Chinese dramas tend to be squeaky clean. I say clean in the sense that life in China is presented as existing in a Disney World where the major players are well-spoken, slightly annorexic-looking beautiful people who are never dirty (they might sweat a little, which makes them freak out), live in fabulous apartments, wear designer clothes and have semi-interesting jobs in the Disney Worlds of offices where they wrestle with such gritty pseudoconflicts as a printer not delivering an important job on time, or a product being mislabeled, or a misunderstanding that makes the lead female look like a slut when she's always, always, always runner up to Mother Teresa in chastity, moral character and general helpful citizen goodness.
In other words, it's all lies, propaganda and make-believe. Pretty lies, entertaining propaganda, wishful thinking make-believe -- if I could live in a country like that I'd move there in a heartbeat -- but, alas, entirely invented.
Love Me Love My Voice tells the story of a grad student/composer and a cardiac surgeon/voice actor who fall in love with each other's voices before they meet, and they are each other's first love. I think. There are some confusing flashbacks and none of the emotion is admitted (this is an ongoing theme in the series) but that's my take. This romance is basically tepid enough for any tween to watch; I thought the secondary romance between the lead female's college roommate and the rich voice actor friend of the cardiac surgeon had more heat, although not much stage time. The story appealed to me because it's been a long time since I've seen such a sweet romance; My Happy Marriage the live action version is the only one I can think of that is more chaste.
Anyway, the series does present super homogenized Disney Worlder type versions of life, only with traditional music, dramatic dubbing, artful composition and absolutely gorgeous stage performances going on the entire 33 episodes. The unrealistic depiction of life and characters is still there: everyone sings or jokes with each other, no one has a conflict that lasts for more than ten seconds, and there's no squabbling, jealousy, competition for the romantic leads, competition for the secondary romantic couples or even a bad hang nail. For a big cast most of the characters are almost interchangeable, such as three of them being doctors who moonlight as voice actors.
About the worst thing that happens during the series is a bad thunderstorm. Yes, that's all. The romance between the male and female leads is of the slooooooooooow burn variety, and prepare to be bored. It takes something like 18 episodes for them to kiss once for two seconds. From there it gradually becomes a little more romantic, but this series is more about them staring at each other and singing a lot.
I liked it for the singing and voice overs. The music I could hear was beautiful and at times thrilling. So were the stage performances. There's a duet between the leads that will break your heart. It was nice to have a rest from all the pseudoconflicts, too. Available on Viki.com.
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