Asian Drama Review #1: Love 020

A lot of Asian Drama have been playing on social media streams and televisions especially here in the Philippines that's why many Filipinos are into Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Taiwanese dramas. And as expected, I am one of those Pinoys who loves these Asian Dramas!


They have captured my heart and I think it's my mission to share with you all my honest-to-goodness review of these Asian dramas. For starters, read my review about the Chinese television drama, Love 020.

Synopsis

Love 020 follows the story of Bei Weiwei, the most beautiful girl in Computer Science (CS) department who is also intelligent, and her journey in being one of the top 10 players (ranking 6th) in an RPG (Role Playing Game) called A Chinese Ghost Story. She is the epitome of beauty and brains. Although in the game she has been married to Zhenshui Wuxiang, Weiwei has never been in love in real life. The goddess of CS department kept her offline life in private and did not even put her photo on her User ID.

After Zhenshui Wuxiang divorced her online, an issue that she is a transvestite circulated online and put her on hot seat. This didn't faze Wei Wei and continued on her journey as an RPG top player until she met Yixao Naihe, the number one player of the RPG, and asked her to marry him so they could both slay dragons and qualify for couple quests. Reed Weiwei, the name of Bei Weiwei in the game, agreed to the marriage and so this began their whirlwind of funny and cute romance.

The Good Stuff

1. Clean and Feels Set-up

The setting of Love 020 gives the college feels that I miss. It also provides a glimpse of how is it to be a university student in China. The beauty of China's school ground highly reflect on the drama and they are even set in a real university which is the Qing University in Beijing China.

2. Chinese Values

What I love about Love 020 is not only the story but the scriptwriting as well where viewers are opened about learning more about Chinese idioms which can be heard on the characters' dialogues . The family and friendship values are also shown in the television series. Nowadays, some people are too liberated to the point of forgetting their family values. Weiwei and Xiao Nai are our role model in how should a girl and boy in a relationship act. They are reasonably conservative and values what matters in life which is their family.

Friendships are also valued by Chinese and the lead showed us how to keep our friends close no matter what misunderstandings come their way.

3. A Beautiful and Awesome Leading Lady

Bei Weiwei, also known as "Reed Weiwei," is a beautiful and intelligent girl who is not desperate to look for a man to be with. She is headstrong, independent, intelligent and beautiful. Also, what I love about her is that she knows that she's beautiful but still remains down-to-earth.

Bei Weiwei reminds me of @sweetsssj who's a beauty inside and out!

4. A Handsome and Genius Male Lead

Xiao Nai is a dream guy. He has everything a girl would want. In the series, Xiao Nai is a handsome senior guy, an ace player of basketball, CEO of his own Tech Start-up Company and genius in academics. He is also reserve and respects Bei Weiwei that he didn't force her into doing anything she is not ready.

The Bad Stuff

1. A lot of in-game time

Although the point of interaction of the Bei Weiwei and Xiao Nai is on the game, it is kinda boring when most scenes in an episode is mostly about game fighting scenes and such. For a non-addictive gamer like me who only plays a few RPGs, it is dragging watching them talk about the game and such.

2. Slow Phasing

Love 020 has 30 episodes but in my opinion, the television drama can compress the important scenes to 20 episodes, especially episodes 13-21.

3. A lot of PPL

PPL which means Product Placement is a normal advertisement in television series or movies. However, love 020 PPL is waaaaaay too much. All of the episodes has a n advertisement of Yakult and Juice drinks. When Hao Mei, one of Xiao Nai's buddies, asked for a drink or water in one episode he was given a juice drink. Everytime the characters needed to have a drink it was always the colored alcolohic beverage or Yakult or the colored juice. It is too obvious to the point that their advertisement is disturbing. There is also a scene where Bei Weiwei needed to buy a cellphone in an Oppo store and the characters will always be on their phone especially Xiao Nai. He always makes a call to wherever.

PPL is okay but too much of anything isn't.

4. Awkward Kissing Scenes for Bei Weiwei

Don't get me wrong, Bei Weiwei is beautiful and intelligent and all that but she is not a good kisser. Seeing her and Xiao Nai kiss makes me cring because it looks like she's just enduring the kiss instead of enjoying it. She never kissed back so if you like romantic scenes, you might want to expect less.

Good thing though that Xao Nai looks like an expert on this department.

The Verdict

This is a sweet and light Asian drama you want to watch. A plus? If you're just starting out in watching Asian television series then you can start with Love 020. A cotton-candy marathon.

Photos are screenshot from Love 020 episodes.

May 11, 2018 - 4:30 PM