Well a new day and a new spate and this one is from C-ent and revolved around just premiered modern school age romance Hidden Love. The drama stars Chen Zhe Yuan and Zhao Lu Si adapted from a web novel about a teenage girl that crushes on her older brother’s college age best friend and after she grows up gets a chance to fall in love with him for real. The screenwriter of C-drama The Whirlwind Girl posted on her SNS this weekend a call for Hidden Love to be removed from airing calling it a gross and immoral premise of a 14 year old pre-teen having a crush on a college age guy 7 years older and him kinda being flirty with her. She’s doubled down after having fans of both stars and the drama viewers defend the drama and attack her. I think having a real tween play the 14 year old Sang Chi and interacting with Chen Zhe Yuan can be problematic but not really since it’s plotted innocently and she seems to just want her drama real older brother to be as nice, caring is all. The romantic crush doesn’t start until she’s 17 years old and in high school. I think this is much ado about nothing in the end. You either like it or you don’t.
This is just trying to create an issue out of nothing really. The show hasn’t crossed any boundaries as far as I am concerned, nothing really happened between the leads until they are adults and the crushing was only on her side without him feeling the same way (which is pretty common in the real world).
This issue don’t bother me so much because we all been there liking someone older when we were younger. My issue is with ZLS baby tone speaking is annoying me considering the younger version of her talks normally (and comes off very mature) or is that how she normally talk (as I’ve only seen her voice over in period drama). Sadly, I drop the drama because of it and her character is too immature for my liking.
This! The child actress’s speaking/tone and acting as a 14-year-old Sang Zhi was more mature than ZLS’s 17-year-old version. It came off like the character was 10 instead of 17, which was a bit disturbing. However, her acting improved once Sang Zhi hit college, thankfully, although I’m not too convinced by her crying/emotional scenes.
This! The child actress’s speaking/tone and acting as a 14-year-old Sang Zhi was more mature than ZLS’s 17-year-old version. It came off like the character was 10 instead of 17, which was a bit disturbing. However, her acting improved once Sang Zhi hit college, thankfully, although I’m not too convinced by her crying/emotional scenes.
Meanwhile, these buffoons seem to have no problem with fantasizing about 40 year old women going out with 20 year old guys as if that has any real life relevance…
C-ent has all these paranoiacs that literally and constantly destroy much joy that the entertainment is supposedly to create for its customers. Here came another demand for nonsensical censorship based upon bullsh*t accusation made by the TWG screenwriter!! How many projects and celebrities have been banned because of absurd censorship that has been abused per farcical accusations? One prior example I can recall is the ML of World of Honor, who was banned thanks to unfounded accusation of him paying tribute to Japanese WWII war criminals just because he’s found taking photos in front of a Japanese Shrine. LOL
The Whirlwind Girl is a mediocre drama with mediocre scriptwriting and directing. As a comparison, Hidden Love is extremely charming and intriguing even though the plot isn’t complicated. Hidden Love has been the only school romance drama since Lighter&Princess that I was able to sit through each ep without skipping a scene so far. Coincidentally these two dramas were both directed by Taiwanese directors. I wonder if Taiwanese directors happen to be better at romance storylines than C directors because ALL other C romance dramas I’ve watched are either predictable or cringe worthy full of cheesy love lines. A suggestion from an inferior scriptwriter of TWG to ban a much better drama than her own work is like bad money driving out good !!
C-ent won’t ever be as popular as K-ent worldwide if such paranoia culture persists to stymieing creativity and good projects in the showbiz. Fans aren’t stupid. Ppl will eventually get tired of cheap gimmicks recycled in romance dramas.
They casted the wrong actress for the 14 yo. She’s actually a pretty good actress but actually 10 yo. But even then they were pretty clear that it’s a one sided puppy crush even when ZLS steps in for the role. He doesn’t know her feelings. And when he starts to like her when she’s in college, she’s pretty mature and he is treating her differently. But yeah I think the initial backlash was avoidable, that part of the story wasn’t even that important.
HUm…I don’t think it’s gross because the male lead didn’t feel anything for her. But I wished she had felt for somebody else before she dates him or had something in her life that it’s not about him. It’s very unbalanced for now.
Ew. The drama for the first 3 episodes left a bad taste in my mouth. Why couldn’t they have found a younger version of CZY instead of having him play himself at 21? It just looks so wrong on every level. How many 21 year olds do you know that flirts with a 14 year old and you think that’s ok? Even flirting with an underage girl (with no physical interaction) on sites like FB, Omegle, etc. gives predatory vibes and you might just get targeted for arrest. Just cus it’s a handsome guy playing someone older doesn’t make it right. Maybe if they filmed the perspective in a different way, the drama wouldn’t be plagued with controversy, e.g. he doesn’t give her like 100 stares every time they’re close to each other. Or being so much more mature looking. It’s so inappropriate on every level that I’ve stopped completely at episode 4. I just can’t. It hasn’t gotten better.
What scenes were he flirting with her? The first three episodes were just him being like an older brother to her like giving her tutoring lessons. There was no actions of him being flirty towards her when she was young. I’m wondering if people already take offense knowing the plot and reads too much into the drama when they’re watching it.
None of his actions are of being a predator. He simply saw her as his little sister.
