"When We Were Young" vol.2

The user jes wrote that this series is a mix of "A Love So Beautiful" and "When We Were Young". I would somewhat disagree; it's much, much closer to the latter (it could be even called a 'remake' or 'another adaptation'). There is romance, but it's not the main focus of the series. Just an Encore is primarily about growing up, the last year(s) of high school before university, and all the experiences, dreams and conflicts which come at that age and point of life. I can only repeat again that it is very similar to "When We Were Young"; the main differences being time setting (this one happens around the year of 2005, so about decade latter than WWWY) and ending - where WWWY closed with high school graduation, "Just an Encore" adds a final '9 years later' conclusion.
To sum it up: if you are looking primarily for romance, similar to "A Love So Beautiful", you may end up (slightly) disappointed here. However, if you are a fan of WWWY, then this series is pretty much a must for you.

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Love story with ML and FL who do not fit together

This is just another take on a point which was already presented in several other reviews here. The drama is listed as "fake marriage evolving into true marriage" and "hate relationship into love relationship". The problem with that, however, is that the ML and FL simply aren't compatible with each other. This was actually the first drama where I honestly wished the main heroes won't end up together and will go their separate ways. Generally the blame for that (here as well as in Youtube comments) goes to the FL, but in my opinion the the ML isn't without a fault either, and in the end it's really just a natural conflict between two people with different stances and expectations.
The ML is in love with the FL from the very beginning (aka there was no "hate phase" for him), and as a result he turns somewhat overpossessive and ovejealous in the relationship. Conversely, the FL seems to never reach the true "love phase" - most of the time, she takes the ML at best as her buddy/good friend, who certainly has a place in her life, but is barely worth a compromise (not to mention sacrifice) from her side. Good pairing for a drama, just not one with the "love" adjective in it.

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Two quite different halves

The headline says it: The first and the second half of the series have a big variance between them.
The first half is cute, funny romance between a cold, clever, rich businessman (36 y.o) and vivid, somewhat silly, poor yet brilliant chef (21 y.o) which easily deserves at least 9/10 rating, if not higher. The focus is on the cooking aspect, the age and social gap between the main protagonists isn't really crucial, and everything is going in a smooth, fast pace (in fact sometimes too fast - I wouldn't mind having some subplots to get a bit more attention).
Then second half comes, and things change: focus shifts from cooking to business, social gap becomes more prominent, new (and often unnecessary) subplots and characters are introduced for the sake of conflict. Most importantly, and I'm not sure if it was the author's intention: the expected issues of age gap really start to show up. While ML is mature and acts maturely in the relationship, the FL is/does neither. In the end, it feels more like a father struggling to manage his teenage daughter, rather than a romance between two adults.
A pity. The first half was really promising, and if it was more expanded at the expense of the second half, it would make a great series overall. The way it is though, I cannot give it better rating than 7/10.

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"When We Were Young", modern version

Dai Lu Wa plays in modern variation of "When We Were Young", this time as the female lead and with many parallel plotlines (ML is a newcomer in FL's class, the ML and FL have a teacher/pupil dynamics - just reversed this time, FL's clever classmate whom she knows for a long time has a crush on her, carefree but generally supporting brother of FL, incomplete family, dysfunctional family, etc ...). It works pretty well, you just have to approach the drama with the "When We Were Young" setting in mind - romance is not the central point here, but just a part of the overall picture of high school years and life. Only issue I have so far is that Dai Lu Wa's character has a bit too much Mary Sue's vibes, especially in the romantic subplot - not just two, but three popular boys chasing after her (plus countless others just being mentioned) while she is the ice queen who generally ignores them all. Her Huang Deng Deng had much more "rooting for" dynamics (and so did Yang Xi), but maybe this changes in later episodes.

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Initial impression rather than a review

Obviously, after dropping the series after just 4 episodes (in fact after three, I watched the fourth one some two months later and it didn't help) I cannot really provide a proper review, so here's just my personal reasoning.
Note that I'm writing this as huge fan of Janice Wu: I truly dislike the character she's playing here. People are praising the fact that she (the character) is not another dumb sweet girl, but for me the creators went way too far in the opposite direction. The character (at least how presented in these first episodes) is simply a bully; she was bully in the past, she is bully towards the male lead in the present (which I'm OK with, as I don't mind ML&FL bickering), and what's by far the worst, she's bully/bossy towards her friends - or I should rather write 'servants'. The 4th episode does make some attempt to portray how she won them over, but to me it still feels like "I helped you this once, so now you'll follow me and I'll order you around".
Maybe it gets better in further episodes, I don't know. For me this series is already a lost cause and the biggest disappointment of 2020 so far.

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