Be Yourself Chinese Drama Review

Be Yourself (机智的上半场) is my second youth drama in a matter of days after Our Secret. I guess the realistic story of the latter has rubbed off on me and I’m now open to watching another college life drama. Previously, I would have hesitated as I have watched enough of them in the past and found most of them to be boring. So, can this current one give me more reasons to change my opinion on college romance and youth dramas? Follow my thoughts with my Be Yourself review below.

My rating: 7.5/10
Episodes: 24
Type: Youth
Aired: August 2021
Images Credit: Youku

The Cast Of Be Yourself 2021

• Shen Yue as Xia Lang Lang
• Vivienne Tien as Fan Xiao Yu
• Zhang Xin Yi as Yang Jia Qian
• Zhang Ruo Nan as Huang Fu Shu Min
• Leon Leong as Fan Qing Zhou
• Ding Guan Sen as Lei Dong Qiang
• Zhai Zi Lu as Zhou Yu
• Zhang Zhi Hao as Lu Xu Wen
• Jean Li Jia Hang as Mai Meng

Main Characters

Xia Lang Lang, Fan Xiao Yu, Yang Jia Qian, and Huang Fu Shu Min are first year university students in the Journalism and Communications Department. They are also dorm mates.

Xia Lang Lang

Lang Lang is petite and tomboyish. She is a straightforward person and non-superficial. She has a working class background. Her father died when she was young and she was raised single-handedly by her mother who works in the supermarket to support her studies. Lang Lang is a straight-A’s student.

Fan Xiao Yu

Xiao Yu is the prettiest of the quartet. She is also the most sophisticated and appears to be the wisest. She is confident and smug. Xiao Yu has a rich father but her parents are divorced.

Yang Jia Qian

Jia Qian is the big sister of the group. She is diplomatic and tries her best not to hurt anyone’s feelings. Jia Qian can be timid at times and tends to hide how she feels. She is also a diehard fan of a superstar called Justin and an active member of his fan club.

Huang Fu Shu Min

Huang Fu is deemed the baby of the group. She is temperamental and immature. She has “princess syndrome” and prone to throwing tantrums if things don’t go as she wishes. Huang Fu has overprotective parents and a foreigner boyfriend who is abroad.

Supporting Characters

Fan Qing Zhou

Qing Zhou is a final year IT student who is about to graduate. He is reserved guy who is not good at talking. He is also an excellent coder who is developing a dating app.

Lei Dong Qiang

Dong Qiang is Qing Zhou’s dorm mate and best friend. He is also Qing Zhou’s partner in their app development start-up. Dong Qiang can be hotheaded. But he is glib and hence, the one responsible for talking to investors for their start-up.

Zhou Yu

Zhou Yu is a photography student. He also works as a manager in his uncle’s cafe. Zhou Yu has a fun and teasing personality.

Lu Xu Wen

Xu Wen is Xiao Yu’s childhood friend and their parents know each other. He has been interested in Xiao Yu for a long time but she only sees him as a friend and nothing more.

Mai Meng

Mai Meng is doing his post-graduate studies and a counsellor for a group of university students. He is matured and levelheaded. He has a girlfriend called Mo Li.

Synopsis

Lang Lang, Xiao Yu, Jia Qian, and Huang Fu arrive at university for the first time and are assigned to be dorm mates. They all come from different backgrounds and have different personalities. After initial hiccups, they learn how to get along with each other and establish a solid friendship.

Each of the girls has their own struggles that they have to overcome. Lang Lang went against her mother’s wish when she decided to study at a lower ranked university despite her high exam scores. She did so because she wants to be in the same university as her crush who is her senior at high school. Xiao Yu appears rich but hates to rely on her businessman father. Her parents are divorced and her father remarried. Her mother keeps pressuring her to maintain a good relationship with her father to get his money which she resents.

Jia Qian is an obedient girl but faces a lot of pressure from her controlling mother. As for Huang Fu, she has to learn to be matured and discard her “princess syndrome” to fit into university life. The girls have to go through ups and downs during their 4 years in university in which they learn some important life lessons. Along the way, they also strengthen their friendship as they support each other through thick and thin.

