Crush (2021)

A drama that went from charming to childish

Though my headline sounds critical, i should start off with the fact that i did truly enjoy the whole drama.

The setting and meeting between the leads was amazing. It played out like a unique love story where admiration quickly turns into love. The interactions felt realistic and the pace was perfect. Nian Qin's character was set up for development and he gradually became more lovable to watch. Wu Yan is a playful FL who strays away from the usual playful but clumsy and dumb female, which is something to be relieved about. The OSTS were fitting and the incorporation of music into the drama is flawless. Many things about this drama are so good. Im the type that needs to be hooked in the first episode, and this drama did that for me. However, it is very evident that the writing got lazy around the middle and lacked the same charm and elegance the first half did.

In the final third of the drama, there is cliche thrown upon cliche, and some distasteful ones at that. There were a few characters whose stories were abruptly cut off and unfinished as well as one that had an ending that made me ask if i was reading the subtitles correctly. Unfortunately, during this portion of the drama. Nian Qin has very noticeable changes, which make sense in some areas but seem so out of character and especially annoying in others. In the last few episodes in particular, there are moments where you feel like you have missed important events and relationship changing revelations. The second half essentially throws away all built in the first half.

Despite the lot that is negative, if you think the love you will have for the first half of the drama will be enough to pull you through the second half, then watch it, but if you hate inconsistency, proceed with caution.

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A rollercoaster ride drama, you don't want to get off!

This quiet little drama entered my life without a warning. I saw that it was trending one day and decided to take a chance on it just based on the synopsis and the poster. I was intrigued. No way could I have imagined a story that grabbed me and held me on for so long. There's so much going on with this drama that I loved. Mostly because it was a little different than most, it kept me so attached to this story. I myself can be categorized as a little visually impaired. To see this story unfold had a personal meaning to me. Evan played this role beautifully and thoughtfully. The music along in this drama can bring you to tears. It's almost it's own character here. The background music can set the mood and expectation of the scene which I loved. That aspect of the drama was something fresh to me. The acting and the chemistry between the leads was very natural. The characters seem to develop at a pace that very watchable- you wanted to be in love with them, you wanted to have them get back together... it was like you were in that relationship too. And the details that the director created were amazing. From the raindrops, to the leaves falling and the beautiful cinematography.

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Autumn kind of love

The feels. A little melancholy. A little warm. Depends on your mood. A falling leaf can be soothing, can be sad. And the drama seesaws between the two quite seamlessly.

If you watch ML moving in the darkness in his house. Thats cause the blind does not need the light at night. Then next scene its in the bright joyful setting of the FL and her roommate. The first quarter of the drama shows the two extremes of our CP. I dont know i find that very moving.

As she gets into his world and move him bit by bit, his house too becomes enveloped with light. I find the picture of him and his heart to be parallel and symbolic.

Moving on to the characterization. Male lead has a more extreme personality. He doesnt like, he doesnt do, he doesnt care and he wont spare a thought or a look. He is extrememly quiet and stays in his world due to the unpleasant childhood and his lack of sight. Like he put in words later, a person like him doesnt love easily. And to forget the person he love, is even more impossible. So this explains and may let you condone some of his extreme actions and reactions.

Female lead is again those courageous girl that puts on a wonderwoman suit and fights to enter the guy's realm after she fell in love at first sight and the same person whose songwriting she admires. She sometimes fumbles or gets into sticky embarrasing moments. But shes always honest and makes a lot of effort to understand him.

The biggest gem is the songs and ost. As I Believe is my favorite. Its the type at first verse, im totally suck in. Fall was another winner. And ML's song sang by Lin Yanjun himself. They blend into the drama, and make the scenes more impactful.

There is some change in tone as the drama progresses, which i know peeps complained about. I wouldnt say its perfect. But it did reflect how the leads are the same and yet different as time progresses. The jealous fiance husband could be toned down but i suppose grown man can be childish too. Some couples like a lot of couquetishness so as long as they are happy, thats all that matters.

Lastly the chemistry is what makes it really work. You just only need to see the comfortable body language and feel the ML and FL are so right for this pairing. They have the best hugs, forehead touches and eskimo kiss! Do watch.

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Started off well but took a dive and just became plain boring

This drama had great potential, showing a love story between two people with very different backgrounds and ability. This drama starts of showing people with disabilities as competent people worthy of love without ignoring the ableist world we live in as well as taking a pretty good punch at charity work and showcasing disadvantaged children like they where animals at a circus. The female lead seems to be both independent, smart and loving while the male lead is the typical icicle in need of some good defrosting.... so far all good

But then it takes a very odd turn to the posesive, obsessive, toxic... as well as total utter stupidity with a whole lot of stalking rounded up with some pretty blunt ableism. So if it started as a 10 it ended in a 5 thus it gets a 7 star rating.

In other words I probably should have stopped watching this show somewhere around episode 13...

