venerdì 9 novembre 2018

微微一笑很倾城 (Love 020) - 2016

It’s a Chinese series in 30 episodes, 29 of which I loved very very much. The last one was a bit disappointing: it had very nice moments about the main couple, but thing is, it had nothing else. The last episode of a series, specially after they say “two years later”, should be to give us a glimpse of how all the characters are doing after the events that we followed during the previous episodes. Instead, it told us only about the main couple, wasting a lot of time is an attempt of comedy that I only found annoying (her father trying to break him or find flaws in him) and not giving us the slightest idea of how the others are doing, not even a quick mention, nothing. I was so disappointed about that, I kept wondering how were the others doing, are they still working with him? Is Mei still living with Ko? Is he still bragging about his goddess or thinking only of Ko now? What about Yu, is he happy? I liked him a lot. Did Zheng find his own way? Has YiRan found a friend? I’m not saying that they shouldn’t have concentrated on the protagonists, the whole series was 90% about WeiWei and Xiao Nai, but there were other important characters as well and I really expected to see how they were doing, but no, not even during the ending credits, which I watched carefully hoping there might be pictures of what they had not shown us, about the others: nothing. :-( I really can’t understand why they were never even mentioned!

But the other 29 episodes... I LOVED them. I loved the mixture between real life and video game, how the two things were strongly connected, and I loved the characters, all of them.. well, almost all of them. I couldn’t stand Cao Guang, and was very glad when WeiWei finally told him to his face what he was.
The best thing of all was seeing how Xiao Nai changed through the series. In the first episodes he was always serious, then he started smiling when seeing her , smiling more when they got together, and even laughing later on, always when he was with her.
It was exaggerated in certain aspects, of course, mostly on the way they depicted Xiao Nai: the most popular guy on campus, girls queueing trying to get a glimpse of him, everybody taking pictures of him, and of course he’s not only a genius, the best in his line of study, he has a basketball champion, a swimming champion, a loving and considerate boyfriend, and later on obviously a  successful businessman, there was never any doubt, he is young and good-looking and smart and rich and on top of that he is very much in love... 
All this is too much, that’s more unreal than the videogame, than anything else. 
Of course the female lead is unreal too. Not only Bei Wei Wei is beautiful and an excellent student, she’s also an angel on Earth apparently: she’s kind and considerate and loyal and good, she never lies, she supports her boyfriend and her friends...
The main couple is very unreal, but they are nice. Romance stories always have characters a bit unreal: how many American movies have male and female leads who are beautiful and smart and rich and nice and always ready to put love and family first? That’s what pleases the audience.
Anyway, it goes like this:
Xiao Nai and his friends Yu, Hao Mei and the third one are studying computer science and also developing their own mobile game, and Nai wants to start his own company to create new games.
ep1. 
We are introduced to Bei Wei Wei and her roommates Er Xi, Xiao Ling and Sisi, all studying computer science. We see that Wei Wei is very good at this online videogame, and rather dedicated too , other than being pretty and top-of-the-class-smart. She has scheduled a duel, but then her laptop breaks and so she goes to buy a new one but has a curious encounter at the shop, where she tried to help Meng YiRan who was being sold an expensive second-rate computer piece, but rich YiRan didn’t accept her help and paid the full price; Wei Wei then decides to go to an internet café where she is seen playing by Xiao Nai, the owner’s nephew.
He is captivated by her quick fingers and how good she is in the game. Her character LuWei WeiWei is left by her in-game partner Zhen Shui Wu Xiang and right after he remarries with a girl that has posted her pretty picture, Wei Wei meets, always in-game, the ‘legendary’ top gamer, the one ranked n.1, the best of the best of course, Yi Xiao NaiHe, and he asks her to marry him. 
ep 2
Not thinking too much about it and simply accepting his explanation, that she’s the female with the highest rank and he wants to win a quest for couples, she accepts. He plans a big ceremony and introduces her to his friends. Yiran talks to her roommate Nana about Bei WeiWei, who came second to her in the school beauty contest. Nana speaks ill of her. They study Foreign Languages and their classmate Cao Guang posts pictures of WeiWei coming out of a rich car, rather implying that she might have an affair with an older, rich man, so she finds him and speaks to him about it, very politely indeed, simply explaining that she’s tutoring a boy and his mother once gave her a ride home.
