I came across My Love, Enlighten Me (暖暖请多指教) and saw that it is enjoying pretty good ratings with a high viewership. So, I jumped in and started watching too without knowing what the story is about. I guess I was drawn to the cast and couldn’t resist Eleanor Lee’s cuteness and Leon Leong’s (formerly Connor Leong) charm. But whether the cast’s attractiveness is enough to give this romance drama a boost for me will be discussed in my review of My Love, Enlighten Me below. If you are short of time to read the whole review, my simple conclusion is watch it but with a warning to be open-minded about the plot!
My rating: 7/10
Episodes: 24
Type: Romance
Aired: May 2020
Images Credit: Tencent
The Cast Of My Love, Enlighten Me
- Eleanor Lee Kai Xin as Liu Nuan Nuan
- Leon Leong (Connor Leong/Liang Jiang Kang) as Han Che
- Xiong Yu Ting as Han Xue
- Li Ming Jun as Gu Li
- Tim Pei Zi Tian as Fang Han Chen
- Li Xi Meng as Lin Jia Yi
- Feng Bo as Li Lie / Director Lie
- Wang Ce as Fu Zhong Hui / Director Fu
- Qin Han Lei as Liu Gang / Manager Liu
- Cao Yan Yan as Liu Nuan Nuan’s mother
Main Characters
Liu Nuan Nuan
Nuan Nuan is a trainee at an artiste management company. She is a member of a girl band trying to make it in showbiz. Nuan Nuan is helpful and kind. She is also always smiling with a cheerful personality and an inner strength that helps her soldier on during bad times. Nuan Nuan has a flair for fashion and styling.
Han Che
Han Che is an aloof and unsmiling young man who is also a genius in his field. He is a visual arts director specializing in lighting and has just returned from the US. He suffers from hyperthymesia which causes him to be able to process and store large amount of information in his brain. Hence, he has perfect memory but it could also cause him to have headaches and other symptoms.
Han Xue
Han Xue is Han Che’s elder sister but they do not share a close bond. She is also a trainee artiste and Nuan Nuan’s band member as well as best friend. Han Xue is assertive and tends to be impulsive.
Gu Li
Gu Li is Han Che’s staff as well as good friend. He is an easy-going guy who likes to hang around Han Xue and is always ready to indulge her. This is because he has feelings for her which he keeps hidden as Han Xue treats him like a younger brother.
Supporting Characters
Fang Han Chen
Han Chen is not to be confused with Han Che as they are 2 different characters. Han Chen is Nuan Nuan’s senior at the same artiste management company and is starting to make inroads in his showbiz career. He is very protective of Nuan Nuan as he quietly loves her.
Lin Jia Yi
Jia Yi is also a trainee artiste and Nuan Nuan and Han Xue’s band member. They are good friends and have been training together for 4 years. Jia Yi is ambitious and eager to be a star.
Li Lie / Director Lie
Director Lie is the head of the Design Department at HOCO, a clothing designer and retailer. She is a very demanding boss who sets lofty standards for everyone who works with her. Hence, she has trouble retaining assistants all the time.
Fu Zhong Hui / Director Fu
Director Fu is the head of the Marketing Department at HOCO. He seems like a fair-minded and caring boss on the surface but also has his own personal agenda.
Liu Gang / Manager Liu
Manager Liu works for an artiste management company which is owned by President Xu. He manages the career of a stable of artistes including Nuan Nuan and Han Chen.
Liu Nuan Nuan’s Mother
Nuan Nuan’s mother has talent in showbiz but was stopped from pursuing her dreams when she was young by her own mother. Hence, she always hopes Nuan Nuan to be a successful celebrity and not give up easily.
Synopsis
Nuan Nuan, Han Xue, and Jia Yi are members of a girl band. They have struck up a close friendship after training together for 4 years. But Jia Yi colluded with the management company and Han Che during their debut in a singing show. She becomes the center of attention with the spotlight shining solely on her while Nuan Nuan and Han Xue are reduced to dancing in darkness in the background. This is different from their rehearsal which means Jia Yi has betrayed them.
