A Mixed Bag

I think I've overdosed lately on chinese dramas, so My Fated Boy will probably be the last one I watch for a while. This is another age gap romance between two childhood friends, but this time the woman is older, hence the title.

Lin Yang (Li Xi Rui) is a busy career woman at an advertising agency, so she doesn't have a lot of time for her younger childhood friend Lu Zheng An (adorably played by He Yu), who returns to China to start a music career. She doesn't realize that he's quite the hot prospect now, or that thanks to his successful parents he's also quite rich, or that he's been completely in love with her since they were little kids. For a supposedly smart and accomplished woman Lin Yang tends to behave completely clueless throughout the series, so that's my first grumble. For his part Lu Zheng An is determined to have Lin Yang, whom he already refers to as "Wifey", and pretty much ruthlessly pursues her through the series. It helps that he's really cute about it, but this focus seemed a tad overblown.

I think this series is a mixed bag because so many things put me off the lead female character, like her borderline alcoholism, her belief that she's fat when she is so thin her legs look like matchsticks (I doubt she weighs over 90 lbs.), her inability to compromise, and the way she ignored her burgeoning health problems despite getting a clear warning at the beginning of the series. Also, the age difference between these kids is seven years, and yet Lin Yang is judged "too old" for her fated boy by basically everyone but her closest friends. Since I'm in a relationship with a man 12 years my senior I didn't have a problem with the gap, but the problem is that Lin Yang looks much older than Lu Zheng An, as in maybe ten, fifteen years older. So that could have been handled better by casting.

Despite my dislike of the female lead's character I did like the romance between these two. It seemed more sweet than scandalous, and was actually quite conservative even when they live together. The couple shares a lot of history (which is shown in little cameos at the start of every episode) and they're fairly adorable with each other. The affection came across as very real, which I like, because that's insanely difficult to fake. These two actors really pulled that off. Available on Viki.com.