In-game, Naihe tortures a guy who insulted WeiWei: he chained him and she stabbed him automatically 1hp at a time, so it’ll take a long time..
ep 3
WeiWei and her friends try for an intern job for the summer, and they all go to Zhen Yi Technologies for an interview. Knowing that they’ll ask about their game experience, WeiWei instructs them to use her alternate accounts, but when it’s Er Xi’s turn she forgets hers so she says the only one she remembers, LuWei WeiWei. The boss’ son Zhen Shao Xiang is Zhen Shui Wu Xiang, so now he thinks that she’s WeiWei and says so to his girlfriend and her friends.
Understanding now that he made a mistake in judging her, Cao Guang apologises to her. 
In-game, Shao Xiang’s girlfriend the enchantress and her friends make a video to humiliate WeiWei, so NaiHe challenges Zhen Shui and he loses two combat levels.
ep 4
Cao Guang is now interested in WeiWei and asks her out but she refuses, and since he keeps insisting she ‘lies’, saying that she’s already in love with someone else, Xiao Nai.
ep 5
Cao doesn’t give up, and plans to get to know her online and win her over, and and asks a girl in the same dormitory to find out her account for him, but when the girl enters the room WeiWei is helping ErXi win a battle, so she gives him ErXi’s account instead.
YiRan, working at her uncle’s firm, is jealous of WeiWei and takes her name and XiaoLing’s and Sisi’s from the list of possible interns. Shao Xiang already picked ErXi because he thinks she’s LuWei WeiWei.
ep 6
WeiWei and Naihe make a video which wins first prize, and they keep meeting and chatting online. 
Erxi meets Cao online, and he becomes her apprentice.
ep 7
LuWei WeiWei and Naihe win the impossible quest that nobody won before. 
Since they refused their offer, Zhen Yi technologies try to poach the friends one by one, approaching Yu first, but they fail. 
ep 8
LuWei WeiWei and Naihe are about to win the big tournament, the one they supposedly teamed up for, but at the last battle he doesn’t show up and she’s heartbroken. Thing is, while Yu was driving they had a car accident and Xiao Nai was unconscious until the next day. 
ep 9
Yu was very touching here, feeling guilty about the accident and feeling that Xiao Nai saved his life, 
ErXi and Cao partner up online.
The guys explain everything to LuWei WeiWei when they finally find her online, and when Xiao Nai goes back online too he asks her to meet in real life, so she’s all happy and goes shopping with her friends, trying on a beautiful red dress...
ep 10
...that she doesn’t buy because she says it’s too revealing... it was not, it was a beautiful dress and she looked great in it, but since it showed neck and shoulders, making it clear where her breasts are, she refused to buy it and wanted something more innocent like her... which is what I don’t understand about this character. She’s always buttoned up to the collar, but then she wears shorts and skirts that are a very long way up her knees, but that’s apparently innocent...
Wei Wei goes to meet Naihe, and ‘instead’ she sees Xiao Nai. She goes to say hi, and he walks past her and then tells her that he came to meet her, revealing himself to be Naihe. She’s very surprised, even more so since he starts acting like they’re in a relationship, and she’s his girlfriend without the time to realise it. 
He takes her out to dinner and when his friends call he says he can’t go because he’s on a date, and then takes her to the basketball game where he plays too. After half a game he has to leave someone else play, so he goes to sit next to WeiWei, surprising everyone and becoming the talk of the school.
ep 11
Xiao Nai introduces Bei WeiWei to his roommates, that she knew in-game already. When a guy tells Cao that WeiWei is officially going out with Xiao Nai, he’s all angry and gets drunk speaking very ill of her, saying that she played with his feelings because she partnered up with him online, like: it’s a game, she doesn’t know who I am and we never talked about love or feelings, and yet she doesn’t feel bound to me for life? -/ he was so pathetic I couldn’t believe it. 
Nana happens to be there and she records everything on her phone.
YiRan is very sad that Xiao Nai has a girlfriend now because she likes him.
ep 12
Xiao Nai is very sweet with her, and he takes her to his office to show her the game they’re working on and tells her that he already knew who she was because he had seen her playing at that internet cafè. At night he calls her and he’s very sweet.
ep 13
To help her online friend Nini (apparently the only one not in Beijing, why did she joined a server called Beijing?) Wei Wei brings Naihe to fight together, but Zhen Shui and his enchantress are in the same guild as NiNi and join without knowing of them. They fight all together, but the enchantress is pretty useless, she does more damage than help. 
Xiao Nai travels with the Feng Teng Technology people, the same that launched the game they love so much. They are interested and offer a contract for his mobile game, and they say they are also interested in developing the current pc game.
