Sunshine of My Life is a long series that features a lot of unusual elements: a not particularly handsome male lead, a fashion industry story set in France and China, a female lead who is probably the most unattractive female in the cast, and secondary characters who tried to steal every scene they were in (and often succeeded.) The less than perfect leads convinced me to give the first episode a watch, and then I got hooked by everything else and watched the remaining 44 episodes. I'd call this more of a saga than a series, with multiple plot lines, a pretty extensive cast and excellent showcasing of the Chinese fashion industry.
The storyline revolves around Tang Ming Xuan (Zhang Han), the heir to and manager of Ming Yuan Fashion Group, who is entirely career-focused. He collides with Mo Fei (Xu Lu), a postgraduate fashion design student about to head over to France. I love the timing of their meeting, as it's the ultimate monkey wrench to romance. Despite their immediate and serious attraction to each other, they follow their planned paths, and she heads to Paris while he stays in China. Their paths keep crossing despite being on two different continents, however, and they first become business partners and then lovers.
Pros: the romance was oddly pretty wonderful, and more realistic than I expected. The secondary characters were collectively awesome in their roles, particularly the romantic distractions played by Wang Rui Zi and Hong Yao (this guy is seriously impressive and nearly eclipsed Han at every turn.) I also loved the fashion as it was presented in every episode, and even learned a bit more about Chinese embroidery and inspiration for their fashions.
Cons: I think it was a bit too long, and most of the plot twists were a bit too convenient. I would have liked to see more of the fashion shows in China, and how they train their runway models, as both were fascinating. It seems like whoever did the female lead's hair did not like her, or was ordered to make her look ridiculous, because her hair styles either looked messy, silly or entirely inappropriate for the person and or the situation. That's really distracting. Even in the poster up there his hair looks better than hers. I also thought Han was a tad too old to play the male lead, which is why Hong Yao, who is the right age for her, gave him so much competition.
Overall it's an interesting series to watch if you like fashion, extended storylines and a lot of bad hair styles. Available on Viki.com.
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