Falling in Love With You in the Contract Period (2020)

It was alright

No major spoilers included. I just always mark spoilers included cause I hate when shows are ruined for me.

So, I watched this show a while ago but after watching a clip on YouTube felt like I should add my 2 cents on this site. I thought this show was really good at first. I thought they were a cute couple, it was a little cliche and a bit overacted, mostly on the FL’s part (I normally notice this less if I’m reading subtitles), but it was average run of the mill contract marriage story. From the start though I started to see things I just didn’t understand

The FL’s chosen career- maybe it is just me but is anyone else annoyed by how, seemingly more than not, like 75% of the time FLs in cdramas want to be either a web toon writer/animator or a manga artist. I have a degree in art, I get loving to draw but, and maybe I’m wrong, is every Chinese woman an amazing artist and writer and do they all want to become animators? There’s this show, Feel at Ease mr Ling, Be with You, A love so beautiful, there are more but I’m having trouble thinking of them any time I see this trope I’m like she’s gonna use the ML as inspiration and they’ll fall in love. Wow! What happened to careers like teacher, doctor, grocery store clerk?, curator, mechanic, secretary, maid, lawyer, banker, the list goes on I’m so sick of this trope!

The set up- She doesn’t want to take over her dad’s business ok whatever but it seemed like part of the reason was she was ashamed he got rich from making lingerie and was made fun of for it. Do you know how popular I would’ve been had I had a rich parent who made clothes, so many people would want to be my friend just in case they could get a discount or free stuff,

The FL is awkward and selfish- she expects that everyone will cater to her will and change for her but does none of that herself. Like I can get that she is inexperienced in love and she’s using the ML as inspiration for her story but omg the scenarios and things she does are so cringe although he seems to like some of it. That whole set up makes me feel like she is using him. She also never takes other people’s feelings into consideration and keeps doing what is best for her despite the cost and with very little consequences. Also the 2nd ML I would’ve liked a scene where she straight up told him no and to stop pursuing her because he was clearly interested and messing up her relationship. Even when the ML asked her not to hang out with him she still continued. I’d understand her not listening if he was at all domineering and jealous but he wasn’t, she had other male friends and the ML didn’t care. Even if she had no feelings towards the 2nd ML he clearly needed to be told and if he didn’t respect her feelings she should’ve stayed away. They try to make her look really nice but she has really selfish tendencies,
And nobody ever tells her she needs to check her privilege.

It’s a sort of cliche and easy drama. The FL is irritating, selfish, and immature and the ML I found, looks wise cute at first but on further inspection a little creepy, idk why and yeah it’s a little shallow. Lacks depth, creativity, and I’ll probably never rewatch more than the occasional YouTube clip. I’d go elsewhere if looking for a good drama to watch.

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A lot of kissing scenes!

Very cutesy, sugary sweet rom-com with a lot of kissable moments.

I love cheesy C dramas and this one pretty much checks all the boxes.

Things I liked:

- The actors are older (mid thirties) and boy they don't look it! I was happy to see there is only a 3 year age gap between the actors.

- The wardrobe was pretty good when it wasn't on repeat. Since the actress is a rich girl, she wore a lot of Chanel and Gucci (the classic looking stuff, not the gaudy stuff).

- A lot of sweet, OTP, cheese ball moments which I am addicted to when I watch C dramas.

Such as:

fall kiss!,

rescuing the damsel in distress,

stand up for your women in a crowd of haters,

giving gifts and no limit credit card

dancing, catching eye moment scenes

and it goes on and on ....

I mostly enjoyed the drama, except for the last 4 episodes and the side couple. I felt like the drama had enough drama for the first 20 episodes and I was fine with a bunch of fillers and more cutesy moments, but there was extra drama thrown in and it for me felt like it came out of no where, or it was just too repetitive and I will admit I started to fast forward.

I wasn't a huge fan of the side couples. I didn't really feel the chemistry and there wasn't an organic connection for me.

Overall, first time watching the drama with the leading FL and ML and I'm a fan. I hope they get more leading roles because the chemistry between the two was really good. Like I said, a lot of kissing scenes!

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Lucky to have been loved by Ottoman

Sounded good with an opening of the ML carrying his love for the FL since middle school and always secretly supporting her. The FL conveniently needing a marriage partner to avoid inheriting her family business gives him the opportunity to be with her. Throw in an obsessive actress in love with the ML and you think you have a light, mostly happy with some light love triangle romance with the FL and ML perseverance helping to drive the plot along, but no.

As you watch, the FL is increasingly awkward, more self- centered, selfish, useless and a spoiled crybaby. It's no wonder the FL's conflicting feelings had to be animated with angel / devil SD characters. With a "I'm sorry" all her problems are easily solved. What bull.

The FL barely displays any trust or love towards to ML and constantly will believe everyone but him despite all circumstances proving otherwise. The "love" scenes start feeling like it's just physical and lacking in any emotional or spiritual elements. You start hoping the ML gets his happy ending with some less torturous character [not in this story line] and... bits of a "do-over" sentiment is portrayed during a bout of convenient amnesia.

