Fighting For Love Review

Our Score

In Chinese dramas, I always look for a reason to continue watching the drama. If the first five episodes don’t hook me, I move on to the next. Just with one episode, everything was clear and I had a reason to watch fighting for love. From the very first episode I loved this drama. The story was simple to follow, there weren’t any confusions along the way. They didn’t drag the storyline until the very last minute which made me mad, I’ll explain it later. Let’s get into the review of Fighting For Love.

Story

I won’t say much about the storyline, the story is good but I just want to pick pieces here and there. A’Mai is seeking revenge from her adopted brother after he killed her parents. This leads to A’Mai dressing up as a man (which wasn’t convincing) and she met Shang YiZhi, the son of the second princess. The main villain from the beginning was the emperor of Nanxin.

This evil emperor has been chasing after YiZhi for a while because he sees him as a threat. It’s funny how the emperor of Nanxin is wasting his energy chasing after Marquis Dingan while Beimo is slowly attacking the country. Does it make sense? I don’t remember a him doing or saying anything that would benefit the country. Enough with the Emperor. So A’Mai and YiZhi end up being on the same boat (not literally), trying to survive. This eventually leads to A’Mai getting into the army by the help of YiZhi and she fights her way up to become a general.

The Leads

Don’t get me wrong on this next point. I like the leads but sometimes I get sick of them and their behavior. I do understand that Mai has to take revenge but her impulsive behaviors just bore me. Everytime she does this, Shang YiZhi defends her and it’s totally unfair to other characters. She’s obviously doing what Li Changge did in the name of revenge but here we have two leads who can’t think about others.

Like I said, Mai is a good strategist and she does care about people around her but she can be too much sometimes. YiZhi on the other side he’s a “yes mam” type. Everything Mai says he oders the army to do. I do understand that Mai is ‘smarter’ than them but giving her too much freedom makes me not believe in the ‘badass’ female character. There should be times where YiZhi treats Mai the way he treats others. The way it is, Mai is just winning for the sake of the storyline. I have seen countless dramas of this kind but this one is not well executed.

Why Was YiZhi Trained?

I honestly don’t understand why Shang YiZhi was trained at the beginning of the drama because he has done nothing. He’s been protected all the time and I always winder what was the point of training him if he never used his skills. It’s a waste of time to the three ladies who were teaching him. This is a big miss and it made this character weak with no proper development. Yes, he’s grown a lot since he left the capital but it’s all because he had help. He’s never been in a situation that only requires him to showcase his skills.

Music

Some of the background music sounded like I was watching a Chinese movie released in the 1960s and 90s. On top of that, the voice overs were somehow. The accent wasn’t the one I’m used to, from a distance it felt like they were speaking Cantonese at some point. I’m not used to read 100% of the subtitles but this time I had to even rewind scenes to get what they’re saying. Luckily I got used to it. The camera angles to were up close and they showcased how talented the cast is when it comes to facial expressions.

Fighting For Love Ending

The ending is kinda messed up I won’t lie. It’s not the worst ending, but it didn’t satisfy me. The plot twist at the end was not that “shocking”, infact I had no reaction to it despite being unexpected. It just didn’t make sense. Another thing, I said it before and I will say it again.

This Shang YiZhi character is too weak to be a male lead. Even as the leader, he doesn’t have a spine. I thought something would trigger his character development but he got worse. The thing of Prime Minister Lin forcing Shang YiZhi to marry his daughter and A’Mai being used, is kinda dumb. This is dumb… A mere Prime Minister with less power was able to take control? Besides that, there was no need for this marriages set up. There are too many things to focus on but they decided to use the wedding to keep the story going. I hate dramas that use this trick. I skipped lot of scenes from episode 32 till the end. I didn’t see the point watching because the story was blah.

Conclusion

To conclude this review, this drama was good at the beginning but then the end was disappointing. It’s a good drama to watch great fights but I think they overused comedy to a point where even serious situations don’t feel like one. The male lead was dumb the entire run and it was disappointing. I do recommend it, but I don’t see myself rewatching it.