Be With You Chinese Drama Review

Be With You (好想和你在一起) is a rom-com that was released towards the end of 2020. It is a short drama at 24 episodes which should make it an ideal candidate for binge-watching during the year end holidays to match the happy mood all round. While I finished it rather quickly, I do have my reservations about this drama. To be more precise, it is not my cup of tea and my Be With You review below will reveal why. The drama does have its fans but perhaps, I just don’t belong in its category of targeted audience.

My rating: 6.5/10
Episodes: 24
Type: Romance
Aired: November 2020
Images Credit: Tencent

The Cast Of Be With You

• Ji Xiao Bing as Ji Yan Xin / Professor Ji
• Zhang Ya Qin as Qi Nian
• Marcus Li Ming De as Ji Si Qi / Key
• Kylie Zhou Kai Kai as Lu Qing Wu
• Xu Wei Hao as Shao Zui
• Yang Yu Tong as Ji Qiu
• Xiang Hao as Xiao Li

Main Characters

Ji Yan Xin / Professor Ji

Professor Ji is a top architect with his own firm as well as a visiting professor at the local university. He is a good-looking man with lots of female admirers especially among the students. But he is also a cold and proud person with an inability to remember names. Professor Ji also has a pet dog named Qi Bao.

Qi Nian

Qi Nian is a 24-year-old manga artist working with MC Comics. She is a straightforward young woman who is warm-hearted and expressive but inexperienced in love.

Supporting Characters

Ji Si Qi / Key

Si Qi is a waiter at an anime cafe and draws manga as a hobby. He has his principles and holds on to his dream of becoming a manga artist. Si Qi is young and can be immature and temperamental.

Lu Qing Wu

Qing Wu is a famous manga artist and head of the anime division of Rongpin Publishing. She is a confident and experienced woman. Qing Wu is also a flirt and likes to employ young male artists to work for her. Her personal assistant is Xiao Jia.

Shao Zui

Shao Zui is Professor Ji’s good friend as well as family friend. Hence, Shao Zui knows a lot about Professor Ji’s private life. He is also the owner of MC Comics.

Ji Qiu

Ji Qiu is Professor Ji’s cousin sister. She is turning 20 and still immature with her fangirling activities. Ji Qiu also knows Shao Zui since she was a little girl.

Xiao Li

Xiao Li is the manager of Rongpin Publishing which makes him Qing Wu’s boss and business partner.

Synopsis

Being a manga artist, Qi Nian is pressured by her boss to draw manga with a romantic theme because that is what will attract readers. However, she has never dated before and is clueless on how to draw and present the story. A chance encounter with Professor Ji brought about by his lost pet dog gives Qi Nian the inspiration needed to draw her manga.

As Qi Nian needs more ideas to continue her story, she searches for Professor Ji and tries to get close to him. She falls in love with him very quickly and goes on to woo him. Professor Ji is not interested in Qi Nian at first but gradually falls for her charm. But then Si Qi appears in her life as her housemate and their common interest in manga drawings automatically pull them together. Si Qi also starts to develop feelings for Qi Nian. Complications arise when Professor Ji and Si Qi find out about each other’s identity.

Be With You Ending (Spoilers Alert!)

Be With You has a happy ending. Professor Ji and Qi Nian got married. In a way, they are destined to be together. Qi Nian had seen Professor Ji before when she was a schoolgirl and drawn his picture. They were at the temple grounds. Professor Ji had mistakenly taken Qi Nian’s wish tablet for a good marriage while her father had taken Professor Ji’s which hoped for family harmony. Qi Nian’s father saw Professor Ji’s name on the tablet and thought it sounded good for a son-in-law. In the last scene, Professor Ji and Qi Nian are seen kissing on the deck of the Ji family home.

Si Qi and Qing Wu end up together. Qing Wu is sure that she wants to marry Si Qi and will wait for him until he is older. She declares so to Si Qi’s mother. Ji Qiu couldn’t let go of Shao Zui and wants him to take care of her as he has always done since she was young. Shao Zui also doesn’t want to stay away from her anymore and decides to be together with Ji Qiu in the end. Professor Ji’s parents also reunite after divorcing each other a decade ago. His father turns out to be the chef in Shao Zui’s bistro.

When Did Professor Ji And Qi Nian Get Together?

Qi Nian confesses her feelings to Professor Ji very early on in the drama. By Episode 4, she has already made her feelings known. Professor Ji only makes it clear that they should officially date in Episode 15 when Qi Nian wants to move out of his life. He brings her to register their marriage in Episode 23.

Why Qi Nian And Qing Wu Are Enemies?

Qing Wu encouraged Qi Nian to become a manga artist after seeing her talent while the latter was still a student. They cooperated to produce a bestselling manga but in the end, Qing Wu took sole credit for the work. By the time Qi Nian found out after being offline for a month due to exams, it was too late. She thought Qing Wu had played her out.

On the other hand, Qing Wu thought Qi Nian had abandoned her and terminated their cooperation. She has suffered over the abandonment too as she couldn’t reproduce the same quality of work on her own and feels guilty over the whole thing. But in actual fact, the one who had cheated the both of them is Xiao Li. He had taken Qi Nian’s work and then lied to Qing Wu that Qi Nian has ended their cooperation. Xiao Li made used of Qi Nian to promote Qing Wu for his own selfish gains.

