STORY:
There were a lot of potentially interesting elements to this story. The fashion design aspect, the military/action aspect, and the business aspect. All three things that don't necessarily go together, but it seemed like it could work. The beginning of the drama wove those three plot points together fairly well in my opinion. Things seemed to make sense as you watched, but as you continued on, it basically seemed like they were giving up on these major plot focuses one by one.

Not even halfway through, most of the action side of it basically disappeared as they closed the plot that they introduced at the beginning of the drama. It went from being action scenes in almost every episode, to being basically nothing until the last few episodes. Honestly, the action side was the only thing keeping this from being completely another basic modern business romance.

I honestly feel like even the fashion element was thrown out of the window after a while. It went from focusing on designing for multiple different business projects and showing the designing process and trial and error, to just basically talking about it and saying "We're starting our own brand," but by the end was only really showing the business aspect of everything and everything else was just something they mentioned every once in a while to keep it in your mind. By the time they created the Qing Cheng brand, there was really NO mention of the design process. Scenes would go by and all of a sudden there was an entire store filled with clothes, whereas at the beginning when she designed the waterproof uniform, there was constant mention of how to make it, what materials to use, what the problems were, etc.

Romance wise, there was obviously a lot of that. It moved fairly quickly (the first kiss was episode 10 or so) and seemed to make sense as to why they fell for each other. There was a LOT of romance happening though. Four different couple pairings by the end of the drama. A LOT of split screen time between these four. There was a lot of focus on the second lead couple, but at this point the main couple was firmly established, so it was ok I guess.

ACTING:

Zhao Li Ying - honestly, ZLY is one of my favorite actresses. I think she always does a really good job with what she's given and shows a good variety of emotion and skill. This particular drama (and a LOT of people agree with me), I honestly think she shouldn't have taken up. Personally, I don't like her modern dramas (or modern dramas in general as they always end up about the same), but after seeing her being such a strong, smart, brave, etc. character in other dramas, it was really annoying to watch her just be such a Mary Sue character in this drama. She was talented and loyal and loving, sure. But that's about it. There were a lot of aspects where she was just a sideline in the process, or they talked about how important she was, but she didn't really show it. I have no problem with her having a cutesy role and whatnot, but I just feel like this character wasn't someone she needed to take up and there wasn't much about Lin Qian that made it a MUST HAVE role.

Jin Han - personally don't think he was that great. I've only seen him in supporting roles, and always as a bad guy, which I honestly thing suits him a lot better. I fall for male characters really easily in dramas, but there wasn't a lot about this role that I was infatuated with. The character himself was fine, but there was a disconnect for me between Jin Han's acting and the character coming to life.

Everyone else - No one in the drama honestly really stood out to me as being amazing. Whether it was character wise or acting wise. Again, this might play into the fact that I don't really care for modern dramas, but overall no one gave me a particular sense of joy while watching.

Side note - the portrayal of Peter really blew my mind. Not so much that the acting was amazing, but just the characterization was just WOW. I know he was supposed to be a bad guy in the drama, but the pill popping, sexual harassment tendencies, and general psychotic-ness was just a LOT.

OVERALL:

The drama wasn't terrible. The story made sense overall, it just was fairly boring (really just predictable and meh) by the end of it and again, the main aspects of the story that were introduced weren't all upheld by the end of the drama, turning it into just another fairly standard modern drama. I also again always have high expectations for ZLY dramas and really do think she's a very good actress, but there wasn't much with this drama by the end that made it super worth it (especially knowing how popular and in demand she is and how full her schedule is, I just think this drama wasn't necessary). Don't really feel the need to rewatch as there wasn't a lot in the drama that was super memorable for me.