First Time Love You, Its Not Too Late (2022)

Simple and Sweet With Just The Right Dose of Comedy

This is a super cute rom-com about first romance, highlighting the awkward journey of inexperienced young adults as they try to develop their crushes into relationships.

A show with lots of heart and on-point comedy, it was all the clichés rolled into one, but also a mood booster. The show was such a pleasure to watch that it made me want to go back to my first relationship in college and enact all the drama tropes.

The leads, Wang Xing Yue as Ren Chu and Tian Xi Wei as Lu Wanwan were endearing together and very entertaining to watch. Both leads have engaging visuals suitable for their characters. Ren Chu was classic good looks, whereas Wanwan was doll-like lovable. There was some cringey overacting from TXW and robotic under-acting from WXY, but nothing bad enough to distract me from enjoying the fluff.

Our FL was often misunderstood by the audience as too dumb to be in medical school, but after a few episodes, many, including myself, realized that she was actually intelligent and resourceful. However, Wanwan suffered from anxiety, especially during stressful moments like exams or performing in front of others. Anyone suffering from fear of public speaking, for example, can relate to her freezing up during stressful moments. Wanwan was generally cheerful, optimistic, and had a good EQ.

Unfortunately, Wanwan was burnt by her first crush experience and was slow to acknowledge her feelings for the ML. Hence the slow-burn romance…

Ren Chu was the brilliant and handsome campus king, a star swimmer, and talented in many ways. Despite being popular, his EQ was very low, and he was not inclined to be sociable to most. Of course, him being all cool and detached increased his popularity. Even though it was not clear how Wanwan caught Ren Chu's interest, I did enjoy watching his attempts to get closer to her, trying to confess his feelings and deepen their relationship. I shared the poor guy's frustration.

I found it charmingly funny that when one could not expect to squeeze an ounce of romance out of the most scientific moments, Ren Chu could still be romantic. He was also steadfastly committed to Wanwan, and I love how he completely shut down an annoying admirer who was clearly out of touch with reality.

The sincere and straightforward romance between the leads was adorably nerdy. Despite being new to love and still trying to work through their feelings, they did not shy away from sharing their thoughts. Both were emotionally immature in their own ways, creating plenty of opportunities for funny scenes. I smiled and laughed so much throughout the show. Even their "love tokens" were hilarious!

The development of skinship appeared natural, including the kissing scenes, starting with awkward pecks to more comfortable kisses.

I love how the drama used the supporting characters as devices to voice out or prompt the growing feelings of the leads. Little comments and setups here and there helped the romance along for our fumbling main couple.

The supporting cast was fine, doing what they needed to do. It is a mostly young cast, and while they did ok, there was room for improvement. There was some over-acting but nothing much to complain about and nothing much to praise. A second and third couple provided extra entertainment, but I was not particularly interested in their development. Wanwan's parents were awesome and provided some great comic relief.

Another high point for me was the OST. The opening song was catchy and reflected the happy, bright tone throughout the show. My favorite, though, was the ending credit song, 不知不觉 (Unconsciously). For me, it heightened the romantic feels of the drama.

Overall, I recommend this light, sweet rom-com, especially if you are looking for one with little angst and the main CP are so darlingly adorable in their unadulterated, innocent love.

Full OST list on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9aFD7zCaP0

Full OST list on Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/album/1ybsFTzVK5SZaLc1PWzCe8?si=TZ9guaKtR6GAtwNwN3MW2w

不知不觉 (Unconsciously) - 康子奇 (Kang Ziqi)
不知不觉 (Unconsciously) - 徐秉龙 (Xu Binglong)
遇光 (Yu Guang) - 嘉羿 (Jia Yi)
奇妙物语 (Wonderful Story) - Joysaaaa
初次爱你 (First Love) - 彭雅琦 (Peng Yaqi)

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Warm and Fluffy

I usually lose my patience with C-Dramas as they tend to lose focus mid series. I usually find a story can be wrapped up in under 20 episodes. However, with series I found myself enjoying it and not fast forwarding through scenes. The leading couple are likeable and you root for them throughout. It has a well balanced support crew as well.

I would have liked to see a bit more of the ML relationship with his parents. It was almost skirted over.

I look forward to seeing the ML in more dramas. The FL is adorable and not too naive as is the standard in C-Dramas .

I will definitely be rewatching this one again.

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Cute at first...but falls off

I had pretty much completely bought into this drama in the first two episodes — the main female lead was timid but not a pushover, bright but not stupid, and the main male lead was stoic but not rude, smart but not condescending. It was really quite a cliche dynamic but it was still enjoyable to watch especially because there were moments where they were equally hilarious and chaotic despite seemingly having such opposite personalities.