YiRan attended the party with her uncle only to meets Xiao Nai, and she enters the room all dressed up. She’s all emotional and thrilled when Xiao Nai speaks to her - only to tell her that her uncle was looking for her - but he did it only because he heard a guy speaking of seducing her, but he won’t do it now knowing who her uncle is.
ep 14
In this episode I actually felt sympathy for YiRan, with her blogger friend on one side and her roommate Nana on the other, both trying to tell her what she should do to get Xiao Nai.
WeiWei’s roommates invite themselves to dinner, Xiao Nai’s treat, and ErXi choses a French restaurant.. but when they get there WeiWei understands why. In there she sees YiRan and her blogger friend, who posted something about her meaning that she’s just a pretty face. WeiWei refuses to go in and they change place, and the girls order a lot to eat but Xiao Nai only appears amused, not upset. He is upset, though, when WeiWei tells him about the blog story, but doesn’t give him YiRan’s name because she’s not really sure that she was involved in it.
WeiWei feels a bit weird about them, because for her it’s merely the start of a relationship, but he acts as if they’re already in one, and then he hugs her - it was supposed to be a romantic scene, and him closing his eyes and the music were indeed right, but she looked pretty much like a lifeless doll in his arms...
ep 15
Er Xi and Cao Guang must work together on a video for school; he’s still very angry at WeiWei.
Hao Mei takes his friend to dine at his cook friend’s place, but he says that he’s not the owner, only the cook, and more people more work, and tells him to come alone instead...
The guys graduate, and it’s no more school for them now. 
WeiWei has to leave for the summer holidays because she already has a ticket home and her parents are waiting for her.
ep 16
They say goodbye and she goes home. She has no money to buy a new cell phone and they tell her to earn it, so in the meanwhile she chats with him through the online game. 
At work, Hao Mei’s computer is hacked... by his cook-friend.
ep 17
Before knowing who the hacker is, Hao Mei goes to his restaurant to eat and gets drunk and sleeps there for a while. The next time the cook hacks into the computer Xiao Nai finds him and challenges, and it turns out that Ko is a known hacker and will come working with them. Xiao Nai assigns him to Mei :-p
After only a few days WeiWei comes back, he couldn’t stand to have her so far away. As they meet in his office, he kisses her, and keeps kissing her even after the guys call him because they have business partners visiting. She’s staying at Xiao Ling’s house since they don’t have the dorm room in summer, and he joins her there. She’s cleaning the whole house, and has him help her, although it already seems spotless to me...
ep 18
They go out to lunch together, then it starts raining (like, sun one second and pouring buckets the next) and he protects her from the rain, and he kisses her and smiles, and he seems to regret when it stops raining, and then they run away because they were outside and two little girls saw them kissing... so they run and stop to sit in a field.. (already dry??).
She starts her unpaid internship at Xiao Nai’s Zhi Yi company, and is put to work with A’Shuang, the one who they thought was scared of girls but it seems to me he just doesn’t like them because he thinks they cause trouble :-/ he’s one of those I guess, he has probably known ONE girl who caused trouble and takes it out on all girls :-/ 
He starts picking on her, giving her annoying and long tasks, but she resolves quickly and efficiently the phone-incompatibility-research task.
ep 19
ErXi is the only one who got the internship at Zhen Ji Technology, and she starts now. It seems like she’s going to get a lot of money for doing basically nothing, and she’s thrilled about it. The other interns think that she’s Shao Xiang’s favourite, and that’s why they treat her so well, and Nana hears all this and appears to be jealous.
She also starts working at Cao’s house to take care of his cat (why does he bath the cat? poor thing...) since she owes him a lot of money after they broke the videocamera.
We see A’Shuang taking an envelop of money, and it smells of betrayal.
Since he caught a cold and Yu has work to do and can’t go buy medicines, WeiWei goes instead, gets soaked wet and catches a bad cold herself. Xiao Nai takes care of her, he’s very protective, takes her home and kisses her again..
ep 20
Cao Guang keeps calling online-game-partnership as actual dating :-/
When ErXi is bitten by his cat, he takes her to the hospital for a vaccine (seriously? for a domestic cat’s bite?) and when he sees WeiWei’s number on her phone he calls her to come and convince her to take it. WeiWei has a fever but goes anyway. She faints and is hospitalised an they put her on a drip (well, it’s just a fever but if she faints in hospital of course they’ll do something; i guess)
YiRan feels ashamed thinking at how she acted trying to attract Xiao Nai. 
Having learned of her debt, Wei Wei immediately gives her some money so Er Xi can pay Cao Guang back, she still cares for her cat though. 
