Warm Meet You Review

Warm Meet You (暖暖遇见你) is another one of those mass produced rom-coms that are littered throughout Chinese dramaland. You know they are not going to be anything great but sometimes, you will still click that button and start watching. Perhaps it is the anticipation that this is going to be different or it is just an ideal time filler at that moment. Anyway, I sat through it somehow and all I can say is you won’t miss anything if you skip it. My Warm Meet You review below will have my rants on this drama.

My rating: 5.5/10
Episodes: 24 (30 minutes each)
Type: Romance
Aired: November 2022
Images Credit: MGTV Youtube

The Cast Of Warm Meet You

• Li Ge Yang as Gu Yi Chen
• Qi Yu Chen as Zhao Nuan Nuan
• Xu Ke as Sheng Qiao Nan
• Yu Cong as Fang Mi
• Gao Jun Jie as Zhao Ming Yang
• Wang Qian Guo as Wu Xin Ran

Main Characters

Gu Yi Chen

Yi Chen is the President of Z Mobile Games which is one of the top game development companies. He is a serious and aloof man who is allergic to a woman’s touch. He is also a neat freak. Yi Chen comes from a rich family but has a strained relationship with his father.

Zhao Nuan Nuan

Nuan Nuan is a 22-year-old manga artist with a dream to join Z Mobile Games to create her own characters for the company’s games. She is creative and has talent in drawing. Nuan Nuan considers herself to be an unlucky person but has a cheerful disposition.

Supporting Characters

Sheng Qiao Nan

Qiao Nan is Yi Chen’s personal assistant. They are also old friends from their student days. Qiao Nan knows everything about Yi Chen including his touch allergy. He is a capable and loyal assistant.

Fang Mi

Fang Mi is Qiao Nan’s junior during their university days. She has been in love with him for a long time and is not afraid to admit her feelings. She has just returned from abroad after graduation to work at Z Mobile Games to get close to Qiao Nan.

Zhao Ming Yang

Ming Yang is Nuan Nuan’s twin brother. He is a voice dubber for games animation clips. Ming Yang has a warm heart despite his constant bickering with his sister.

Wu Xin Ran

Xin Ran is an employee of Z Mobile Games. She has been working in the administrative department for 2 years. She is also Nuan Nuan’s senior at university as well as housemate.

Synopsis

Nuan Nuan is a manga artist who is rushing for an interview to land her dream job at Z Mobile Games. However, a run-in with Yi Chen who is the company’s President ends her chance of being recruited. While feeling down, she meets a mysterious man who gives her a pair of glasses which enables her to see the aura of people around her and find her other half. Nuan Nuan notices that Yi Chen has luck written all over him and a chance encounter propels her to try to touch the golden light oozing from his body.

Unbeknownst to her, Yi Chen has an allergic reaction to women’s touch and when she trips, her face lands on his bare chest. However, he finds that Nuan Nuan’s touch doesn’t trigger the allergy at all. With his father’s pressure for him to get hitched as well as Nuan Nuan’s potential ability to cure his allergy, Yi Chen offers her a contract to be his fake girlfriend. Given the enticing pay, Nuan Nuan agrees but gradually, the couple begin to fall in love with each other.

Warm Meet You Ending (Spoilers Alert!)

Warm Meet You has a happy ending. Yi Chen reconciles with his father and stepmother in Episode 23. He puts things behind him with Nuan Nuan’s encouragement. They also figured out that his allergy stemmed from a misconception that his stepmother is a villain who had hurt him and his mother. When Yi Chen apologizes to his father, he learns from him that his mother was suffering from depression. Her suspicion that his father was having an affair was misplaced. His father’s relationship with his stepmother didn’t take place until 3 years after his mother’s death.

In Episode 24, Nuan Nuan tells off Luo Yi about the meaning of love when the latter comes looking for Yi Chen. Luo Yi is still unwilling to give up and tries to takeover Z Mobile Games. But her efforts to steal Z Mobile Games project data is exposed during an event. Her wrongdoings are detailed out by Xiao Nan, Nuan Nuan, and Yi Chen. Even Shen Yan has his own evidence on her crimes as he believes in fair competition and also to protect Nuan Nuan. Yi Chen relaunches Z Mobile Games with investigations completed. They also launch Nuan Nuan’s project after some changes to showcase her creation against the one that Luo Yi has plagiarized.

Before the drama ends, Yi Chen tells Nuan Nuan that there is nothing magical about the glasses she was given. It is simply a pair of glasses for VR applications. What she has achieved and how they met are not luck but a result of effort and hard work.

When Did The Couple Get Together?