As the drama went on it it did start to drag a little with the very typical "does he like me or not" and the "I'm going to step aside for my 'friend'" — but that wasn't my main gripe with it. In fact, I like a good slow burn and I never thought these misunderstandings got too extreme and frustrating.

One thing that did get increasingly annoying, however, was how the main male lead's "social awkwardness" manifested when he got jealous; the number of times he consciously CHOSE to sabotage the female lead's work...it got very frustrating and was neither cute nor amusing especially when it was played off as an inability to express himself.

I also found both of the side ships either boring or over-the-top annoying; one of them didn't have any stupid miscommunications but the side characters also didn't have any sort of backstory or personality. The other one had a female character who was very clingy, a male character who was essentially the same as the male lead, and just no sensible development between the two of them.

Overall it was kind of a light-hearted watch and there were elements of a healthy relationship and great communication, but it was also a drama that just felt very trope-y and average.

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Subversion of Chinese Rom Com tropes with love and feminism

You're not going to understand this drama is you haven't watched Chinese Rom Coms before.

The whole drama is a satire of Chinese Rom Coms. So if you're viewing it as a pure Chinese Rom Com, you're going to miss a lot.

It particularly aims at Gu Man and Zhao Qian Qian's Rom Coms, and makes constant references to both. But in holding up the tropes of rom coms, it also aims to subvert them with a lot of love and inject reality into the drama.

Gu Man always has the rumor mill as part of her writing as why the characters get together, but this drama plays heavily with the idea that rumors can get characters together.

And Zhao Qian Qian's dramas always plays with the woman/girl being in humanities, like English/Lit/Chinese, etc and then the guy being in science of some sort. But the drama plays with this trope and inserts a sweeter message about this idea. It particularly takes shots at "Put your Head on My Shoulder", but also some of her other dramas (with a lot of love).

Lu Wan Wan ends up being the person who is the science major. And looks like she'll earn more money. And Ren Chu isn't made dumb at a cost of this. Ren Chu is more smart on the humanities side--mentioning foreign languages, etc.

The basic format is to set up the trope, then subvert the trope (this is second and third act), then insert a sweeter message about the philosophy of love. The setting up of the trope always comes with a bit of second-hand cringe which comes from the inexperience of the characters and I'm always finding myself hiding behind blankets, pillows, etc as it is happening and then going wrong. The subversion is always, always funny, as what you expect to happen never happens and what the characters state should happen never happens in some of the funniest scenes. But the thing that really captures your heart in the end is the ending messages of each of the episodes on various subject matters. Some of the subjects include how to deal with rumors, love contracts, forced and accidental kisses, "trapped mystery room", "Best friend knows best", evil girl, etc. And the ending message is always uplifting about what love is and could be compared to how it is portrayed in dramas.

The top complaints about this drama are probably unfounded based on the fact many of the commenters don't seem to understand how subtle of a hand this drama has.

The comments about how long it takes for the characters to get together--the drama justifies this up front with you and tells you this is going to be the case--because that's not the point of the drama. It doesn't sacrifice character development to do this, if anything, it's spending time on each of the "How they get together" tropes to develop the characters and their sense of what love is so you really, really believe the ending of the drama that much more.

The writing's downfall is because it relies so much on tropes, it can make it seem slower than people expect it to be. Sitting through uncomfortable tropes makes it a bit difficult, but it always pulls out of the nose dive and inserts feminism later. And the other weakness of the writing is that the "evil" best friend isn't really fleshed out--but I kinda feel like this was cut out of the drama rather than intentionally ignored/cut down. But the better messages about what love is and is not are worth watching the drama for. (The Second Lead's love story enhances the Lead's love story and is wrth the watch for the character development and message it says).

The acting and directing though--there are some really gorgeous and well-thought out camera work from the director, as the director uses various types of shots to communicate how the characters feel, but doesn't substitute that for the trust in the actors. And the acting exaggerates the character types to the nth degree on purpose, so it reads as overacting in some parts, but doesn't betray the character's write up. This shores up some of the weaknesses in the writing and enhances it, so I did find it stronger than the writing.

The production values are probably around 7 or so. They didn't have the highest budget in the world, BUT they used it well. There are various locations, there are filters naturally applied, the actors are (mostly) not dubbed over without their voices. So if you don't pay attention that closely you won't notice the budget is not really that high. HOWEVER, it doesn't scream to you they had over-the moon budget.

This is slow, steady, slice of life and delivers laughs throughout with the best messages about what love is, if you're willing to take the time with it and not treat it as a fast food drama, but pay attention to some of the details.

Feminism tests:
Mako Mori: Clean pass, but it takes a while for the female character to find what her goal is and that is for herself. But it's done in the sweetest way possible and the drama constantly promises you along the way it'll get there. So when you do, your jaw drops at the feels. (I wasn't crying. No really. And I wasn't pounding my chest. I swear.)

