Chao Yue (2022)

Great sport-focused drama about the life of top athletes. Drama focuses a lot on the different aspects of training, and the people don't really do much outside the skating training place (which is quite realistic). Many people have ambitions to make it, but in the end, it is a combination of luck, skills and timing that determine who can be the top athletes. The story is well constructed, but nothing special. Trajectory of main lead is also very cliche and predictable. The story is mostly carried by the conversation between people.
The acting is really strong, especially the cast of the earlier timeline. I really loved many of the "side" characters as well, character development is really good here, wish we had seen even more of some of the athletes' background. The story is a bit complex and slow in the beginning, but after a few episodes you will start making sense of every connection between the past and present. It also ramps up and becomes better the second half (surprisingly for a c-drama). Would recommend to watch.

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Look 95% of the Drama is good, final episode is the downer

I went in watching this drama is because 'Gao Zhi Ting' is one of my favorite actors. This is a story that goes into 2 timelines and felt they really should have gone down this path the entire drama like 'Godfather 2'.... Gao Zhi Ting in this case would be the Robert DeNiro.

95% of the drama is fantastic because its a real deep dive into the struggles, the sacrifice that these athletes make, in a way getting to the top brings out the worst in most people. Its shows the transition from the young coaches when they were athletes to the modern day coaches. Gao Zhi Ting you will admire as a young man, however his older version is a character you despised, in a way he sacrificed what was important being his family for the sport/country. He even taught another girl over his own daughter, i found it pathetic how he justified it.

This drama would have been exception til the end if they focused on the disappointments however this is suppose to be a story of inspiration for the Beijing Olympics so of course they were never going down that track even though disappointment is what happened to pretty much all the athletes except 1!

I found it impressive how someone ruptured an Achilles tendon and made it back very soon to skating. I feel half the characters you will like other half you might not as mentioned this journey both time lines brings the worst out of most.

The main lead actress first head coach & national coach I believe you will easily like over her own father, they actually believed in her versus own father training & coaching another girl.

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