I'm pretty sure this was the first non-English language drama I ever watched – I was 12 yo when Summer's Desire came out and a friend at school was watching it. I've rewatched it a handful of times since. But I think just because it was the first ever Taiwanese drama I'd watched, not because it was particularly good. I can't deny this is my most re-watched drama, hence the generous star number there.

Look, be warned, this drama has heaps of problematic elements to it. Ok, I'm understating that a lot. I've given this a low rating because this drama has nothing to do with love and everything to do with coercive control. so **big content warning** there. There's no rape scenes thankfully, but it's clear that consent is not a big priority.

Also, as other reviews have noted, this drama is brimming with clichés. Turns out, it was a great drama to begin with because it introduced me to almost all the tropes of Taiwanese and C-Dramas in one go. I also think it took at least three re-watches for me to fully understand the plotline. But, let's be real, you're not watching Summer's Desire for the plot.

The chemistry between the three lead actors is really well done (somewhat despite a sub-par performance from Barbie Hsu who doesn't match her Meteor Garden efforts). The actors do pretty darn well in spite of the cliché characters and dialogue. The support actors also do well to provide emotional depth to the storyline.

The OST is great and makes up for the fact the overall audio quality is a bit patchy (this seemed to be a common thing among Taiwanese dramas of this era, I've now noticed). Just weird audio levels around dialogue and general atmosphere.