You are reading too much into it. Purely one sided on the young girl. the guy she had a crush on looks at her like a little sister, nothing predatory. I also think that the team did a good job showing that it was a pure one sided crush on her end. He did not have any romantic inclination on her until that accidental kiss on their way to the hospital.
It was absolutely gross to see it, she was a literal child. Netizens were rightfully upset, there have been discussions for days, this was not shot innocently. What I find terrible was Zhao Lusi fans dismissing everything because their idol was more important. I have no idea how this mess passed censorship when they withold much less problematic things.
What’s more insane is how almost every post criticizing this drama or ZLS have been deleted/removed from public forums. They’ve blanketed all social media platforms with incessant hot searches, trying to give an appearance of how popular this drama is. Even on Twitter, where I’ve repeatedly muted conversations or clicked on not interested whenever anything ZLS related pops up, the app pushes her posts and her drama onto my timeline. Her media team must spend tons of money to keep up appearances, and she must have some pretty powerful backing behind the scenes for two problematic dramas in a row to pass censorship so easily.
Are you just speaking out of your hat or have you actually watched the drama? Viewers are not fools. They dismiss the claims because they have no merit. Instead of regugitating misleading articles, why don’t you watch the drama yourself?
I watched the drama and then dropped it because I am not here for pedophilic content. Typical fan response, if a person disagrees with you they don’t just don’t get it. Oh no, we watched and we get it all right.
I think it’s the directing problem. The younger version seems more mature than ZLS (first the voice – younger girl has a more natural voice, and the attitude – younger girl knows what she is doing). And only in my opinion, the younger girl is prettier (and definitely a good actress). The older version (ZLS) seems to have left her brain in elementary school… behaving like an airhead and speaking from her nose… Did she have a fall and hit her head hard somehow while travelling in time?
‘Big’ SPOILERS
I love Gong Yoo, but this is exactly what bugged me about Big. When Shin Won Ho played student Kang Kyung Joon, his personality didn’t seem immature to me at all. Shin Won Ho wakes up in Seo Yoon Jae’s body played by Gong Yoo, and the character just became a totally different person. Immaturity out the window. I don’t know if it’s the actors or the directors choosing to play the characters this way.
The plot is pretty real, a lot of teens have crush on their sibling’s friend, the problem rely on the older character decision. They shouldn’t be able to reciprocate or this becomes a crime drama
A bit off topic.
If that is an issue, then See You In My 19th Life is more problematic.
The 19thLife FL is 9 yrs younger to the ML. But the actors who played the character are with 24 yrs difference (Ahn Bohyun is 35, and Park Soyi is 11). It was a one sided thing with little interaction.
So the story depicted a character that is in grade school (grade 4 probably) stalk, and propose to a high schooler (senior high).
We can argue FL is older, technically. And for me, that is a way bigger problem.
The 18thLife FL was 3 years older with the ML, he was a grade schooler while she was a middle schooler. But then they do meet when 18thLife FL has finally gotten her memories from her past lives, so technically she was mentally hundreds of years. Hundred years old reincarnator to 9yr old boy, all their interaction can be perceived as grooming.
The big excuse is that The romance start to really form when all of them are adults.
So with this, will this get a pass since the genre is fantasy with age just a number. And age is no consequence in the face of immortality? Or given a pass for the sake of storyline (love conquers all, even immortality).
I think it’s only nitpicking. I have watched the drama and it doesn’t feel strange. They probably had to cast younger actress to play 14 year old sang zhi to fit the setting that she’s short at the time.
And Jiaxu only interacts with the 14 year old Sang Zhi only on ep 1 (ignoring the flashback in later ep) afterwards they never met again until she’s 17 year old.
And Jiaxu is never interested in her even when she’s coming to his city supposedly looking for the guy she likes. He is not jealous at all and only worried about her as he think of her as his sister.
He only started to like her after she takes care of him in hospital, when he’s the most vulnerable. And when she assures him about what his dad done and that he doesn’t need to stay indebted, he finally started to want to chase her. He started to get jealous and it’s not worry for little sister like before.
I know the novel The Whirlwind Girl is very innocent and doesn’t have any intimate moments so maybe the author is very conservative or something.
But if the screenwriter is not the author of The Whirlwind Girl, I think they should reflect and work on their own script to fix the unrealistic plots. Not to mention the drama can’t compare to the novel.
How old is ZLS? High schooler?? I watched but not convinced.
I thought all along that they had a 5-year difference.
In spite of this, I do not see anything immoral about it.
10-year-old girls admire HS and college guys in real life.
I, in fact, have a 7-year difference with my boyfriend.
There is a 5 year gap in the show. In the novel it’s 7.
It’s a pretty common real life situation to crush over someone older . It’s not like they began a love relationship when she was a teenager . it is more like a girl’s fantasy , a girl kissing the photo of her favourite idol . I don’t think that he flirts with her, he likes teasing her .
The novel was fine. The drama not so much. Not really a fan of the leads as they’re not what I imagined from the novel. (Tan Songyun and Song Wei Long in Go Ahead made it work visually even though TSY was older irl; in this one the ML feels younger though she’s supposed to be older). The original writer’s other adapted novel is better though: When I Fly Towards You.
SWL cannot act! The FL and second ML carried the whole drama of “Go Ahead” all along. Why do you bring SWL up here?? He is so NOT relevant?!