Xiao Nai kisses Wei Wei again, at his house, lying on her, and she’s more and more amazed at being his first girlfriend...
ep 21
Wei Wei’s former guild-leader asks her to meet and she’s amazed at how pretty Wei Wei is, since online the others are all saying how plain she looks (why?? some are just spreading vicious rumours, but Shao Xiang thinks that Er Xi is not pretty?? Why? She’s very pretty!), and when she says online how wrong they were because she has seen her and she’s beautiful, the Enchantress, Qing Qing and the other two friends insist that Shao Xiang takes them to his office so they can look at Wei Wei (actually Er Xi of course). They mistreat her, making fun of her and making her run back and forth while he’s not there, and to keep her job Er Xi can’t say anything and serve them in everything... to do him justice, when he comes back and sees her running he doesn’t seem too pleased or amused.
Now that those girls think that Wei Wei is actually rather plain (them too? Er Xi is very pretty!) and want to expose former-guild-leader’s lie, so they plan a guild meeting in real life and tell her to invite Wei Wei as well, even if she’s no more part of their guild, they still have spent a lot of time playing together, and she has no other choice but to say yes, she’ll ask her.
Xiao Nai is driving when he receives a phone call: he looks at the number - no name assigned to it - and tells Wei Wei to answer because he can’t do it while driving, and after she answers he tells her that it’s his mother’s number :lol:
ep 22
While the guys are eating together and Hao Mei is talking about a previous game he played, Ko admits that it was him that partnered up with him in that game, the one that Hao Mei left as soon as he realised that he was a guy. :-p 
Thinking that she wouldn’t consent to meet them all, being so shy, but still wanting to clear things up regarding how pretty she is, former-guild-leader sort of tricks her, telling her to meet for dinner. When Wei Wei arrives, they are all very surprised at how pretty she is. The girls immediately say that she’s not the real Luwei Wei Wei because they have seen her at work, so Wei Wei understands what happened, and also that they were the girls that mistreated her that day, so she proposes to prove her identity with some duels. She challenges the four of them. She defeats three and then the enchantress wants to get out of it saying yes, now we know it’s you, no reason to go on, but Wei Wei wants her revenge and insists on battling her too, and when they do, she takes her time, playing with her, even saying out loud that she wants to take it slow because tired after the three duels... the enchantress is quite humiliated.. when Xiao Nai calls, she asks him to pick her up right away, and the girls keep trying to find something against her, saying that in terms of boyfriend their friend surely wins, since Shao Xiang is handsome and rich, but then Xiao Nai comes to pick her up and of course he walks towards them like a God on Earth... still unwilling to give up, they try to humiliate her saying that she had other partners before him, but it’s a stupid attempt because he’s in the game too (but they don’t know it) and he says that he doesn’t care as long as she’s with him... 
yeah, talk about perfection...
ep 23
Er Xi finally gave her in-game gift to Wei Guang, her online friend she likes so much, and it’s all going well until he kills her character writing his own real name and calling her Wei Wei !!
She’s devastated and heartbroken, and when Wei Wei comes home with a chocolate cake for her Er Xi makes it fall on the floor and shouts to Wei Wei to go away. 
Yiran sees the video that Nana made of stupid Cao Guang, and thinks that such a deceiving character must be made known, but not to everyone because that would embarrass Xiao Nai, so she wants to show it only to him. She called him on the floor but he was not interested in any gossip about his girlfriend, so she showed up where he goes jogging. He watches the video but to her surprise he’s not affected by it because he knows she’s not like that (a true confident man doesn’t believe all the Jagos of this world) and then he shows it to her and she’s very upset with him because she never played a game with him... when she meets Cao Guang, she confronts him but he still feels in the right and actually names usernames, so she finally understands what happened. She does not give him the name of Er Xi, but she finally tells it like it is to his face, and that was rather satisfying, well done! Xiao Nai will then tell him not to ruin a friendship, and Cao Guang finally understands that Er Xi was the one he had played with, and goes to apologise - not too well I must say - but she’s still very hurt and thinks that he’s still very much in love with Wei Wei... 
ep 24
Shao Xiang asks Er Xi about Wei Wei and she feels even worse now because she realises that all she thought she had was only because everybody thought she was Wei Wei... she knows it’s not Wei Wei’s fault but she hurts so much it is difficult to be around her so she wants to leave, but Wei Wei leaves instead, and calls Xiao Nai. 
