When I See Your Face (2023)

I don't think I'll see you again

This show's plot is paper thin and it is quite predictable. It pretty much played in one sandpit for the whole show with passable production values. There is little nuance or growth to the characters and their romantic developments are on rails.

All the usual youth romantic drama tropes are present; love at first sight, crushes, envy and fated meeting as kids. The plot regarding the FL's Prosopagnosia is poorly represented and not really explored. It is just used as a device for minor gags or token angst until the ML shows up as her knight in shining armour.

As expected, the plots are factory standard issue and the pairing of the protagonists are obvious from the start. It is just a matter of getting over the meet-cutes, push-pulls and failed confessions. Sadly, there is scant chemistry between the three CP's which netted a token amount of skinship. I get the OTP pairing (fated and all) but the other two pairs are hardly match made in heaven. What is more concerning are the weird editing, disjointed narrative and phantom side plots that literally appears for a few scenes and then forgotten. Choppy is a good way to describe this show.

Acting from the young leads are passable. They are energic but prone to overact. I have seen worse and they do try. The support cast is another story. Most are no better than extras handed a couple of lines of dialogue and it shows. I do wonder if the production company approached a local college to do a collaboration and held an open call for extras and bit parts. There is certainly no shortage of extras for many scenes.

The plot twist towards the end was totally contrived and unnecessary. It did manage to pad out the runtime significantly so job done. The HEA ending rolls in as expected. The final scenes after the big time skip feel amateurish and rushed.
If you are interested in a drama about Prosopagnosia, try The Secret Life of My Secretary. So, so much better.

This is a messy and unengaging filler. One time watch for me. Peace out.

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Cliches done wrong...

I personally love the face blindness trope and find myself watching many shows with this plot point. I haven't seen any when the female lead had face blindness, so I immediately wanted to watch this show, but upon watching it I was thoroughly disappointed.

Let's talk about the plot. I feel like this drama used every misunderstanding cliche possible and failed to make it work. There was no suspense to this, it just seemed like they wanted to fill up a certain amount of episodes. The leads did not really have much chemistry, it was basically the male lead is in love with the female lead and the female lead is just there. For a good majority of the show, it was mainly one-sided. (even when they were in a relationship)

That aside let's talk about the face blindness situation. Honestly, it did not need to be in the show. It was just a minor detail and was only necessary to plot when the female leads classmates ostracized her for having it. After that, the show did not make much of it. It was also very unclear whether or not the female lead, Lin Hui, had overcome it. There is a point in the show when she is staring at the male lead's picture and creating a figurine of him. But it is never disclosed if she can really see people or not.

The acting was also flat. Im not sure if that is how her character is, but Duan Ao Juan did not give any personality to the character she was playing. Chen Bo Hao did alright, but nothing breathtaking. The acting in general just felt like it was missing something

The production quality for this show is just terrible. Some episodes start off completely different the how the other episodes ended. There was a point where there was a random chemical explosive and no explanation was given on how we got there. The episodes were just incongruent. And the dubbing quality is harsh. If seen many dramas dubbed, but for this one, the syncing was off and it sounded like the characters were behind me.

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