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The two leads were the absolute worst. Give me a story of the second couple.
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Okay so firstly, your dad is going to forcefully transfer his company shares to you unless you get married. Fine. Just transfer them back. 3 minutes and the story is complete. You're welcome.
Other than that, these two people are so toxic they're made for each other. So that's nice. FL is headstrong and independent, or trying to be. Great. But she makes some seriously stupid decisions out of a total lack of situational awareness, and then rather than explain properly she just rages at ML.
He is worse. For someone who has been her secret fan for years, he has absolutely no confidence in her. She's an *sshole in how she speaks to him, but she's not wrong. He never trusted her in her career decisions, her skills, her judgement, or in her day to day life. He forces his way into her work out of jealousy and lack of trust, and then brings nothing of value.
Ribbon dude was pathetic and deliberately engineered awful encounters, but at least he had value in his work. All she did was help him once in passing YEARS ago. The level of obsessed he was in her is exactly why I hesitate before helping a stranger. The only reason ML was so triggered by him specifically is because he recoginsed all his behaviours. All the toxic CEO bullsh*t, engineering meet cutes and causing problems just to white knight in to solves those same problems. ML had already done them all and managed to wife her.
Crazypants actress is a whole different mess. By the time she pulled the stunt with the red dress she needed to be fired and handed a restraining order. If anyone is undeserving of the opportunities they are handed it's her. Girl needs therapy, and every one of them was a clown for letting her anywhere near FLs movie. I'm sorry but why the hell would FL think it makes sense to cast her as herself basically? You already know she's dangerous and wants to BE you, why feed the delusion by casting her as you in your own fanfic?
I liked the second couple, they were a mess but in a much healthier way. Even though her family were mental, they were still better as a whole than the main couple.
Seriously, this views like they ran out of story after about 6 episodes and just photocopied previous pages of the script. "Quit this job, I can give you whatever you want, you're only doing it so you can screw around" "F U I want to earn my career, not be handed it, and I am faithful to you even though I'm a d*ck about it" "Okay sorry hun, my bad, I'll trust you more and believe in you". And then just do that 5 more times.

The acting was fine. It wasn't their problem the story sucked. The music was fine too, though that main song was way overused (the usual issue). The story was awful.

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It was fine.

Well .... Drama is not bad in itself. For a long time I thought to rate it 5.5-6/10 but the main characters were not the best. As actors, the leads did great, but I didn't like their creations. More female than male. Lu Bo Yan is handsome, kind and strong while Su Jia Nan is semi-pretty, mean and selfish. In the synopsis it is said that he is giving her the "price" for being married to him, but actually he is paying that price for being married to her. Jia Nan is egocentric and for a long time doesn't acknowledge his goodness towards him. She claims to be an indepentend strong woman who knows what she wants but in the same time she rejects it and sacrifies the her and his happiness ??

Their love story has its obvious ups and downs and keeps you entetrained. Jia Nan starts as a poor lover and luckly finishes as a bit better person. Through out whole drama she prefers to chase her dreams than to respond to Bo Yan's approching. He is really doing his best and apologize for what he was going at school. That prolonged negligent was annoying enough to make me to lower the rating. When times are good the lovers do show some passion but in bad times they really give their worst attitude. It was nice to watch that the actors seem comfortable with each other and the kisses are pretty strong?

It is too hard to say if I recommed Love in Time or not.... Thankfully this Chinese drama was only 24 episodes long and producers didn't drag any moments. This is a rarity I adore! ?? I did not hate Love in Time. It was just ALRIGHT. Nothing more nothing less. Even though there was a chemistry between the list there was not spark. I don't know how to exactly explain it .... The force that brings them together wasn't present and I hope you know what you mean by that ?

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This is a fairly nice drama that failed to create a great romantic feel in spite of all the intimate moments that it has. Even though there were some nice intimate moments, the leading lady’s body language was not really intimate and too many of her expressions were emotionless. The plot doesn’t support the childhood sweethearts’ definition since the leading lady, as a child, did not show any “loving” interest in the leading male which is described on one of the synopsis as one of her tormentors. The leading male protagonist, despite showing some intent to be domineering, was always loving the leading lady and supporting her. On the other hand, the leading lady constantly doubted her husband’s good intentions and could only think of herself as always been right to the point that she could justify actions that were close to crossing the line as married woman. The “you don’t show respect for my work” line was used too many times during the drama as her excuse for doubting her husband who, in return, will try even harder to understand and support her. Her enlightenment came too close to the end of the series and the end was too abrupt. The drama is not bad; it just that it’s not great either.

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Contract Marriage - childhood sweethearts!

Others may have differing opinions and that's ok.
I would rate this drama a 7.5 out of 10. It was quite easy to watch but I still found myself skipping over some scenes. The 2nd FL was super annoying as any antagonist and just did not want to face reality that Lu Bo Yan never had any feelings for her; & only considered her a business partner, as she was his company's rep and potentially a friend.

I confess I suffered from 2nd ML syndrome, Justin Li is so good looking that early on I had hoped that there might be an opportunity for him and the FL to have a 'connection' - it was unfortunate that he allowed himself to be influenced by the 2nd FL and ended up going down the wrong path!