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Short sighted in so many ways.

This started out okay .. nothing too spectacular.
*sigh*

The FL was annoying for the most part.

I'm not quite sure how quickly their relationship managed to escalate to the point of her living with him, it was so rushed and I just didn't understand it.

She basically invites herself into this man's life after she finds out he is her favorite composer.

There's one scene that really bothered me in the absurdity of it.

He - a blind man - is carrying her down a fire escape... come on man, I mean really.

And this is while the FL supposedly had measles (yet had NO telling symptoms other than a cough and fever for like a day).

We're then bombarded with vaccine propaganda for an episode or two.

I despised the FL mother, wretched character and almost unbelievable.

She came all the way there to move her daughter back home b/c she found out she was dating a blind guy.

Then her constant bickering and complaining is what led to the dad's collapse, not the daughter.

How in the heckle and jeckle did the ML recover from blindness that we're first told is not recoverable?

This was a huge thing at first .. then we learn he can see a small distance in front of his face - once again we're told he can never recover.

Did the writers just forget all about the level of blindness he had?

His attitude was a big turn off .. he clearly felt sorry for himself and made it seem like he grew up in an orphanage when he only stayed there for a year.

The FL had serious mental issues we were not made aware of until the end.

They could have trimmed a lot of the fat out and threw that in there instead.

Maybe then things would've made a bit more sense .. or maybe not

Not sure where this was supposed to go, but I'm guessing it fell grossly short of it's final destination.

The music was nothing spectacular .. there was some piano music that I think was supposed to give off a nostalgic or romantic vibe, but creepy is all I can think of when I hear it.

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Executed Excellently

Yes, yes ,yes!!! CRUSH love this dram to the maxim.

Firstly, I love the crazy sweet chemistry between the main ML and FL (who is this ML?, my goodness out of the blue just fell in love with him hahahaha) , his acting is really good.

Storyline/ Acting/ Music
The storyline is nothing new but I like the angle the writer's took on how the ML lead had a disability and how the writer's did not make him the usual cold handsome male lead chasing after the FL, but it was the opposite, great combination with the second leads , they are not boring as per other C drama's I have watched before. The writer's did an excellent job. I love the
music they compiled good music that goes well with each episode, the acting is so good, you will not get bored, every episode is exciting.

Overall
I was waiting for this drama for the longest time, and I have no regrets thus far. The drama was well executed.

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"We don't need to be sympathized. We ask for equality."

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion," Su Nianqin says.

I admit, though I stan Lin Yanjun, I was not that confident in his acting skills cause he's just an amateur but after watching the 8 episodes of CRUSH, I must say, he did great. I was awed at his performance. For someone who's a first timer, he's nailing it. Acting like blind is not easy. He needed to attend a lot of workshops to perfect his role and I wanna salute him cause everything is worth it. For Wan Peng, she's always been great for me. Personally, I think this is my favorite character of Wan Peng. Sang Wuyan is very unpredictable. She has a lot traits and Wan Peng is doing a good job especially when it comes to shifting of emotions. The playful side of Sang Wuyan is just natural and overwhelming.

This drama just exceeded my expectations. You see, I've read the novel and I actually memorized everything inside the novel and so watching the drama is just a bonus.

The scenery, the osts, the timing and the flow of the story is just an A for me. And also, the filterless ambiance is what beautifies the drama. Y'all everyone shall agree with me. The ambiance is just so natural. It feels I am watching 90s movies with a touch modern contemporary arts. The nature-like effects that the production team used is very comforting.

I wanna commend also the exchanges of dialogues from the casts. It amazes me every time Su Nianqin says something that could definitely bring you back to reality.

And one thing is for sure, the message that the drama wants to convey is very clear.

Disabled people don't need sympathy nor empathy, what they need is equality and too bad, the society couldn't give that to them.

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A seemingly innocent drama that deals with issues with the mind.

this drama is like a box of chocolates that 1 piece has wassabi filling inside.
if you want to watch a not so typical drama that talks about serious issues watch this.
i am appalled by how ridiculous the sounds and ambience for this drama.
it is supposed to be a musically inclined drama but the bgm feels like it was supposed to be a thriller
and mystery drama .
the sound at the background when they are kissing is ridiculous. bells .. ting ting ting tong..
it is a creepy sound.
the female lead has the perfect natural smile . you can see her beauty is not medically produced since her side teeth is not that well developed. it is almost crooked to a point which even made me more fall in love with her.. though she kinda needs to learn how to kiss beautifully and naturally. so far janice wu is the only one who has a more natural kiss as i have seen.
i have nothing to say to the male lead.. he pulled off the icy , aloof , problematic blind dude.
that cheng yi scene really put me off in thousand levels up there . idk
supposedly chinese drama are light but this drama went deep down there.
this is a must watch drama. watch it 1 time in your life.

