About Is Love: Recap & Review

About Is Love

Overview

Title: 大约是爱

Synopsis: Wei Qing is the young and successful CEO of a conglomerate who has a secret. He has a severe condition where he is extremely allergic to people and dirt. This condition developed only from the time he was 18 years old and his doctor believes that it was due to the psychological trauma he had experienced then. His father had tragically died and his mother had blamed him for his father’s death and abandoned him in China while she went to America. Ten years later, Wei Qing still has not found a cure to his condition and, as a result of his allergies, he cannot interact normally with people. One night, in his drunken misery, he contemplates committing suicide. However, he is saved by a university student called Zhou Shi. She pulls him over the bridge and he discovers that he is completely fine even though she had touched him. He wakes up from his drunken stupor and finds another girl by his side and mistakes her as the person who had saved him. However, he ends up discovering that his savior is someone else and he pursues Zhou Shi to help him cure his condition. Through their interactions, a romance blossoms.

Cast:
Yan Xi: Wei Qing
Xu Xiao Nuo: Zhou Shi
Li Xin Bo: Bi Qiu Jing
Hu Wen Zhe: Li Ming Cheng
Cai Yi Jia: Ning Fei
Yang Xin Ying: Lin Fei Fei

Airing status: Completed

Number of episodes: 30

Genre: Modern Romance

Ratings:
Overall: 2/5
Modern Romance Genre: 2/5

Where to watch:
Youtube (english subtitles)

Review

Caveat: Dropped watching About Is Love at Episode 25

About Is Love is a modern Chinese romance drama that uses many classic tropes: rich and young CEO, innocent and kind-hearted female lead, group of supportive friends, evil female competition, difficult parent-child relationship, and more. There are no major surprises with this drama, which was what I needed at that point in time – something low maintenance, easy to watch, and cute.

I started off enjoying how the female lead, Zhou Shi, was not only kind and innocent, but also had a unique “superhuman” strength. She was able to pull Wei Qing back from over the bridge. She also worked hard at not just her job, but also at her one-sided crush on her childhood friend. I liked that the drama didn’t just paint her as a helpless female character who needed the male lead to pull her out of tough situations. However, as the drama progressed, I was increasingly frustrated with just how annoying Zhou Shi became. Perhaps it was because of her poor acting but some of her actions were just so ridiculous and cringey that I finally called it quits at Episode 25.

I felt like the male lead, Wei Qing, did a good job with his character. He was arrogant without being too arrogant. He was kind but also tough when he needed to be (e.g., with the annoying secretary). I enjoyed how his character had many layers to it and wasn’t just a replication of the conventional arrogant CEO character.

The romance in this drama was just okay in my opinion. It was confusing when they actually had feelings for each other. There were points in the drama when I thought that Wei Qing had already fallen in love with Zhou Shi but the drama made it out to be because of his medical treatment and Wei Qing was still willing to let Zhou Shi confess to Li Ming Cheng, and even help her with the confession. This might be the drama’s way to showing how noble Wei Qing was but I felt like the emotions there and how almost easy it was for Wei Qing to do so was confusing.

I did love Zhou Shi’s crew of supportive best friends. The friendships were so pure and wholesome – even when Zhou Shi’s best friend thought that the guy she liked also liked Zhou Shi, she wasn’t angry with Zhou Shi or the guy and instead tried to support them. Similarly, Zhou Shi’s other roommate refused to agree to Li Ming Cheng’s confession because she knew that Zhou Shi liked him. Ning Fei was also just such a cute puppy boy who would hilariously pull out his credit card whenever the girls needed some money.

Ratings:
Overall: 1.5/5 (Caveat: Probably a 2.5/5 for the first 15 episodes before going downhill for me)
Modern Romance Genre: 2/5