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Cute but Crazy

I started watching the chinese romantic comedy series Everyone Loves Me to boost my spirits after the again dismal Three-Body, and it was a good choice. It's a college-to-business romance (one-sided on both sides at different times) set in the gaming industry, and if you don't mind too many coincidences you'll probably enjoy this one.

The story begins with soon-to-graduate art student Qianling (Zhou Ye), who has a huge crush on her classmate Gu Xun (Lin Yi). They cross paths at a gaming company as she ends her internship while he is hired to develop a AAA game. Although she's taking advice on how to entice the boy she adores from Campus Hunk, one of her online gaming friends, everything she does is misunderstood by Gu Xun at every turn. When she finally works up the nerve to confess her feelings he crushes her in front of their entire graduating class. Meanwhile, Gu Xun has fallen for a tough, no-nonsense extremely skilled female gamer who goes by the online handle Sticky Dough Twist (she's Qianling, of course.) Did I mention that Gu Xun goes by the name Campus Hunk online, and has been telling Qianling how to snare her guy without realizing it's him she's after? Yep.

The relationship tangle plays out as you'd expect -- both the leads discover the other's secret identity, and are horrified (Gu Xun) and furious (Qianling.) Gu Xun then pursues Qianling, who wants nothing to do with him after the way he humiliated her. They both end up as neighbors as well as working at the same company again, and eventually find ways to work out their problems. Just as they're starting their relationship, a series of problems with the game they're developing threatens to tear them apart and destroy all their dreams and hard work.

It's a fun, mostly not-too-serious romantic romp, and for once the female lead doesn't appear annorexic. I thought Lin Yi was an interesting choice as the male lead, he's definitely got a different look than most Chinese lead actors (which endeared him to me.) There are a couple of subplots in the series that are fun, and overall it's pretty well written if you don't count the coincidences. I'd recommend this to anyone looking for a romantic distraction. Available on Netflix and Viki.com.

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