Daebak K-Rambles

Re-watch value: 0 out of 5 stars

Synopsis

*From DramaList*

A third-rate actress with leukemia becomes entangled with CEO Ling because she needs him for treatment.

In order to receive bone marrow transplant sooner and to continue her career as an actress, Xia Lin enters into a secret marriage with Ling Yi Zhou, the CEO of a company. Despite the conspiracies and misunderstandings they encounter, the two find true love.

Rambling

[SPOILERS AHEAD]

No. No. No, absolutely not.

I’ve seen my fair of shitty shows that have terrible acting, play into every trope, and ultimately are so forgettable that I refuse to write about them (side-eyes Accidentally In Love). But I had to do a write-up on this disaster.

Gosh, where do I begin? Let’s talk about how in the first episode Xia Lin is given some terrible news—she has leukemia. She gets diagnosed, not because she has any discernable symptoms, but because she went to the doctor for a routine check-up and suddenly she’s dying. (TROPE 1: fatal illness in a main character) The doctor says her only hope is a bone marrow transplant, and the only match to her in the system is CEO Ling. (Why this doctor chooses to freely give out this surely confidential information is explained later.)

Already I’m sensing red flags, but I go with it. She tracks him down and begs him to save her life by donating his bone marrow. He refuses, saying he put himself on the donor list for a specific person (?). She proceeds to harass him, devising silly encounters 50 First Dates style to possibly elicit a change of heart.

He agrees to the bone marrow transplant—which bizarrely everyone says will not harm him in the slightest, and that’s completely untrue, as bone marrow extraction is quite painful—if she marries him. (TROPE 2: Contract marriage between the main couple) And this was when I nearly jumped off the couch in outrage. How—But, then why??—Just because his grandma wants him to get married?—BUT THEY DON’T KNOW EACH OTHER AT ALL!!

Anyway, they settle on contract terms, head to the proverbial courthouse, and get married quietly. He’s very sweet to her, letting her choose the house that they’ll live in from the plethora of properties she’s now the mistress of. Their relationship progresses so that they obviously fall in love with each other, and the fake marriage becomes a real marriage.

Except Xia Lin is basically at the mercy of Ling, having no agency of her own. In order to get even a little publicity time, she has to resort to underhanded techniques that mainline his influence. She can’t go wherever she wants, she can’t wear whatever she wants, which while we’re here… *TROPE 3: Ling has a makeover/dress-up session with Xia Lin trying on cocktail dresses for an event that she attends as his date. *TROPE 4: Ling gives Xia Lin a black credit card for her to buy whatever she wants. In a horrendous sequence, Xia Lin’s wallet gets snatched by a pickpocket, but the thief returns the wallet because he found the black card and was apparently scared shitless.

Xia Lin is followed wherever she goes, which becomes super apparent to her when Ling shows up in moments of crisis time and time again. The house of cards comes tumbling down once Xia Lin finds a medical report that says she never had cancer; she was just mildly anemic. (This deception reminded me of the movie Passengers, with Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt. Spoiler: he wakes her from cryo-sleep because she catches his attention, and then he lies about why she woke up too early.)

She confronts him about the heinous lie that is the foundation of their relationship, and he basically never says sorry, instead saying he did it to be with her. Needing time alone, she goes to sleep it off, and the next morning, she’s under house arrest with a few bodyguards posted outside to keep her detained.

She freaking loses it—as anyone would. When Ling gets home, he spouts some nonsense about it being for her own good, and she goes, “I only ask for honesty and respect. No surveillance, no shadowing, no lies” before storming off.

I was livid but even more flabbergasted that Ling was actually surprised she was incensed by him commandeering her healthcare and lording over her life? Like, he couldn’t really put himself in her shoes and understand her position. He didn’t see how she would feel betrayed and trapped. He totally deceived her into marrying him, and caused her emotional trauma over being diagnosed with leukemia. Never play with cancer, boi!

Xia Lin later says, “You never treated me as an individual person. You just want to satisfy your sense of possession and manipulation.” DAMN! Once he finally sits down and explains their connection, he reveals that he first met her 2 years ago (when he was going through a rough birthday and then another time when he was drinking his grief away after his dad died) and that he’s been stalking her ever since. He got ahold of her medical record and “seized the opportunity.” His love, he argues, was well-intended. “Your Love is too overwhelming and too selfish,” Xia Lin tells him at one point. Boy, she sure has a way with words.

Bizarrely, the show takes MORE dramatic turns. *TROPE 5: Ling gets in a car accident and gets amnesia, losing the last two years of memories. Twist! It wasn’t really amnesia, the second female lead caused the accident and then hypnotized him to forget about his wife Xia Lin. WHAT IN THE WORLD??

*TROPE 6: Xia Lin gets kidnapped by Ling’s sinister, jealous, psycho step-brother. I can’t believe it even as I’m writing it. The 1-month pregnant Xia Lin was so naïve, she had befriended whom she thought was a neighborhood pal, except it was Ling’s younger step-brother, and when he reveals himself to be her kidnapper, it actually takes a second for her to register what’s going on! Unbelievable.

Ling visits An Ran in prison—the master hypnotist—and she doesn’t give any info, but in an effort to break Ling’s spirit says that it doesn’t matter if Xia Lin makes it back or not because she’ll be tainted, her reputation tarnished, as any woman who is out with another man for this long would be. Their marriage will never be the same. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?? Ling appears to believe her messed up words because he eases up the intensity of the investigation to wallow. He seemingly falls into old habits, mourning the death of their marriage by drinking in bars and clubs and sleeping around. DICKWAD

Xia Lin’s BFF lets Ling have an earful and unceremoniously reveals that she is pregnant. ~shocker~ As she storms off the premises, secretary Wen Li follows her down and kisses her aggressively just as she’s letting him have an earful, too. She was in the middle of saying she wanted nothing to do with him, so he kissed her JUST TO SHUT HER UP. The whole drinking and having affairs in public was a ruse Ling concocted, but it’s so muddy as to how that would benefit the overall goal of finding Xia Lin; it’s never fully explained. Beastly writing.

They find Xia Lin. Ling gets shot by the step-brother. Ling falls into a coma! (TROPE 7!) While he’s out of commission for what could only have been a couple weeks, there is this whole drama about removing Ling as the company’s director (TROPE 8: Board meeting to remove a main character from power) Ling’s mother—who the entire show was trying to reconcile with Ling because she abandoned him as a child to his ruthless, cold-hearted father and ran off with another man—finally shows her true colors. She’s bad, working for her husband’s competing company that was trying to make a comeback in the Chinese market. This is all revealed and resolved in a single episode. Again, ghastly writing.

There’s a happy ending, but by God, this was an awful show. Don’t waste your time as I’ve wasted mine. RUN AWAY!!

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