Bechdel Test: Clean pass first episode within a few minutes of the episode, without question. Two named female characters talk about... medical issues related to the class.

Sexy Lamp: Easy pass first episode and keeps passing into the second episode with an even cleaner pass. Lu Wan Wan is not a sexy lamp. She's shown to be smart, able, makes decisions that affect other characters which changes the direction of the plot definitely, definitely more than one time and isn't only a pretty face. This is true throughout the drama where instead of losing agency like in the melting or evaporating woman trope, she gains agency and makes more firm decisions which naturally grow with her character development. (Honestly, this made it a pleasure to watch since the drama promised from the first it would do this, and really delivers on the promise.

Other feminism it does includes, but is not limited to, examining codependent relationships, asking questions about "wanting to change the romantic partner", and gendering of some of the rom com stock characters.

If this were food... I'd rate this Taro Cake. You were expecting sweet, but did you expect the taro to be nutritious and in there? No. But do you enjoy it anyway? Yes.

I tried knitting to this drama, but made a lot of mistakes because it was too good. So I wouldn't craft to this.

Front burner type of drama, not back burner. Pay attention and you get rewarded highly.

If you pay attention well enough, it'll ruin all the rom coms you watch after it. I'm struggling with some rom coms currently where I can't help but think back to this drama and how they showed how love could be done better. Only one other drama has ever done this to me--The King of Dramas (Korean). So that says a lot. (And I watched a TON of dramas, more than listed on my profile.)

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Soo sweet the cotton candy turned in to goo

Any review of this drama can probably not include spoilers as this drama is pretty much the type to spoil itself with so many known c-drama tropes you will feel like you are watching all the c-fluff dramas you have previously seen all at once. As even the product placement of Rio is back alongside fluffy feathery snow.. .

The male lead is the typical icicle god. A swimmer who only has eyes for the female lead, completely lacks verbal communication skills but does seem to have some kind of basic respect towards women when he is not jealous.

The female lead is the typical insecure bubbly lovable gal who if you put aside her self doubt is actually pretty smart and funny... giving us a lot fun scenes and some pretty amusing lines a long side the misunderstandings and very odd assumptions.

The rest of the characters range from so annoying you want to shove them off a cliff to smart and pretty decent some will go between these two, while others are consistently annoying witch it too bad.

What ups the score is the ab-humour, abs and the female leads overall lovability. What keeps it from going up is its draggieness predictability and the over use of gestures and cheese turning this cotton candy fluff piece in to melted goo... covered in cheese.

So if you are in need of som goo and a lot of cliches + can handle over acting and annoying characters come along this is the place to be. If not then I suggest you move along and watch something else.

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First love of a Robo doc.

ML is so bad in acting. The entire drama is hanging on the FL and her cute acting.

Sometimes you feel ML could be replaced by the new japanese humanoid robot and that robot could do better. The production is just pathetic. A classroom, same road with trees, a hostel room and a college front. They keep rotating these and its just too boring. The script felt like a hangover conversation of silly things.

They tried to be funny : its not!
They tried to emotional : its not!
They tried to cute : its not!

I am not saying not to watch this series but keep your expectation low so that you can enjoy this a little bit. FL is the only good thing in this drama. She can act.

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Exactly what I needed

This light romcom was the perfect palate cleanser after watching more complex and heavy shows. Especially after watching a very heavy and angsty melo that ripped my heart to shreds over and over again for entire second half of it, I really needed the simple joy of a first love/college coming of age story.

If you're looking for something to be able to just relax and enjoy the flow, this is the show for you. This drama is equal parts adorable and squee with just a tiny amount of frustration that was very rarely needed to push the plot along.

I could have done without the GA character but her interferences did fuel greater efforts on the part of RC to win WW, so I'll give the writers a pass on her inclusion in the storyline. I've gotten used to having much more frustrating and annoying secondary females around Cdrama MLs so GA's attempts were almost comical in how ineffective they were and didn't detract too much from my viewing pleasure.

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death by boredom + miscasting

It’s a very basic fluffy college youth romcom, that would have had the potential to be among the better ones of it‘s genre if it wasn’t for miscasting of the ML + writing of supporting characters.

Bubbly girl + cold ML = we‘ve seen it a million times BUT I found the FL to be quirky. Some of her train of thought seemed relatable and the actress did a great job. At the beginning of the drama she isn’t the best student (medical department) and is insecure about that but she is also determined and wants to learn.
About the ML. He‘s the most popular student, everyone wants to be with him or be him, he’s a genius, he seems cold, yadda yadda yadda.
-here is where the mentioned miscasting comes in place.
The actor is extremely wooden in facial expressions and movements , barely opens his mouth to talk + the monotonous dubbing makes him seem like a robot.
There is no way he‘d actually be the school hunk.
BUT to break all of that - the writing of his character towards FL was actually great, but sadly was undermined by a stiff performance.
Pretty much 2-3 episodes in, you realize he is not cold but failed his social class because he‘s bad at communicating - very nerd like. But throughout the whole drama he helps the FL become more confident and likes her early on but knows she needs more time.
I actually loved that his character was written that way and if it was smooth sailing, they’d have one of the healthiest relationships in drama land.