Be Yourself Ending (Spoilers Alert!)

Be Yourself has a neutral ending to me. It is not all happy because there is a bittersweet tinge to it since the girls have to part and go their separate ways after graduation. In the last scene, Xiao Yu sees a group of 4 girls laughing happily while distributing flyers for Qing Zhou’s app in the campus and it reminds her of her own ex-dorm mates. She then texts them to let them know that she misses them.

On the bright side, the girls are where they want to be. Lang Lang is a correspondent at an established press organization. Her application to be at the headquarters in Beijing was accepted after her internship. She moved there a month before the official graduation. Xiao Yu is helping out in Qing Zhou’s tech start-up and she has learned to work diligently rather than relying on short-cuts.

Jia Qian is loving her job as a talent liaison officer in a media company. She also gets an offer to become Justin’s team member but turns it down. After getting to know Justin personally, she learns that there is a difference between what she imagined him to be as an idol and his real self. As for Huang Fu, she is going back to work in Shanghai to be nearer to her widower father. Zhou Yu decides to go with her.

When Did The Couples Start Dating?

Huang Fu and Zhou Yu start dating in Episode 11 after she accepts his request to be his girlfriend. They are a bickering couple and Huang Fu will ask for a breakup after each quarrel. But she is never serious about breaking up with him and he also knows how to coax her to soothe her anger. The only time they have a serious quarrel is in Episode 16 and it is Zhou Yu’s turn to mention a breakup. However, they reconcile in Episode 18 after Huang Fu’s mother is diagnosed with lung cancer and subsequently dies. Zhou Yu is there for Huang Fu during her saddest moments.

The couple is on the verge of breaking up again in Episode 21. This is when they are about to graduate and have to make a decision of where they want to be. Huang Fu wants to go back to Shanghai to be with her father while Zhou Yu wants to stay where they are as he is a local boy. After thinking things over, they are willing to compromise. In the end, Zhou Yu is the one who decides to go to Shanghai with Huang Fu.

Xiao Yu and Qing Zhou get together in Episode 15. But they hide it from Jia Qian who is also in love with Qing Zhou. Jia Qian confesses her feelings to Qing Zhou in Episode 17 but gets rejected. She also knows that he likes Xiao Yu but still thinks she has a chance since she assumes he is still single. Jia Qian finally finds out the truth and learns to put it behind her towards the end of Episode 17. Xiao Yu and Qing Zhou remain a couple till the very end.

Did Lang Lang And Jia Qian Get A Boyfriend?

No, both of them are still single when the drama ends. Lang Lang did tell Mai Meng that she has feelings for him being she left for her new job in Beijing. But all the while, Mai Meng has refused to let her know how he feels about her. Instead, he has asked her to consider her future and think long-term. Lang Lang is disappointed but they parted with an understanding that he will still be there for her should she needs help in the future and that they will keep in touch. Before the drama ends, Mai Meng is sending a book to Lang Lang with a note that he will see her in Beijing.

Jia Qian has been communicating online with Justin without knowing his real identity. She thought she is chatting with his manager whom she met after an event that she has organized. Justin seems to have taken a liking for her and invites her to be an assistant to his manager. Jia Qian is surprised but turns down the job offer. She feels weird after meeting her idol in person and chatting with him like a friend. There is no indication of where their relationship is headed by the end of the drama.

Be Yourself Review – Great Life Lessons!

Be Yourself is indeed a nice surprise as a youth drama. I think it is underrated and certainly deserves more viewership and attention. However, be aware that it is not a college romance drama. There is an element of romance but it is not the central theme. Love matters is just one of the many issues facing the protagonists. So, if you are expecting a full-blown romance like in The Love Equations, this would not satisfy that craving.

Instead, Be Yourself has a slice-of-life feel as the drama depicts the university life of 4 young women. It doesn’t have a solid main plot with a continuous story to follow but simply problems or crises that befall the girls during their 4 years in university. So, a problem may crop up affecting one of the girls and this will take an episode or two to resolve before the attention shifts to another character. It may seem like an overly simple drama but this is also precisely where its greatest strength lies.

