the right person, and sticking with them, despite all odds.

The relationship between the ml and fl is not antagonistic exactly, but they do push and pull each other in the directions they each want to other to go. Each somewhat manipulates the other in order to get their desired results.

The ML cares deeply for the FL and works extremely hard to protect her. Aside from one incident when things spun beyond his control, he never does anything throughout the entire show to harm her or hurt her feelings. He's too selfless sometimes. I only wish he'd used his words. Because while actions 'should' or might speak louder than words, in this case, our FL was just too dense to recognize what was happening, and this ended up hurting the ML unnecessarily.

The FL is innately kind. She'll go to bat for those she cares about. And she will not silently swallow or watch injustice. She's a fighter and l love that about her. She's also very witty and sarcastic, the queen of one-liners. She made me LOL multiple times.
My one gripe with her, and this is a big gripe which continues through a large part of the developing story, is how she treats the ML.
While she's kind to everyone, as I said earlier, with him she isn't. Or, at least, not to his face. She blows hot and cold so often and suddenly, that it's impossible for our poor ML to know if he's coming or going. Through no fault of his own, he's forced to put up with her drastically changing moods and her inexplicable temper, all the while being left in suspense about how she truly feels about him. Another thing she's the queen of is mixed messages. That's cruel and childish of her. A grown woman of 26 should behave better.

My favorite part of the show began at approximately episode 20. That's when things really started getting good.
However, the last three episodes introduced a new conflict which the characters handled in a way I didn't like. As always, it was the FL who annoyed me the most with her response. Although for once, the ML wasn't 100% blameless here. Since the two were already a couple at that point, he could've handled things better. I still appreciated his responses though, and admire him for what he did.

Ultimately all conflicts are resolved and we are shown everyone's happily ever after.
The ending was very sweet.

Music and Cinimetogrophy:
Mediocre

Acting:
ML= terrific
FL= fine
Side characters= solid

Rewatch value:
6.5 to 7

Leia Mais

Me gusto mucho

La historia de amor me gusto mucho. Desde el primer momento engancha. Y siempre estaban juntos solo que las cirncustancias de la vida los separaba pero se extrañaban mutuamente.
Hasta el final, no entendia como era que cuidaba el hermano. El primer capitulo pense que iba a tener mas participación pero casi no aparecio. Si no hubiese estado., no se hubiese notado creo. Solo fue una excusa más para dilatar nuestra historia de amor.

Y por otro lado. Cuando ves estas producciones china. Pensas, como occidente se esta quedando atrás! Que nos va a deparar el futuro. Como estudian, cuanta importancia le dan al progeso tecnologico y como quieren ser autonomos. Son tantos que tienen la capacidad de hacer grandes cosas. Me dio ganas de usar BeiDou y no GPS! pero es despues caigo en la realidad. vivo en un país occidental. :)

Leia Mais