“Love me if you dare” feels a little long at times and has several flaws, but I liked the cast and did have a generally good time with it.

The romance was what I came in for, at first. There’s a bit of a “beauty and the beast” feel to it: a big house, scared “villagers”, a mysterious tenant, and a female lead that sees past the exterior to see the beauty inside (though tbf Wallace Huo’s beauty is also very much showing on the outside) and is gonna bring out that beauty. In Jin Yan’s case it’s pretty clear the dude is no monster, he’s just not very good at being social. They develop a fun dynamic, they have nice chemistry and I like that there’s a domestic side to them. Everything wasn’t rosy, though. I did find the male lead was at times too pushy and intrusive for my taste (I get he’s not good at relationship, but it was still frustrating to see him get his way), and while the progression of their relationship felt organic at first, it suddenly got very rushed, which disappointed me. I did still like them together, but it could all have been done better.

I will also admit that while I really like Wallace Huo, I sometimes found him too wooden, even for a character that is, granted, quite closed-off. He was very cute in his awkwardness, but I wish he'd emoted just a little more in some scenes, and felt he got overshadowed by Wang Kai (in a very likeable role that sadly got inexplicably forgotten by the drama midway ? it’s like they didn’t know what to do with him anymore, despite some very powerful scenes) and Andrew Yin that I was seeing for the first time and thoroughly enjoyed in his bff role.

I really enjoyed our female lead also. At first, I don’t know if there was a sound issue, but Ma Si Chun seemed to mutter all her lines which made the character feel a little flat, but it either got better or I got used to it, and I liked Jian Yao a lot. She’s not made to be a bad-ass but her softness doesn’t make her less strong, and she’s a very empathetic person, which makes her a great partner for Jin Yan. I liked that she does, in fact, contribute to the cases. Jin Yan is still the one doing most of the work because she’s a rookie, but she does participate in the profiling, the interrogations, and contributes.

For a drama with a lot of action, serial-killers and torture, with high stakes, I found that “Love me if you dare” was a weirdly relaxing experience. It’s probably just a “me” thing, but it didn’t feel that intense, except for a few scenes here and there, and I actually liked that.

Now for things that I found less good:

• some pacing issues: I found the drama was at times repeating stuff too much or stretching things. The times where Jin Yan would explain his conclusions would almost always feel uselessly long to me. Also Wang Kai’s character got weirdly dropped so I’m even more bitter since instead of reconstituting a murder scene three times, the time could have been used to develop his character.

• Bo Jin Yan is *too* good at times. I get that he’s very very clever, but he felt borderline magical in some cases.

• the drama is dishonest at times. It happens only twice (I think) but the drama shows us things that did not happen to later surprise us with “haha it did not happen”. Since an unreliable narrator was not established, there’s no reason for this and the drama is not cleverly tricking us, but just *lying* to us, which I find lazy and annoying.

• the drama has several American characters (most of them badly acted) and it was a bit weird to hear them talk in English to Jin Yan and him always answering in English. That, however, was only amusing, not really an issue.

• the last developements in the show did not quite work for me, and the ending didn’t feel satisfying. It does not undo the drama, it just doesn’t make for a good conclusion. It prevents the drama from feeling really complete, at least to me.

That being said, I still did quite enjoy “Love me if you dare”. The cast is good, and I had fun. Some scenes are actually quite moving as the actors do a great job, in particular Ma Si Chun, Andrew Yin and Wang Kai. Also I’m very superficial and Wallace Huo's face is super pretty so that helped. It could have been better, but I’m glad I saw it. Sorry the review ended up so long ;;

P.S. there’s a turtle in that drama and the characters are handling it very poorly and I feel so bad for that poor animal, I was stressed everytime it’dcome on screen T.T