Far Away Love (2016)

Story: This is a very basic and often-told story of a rich man falling for a poor woman. In this case, the poor woman is also a single mother with an adolescent son. And of course, this rich man comes with a rich woman who has secretly loved him since childhood but is 'evil' and a mother who thinks any woman not belonging to a wealthy family is out to get her son for his inheritance. There is nothing that stands out in the story line. It has all the expected twists and turns of a Chinese melodrama - family conflicts, angst, poverty, joblessness, love triangles, unexpected revelations re. family ties etc. It has the realistic feeling (from the common dressing of the female lead to the very logic decisions the characters make) of most Chinese family romance melodrama. What makes this drama a little different from the rest is how the heroine doesn't really fall for the hero until much much later (like the last 10 episodes later!). In fact, she was very adverse to the hero and being a practical person, turned the hero down many times. She even encouraged and helped her best friend to be with the hero. In other words, we get a very reluctant heroine and a hero who is relentless (and shameless to some point!) in his pursue. I personally am very traditional in this sense. I love it when men are very active, creative and persistent in pursuing the woman....of course, there's a fine line between romantic and criminal and the hero in this drama kinda hover in the middle of this line. Thank goodness he didn't quite cross over to criminal! But then again.....he did ruthlessly tricked our heroine into marrying him (and she wasn't in love with him then!).....you be the judge of whether it's ethical or love in this matter. I just love it when the man's crazy over the woman while the woman's lukewarm over him! In other words, I like it when the power of the relationship is in the woman's hand and not the man's. If you are like me in this sense, you'll love this drama. What I also really love is the very touching story between the heroine and her best friend. It brought tears to my eyes. There are also no draggy scenes with very minimal repetitive or recalls - which I think, is the strength of this drama. The story progression is good.

Acting/Cast: Acting is good enough, including the kid actor who acted as the teenage son. Park Hae Jin's acting is okay though I can tell he needs more experience working on his facial expressions while working with foreign actors & actresses...or it could be his portrayal of the hero who is 'numb' to feelings- a character who was hurt by love and views marriage as a practical arrangement for his career. He's also a brilliant businessman, often able to overcome whatever tricks his mother (the CEO) and her cohorts planned to keep him in line. In the end, the entire board was supporting him and his ideas, which made his mom admire his ingenuity but also frustrated that she could no longer control him. There are parts where you can see the glint of playfulness and genius behind the hero when he plotted to trick our heroine into accepting him. The heroine is well selected - she's cute (not beautiful per se) and has an air of 'common-ness' in her. She is assertive but kind and often would rather avoid conflict than to explain herself to others. To her, the hero is the biggest conflict she wanted to avoid as she knew he would complicate her simple life. Hence, she did all her best to avoid him - switching jobs and place of residence and even went into hiding!...but our hero's tenacity and persistence finally won him the woman! :)

Music: Nothing that stands out.

Rewatch value: Not too bad, considering there are some scenes I would like re-watch. Those are the ones where the hero pulls out every trick in his book to get the heroine. Pure fun.

Overall: To those of you who are used to the 'polished' look of Korean dramas and the brevity of Japanese dramas, you might find this drama (and any melo Chinese dramas) hard to swallow. The Chinese excel in making 'real' dramas, depicting as close to possible, the reality of life and relationships. There will be no fashion show, ridiculously good looking (and heavily make up) actors and actresses here. Even the so-called HD quality is no HD quality. Extremely 'rustic'. Equal weight is given to addressing family relationships and friendships and work life besides the romance story. For a Chinese melodrama, this is not a bad one to be watching. Overall rating: 7.5/10.

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This is a typical story of rich man, poor woman with some cool twists but complete with a crazy woman in love with the male lead, a crazy mom that acts entitled and crazy ex looking for revenge and sad second male lead. The support and love from the main female lead's friends and family makes this drama tons better. I usually hate a lot of secondary characters, but in this drama they are necessary and make the drama better. I enjoyed the ending.

Park Hae Jin as Shen Ah and Li Fei Er as Meng Chu Xia were cute and they have good chemistry and the progression of their story seemed probable even in drama land crazy. The friends and family were well acted and I thought that they felt real. The son is totally adorable.

The music is good.

This drama is worth rewatching although I probably won't.

If you like a good romance mixed with melodrama, then this is the drama for you.

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To be honest the main friend group in the seriesis friendship goals. Even if you usually stick to kdramas and tend to stay away from cdramas, give this drama a try. I have to say, this is probably one of the 5 best dramas that I have seen in the last 12 months. The villains are the perfect amount of petty and there are twists and turns till the very end.