Su Jia Nan is a strong independent woman who wants recognition for her own efforts in her work as a writer, of online & published novels and rookie screenwriter. As her online novel commences to gain public interest the comments online & around her are mainly focused on her being married to Lu Bo Yan. Hence undermining all her efforts to get to where she is and overshadowing her talent. I don't think it was heartless or selfish of her not to want LBY's help - Yes, I understand that his intentions were good, he wanted to help her in whatever way he could and protect her etc. Which was easy for him as he had money, and an excellent reputation and therefore many connections. BUT just because he could help her it didn't mean that he should interfere & ignore that SJN had asked him not to.
I really disliked the scenes where LBY would drag or forcefully grab SJN by the hand and drag her off and when he would bark out orders 'forbidding her to do something etc.' That's not what I call love but insecurity & distrust on his part. His behaviour was sometime obsessive & condescending.

Ep 22 - Just to clarify, SJN fell asleep from exhaustion on the couch in KRC's hotel room while working together with KRC (the producer) and the two lead actors on the script. She only went to his hotel room as the lead actors suggested they should meet there. She didn't do anything wrong although it may have seemed terrible for LBY that she did not go home that night & then when he went to the hotel to find her the next morning, some of the movie crews were gossiping about his wife & the producer staying in the same hotel room all night etc. I just don't understand why he didn't just ask her what had happened & allow her to explain!

Ep 24 - not sure what the screenwriter was thinking with incorporating the temporary amnesia troupe? I found the last episode a bit confusing, and although the drama ended well it felt like the screenwriter tried to fit too much in the last episode which detracted from my overall enjoyment of the show.

On a lighter note, I loved the little She-Devil and Angel characters, they were so cute!!

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contract marriage to love

i have been liking contract relationships to love. this drama is one of my favorite drama of all time. the plot of the story is well plotted. they have gone through many ups and downs in their relationship. Even though it is same as other dramas with bossy and rich male lead and middle class girl the story is quite interesting ......................................................
the chemistry was good also well played by the actors. the most relatable pat is to adopt a rich life style and learn etiquette as a middle class women and i would recommend you all to watch it

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Ming Ren (lead actor) is good looking, faithful gentleman and caring and softspoken a perfect hubby

I just loved the storyline. Make me feel, a super rich businessman could be so caring, faithful, soft-spoken, gentleman, one women man no womaniser and a handsome man. It is too good to be true.

Ming Ren took all way out to protect, help, provide unconditional love to his contract wife. One can feel how much he does love her. He also does not seem to threw temper to his contract wife though at times it is unreasonable.

Viewers can able to see the affluent home environment and the lifestyle if being married to the super rich.

It is highly recommended and not a boring drama. Ming Ren does have such a romantic charming eyes.

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How to ruin a cdrama

This drama has brought out the inner masochist in me . It starts of as a mediocre and typically bad drama type that surrounds a single plot plot line . 6 episodes in the story takes a turn for the better and the actual plot could have ended as any other terribly done dramas but the screenwriter gears up and adds life into the story by giving the FL individuality and highlights issues of how a person struggles to succeed and how a helping hand from someone can actually have negative effects some times .this brought my personal rating for this drama way up . But another 6 episodes in they recreated the story with a better SML and plot intricacies . Beyond that they ruined it again by showing the FL's individuality as selfishness. Last 6 episodes they essentially destroyed what they had created by making the SML's helpfulness as his way of interfering in the ML and FL's lovelife . The story is essentially a rinse and repeat once good once bad.

Let's talk about the acting , I usually tend to not like cdramas due to the overacting that was not a problem here they let me immerse myself some what without overacting. The ML played the domineering and jealous role very well but I feel his expressions during the romance scenes were lacking.
The FL played the internal struggle and need for individuality role very well but she had the expressions of a dead fish during the romance scenes . The plot for romance was steamy and decent but it was ruined by there lack of appropriate expressions .

I feel this drama had potential but was ruined by these factors .

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Thankfully this Chinese show was only 24 episodes, which is short, so they weren't able to drag things out TOO much. What I liked:
1) Chemistry between the leads. They had amazing chemistry and there was a lot of skinship, with no open-eye, dead fish kisses. I must say that I think the "candy kiss" is one of the best I've seen. Their height difference was really cute as well.
2) Ming Ren as Lu Bo Yan - he was a lovely character. He appears cold, but has emotions that run deep and are long-lived.
3) Cute, romantic scenes.
What I didn't like:
1) Can we talk about the dubbing? Why, is what I want to know. Most of the voices are so irritating.
2) The character of Su Jia Nan. I think Serena Cheng did a good job, because I really did NOT care for this character, overall. She was selfish, self-absorbed, immature.
3) Secondary couple - just irritating.
4) Obligatory "girl that wants the guy". He never had any feelings for her, but she just will NOT give up.
5) The getting together, breaking up, getting together, (you get my point). They never seemed to learn from their mistakes. So this constant back and forth made the show seem even longer than it was.

All that said, if you want an overall cute show, with a couple with excellent chemistry and not too much angst, you might enjoy this

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