Before we get to the review, please note that the following content is only based on my personal view and I don’t mean any harm by sharing my thoughts. You may find one or two spoilers but I’ll try to keep them as low as possible. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel, like and comment with the name of the drama you are currently watching, maybe we are both watching the same drama.
If I can be honest with everyone, I didn’t even plan to watch this drama. I knew nothing about it, never watched Li Hongyi in another drama except for Love Better than Immortality, and I also never watched any Shi Shi dramas. One thing that made me watch this drama was the synopsis, I wasn’t attracted by the time travel plot, it was the ending that made me watch this drama. I wondered how will the drama end if Shi Shi doesn’t manage to help out Li Hongyi to become the president of Hongyi group. I also wondered if she will stay in 2010 with Li HongYi or go back to 2020, (enough to get you to watch the drama right?)
First Impressions.
First episode was good but not great, because I had a rough time connecting with the supporting cast, only the main leads were interesting to watch and I enjoyed their accidental meet ups. I was impressed by the acting skills of the Main leads especially Shi Shi because she had to play two characters, one is her present self and the other is her future self, (Spoiler alert!) yes, there will be two Shi Shi in one timeline and they met in the first episode but they kinda robbed us with that incident.
The Good.
1. The drama wasn’t dragging a lot, they managed to bring different challenges in different plots but they all link back to the main theme.
2. The producers managed to make the surroundings look like they’re indeed in 2010, you can tell from cars on the streets, phones, clothes and even the computers to name a few.
3. Each character was well portrayed and they looked as if they were made for the role especially for Li Hong Yi, he really tapped into that “good for nothing rich kid” character and managed to switch to a more mature character, something most wouldn’t sell to the viewers.
4. Parallel Love has the suspense, well balanced comedy, a little bit of business lessons and unexpected character turns which are things that made me watch all the episodes instead of jumping to the last episode.
The Bad.
1. The storyline was not that tight, there were few times where I found myself failing to connect with the plot. if Lin Mia’s ex-boyfriend used to work at Hong Yu group and Lin Miao works in the same industry as Hong Yu group in 2020, why did the writers make it look as if she never heard of Hong Yu and its executives while they even made her character smarter? isn’t that a little error in the build up of the storyline and the so called “smart character”?
2. The unexplainable ending. It’s compulsory for a time travel (cross worlds) dramas to give a clear explanation on the ending of the drama, either by adding a full segment that only focuses on the reasoning or they use one character to narrate everything. Parallel love’s crew failed to give us a clear ending. There are a number of things that needed to be properly explained, unfortunately I can’t mention them here because I don’t want to fill this with spoilers.
3. Lin Miao’s time traveling incident wasn’t well planned and they failed to explain its cause. We don’t know why Lin Miao was chosen out of millions of women. We don’t know why was it so important to make Jia Yao president.
Conclusion.
Well, the drama ended with happy moments but I wouldn’t say the same for me because of the storyline. If we take the storyline out of the equation, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have fun watching the drama. Li HongYi and the whole cast made the drama look epic. Would I recommend this drama to others? I wouldn’t recommend this drama to beginners, I find this drama not suitable for beginners because they might end up losing interest in Chinese dramas.
Ratings.
For the cast, the humour and suspense in the drama, I rate this drama 4.5/10.