A Story That Will Resonate With Students

Be Yourself is a drama that most students will be able to relate to. If you have gone to university, this might also bring you down memory lane to the times when you are still young and absorbing life lessons. Through the different personalities of the 4 protagonists who are thrown together as dorm mates, the screenwriter manages to weave together a story that teaches us valuable lessons that we can’t get from text books. These lessons are briefly narrated by Xiao Yu at the end of each episode as a summary.

Hence, there is a heavy dose of realism in the drama and you can feel for the girls. This is because what they face is typical of what a girl will encounter at that stage of her life. Having a crush, being envious, respecting privacy and boundaries, conflicts with parents, losing a loved one, and being yourself are some of the issues explored in the drama. As the plot progresses, it also shows a deepening friendship among the girls which is heartwarming.

This is not a long-winded drama. Problems get resolved pretty quickly rather than get dragged out as the main point is to show the lesson learned. The first few episodes may seem like a bore as you are introduced to the different personalities. But as the story moves along, you will start to get used to them with each being unique and lovable in their own way.

Good Contrast Of Characters

Not many dramas will give equal attention to 4 characters, with all being females too. This one is done rather well as it successfully projects the uniqueness of each character and the title Be Yourself sums it up perfectly. Just like in your group of friends whereby everyone is different from appearance to life experiences, the same goes for the girls in the drama. The contrasts in the characters’ personality and family background is cleverly depicted in the drama to give us a very natural feel of 4 strangers being forced to live together by chance.

All the characters are certainly well-written and styled differently. They don’t appear as one-dimensional despite the shorter screen time for each with the attention being divided among the 4 of them. There is growth for each one of them by the end of the drama. It should be since they spent 4 years going though ups and downs while in university and thinking about their uncertain future once they graduate. That is part of the satisfaction after following the girls’ journey over the 24 episodes.

Natural Depiction Of Friendship

I have to commend all the 4 ladies for their great acting. They manage to bring out the personalities of the characters that they are playing. Perhaps the casting was done right in the first place. Each one of them looks natural in their role and the contrasting characters as mentioned above become even more enjoyable to watch as a result.

The group also has great chemistry as friends. I don’t know if they are fond of each other off-cam but the way they laugh and cry together as on-screen friends look really heartwarming to a viewer. There is no awkwardness detected but pure friendship that looks convincing. The last time I watched Shen Yue and Zhang Ruo Nan is in Use For My Talent and Everyone Wants To Meet You respectively. I think they are the more experienced actresses compared to Vivienne Tien and Zhang Xin Yi. Nevertheless, there is no noticeable difference that I can see. It is indeed better this way rather than having one’s performance overshadowing another which will mar the enjoyability of the drama.

As for the guys, they do take a backseat in Be Yourself. They are relegated to supporting characters. So, if you want to watch more of Leon Leong, you can catch him in My Love, Enlighten Me instead.

My Verdict – Better Than Expected

Be Yourself is really better than expected where I’m concerned. As mentioned, I’m not one who is too fond of youth dramas. But this one really strikes a different chord in me. If you like friendship and coming of age stories, then this should be a good fit. The story is told in a very realistic way as you follow the girls’ lives through college. It will hook you until you would feel a sense of longing when it ends. You will find yourself wanting the drama to continue on as the protagonists leave you with the feeling that they have more to tell about their lives.

The drama will evoke certain emotions in you. There are touching and sad moments that might bring you a few tears. There are also happy and heartwarming moments. It is not depressing or a melodrama like Crush but neither is it a sweet college romance drama like Forever Love. It is simply the very ordinary lives of 4 university students being depicted in a way that is easily relatable especially among the younger viewers.

For this Be Yourself review, I would give it a score of 7.5/10. Don’t watch this for the romance. Instead, watch it for the friendship and life lessons. Some may find it boring as there is no strong plot to carry the drama. It is more of a mix and match of the different characters’ college life experiences bound together into a story. Therefore, you need to like this kind of storytelling to enjoy the drama. Otherwise, you will be wishing for more happenings and excitement after watching the first few episodes.