Yi Chen asks Nuan Nuan to be his fake girlfriend in Episode 5. Their relationship turns warmer in Episode 7 when Nuan Nuan turns up to support and comfort him after his quarrel with his father. She also kisses Yi Chen in front of his father at the end of Episode 7 to put on a show that they are really dating. In Episode 8, Yi Chen shares with Nuan Nuan his allergy problem. He also suggests that they break their contract and start all over again but a misunderstanding crops up in Episode 9 when she thinks he looks down on her talent and work.

Yi Chen apologizes to Nuan Nuan in Episode 10. He is also told by his doctor that it could be his feelings for Nuan Nuan that blocks the allergic reaction. Yi Chen feels jealous in Episode 11 when her mother sets her up on a date with Shen Yan from a rival company. Shen Yan is Nuan Nuan’s friend from childhood. However, Nuan Nuan rejects him knowing that he is only after her drawings.

Yi Chen asks Nuan Nuan not to treat him as a boss in Episode 12 and kisses her. He properly confesses to her in Episode 15 and they become a couple.

Is There Any Breakup?

The girl who has been in love with Yi Chen in the past returns from abroad to collaborate with a rival company in Episode 18. She is Luo Yi and she makes her feelings clear to him in Episode 19 but gets rejected. Shen then targets Z Mobile Games by stealing their works through unscrupulous means which implicates Nuan Nuan who is accused of selling her project to the rival company. Z Mobile Games is also being sued for copyright infringement and asks to withdraw their games.

Yi Chen asks Luo Yi out for a discussion. She tells him that she has been waiting for him for years and she has been deeply hurt that he left without saying goodbye in the past. Nuan Nuan is lured there by Shen Yan as instructed by Luo Yi and sees them together. She breaks up with Yi Chen in Episode 20. She is disappointed with him for hiding Luo Yi’s presence from her.

Luo Yi offers to help Yi Chen to save his company in Episode 21. He declines and rather closes the company temporarily to be investigated by the authorities and passes the management to Qiao Nan. He uses the time to pursue back Nuan Nuan and becomes a waiter in the same restaurant she is working in. In Episode 22, he explains to Nuan Nuan that Luo Yi is just a friend to him. They reconcile in Episode 23 after taking care of a baby together.

Yi Chen’s Past

Yi Chen’s past is fully revealed in Episode 15 when he narrates to Nuan Nuan what happened. On his 9th birthday, his father finally returned home after being away for 3 months due to work. But his parents ended up quarreling as his mother accused his father of having an affair with her best friend who was also his employee. His mother became agitated and pulled Yi Chen into the car and drove off.

They got into an accident and his mother died as a result. In her dying breath and with blood on her hand, she touched Yi Chen’s face and told him not to forgive his father and stepmother. After the accident, Yi Chen developed the touch allergy. During his hospitalization then, he met Nuan Nuan who was there due to tonsillitis. Yi Chen finds this out in Episode 21 while wandering in her room at her parents’ house and tells her about it in Episode 22 while trying to woo her back after a breakup.

In Episode 23, Nuan Nuan figures out that Yi Chen is not allergic to a female’s touch but to someone he subconsciously deems as being capable of hurting him. This happened as his stepmother was there beside him when his mother died in the accident and she becomes someone he sees as evil.

Side Couple No. 1

Fang Mi confesses to Qiao Nan again in Episode 7 but gets rejected. She does so a few more times throughout but her love is unrequited. But she refuses to give up. In Episode 18, Fang Mi brings him to a restaurant whereby he bumps his long lost mother. Qiao Nan is angry as his mother abandoned him when he was a kid to escape from a drunkard husband. He tells Fang Mi to give up as he hates being abandoned and he knows that their relationship will go nowhere. Hence, it is pointless to start one and she should leave.

Fang Mi advises Qiao Nan to let go of the past in Episode 22 as she wants him to be happy. She impulsively kisses him and tells him that she is probably confessing for the last time. Fang Mi is preparing to go back to the US in Episode 23 as she is tired of waiting for Qiao Nan to open up his heart. Qiao Nan chases her back while she is on her way to the airport in Episode 24. He confesses his love and they become a couple.

Side Couple No. 2

Ming Yang finds himself falling for Xin Ran in Episode 8 after she helped him to settle his studio rental problem. Xin Ran is also touched by Ming Yang’s care and concern for her. She ends up kissing him in Episode 10 while drunk and he responds to her kiss. But Xin Ran feels awkward the day after and tells Ming Yang that it was a mistake in Episode 11 which angers him.