After seeing her Shao Xiang keeps thinking about Luwei Wei Wei, and now he breaks up with his girlfriend. He had taken out her and her friends to a restaurant but they kept talking about Luwei WeiWei and he has enough and leaves. 
ep 25
Shao Xiang approaches Wei Wei outside Xiao Ling’s house after she went to pick up her stuff, and then tries again to speak to her in-game, but she had fallen asleep on the couch in Xiao Nai’s place so he sees the messages instead, and reveals to him that he’s Nai He... so now Shao Xiang is very angry at him and wants to beat him so he takes charges of the development of the game in his father’s company. 
Cao Guang tells Nana and Yiran to stop spreading rumours about Wei Wei or there will be consequences.. 
A’Shuang is being blackmailed by Zhen Yi Technologies, but Shao Xiang knows nothing about his father’s bad plans and conduct.
ep 26
The deadline has been moved two weeks closer, so they must all work hard. It’s all Zhen Yi’s plan to make things difficult for Xiao Nai, but since Shao Xiang doesn’t know this he works hard too and becomes passionate about the work. 
Nana won’t give up and now wants to use Er Xi against Wei Wei, but when she speaks ill about Wei Wei in front of her We Xi understands that it must have been hard on Wei Wei being constantly harassed that way, and so the friends make peace. 
Nana invites Er Xi out for lunch planning on recording everything bad she might have to say about Wei Wei, but she doesn’t; the two friends had planned this together and Wei Wei shows up too.
ep 27
Er Xi and Wei Wei declare their friendship. Yiran storms out angry and humiliated and goes away alone in a taxi, but after a moment she feels bad about abandoning her friend so she comes back, and hears Nana’s true thoughts about her and realises that they were never really friends, and it’s even more painful seeing how Er Xi and Wei Wei’s friendship is so strong. 
Xiao Nai resolves the game problem that was so difficult while out with Wei Wei, and then the guys go out to pick new suits. The three guys want her to rate how handsome they look but she choses the fourth one stating how handsome Ko looks in a suit, so Xiao Nai becomes sort of jealous and tries one on too to show her how good he looks...
Wei Wei said nothing about seeing A’Shuang getting into a big car, and now he tells Zhen Yi that Xiao Nai made it, so they plan more tricks :-/
The school starts again so Wei Wei and the girls move again into the dorms and Wei Wei is escorted there by Xiao Nai’s parents. Xiao Nai arranged this, very much amused :lol: 
Xiao Nai and his friends leave for Shangai for their game presentation.
ep 28
Yiran apologises to Wei Wei before leaving to study abroad. 
Wei Wei goes with Er Xi to pick up her money of the internship and Wei Wei realises that the man she saw with A’Shuang was a Zhen Yi man. She tries to call Xiao Nai to tell him but of course they all switched off their phones for the presentation. When it’s their turn Zhen Yi tries sabotaging them, but Xiao Nai has thought of everything and they manage to show it anyway, and they win! Of course. 
Shao Xiang humbly admits his defeat, but then he hears his uncle talking on the phone with his father and understands that they were responsible for the sabotage. 
Xiao Nai explains to Wei Wei only what A’Shuang did because he already confessed to him everything - as I thought, ‘one’ girl caused trouble for a dear friend of his so that’s why he disliked all girls... 
ep 29 
Ko ‘bribes’ Hao Mei into choosing him as his roommate in his new house, by promising to cook for him :-) a real cunning plan, after such a good meal how could he say no :lol:
Xiao Nai takes Wei Wei and all the guys of his company out to celebrate. Ko and Xiao Nai have a swimming challenge: Xiao Nai wins one and Ko wins the other because Xiao Nai let him win so he’d cook barbecue for them..
They also duel with each other on the game to decide how much food everyone can get, and Wei Wei reads a goodbye message from Shao Xiang. It’s a goodbye message, he feels very ashamed about what happened but wants to continue making games because he developed a true interested, and I guess he’s leaving his father’s company to do something on his own.
Then we move to ‘two years later’, to see Xiao Nai on tv to talk of his success and calling Wei Wei his fiancée, and the girls graduating. We see that Cao Guang is becoming someone important, and he introduces Er Xi to some foreign people as his best friend...  and the show’s hinting there will be something more romantic between them.
ep 30
The last episode is all about Xiao Nai meeting Wei Wei’s parents. Her father is not too keen of this ‘sudden’ marriage and tries to find something wrong in him, but eventually he plays his best card and wins him over promising grandkids...
Her friend visit her at her new house, where we see her beautiful red and golden traditional dress. When alone, Xiao Nai helps her wear it, then they kiss and what do you know, she actually responds to the kiss now, and after two years of waiting he brings her now to the bed...
It ends with Xiao Nai telling her that he bought the old internet cafè where he saw her the first time, planning on moving there his company..


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