Just finished watch this today so I’m still all giddly over it ♥
For me, I enjoyed this more than It Started with a Kiss for various reasons:
1) Because ARRON YAN who is like my knight in shining armour gets more screentime and was so ridiculously good looking in it. I was about to scream when he first appeared because I was surprised by how hot he was. I kinda “left” Arron for a while but the love is back now and I’m never going to leave him again =P
2) Zhi Shu FINALLY expresses his love for Xiang Qin. We all knew he loved her but he’s never really shown it or made it obvious. You can see that as their relationship develops, he becomes more understanding of her and learns to accept her flaws. AND we get to see the emotional side of Zhi Shu e.g. when XQ suddenly leaves in the last episode he cries ♥
3) I’ve really come to love Xiang Qin. In ISWAK, I liked Xiang Qin and all but honestly, I thought she was pretty stupid to love Zhi Shu so much when he was such a jerk to her. But now I understand why she loves him so much and have learnt to appreciate the effort she has put in to maintain their relationship. Without Ariel’s brilliant portrayal of XQ this wouldn’t have been achieved so well done to Ariel. Another thing about Ariel is that I don’t see her as Ariel in the drama but I see her as Xiang Qin. This doesn’t happen much because whenever I watch dramas I don’t get absorbed into the characters as much. For example, when I watched ISWAK I’d see a scene with Zhi Shu and I’ll see him as Joe because I know that ZS isn’t a real person and is just Joe but I was captivated by Ariel’s acting so much that I believed in the character XQ. I don’t know if that makes sense but it does to me =P
4) I’m convinced that Ariel and Joe are secretly together =P Everyone was hyped up about them since ISWAK but I wasn’t really into them that much but now after TKA I am finally convinced. They can’t possibly not have feelings for each other, not after all those great kisses ands hugs and whatnot. Their chemistry is just unbelievable. I’m really into drama pairings like MikexRainie, MikexHebe etc. but as much as I like them, I know they’re not together. With ArJoe, I really don’t know. Even if they aren’t together, I swear Joe has something for Ariel. The way he looks at her when he’s talking to her and the way he kisses her shows us that sparks are flying everywhere. I also like how I don’t get the “OMG how can you say something like that” feeling when they say squishy stuff to each other because I swear they mean it =P It’s just so cute seeing Zhi Shu say stuff like that to Xiang Qin because he never shows any emotion to anyone besides XQ. And when XQ says squishy stuff it’s also cute because we know that this is just XQ’s personality. She lives for ZS.
This has gotten me so freaking exited about their upcoming drama “Love or Bread”. Can’t believe they’re working together again ♥
5) The Yu Shu storyline was so cute! I loved how it was a repeat of XQxZS except with a bit of a YS twist to it. I totally enjoyed watching YS and Hao Mei they were seriously really really cute. I also liked seeing Yu Shu grow up and watching him slowly reveal the love and care for XQ. It was really touching seeing him save her from those model agency people and then hearing him say he’ll help/take care of her if she wants to do things at night.
6) Danson gets a role!! I’ve loved Danson ever since Hana Kimi. Even if I didn’t see him in Hana Kimi I’d like him anyway because he likes Charlene =D I find him so cute in TKA since I’m a BIG fan of pretty boys =P
7) Wang Zi from BBT makes an unexpected appearance during the last few episodes. I don’t know about others but I totally did not expect him to be in it. I remember watching some TKA videos on youtube before I watched his episodes and I was like “why the hell is Arron with another girl?!?!” Him and Arron really look alike…they are both so cute/hot!
8. ARRON YAN YA LUN! ♥
Even though I prefer TKA over ISWAK, there were still some parts about it that I didn’t enjoy as much but it’s nothing big.
1) TKA’s OST was pretty poor in quality in my oppinion. There’s a couple of songs on there that I like but none of them WOWed me like the songs on ISWAK OST. The one I liked most would be Ariel’s song (piano version) and yeah the others were pretty plain? ISWAK on the other hand had a FANTASTIC OST. I pretty much LOVED every single song in it and I liked how there was so much variety. To this day, I still listen to it very often because those songs are just so sweet and touching. I don’t think I’ll ever get over them.
2) I prefer Ah Jin (Jiro) in ISWAK because I admired his love for XQ. I’m happy for him because he’s got a girl now but his storyline was kinda boring. I don’t really like Christine…she seems so random? I enjoyed watching scenes with Ah Jin in ISWAK but in TKA his storyline didn’t appeal to me much at all.
In good dramas certain scenes will leave a deep impression on me and I’ll normally remember those scenes forever. Well, I shouldn’t say forever, but they have a lasting effect in my brain =P Normally these are scenes that make me cry and I’ve definitely had my fair share of crying in TKA. I probably used up half a box of tissues during the last episode which was really unexpected because usually last episodes are happy so I never would have thought something would happen to Xiang Qin and that she would try to LEAVE Zhi Shu! I think the whole last episode with them returning to places that held memories of them left the deepest impression on me but there is another one that’s equally as memorable. I don’t think I will ever forget the scene with XQ sitting outside Yu Shu’s room crying over the way Zhi Shu has been treating her. That was such a powerful scene and Ariel was just amazing; words cannot describe how much I admire her acting skills. Must also add the scene where Arron first appears. He seriously electrified and stunned me when I saw him outside Chun Mei’s apartment! I’ll sum him up with one word: 帥
Overall, I’m really glad I ended up watching TKA. I was going to give up on it before because the first couple of episodes weren’t all that exiting but I had nothing better to do so I decided to continue watching. The love I have for it has not surpassed my love for Bull Fighting but it is up there amongst my favourite dramas. What will be interesting is whether I’ll like it better than Fated to Love You. I still haven’t finished that yet so I can’t compare them but I’m really exited about watching the rest of it now.
Something else that interests me is whether Qiao En can surpass Ariel’s AMAZING acting. So far the scene with Qiao En losing her baby has left a deeper impression but I didn’t expect Ariel to WOW me this much with Xiang Qin.
I think I will rewatch TKA in the future^^ Even with all those teary scenes that made me cry, I still think it’s a really bright happy drama. These type of dramas are always worth rewatching on a sad/boring day :D
Wow I just wrote a whole essay o.o I’ll probably think of more stuff to write over the next few days.
edit:
After watching clips of Ariel&Joe at GBA and post GBA celebrations I have decided I’m going to have a MASSIVE ArJoe youtube session tomorrow =D I love my oh so sad life :D
I’ve realised this ages ago but it only just hit me that Ariel is SO DIFFERENT to Xiang Qin! In real life she seems to be quite smart, thoughtful and mature which isn’t really XQ. It’s amazing how she manages to portray someone that’s so different to her so naturally. This girl is just so AWESOME!
To end my massive post…xD
Ariel Lin ♥
Arron Yan ♥
ArJoe ♥