In the end, Qi Nian and Qing Wu settle their differences as the truth is revealed through Si Qi’s intervention. Qing Wu also owns up and publishes the truth about what happened online. Xiao Li is fired from the company and and sued for copyright infringement.

How Did The Love Triangle Get Resolved?

Si Qi also has feelings for Qi Nian but he never got the chance to confess. After he saw Professor Ji and Qi Nian kissing, circumstances change rapidly and his attention is shifted towards Qing Wu who has also been pursuing him. Hence, the love triangle resolves itself pretty quickly thereafter.

Professor Ji And Si Qi’s Relationship

Professor Ji and Si Qi are brothers but they are not on talking terms. Si Qi hates his elder brother for trying to control his life. Professor Ji was against Si Qi’s ambition of being a manga artist. He started to control Si Qi’s life after their parents divorced. Their father disappeared while their mother left for the US. Professor Ji destroyed Si Qi’s lifetime collection of anime figurines during an argument. Si Qi eventually left home and joined their mother in the US. He broke off all contacts with Professor Ji.

Professor Ji swallows his pride and apologizes to Si Qi in the end. Si Qi also realizes that he has been too harsh on his elder brother who has tried to make amends and had to shoulder the family’s responsibilities when their parents divorced which has caused him to suffer from mental pressure and insomnia.

Be With You Review

Be With You is the type of drama that is made for pure entertainment whereby you shouldn’t put on your thinking cap while watching. Just treat it as dramaland fantasy and you would probably enjoy it. I would also see it as being targeted at a younger set of audience. Maybe that is why it doesn’t resonate with me and I have to force myself to finish it quickly for the purpose of this review. The good thing is it is short and I could avoid the temptation of abandoning it halfway through.

Girl Chasing Guy Drama

If you like romance dramas that see the girl taking the initiative to pursue the guy, then Be With You would fit the bill. This theme is similar to Begin Again but without the same depth to its story. I guess this is to be expected as Be With You is a rom-com after all. So, it is not a drama that you would see serious character growth and deep exploration of feelings unlike the more intense romance in You Are My Destiny or Here To Heart.

Of course, it is perfectly alright to have a simple plot especially for a rom-com. But where Be With You is lacking to me is the mandatory sweetness which drives this type of dramas. I understand different people will have different standards of what constitutes sweetness in a romance. If you see a much older and domineering man taking the reins in the relationship as sweet, then you would like this couple. It is an unequal relationship albeit a protective one given that the guy is much more matured compared to the girl.

Personally, I’m more into couples that have mutual respect for each other like the one in Love Is Sweet. That is why it is a little hard for me to root for the couple in Be With You. This is not to say that I can’t accept an older man and younger woman romance. It also has to do with the couple dynamics and personality which bring up my next point.

Male Lead’s Character Flaw

A much older and successful male lead is nothing new in a rom-com just like Lu Jin in Dating In the Kitchen. But the female lead in Gu Sheng Nan is gutsy with a spine and hence, the relationship is able to generate the required sparks for it to be exciting. Comparatively, Qi Nian in Be With You is much meeker. With Professor Ji’s character being a controlling one, it is not exactly an ideal romantic couple in my books. Of course, no one is perfect and the saving grace is Professor Ji does love Qi Nian and is aware of his own controlling nature.

Thus, you really have to get over Professor Ji’s flaws to be able to enjoy this rom-com. If you start dissecting his character like I did, the romantic vibes will immediately take a dive especially if you also prefer couples that are more equal in terms of power dynamics in their relationship.

Chemistry Could Be Better

The chemistry between Ji Xiao Bing and Zhang Ya Qin is not exactly bad but there is definitely room for improvement. It is passable for a simple rom-com but it fails to lift it to its full potential. I don’t think that their acting is the problem though. Perhaps the nature of the characters that they play makes it a little hard to generate more sizzling interactions between them. I would think that if one character is too dominant and there is a lack of tender moments between them, it will indeed be hard for the chemistry to flow naturally. This is in contrast to say, Perfect And Casual, whereby the chemistry of the leads really drives the drama as the sweetness is magnified in each interaction.

My Verdict – It’s Nothing Special

Be With You is the type of drama that you would watch when you have absolutely nothing better to do and want to indulge in some fairytale romance. As mentioned, the plot is simple and whether it will come off as sweet will depend on your ability to overlook faults in the male lead who also seems to be toying with the female lead’s affections at times. Hence, he is very different from the suave and almost perfect male lead in Intense Love which is also a fairytale-like romance drama.

A further word of warning is that this short drama also has 2 other couple stories included. Hence, they take up quite a bit of screen time overall especially the second couple of Si Qi and Qing Wu. If you like the secondary pairing, it will be the icing on the cake. If not, it can be annoying because they take up the majority of the screen time around Episode 18 onwards which is similar to the problem in Love Designer as it progresses towards the ending.

For this Be With You 2020 drama review, I would give it a score of 6.5/10. It is really nothing new from the plot to the characters that it is hard to justify giving it a higher score. Watch it if you absolutely like stress-free rom-coms for a little escapism. Don’t think too much though if you really want to enjoy it. But if you are the type who can’t help but want a more perfect male lead and heartfelt romance, then drop it. Be With You would be hard put to satisfy the cravings for a fulfilling romance story.