正青春 Fighting Youth (C-Drama Review)

Last Edited: February 8th, 2022.

🥑: 1 Couch Avocado!

hmmm.... How do I start... I have mixed feelings with this drama... I put off watching it the moment it was released because of the amount of people dissing Wu Jin Yan's acting and because of how she traumatised audiences with her 妈妈不要你死 (her infamous awkward acting from her previous drama). I was very hesitant and decided to not watch it until I came across snippets of it on Facebook HAHAHA. Don't ask why I was on Facebook videos, but I managed to see clips of her acting and it wasn't as bad as people claim to be... I feel like people really be putting her down and throwing hate excessively... just because her previous works were meh. I can see her improvement here and though she still cannot handle deeper, finer, emotional acting, she was able to convince me she IS exactly what an office lady in a big company is like. She managed to show character growth and I am able to differentiate her character at different stage of the 47-episode long drama. Basically 1 🥑 rating is simply because it's watchable but not necessarily a good drama....

⚠️⚠️⚠️This point onwards contains major plot spoilers⚠️⚠️⚠️

Likes:

1. Firstly, the drama's setting is workplace conflicts, competition, politics etc. Basically the show managed to bring out all of these themes in a comfortable, logical way. The company's hierarchy and corporate ladder were shown clearly. How the employees can advance, how they measure successes, the people they consider talents, their company policies came together to form a realistic corporate environment. Despite not being in a business industry, I could feel the similarities in workplace politics between the drama and my own workplace. I can also sense the writer's efforts in making FL's entrance into the company fair and logical despite being the Manager's pet (she became the Manager's pet because the Manager was the one who pulled her own connections to set up an interview for her).

2. Next, I also liked the way they pitted the characters against each other, bringing out the theme of nobody is forever your friend neither is anyone forever your enemy. In the first half of the show, the originally Manager and the CEO were master and disciple...They were close knitted until a chance for promotion came and the CEO decided to bring in one more talent to fight for the spot with the Manger... That scene where Manager confronted CEO in a fierce yet polite way was damn tense.... Ultimately, FL also joined the company vying for a role to be the Manager's assistant along with another competitor.... Shit really went down between the two of them, fighting to sign contracts and sales. There were many many more instances that makes the show really tense and exciting. At one point, the two Managers even swapped their assistant with the FL going over to join opponent's company. Tension is really one of the main point of such corporate shows.

3. I also loved the way they portrayed the struggles, emotions, and dilemmas of all the characters, irregardless of their post and position. The higher-ups have their own personal lives as well and despite their scary and demanding disposition at work, they are still human after all. I love how they used the characters dressing and appearance to point out the different sides of the characters that are active. This makes the characters more relatable and real. For example, the strong-headed Manager will always be dressed professionally at work related events and at work but at home she is just hair down, no make-up, and sometimes in her PJs hahaha.

Dislikes:

1. I generally don't like to watch corporate dramas in the first place especially since these kinds of dramas like to use workplace conflicts and conflicts of benefits between parties to tear couples apart. They often mix romance with the workplace politics by making the couples either come from different companies that results in having different agendas or coming from the same company who banned office dating.... They seem to have no other way to introduce conflicts or to make the romance more interesting and tbh I am sick of these plots. Unfortunately, in this drama, there were THREE, I repeat, THREEEEEEE such couples. I couldn't seem to invest in their relationships despite trying my best to so I ended up skipping all of them anyways. I only focused on the corporate scenes and left out all of their romantic conflicts. As such, I had no CP to 磕 (ship) in this drama... Made it a tad bit boring but whatever! The corporate tension was enough and exciting for me.

2. At one point, I felt that it was getting draggy because they were repeating the plots in different ways, levels, and involving different characters. Luckily, they managed to spice it up by causing a rift between the two FLs and switching their positions otherwise I would have really 弃剧 (dropped the show) already... For the entirety of 47-episodes, I think I watched slightly less than half properly because of the professional jargons, which I cannot relate and is uninterested in, and the romance line who have the same conflicts.. (Love triangle, couples who can't get together because of their career etcetc)

In conclusion, the reason why I still managed to finish it was because of the way the drama was produced. They managed to build up the tension quite well and at times I was very excited and curious to know what will happen next or how they will be solving the issue. They also have quite a few notable senior actors and actresses who were very good in their job. I also managed to see Wu Jinyan's improvement and really made me sigh at those people who are just throwing hate for the sake of it.... Though I liked parts of the plots and the acting, I cannot see myself actually recommending this to others or to take the time to rewatch. I don't even have the interest to watch their behind-the-scenes and I didn't get too involved/invested in the characters as well, just some relatability at the point.