431. Jiu Liu Overlord 九流霸主 (2020) Chinese

Bai Lu, Lai Yi, Fang Yi Lun, Xu Mu Chan

Drama Rating: 4.5/10     Neck Score: A

I started this one 100% for Lai Yi, having love him since he was Senior Disciple in 10 Miles of Peach Blossoms, and Heavenly Doctor in Legend of Fuyao, but I stayed (at first) because the couple had good chemistry. I loved that they were both super business nerds, and that she could press his buttons and break him out of his stuffy shell to try new things and improve his business even more. Sadly, that wonderful chemistry wasn't enough to carry the whole drama, because there was serious dragging issues. There was a mystery plot about corruption and the evil magistrate (father to the second female lead) obviously trying to kill our leads. But what is worse is that plot was super secondary to the unnecessary drama of the romance. Obviously the main couple liked each other and had enough reason to know that the other did, but still they were both too awkward and quick tempered to say it or stay on good terms enough to be vulnerable with the other, and so it dragged on needlessly long, giving fuel to the two second leads to be increasingly more annoying. Then it got even worse when the entire drama suddenly changed plots and became absolutely ridiculously bad. They literally made him allergic to women at the beginning and then just forgot about it later on. Honestly, I'm still not sure why I finished it, but I did, so here is a full review.

The first two thirds of the show is about their romance and building a business together. They are from two different worlds, so there are a lot of differences, since he is a merchant class and she is a street rat gang leader. However, their personalities are complimentary opposites and they are both passionate about business in a way that makes them power couple material, if they would just get over their pride and become one. Instead, we have the constant annoyance of the love rivals who both clearly know they never had a chance but are too stubborn and entitled to the point of never giving up. This cycle of them being into each other, waiting for the other to confess, and then fighting when one of them says the wrong thing (giving an opportunity to the second leads to add lots of oil to that fire and blow it all out of proportion) goes on frustratingly too long. To the point where I could rage quite just based on that frustration. At this point, the second leads weren't bad, just annoying. That's the problem, I guess, when they are friends with their crushes and the leads are too nice and care about them as friends too much to stop them from taking advantage of them. It is super frustrating. Especially since we have to watch the second leads steadily get worse to the point where they are ready to just go full blown evil or crazy.

Then the last third of the show is a train wreck. Sudden birth secrets that ruin my favorite part of the set up, he is just a rich merchant. Middle class, but only with financial power. Suddenly he is now secretly a prince, and to save her life he has to actually go to the palace and live as a prince. The magistrate who was trying to kill him one episode earlier is now suddenly going to be his father-in-law as the king forces his newly found son to marry the second female lead, who has already been sister-zoned at least 3 times at this point. This means that when our girl Long Ao Yi ends up in the capital to solve a murder, she then has that whole betrayal on top of it, since he clearly didn't wait for her and is getting married.

The last part was the worst because the male lead, Qingliu, was constantly powerless because he had to appease his dad's unreasonable demands (since he was expected to act as a prince having not grown up as one), Long Ao Yi constantly being mean to him because she was hurt, and the second leads were steadily getting more and more crazy. Then there are some seriously messed up crap too, where Prince Zhao, so desperate to win her, tries to get her against her will, which turns into a contest where both men are trying to win her her through dancing and the dowager queen is just giving her away like she's property. And then the fiancée is so desperate to keep Qingliu (even though she's literally engaged to him) that she's going to drug him to get herself pregnant and entrap him that way, which means the leads to get drugged and sleep together instead. And then it keeps getting more messed up with faked pregnancies, baddies going completely bat shiz and assassinating people right and left, and then the writers obviously just making whatever crap up they want that makes no sense. The king ends up looking like a complete douche who just sacrificed his family as they do all his work for him, and somehow they still manage to give the main couple a happy ending, but at this point it's at such a high cost that we don't even care.

I feel like the cast was wasted on some really terrible writing. The original plot had potential, if they had just tightened the writing and made it like 20 episodes at the most. Honestly, there were definitely more than 16 episodes of crap, but I think that if they had focused less on dragging out the romance drama and just gave us a power couple who took down the corruption in the business world, left out the stupid royal subplot, and made the original bad guys the actual main bad guys without just making up crap at the end, it would have been much better. So, I don't recommend it at all, and now I'm going to go watch Lai Yi be the Heavenly Grumpy Doctor again to cleanse my palate.