HOWEVER for this kind of nuanced character writing to come to live, you need an actor with great micro expressions. Not even a normal good actor would do this character Justice, let alone someone who only has 1 expression.
Some of my cast suggestions would be:
-Liu Yi Chang
-Wang Rui Chang
-Wu Fei
-Li Ge Yang
-Zhou Yan Chen
My top pick would be Fan Shi Qi, but he’s probably over the age of college student by now.

This is my main reason for finding this drama so mindnumbingly boring and why I speed watched the later half.

Other negatives would be it’s so fluffy that the departments they’re studying in are not represented well at all. Our girl is baking in her bakery at college every day, while she is supposed to be a med student? It’s very simplified but in the name of fluffly romance I‘m okay with that.
Another minus would be her love rivals, which are just so ridiculously brazen with their words that I could only laugh.
I also didn’t like his cousin’s love story but oh well… that’s just the icing on top.

The good things about this drama would be simplicity, potentially good and different writing of the ML and the relationship dynamic with FL (she doesn’t have to chase him, he is very kind to her in a subtle way).
Plus I liked her, she was quirky, funny and relatable. The comedy was good too at times and it’s not the worst of the worst - just miscasting that made it very boring to me.

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Alpha Beta are destined to be together!

Probably my best cdrama comeback drama Ive seen this year! Free of unnecessary characters and ridiculous drama, First Love is destined for those souls out there who're academically and romantically frustrated like me yet they never lose their charm and bubbly personality. Always looking for the good in every bad. Absolutely loved all the couples and their romance tactics. the sweetest purest genre of love romance and first love.
This drama is so soft bubbly and will definitely get you back to watch dramas.
Also found my new obsession, Tian XuNing, the finest man I ever laid my eyes on god.

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Cute but Monotonous

Okay; First i liked the clips on other media pages.Thought of giving it a try.
First 2 episode it took time for me to understand that FL is a 2nd year medical student.Like Seriously!!!
From no where she looked like a medical student.Who hardly study and only think of baking cakes and "ROMANCE".
Till episode 23 she gave me a feeling that she occupied someone else seat in medical entrance...
ML is cute , but unable to portray cold, strict male. Then she didn't even confront her deceiving best friends.
Wang Xiyu Bf is telling her to concentrate on herself and career. She has nothing better to do , linger around him.
The writer is a teenage girl,who is fulfilling inner desire by writing this kind of characters. Not the kind of drama , i expected. Good for small girls, who wants to day dream..

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My Journey

Well, i am literally a big drama fan let it be korean, chinese, thai, japaness etc so its a given i literally watch every new ongoing drama and this one. Its pretty good and funny a sweet unexpected romance and fun. I love the part when he realizes his love for her and show affection in the medical camp after she gets injured during the game and also when he tries to tutor her to make her realize his love for her. If ur looking for a multi-couple show this is the one. I also root for the main male lead bestfriend{roomie} and main female lead bestfriend{roomie} relationship. it gets all the stress go wizard and vanish. so, go for it.

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Cute, But Dragged On Too Long

LIKES:
Cinematography, set locations, production and lighting all done well, however we have seen these locations in other rom-coms and so nothing was new.
Cast well chosen for respective roles.
Very low key romance, but still the couple interactions suited the title. I liked the gentle affection between the FL and ML too.
Acceptable ending, yet typical and boring.

DISLIKES:
WRITING:
Felt more like a middle school or high school drama, then college or university students.
Dragged out the whole moment of confession for too many episodes. It was cute at first and then got boring, with over done interruptions and misunderstandings. Character growth was very limited for everyone.
Really disliked the over-the-top-cutesy Xin Yu (Red Chu’s cousin the dancer), to the point I fast forwarded every time she came on the screen, by the time I reached Episode 14. They made her too idiotic.
ANIMALS:
I felt sorry for the rabbit trapped in the way too small cage and same with the turtle, neither could even move.
PACING/DIRECTING: overly long reaction times, too much film time spent on boring things and monotonous cliche moments. This could’ve been finished with just 18 episodes, if that. Fast forward became necessary. Seriously we didn’t get progress until episode 18 & 19!


OVERALL:
Many parts reminded me of both Unrequited Love and Put Your Head On My Shoulder, dramas. This was like a mash up of those two, but they were much better dramas. If a person is young or just starting out in the rom-com, young adult genre, this would be okay to recommend. I wont watch it or any parts of it again. There are better shows in viewing land to watch, than this one.

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