A Review of 'Somewhere Only We Know'

Hello, my lovelies! Today, I'm going to be talking about a Chinese drama that I just finished watching today, and boy, do I have some irks that I'm going to cover. Let's get started.

Also, just a warning, there WILL BE SPOILERS, so if you are interested in watching this show

The story starts off with Xue Tong, a 3rd-year college student majoring in foreign language studies, and she is in her philosophy class when one of the doctorate physics students substituting as a teacher catches her cheating. Except, she wasn't really cheating, because her two friends were, and they let her take the fall.

She goes to all lengths to clear her name in the first few episodes, and when she finally does, she finds out that her next semester's Russian class is led by the same person who accused her of cheating, Mu Chenghe.

It is also during this time that we meet her friends, Bai Lin and Qiqi. All three of them eventually make up after the cheating scandal and become friends again, but that's not even where my problems start with these two. Let's delve into Qiqi first, because I have a lot more ranting to do about Bai Lin.

Qiqi's character is known to be quiet and super smart, so naturally, she is the one out of the group that spent a ton of time reading, and subsequently, in the library.

It's revealed after a few episodes that she has a crush on some guy that owns a bookstore in her hometown, and she ends up running into him one day.

This is where I began to truly hate her character, as well as the writers of the show.

The bookstore owner is married and has kids, but he had feelings for Qiqi when she was... sixteen?! Did I hear that right? Did you hear that right? YES! He had feelings for her when she was SIXTEEN. And this is romanticized. But that's not even the worst part.

Qiqi knows that he has a wife, but she proceeds to have a relationship with him, and when the wife finds out, she doesn't care and wants to continue seeing him. I have never seen a show that romanticizes cheating, but boy was it crappy!

She's an awful person! If she existed in real life and I was that wife, she would've gotten her ass handed to her. I'm not saying that the bookstore owner is completely innocent either. He's a devil for letting himself have a relationship with a college student, knowing he has a loving wife at home.

The excuse for him cheating? sHE doEsN't gEt mE lIKe yoU Do. Really. That is truly the reason the screenwriters gave for him wanting to have a relationship with this girl. If you feel that your wife doesn't understand you, GET A DIVORCE. Better yet, talk about how you feel. Don't go do some bull like this and blame your wife for not being 'on your level.'

Next, I want to talk about THE WORST character of this show, Bai Lin.

This girl starts off the show as a lazy stan of an idol, who does no work and lives off of Daddy's money. She's a spoiled brat, and she remains the same way throughout the whole show. She shows no character growth.

At least for Qiqi, I can say that she learned how to stand up for herself, but Bai Lin remained the most annoying prissy prick to ever walk to face of my television screen. And it's not even her fault, it's the cause of writers who don't understand young people. I'll touch on this a bit more later.

When Bai Lin sees this shirtless guy in the nurse's office after asking for sick leave the morning after drinking and partying, they start dating. Zhong Qiang is a swimmer, so naturally, he has to show off some of his physique.

I can't touch on every single thing she does wrong in the relationship, because this review would be 10 pages long, but here is a summarized list:

1. She blames him for not being able to get a train ticket on Valentine's Day.

2. She gets mad when he talks to other girls.

3. She tries to fix their problems by COOKING DINNER.

4. She berates him for inviting his friends over when her friends are at their apartment all the time.

5. She tries to force him to get a tattoo of a rose to show his love for her.

and many more things.

Her character is the product of middle-aged men deciding that they know exactly what women are thinking at all times, and are most likely self-proclaimed 'nice guys.' They clearly don't understand kpop stans, and they stereotype people who like kpop idols to be crazy, obsessive fan-girls who can't deal when their boyfriend isn't a puppet.

As someone who happens to casually stan many kpop groups, I AM OFFENDED. I'm not like this, none of my friends are like this. Sure, there are some bad eggs, like that girl who snuck into the bathroom and claimed to bottle the smell of an idol's... fecal matter, but not all fans are that level of bat-shit crazy.

I guess her family's wealth also ties into how she is as a person, but her family having money is only mentioned near the last quarter of the show. I had literally no idea that she was even rich because she lives in a dorm and doesn't flash dollar signs.

I honestly thought her character just had a crap-ton of debt, because she does shopping all the time. Here's another thing that is just a blatant example of sexism and men not understanding young girls.

Not every girl likes to shop. Not every girl mindlessly blows money on clothes.

Coming away from the characters, let's get back to our main story arc.

As Xue Tong is elected class representative, she and Mu Chenghe have time to bond, and they end up dating after the Russian class is finished, and its a huge scandal because A. he was her teacher and B. they have a 10 year age gap.