Nuan Nuan and Han Xue are subsequently fired by the management company and forced to move out from the dormitory. With nowhere to go, Han Xue offers her old ancestral home for Nuan Nuan to stay without knowing that her brother, Han Che, is back from the US. Hence, Nuan Nuan and Han Che end up living in the same house as tenant and landlord respectively. They find it hard to get along but Nuan Nuan has no choice but to continue living there. She is struggling to find suitable work after having her dreams of becoming a pop star dashed. Nuan Nuan has to re-discover her passion and interest as she maneuvers pitfalls and hardships in her new career.
As Nuan Nuan and Han Che spend more time together as housemates, love blooms between them. However, problems crop up when what Han Che had done during the singing show comes back to haunt him.
My Love, Enlighten Me Ending (Spoilers Alert!)
My Love, Enlighten Me has a happy ending. Han Che proposes to Nuan Nuan in the last episode. You don’t get the typical wedding scene but a fun ending to the drama. This is consistent with the way this cute couple behaves and interacts throughout the 24 episodes. There is no grand proposal either as it is done in their house backyard in a simple manner. Nuan Nuan doesn’t give a simple yes or no answer but teases Han Che into repeating “Marry me?” numerous times until he gets fed-up and drags her to the registry. For the full drama recap, you can check out the My Love, Enlighten Me episode summary.
How Did Nuan Nuan And Han Che Get Back Together?
In Episode 22, Nuan Nuan was angry with Han Che when he refused to allow her to accompany him to Beijing for his brain surgery. She gave him an ultimatum – either he lets her follow him to Beijing or they break up since he is not treating her as a girlfriend. Han Che chose the latter as he didn’t want her to suffer because of him and left without her. But she went by herself anyway because she was worried about him. The surgery was successful and she ended up taking care of him. But they never really discussed about their disagreement until they came back home.
Nuan Nuan wanted to move out then but Han Che used the tenancy agreement to compel her to stay for another 3 months. She left to go back to her hometown after 1 month. Han Che went all the way to her hometown to woo her back and get onto her parents’ good books. The turning point is when her parents disapproved of their relationship due to his brain condition. Nuan Nuan stood up for Han Che as her boyfriend then. He was starting to suffer from memory loss due to the side effect of his brain surgery.
Han Che wanted to break up due to his memory loss which he was afraid could progressively get worse but Nuan Nuan wouldn’t let him. She convinced him to face it together and told him that she will accompany him for his therapies. Han Che eventually recovered and their experience strengthened their relationship.
Nuan Nuan’s Career
After being failing to become a pop idol, Nuan Nuan started work at a boutique which got her interested in styling and fashion. Circumstances that forced her to quit but she ended up in marketing and then clothes designing. She worked under Director Lie who was harsh to her but her tenacity and talent helped her to get accepted as time went by.
However, office politics forced Director Lie to resign and Nuan Nuan resigned with her. She got the chance to be a stylist on a reality show through Han Chen’s help after that. When Han Che returned from his surgery, Nuan Nuan helped him by becoming his assistant in his studio. His works inspired her dream to create a fashion guidance app that could help women beautify themselves in their own world. Han Che helped her to set up her studio. By the end of the drama, Nuan Nuan is a businesswoman with her own app to market.
Han Xue And Gu Li
Han Xue ends up with Gu Li in Episode 20. She saw all the things he has been keeping that are related to her as well as a ring. His words touched her when he finally expressed his feelings for her. Han Xue had been taking him for granted in the earlier parts of the drama and had always treated him like a younger brother. But when they slept together one night after getting drunk, the nature of their relationship changed.
Han Xue didn’t know how to face him especially when she thought she was pregnant with his child. Her mistreatment of Gu Li then made him changed tack and he ignored her for a change. He even put up a pretense of being together with a colleague. Gu Li’s change of attitude towards her made Han Xue realized his importance in her life as she examined her own feelings for him.