Even so, the best part of the drama was the characters. The friendship between Ruo Nan, Chu Xia, and Wei Wei is what initially drew me in to the drama and kept me tuned for the long yet enjoyable 36 episode journey.

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Story: not new story-line. Rich-arrogant man falls for poor girl who wears the heaviest coat of guilt-Cdrama style. Hidden message of solid great friends can stand the test of time and not be a crutch. This drama was STRETCHED out way beyond its limits with 36. A healthy 18-24 drama would have been ample.
Acting: This was rated as such all do to the male lead, son and her BFF- Fei. Female lead was a sad sack of a woman, we can only hope she does not possess any of these characteristics in real world.
Music: nothing memorable and a bit of irritating.
RW value: Only to see a couple scenes of the male lead. He was stunningly handsome and suave.

Final Note: Cdrama has a tendency to follow a formulaic pattern with a bit of cheesy. Several eps fast forward since the silly girl just irritated or felt repetitious. Was looking a drama with folks who are NOT wearing HS uniforms or body swapped with adult situations. This was OK and just needed to finish -

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To Much A Cliché

I found this drama to much of a cliché. The FL wanted to be strong and brave but was only that way to the ML. Everyone else she would let them push her around and had to be their savior. The chemistry was not there for the FL and The ML . The ML was stiff and seem cold all the time and FL look scare of him all the time or play shy. The story was to long and the same Rich over the Poor. Then the end at the last 5 minute it is a happy ending were everyone is forgiven. To many characters over acting or scenes with overacting direction. Many scene seem like a broken record with the same lines and situation. It became boring and had to fast forward. The actors could had been doing their best but the direction and story stink.

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I can't believe I've never seen this one, it's worth the 36 episodes!

Took me some time to work through all the episodes...but I'm glad I watched it. One of the better older melodramas and except for "That Person" coming back (and her portion of the missing 10 years) the rest felt very true to life. I liked the FL more than most did because I can step back a bit and think about the drama's background and setting. Based on their culture's 2,500 years of confucian roots FL's behaviors make a lot of sense in ways that a young country like mine couldn't easily understand.

We don't have traditions spanning thousands of years that are ingrained and very hard to overcome ie. that of obedience to those in power, but they do...it's buried in their culture, their nation, their history, everything/everyone around them tells them that they should follow and obey those who are "higher" than them, be it by age, gender, social status, wealth, or power.

If you have that understanding built into the cultural background of the childhood of the FL, it makes it a LOT easier to understand her and why she behaves they way she does. It frustrates us to no end because we are used to standing up for ourselves and fighting back, but she isn't because she's used to being powerless, a single mother, and poor AF, basically the lowest person on the totem pole of status in their country. Put all that together with her natural tendencies to want to be a peacemaker and to us looking in she seems to be a doormat...but in reality I think it makes her a stronger person, one who despite all her disadvantages kept struggling, kept going, avoided the pitfalls of hate and came out the other side better. But that's just my perspective and part of why I could enjoy her and the show in a way that maybe others might not be able to.

I also appreciated the friendship between the FL and her group of ride or die friends, I wish more dramas had characters that were as well rounded and fleshed out as they were. I went back and forth on liking and disliking the SML, but in the end he proved to have a lot of growth throughout the series too. Even Shadow went from my most loathed character to one that I was willing to let go and see her go on with her life without spitting nails at the screen anymore, though tbf it took way too long of a time for her fake white rabbit storyline to play out before she became herself again.

I do recommend giving this one a try and I'll more than likely rewatch this even if it is an older drama.

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Non male... ma forse non è il mio genere

Lui è davvero un bravo attore, se non avessi avuto i sottotitoli avrei comunque capito che sentimento esprimeva, lei invece pecca un po' e rimane quasi sempre con la stessa espressione. La storia non è male ed è molto articolata fra storia principale e secondaria. Lui è lei si scontano più volte all'inizio e fino ad un certo punto è davvero divertente stare dietro alla storia. Gli amici sono un bel diversivo fra storie personali e intrighi per sistemarsi uno con l'altro. Ma ad un certo punto la storia si concentra più sul tema amoroso e quindi, per chi come me , ama le storie intricate fino all'ultimo momento perde un po' di spessore ritrovandolo verso gli episodi finali. Quindi non è che non sia una bella storia ma solo che probabilmente non sono abbastanza romantica per questo tipo di storie.

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