Story of one rich Shanghainese family and how the three business-savvy sisters weathered through the war years, handled business, and managed their romantic relationships. The setup seems tropey but departs quickly from tropiness, because every character is conceived and acted to have intelligent, perspicacity, with hidden strengths—but managing to still be very different from one another, doing things in different ways, having very different personalities, yet ultimately are closely connected with one another and all working toward the same goals.

Of the three sisters and their love interests, I enjoyed the relationship and character arcs between the eldest sister and her rough-around-the-edges husband the most. They're easily the best actors and fully conveyed and breathed life into their characters. She is calm and cool, perfectly considerate and well mannered, yet her quiet strength and intellect shines in every action, with all kinds of strong emotions flowing just under the surface. He is fierce and rude and hot tempered, loyal to his country and protective of family, while also being super scared of his wife because he loves her a lot but doesn't always understand her. They provide the moments of greatest comedy, but also the most touching, or even sorrowful scenes.

Another standout is second sister and her love interest, another pair with extreme contrast in personality. He is devoted to work, with little energy spared to nurture relationship. She's a business-minded genius who can cut through people like knives with her words whenever her temper flares. They are an odd pair, but the process of their coming together is believable.

But these romance elements are only one aspect of this drama. This main story is about family, about business, about how various people make smart decisions in desperate situations when the world is going crazy around them, and all anyone can do is try to weather each wave and try to survive to see the light, DECADES into the future... Or not, as various characters are also called to act in accordance with their conscience and morality.

As with all Cdrama, it could be 5 episodes shorter and still tell a good story, and the ending is too rapid. Literally, in the last 30 min of the LAST episodes, everyone's lives kinda suddenly worked out and are narrated through decades to the end.. On the one hand, this is kind of disappointing because I'd love to have actually SEEN these things play out some more. On the other hand, I think they were aiming to convey a sense that these were a small number of people's stories who lived through that turbulent time, amoung countless potential stories from countless people.

Overall, I think it's a very good watch!