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A drama which is too cute

The couple has lots of cute scenes....this story tells a good meaning and showed that FL knowing he is blind fell in live with him . The female lead never showed her concerns of him being blind and treated him as normal guy.
The plot is fully based on the main leads....so there is less number scenes of supporting actors/actress. Personally at the last episode, i wanted to know about the characters and what to happened to them. And i felt that some scenes needed more explanation or have more dialogues or there should next scene relarion to that especially when the scene was related to supporting characters.But its okay...
All the people in this series did a good job. The acting was really good. They did their best. The music in this drama is so good...its actually soothing to hear them.

The ML has unique personality that i have seen very less in other drama. The FL acting and her cuteness just keeps you too smile everytime. Bt i must say that scenes are perfect...ik i said there could have been more scenes of some parts but it was perfect for its duration. I felt that in some parts they just gave the basic info but thats enough so im not that bugged about it. I have finished the drama easily and i had fun watching it.

The plot has a good storyline and it was engaging....if someone doesnt like cheesiness then some scenes will be like overloaded for you but its cute. I got shocked that chen yindied....and all the while i thought she was alive until wei hao told su nian qian. Damn that was a shocker. The part that lagged was they could have shown wu yan overcoming and or talking about chen yin and letting go of her something like that. But we can assume that she got healed.

So concluding it that its worth it...24 eps you will be able to enjoy it and its worth to watch too.
I hope you also like it!!

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Like fine wine, it steals into your veins, slowly,

Like fine wine Crush steals lowly and stealthily into your veins till you dont even realise you are drunk...At the end of Episode 24, I watched Evan Lin and Wan Peng walk into the sunset, with a feeling of regret, that the story was over.
Does that mean this was a great watch-- Not all throughout. Parts of it were really random-- you didnt know where they were running with the story and felt frustrated. But the good parts were so beautiful that the bad parts can be forgiven.

Like a lot of reviewers said it didnt feel like a C-drama ( which itself is a great compliment). This could be called a drama of characters not of situations.. The characters themselves were so multi-layered, with their back stories never fully revealed, that they provided the thrill and drama. The psychological explanation presented by FL and her friend was very deep and though provoking. Kudos to the writers. One can see they were inspired by the best of American cinema-- the homage to the classics like Silver Lining playbook, A beautiful mind, Sleepless in Seattle were quite interesting. These are much loved classics and as an American I feel proud that these works have inspired others. But there is a catch in such direct inspiration from universally loved movies like Nash's biography or Silver Lining Playbook-- the contrast between the maturity, depth and honesty of those works with the show become immediately apparent. Therefore it kind of leaves a funny after-taste

The two outstanding elements are the music and the acting. The music was modern and lyrical. Absolutely first rate even for a non Chinese viewer. Great replay value for the music especially the ballads sung by Evan Lin.
Acting of everyone was very good but special mention of Evan Lin for a wonderfully nuanced portrayal of a slightly autistic legally blind man with a burdened soul. Wan Peng was good but not brilliant. I may be forgiven for saying that the gamine charm of Wan Peng in school/ college student roles does not translate to mature roles.... Her dialogue delivery was slightly bland and expressionless, voice modulation very lacking, and her styling was AWFUL. Her hair was so badly styled and she was wearing clothes 3 sizes larger than her petite frame. Okay we realise she was playing an 'au naturelle' girl, but she doesnt have to dress up like an academic in her late 60s dressed in comfortable over-large tweed coats brought from a yard sale . Give the girl a break!
In contrast Evan Lin was dressed beautifully, sharp suits and nicely fitted shirts. And as they repeated a million times, he really does have pretty eyes.
One thing that distressed me how they made Wan Peng parrot how her character wasnt good enough for Evan Lin's character. Smart people dont look at looks only but at the whole package and the ML got a great deal of love and acceptance fromthe FL at a time when he didnt have anyone by his side.... Somehow reiterating how her looks didnt match up to his -- robbed the drama of the kind of liberal values it started off with.

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Unique

Plot is quite logical with few plot holes and unnecessary scenes in the later part of the story. Don’t know what happened to the actress playing the role of Cheng Yin, maybe her failure to commit till the end of the show lead to the death of Cheng Yin and Wu Yan, longing for her friend, became mentally ill with schizophrenia. Also, the other 2 friends moving to the suburb with the female lead is a bit unnecessary. Moreover, it is a bit unrealistic of the male lead to learn the Chinese characters and business related subjects within 3 years. Other than that, the plot is interesting with great chemistry and is quite detailed in depicting the life of a blind. They even made sure the hairstyles and clothes of the casts are different after 3 years, depicting adulthood.

Casts are extremely good looking and I am satisfied with the male lead’s acting, considering it’s his first time acting.

Music is really well composed, especially the 2 background musics. One that depicts cute and funny scene, the other that depicts chemistry and skin ship. However, they have so few songs that they kept repeating the same 5 songs many times within an episode that they wrongly associate the songs to the scenes towards the end.

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