From the start, I thought their age difference was no more than 4, but 10?! He's in his thirties, he's already lived his 20s. They are in two completely different times in their life. She's barely 20 she hasn't had time to live it up yet. He's already done all of his partying and wild-nights.

If we're going to be honest here, they would have never stayed together in real life.

We get a few episodes of them bonding, going on vacation, the whole cliche 9 yards, but things start to take a turn for the worst as their relationship problems begin popping up. First, it's Chenghe's mother voicing my exact thoughts (their age difference), but then, it takes a... dark turn.

Chenghe goes to work in a lab away from campus, so they move in together to be able to see each other, but Chenghe's experimentation with fluid mechanics doesn't go as expected, and he is left with frustrating results.

We find out through Sir Chen, Chenghe and Tong's mutual teacher-friend, that Chenghe has a drinking problem, and Xue Tong rushes home, searches the house, and finds a crap ton of empty bottles. She also finds an application for him to go overseas to study in Germany.

When she confronts him, they have a falling-out, and he goes to Germany on his own. I honestly feel the show should have ended here. The last clip of the episode is Chenghe basically drowning himself in alcohol and Tong crying on her friend's shoulder, and I felt that this was a great, tragic end for a romance that was never meant to be.

But no. Instead, we get five episodes of her dating the second male lead, and in the last episode, she's basically like, screw it, imma marry Chenghe cause he's back from Germany. Don't we love characters who flip-flop between relationships?

Anyway, enough of the summary, here's my review.

Plot- 6/10; I enjoyed the middle episodes, they had interesting sub-plots, although I hated both of the side characters. They could have done a lot more than what they did, and in all honesty, the script, and the ending, felt incomplete, like someone threw words on a page and didn't bother to look it over again. A ton of the writing is telling us what happened, but not showing.

Setting- 8/10; I like the fact that it was set in a university. I hate that we didn't see/check up on Chenghe when he was in Germany. I felt that we could have at least had a few scenes with making sure he was still ALIVE.

Characters- 3/10; All of the side characters were garbage, and the only thing that kept me watching the show was Mu Chenghe because I could relate to him. When he was written off the show, I had no emotional connection, and as I continued to watch, I prayed that he would come back from Germany and work out his issues with Xue Tong.

Instead of doing this, the writers of the show decided to put a whole 5 episodes at the end about Xue Tong dating the second male lead. WHO GIVES A CRAP? We all know who she's going to end up with, so it's pointless to have him be here. All the reward I got after sticking around for those shitty 5 episodes was character narration about how much time has passed, and Xue Tong answering the door for her husband, revealing it to be Mu Chenghe.

Can we talk about how SCREWED this is? They had some serious relationship problems, including their 10-year age gap, and none of this was ever addressed. Maybe I expect too much from dramas these days, but I had hope for this show because the middle was so intriguing, and they dared to show Xue Tong and Mu Chenghe's fight before he left for Germany.

I believe that if they were going to write Chenghe's character out, if should have been in the middle for five episodes, then have them get together, then finish the show.

Xue Tong's character was also pretty relatable in the beginning and middle, and I kept watching the show after the first two episodes because I liked her, and the way she talked about her dad, and being the daughter of a 'hero.' I thought it was interesting to watch her break down why she hated the standards held on her, and how it wasn't even her fault.

However, I have some gripes with this character as well. First off, she's very quick to point fingers at other people, and she's emotionally immature. I get that this is her first relationship, but even so, I hated the fact that she found out about Chenghe's alcohol problem and threw up finger guns as she walked out the door. Who the hell does that?!

Obviously, she broke up with him because he was so enveloped in his work as well, and because she felt that he was treating her like a child, but SHE ACTS LIKE A CHILD! How else do you expect to be treated when you act like a frickin' three-year-old?

Mu Chenghe definitely has some problems. He doesn't seem to take Xue Tong seriously because of their age difference, but he seemed like the most realistic character, at least to me. I could see myself making the same mistakes- getting wrapped up in work, getting involved with someone younger/childish.

Final comments- Wow, I never thought I would hate a show as much as I hated this. I hate the fact that a ton of wrong things are romanticized, that all of the characters sucked, and that the whole show essentially felt like a first draft script.

In all seriousness, this show was a let-down. The drama I watched before this was Put Your Head on my Shoulders, also a Chinese drama, and it had a similar plot. Although it was a bit cliche at times, it was so much better than this rubbish-fire I spent 22 hours watching.

If you know what's good for you, don't watch Somewhere Only We Know unless you like pain and having crappy characters.

Total score- 2/5