Ming Yang gets into a fight with Xin Ran’s ex in Episode 15 when the latter bullies her. He then finds out from her that she is afraid of getting hurt again after the bad experience with her ex which is why she doesn’t want to start a relationship with him. She also fears hurting Ming Yang due to her negativity towards love. In Episode 17, a drunk Ming Yang confesses his feelings to Xin Ran and asks her to be with him.

Ming Yang keeps pursuing Xin Ran. In Episode 22, she tells him that she isn’t interested to start a relationship with someone younger and a best friend’s brother. She is also not interested in him. But he kisses her instead to prove otherwise and they become a couple. He proposes to her in Episode 24.

Warm Meet You Review – Another Copy & Paste Rom-Com

If you need your C drama to have certain standards, Warm Meet You will not pass muster. This is a very, very cliche rom-com with a plot that you have most probably seen before with a different title and cast lineup. The protagonists start off not liking each other which is definitely common. Then, they get into a contractual relationship due to some predictable reasons which makes you want to roll your eyes for its unoriginality. I can already list a few of such romance dramas off the top of my head including Time To Fall In Love, Once We Get Married, and Well Intended Love.

To make matters worse, the psychological disorder or allergy stemming from childhood plot has also been seen before. You can find that in About Is Love S1 and Use For My Talent. Therefore, the whole drama has a copy and paste feel to me. While the recycled plot is to be expected for this genre, then the only thing left to make it work will be to have the right cast and chemistry between the leads. This is how you make a low budget rom-com sell. Viewers are not going to expect eye-catching costumes, beautiful sceneries, and great cinematography for this kind of production. It really boils down to the leads to carry the drama which I think they fail to do.

Mediocre Acting

To me, Li Ge Yang doesn’t have the aura of a successful and cold CEO which the role requires. So, his acting is not convincing at all. That domineering trait is missing unlike the male leads in My Girlfriend Is An Alien S2 and Dine With Love. Perhaps the director is trying to package the character as a sensitive soul given his past but with a tough exterior. But it ends up being neither here nor there with the actor’s performance. Lu Ge Yang’s baby face also doesn’t help to project the character as someone matured, aloof, and feared by his subordinates.

Qi Yu Chen is better as the female lead. Well, at least, she is sweet to look at with her innocent big eyes. That gives the character the warmth and sincerity required for the role. But put the 2 leads together, and I cannot sense the blazing chemistry needed between them to make a successful cookie-cutter rom-com. They are okay as an on-screen couple but being average is not good enough if all they have is an overused rom-com plot.

Overall, the acting could be better and chemistry more palpable to the viewers. They have a few kisses in the short drama and even that they fail to capitalize on it to make viewers crave for more unlike the mini drama, Maid’s Revenge, which is also a low budget production.

Why You Might Still Watch It

Although Warm Meet You wouldn’t qualify as a drama that is worth binging on, it may still have some redeeming points to just give it a go. Firstly, it is a short rom-com averaging 30 minutes per episode for a total of 24 episodes. So, it is not too draggy for a simple plot. Secondly, there is plenty of scenes whereby you can just skip or fast forward. That will further cut down the time invested. You can then just watch the interesting bits. With a predictable plot, you will still be able to follow the story even if you skip scenes.

Thus, this is also a perfect drama to play in the background while you are doing something else. This is not My Deepest Dream whereby you need to concentrate to know what is going on. So, I guess this can be one of those titles that you choose when you are not going to be attentive. Lastly, the rom-com has multiple couples to divide up the screen time. If you don’t fancy one, there are still 2 more couples to follow for the drama to be worth your while.

My Verdict – Don’t Bother!

Overall, I would say forget this drama. Warm Meet You is not going to make you swoon or ship the couple. This is no Lighter And Princess or You Are My Glory. It is also not anything you haven’t seen before if you have been watching Chinese dramas for a while. Unless you are really, really into contractual relationship stories, this is not going to leave an impression on you in any way.

The plot holes are glaring and annoying. For instance, a quarrel between father and son in a company function sees the heroine turning up within minutes when she was at home at the time the quarrel started. Bear in mind she still needed to get the gown and dressed up to get to the function. The lead up to the ending also feels forced and oversimplified.

I know one cannot expect too much from this kind of production. Hence, the bar needs to be set very low for this one especially when the acting and chemistry are not enticing to the viewers. Perhaps it has its place as a filler drama when you are waiting for better titles to come along. But I won’t recommend it given its rehashed plot. For this Warm Meet You review, a 5.5/10 score is the maximum that I would give. A cold CEO with his fake girlfriend story without sizzling chemistry is just going to be bland and uninspiring all the way.