Jia Yi and Han Chen
Jia Yi loved Han Che and was trying hard to pursue him. But she was also confused over his mixed signals. Han Che was helping her initially because he thought she was the one who helped him when he was ill a few years ago. That was why he got involved in the singing show and propelled her to stardom. All along he was merely repaying his gratitude. To make matter worse, he got the wrong person because the one who helped him was Nuan Nuan and not Jia Yi. Thus, he rejected her in the end and she got the message that it was not her all along that he was interested in.
Han Chen loved Nuan Nuan too but didn’t express his feelings until much later when Han Che came into the picture. His career also prevented him from loving her freely. When he did confess to Nuan Nuan eventually, she rejected him as she has always treated him as a senior and good friend. They remain as close friends a year later when his career has really took off with a concert in the pipeline.
Jia Yi also became a top celebrity. Rumors of Jia Yi and Han Chen continued to swirl after both of them starred in a reality love show as a couple. There is a chance of them developing a real romance towards the end of the drama when they are both open to the idea of a relationship.
My Love, Enlighten Me Review – A Questionable Beginning
I know there are a lot of fans for My Love, Enlighten Me but personally, I just can’t get into the drama. This is because the story starts off with a very questionable act by the main male character, Han Che. It is like You Are My Destiny 2020 whereby the main couple cheated on the man’s girlfriend right at the start. If you can accept that storyline, then it is more likely that you will enjoy the drama. Otherwise, it just stops there as it will be hard to truly root for the couple.
In My Love, Enlighten Me, there is no cheating but Han Che destroyed not only Nuan Nuan’s dream but also his sister’s in the first episode. When he helped Jia Yi, he knew Nuan Nuan and Han Xue’s career as pop idols would be over as a result. He did it because he wanted to repay Jia Yi whom he thought had helped him when he was sick in the past. The excuse to do such a cruel act to anybody’s dream is just too flimsy for me to take in. So, the plot doesn’t really resonate with me for this one.
As the story unfolds, you have the usual misunderstandings before the couple gets back together. The plot development is predictable and there are no surprises to give the story more depth to make me follow it closely.
Acting And Chemistry
However, what makes My Love, Enlghten Me shines through is the performance of the main cast and the chemistry among them. Without them, I think this drama is would be a boring one to watch. Eleanor Lee plays this kind of bubbly character very well as she did in Fake Princess. She gave life to the Nuan Nuan character with her unique expressions for different situations that range from funny to serious. Her chemistry with Leon Leong is top notch here as they managed to give viewers a cute young couple feel with relative ease. I suppose you can say that their screen time together was never a bore.
Xiong Yu Ting and Li Ming Jun as the second couple is also worth watching. Unlike some dramas like Love Designer and Mr. Honesty whereby you don’t really care about the side couples’ story, Han Xue and Gu Li’s scenes are pretty intense and interesting. Not many on-screen couples can handle a younger man and older woman relationship well to make viewers root for them such as Fan Xing and Yuan Song in Find Yourself. But Xiong Yu Ting and Li Ming Jun managed to nail their roles with their unique dynamics to make Han Xue and Gu Li look compatible. And if Li Ming Jun looks familiar to you, he is the guy who portrayed Mirror in Love Of Thousand Years.
My Verdict
For this My Love, Enlighten Me review, I’m giving it a 7/10 rating on the strength of the cast’s performance and the cinematography which is a little different from the usual Chinese romance dramas. To be honest, this production isn’t really my cup of tea because the story starts off on the wrong footing for me. Of course, not everyone would have the same reaction and if you can accept the main character at the beginning, then this drama might well be an enjoyable one overall.
The other thing to note is that the main couple is cute but it is really a young love drama that will resonate more with the younger audience just like Put Your Head On My Shoulder and The Love Equations. Hence, if you don’t care for Han Che and Nuan Nuan’s interaction style which is all about playful arguments, teasings, and one-upmanship, this can be a very boring drama. Personally, I have to force myself to sit through all the 24 episodes without skipping.
I’m not saying My Love, Enlighten Me is bad. It is not if you enjoy cute and youthful romance. But if you don’t, then there is nothing extraordinary about this story. Overall, there are quite a few kissing scenes to make viewers swoon. However, if you are hoping for something more steamy and matured like those scenes found in Well Dominated Love, then this drama will not fit the bill.
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