When I found out that Well Dominated Love (奈何boss又如何) is just another rom-com with a romance between the boss and his secretary, I’m kind of hesitant to watch it. But the good-looking actor and the relatively short drama make me change my mind. Well, 24 episodes is considered short for mainland drama standards as it is common to have simple stories that are over 30 episodes in length. Anyway, I find this rom-com to be not too bad overall although one should not expect too much as it is obviously not a big budget production. It is still an enjoyable watch if you can overlook a few things. I will try to detail both the drama’s strengths and flaws in the Well Dominated Love review below.
My rating: 7/10
Episodes: 24
Type: Romance
Aired: July 2020
Images Credit: MGTV
The Cast Of Well Intended Love
Lulu Xuan Lu as Nie Xing Chen
Xing Chen is a smart and hardworking secretary working for Zhao Yuan Fang, the owner of a company called Yuanda. She has a cheerful and confident personality. Xing Chen regards Yuan Fang as not only a boss but also a good friend. She comes from a working class family with parents who love her.
Eden Zhao Zhi Wei as Yan Jing Zhi
Jing Zhi is a rich man and President of the Bojue Group. He has a mild obsessive compulsive disorder and needs everything to be neat and orderly. He is also demanding as a boss and a workaholic. However, Jing Zhi suffers from a memory loss in which he has forgotten certain events from 5 years ago. He has a good friend in Han Zi Yu who is also his doctor.
Wang Qian as Zhen Nian
Zhen Nian is a celebrity and Jing Zhi’s friend. She is assertive and confident except when it comes to Jing Zhi whom she loves. She has been waiting for him for 5 years but her love remains unrequited.
Liu Yin Jun as Zhao Yuan Fang
Yuan Fang is the owner of Yuanda. He is seen as a playboy who is never serious. But Yuan Fang has pursued Xing Chen in the past but was rejected. Now, he is a loyal friend who always has her interest at heart.
Liu You Chang as Dr. Han Zi Yu
Zi Yu is a neurosurgeon. He is also Jing Zhi’s doctor and good friend. Zi Yu is a soft-spoken man who is uncomfortable with the opposite sex. The only female friend he has is his ex-classmate who is also his current colleague, Dr. Bai Xiao Qiao.
Jin Wen Xin as Tong Xin
Tong Xin is an intern at the Bojue Group’s President’s Office. She has a sweet and innocent personality. Tong Xin is a star chaser and her idol is a singer called J. Zi Yu becomes her second idol after she happens to meet him.
Zhao Zheng Yang as Director Huang Tao
Huang is Jing Zhi’s subordinate and heads the President’s Office. He is a loyal and hardworking subordinate but often misreads the situations in the office in a comical way.
Synopsis
Jing Zhi has just returned from the US and is a well-known corporate figure. He is the President of a conglomerate called Bojue Group. Being an obsessive compulsive person, he is a demanding man who likes things in a certain way. He also suffers from selected memory loss of events that happened 5 years ago. Jing Zhi is in discussion with Yuan Fang of Yuanda to buy their products. He meets Xing Chen who works for Yuan Fang and finds her capable and smart. She also seems to have an uncanny ability to know his personal likes and dislikes.
Jing Zhi is impressed with Xing Chen and tries to lure her to work for him at Bojue Group. Even with high pay and other benefits, Xing Chen refuses to move from Yuanda. Jing Zhi has a heightened sense of familiarity with Xing Chen but she strongly denies knowing him. This pushes Jing Zhi to acquire Yuanda. Yuan Fang gets absorbed into Bojue’s management while Xing Chen is forced to be Jing Zhi’s chief secretary. As they spend more time together, Jing Zhi is increasingly certain that Xing Chen is connected to his past in some ways.
Well Dominated Love Ending (Spoilers Alert!)
Well Dominated Love has a happy ending. The 3 couples end up together in the last episode. Jing Zhi and Xing Chen have their wedding ceremony. In fact, clips of their traditional wedding ceremony are inserted at the end of Episode 23. It should be satisfying for fans to be able to see more of the happy occasion as most romance dramas tend to rush over the wedding scene. You can check out my Well Dominated Love episode summary for a full drama recap.
Towards the end of Episode 24, viewers are taken one year down the road to see how to the couples are doing. Zi Yu and Tong Xin are already married. She is pregnant with the due date being the following month. Jing Zhi and Xing Chen already have a son. Jing Zhi prefers to be a househusband to take care of their baby for the time being. Xing Chen is the one doing his work in the office. Their son’s godparents are Yuan Fang and Zhen Nian. They are not married yet as Zhen Nian has rejected Yuan Fang’s proposal 3 times. She finally agrees to marry him in the last scene of the drama as he carries his godson and thinks the 3 of them look like a family.
Why Jing Zhi Loses His Memory
His mother’s attempted suicide when he was a kid resulted in a deep psychological impact on him. She had an unhappy marriage with Jing Zhi’s father which caused her to try to commit suicide by slashing her wrist. Jing Zhi witnessed the incident which was subconsciously buried within him. That emotional damage causes a disorder in his nerves which will shut down part of his memory when he is overstimulated in his indulgence in love.
Hence, he passed out and then lost his memory of his times with Xing Chen when he was proposing to her 5 years earlier. The same thing happens after he became intimate with her in their second romance. In other words, the memory loss could happen again and again. He ends up seeking treatment from a psychiatrist in Episode 19 after his mother’s revelations of her past. Jing Zhi regains his memory of 5 years ago in Episode 21 as reflections from a mirror trigger flashbacks.
Why Xing Chen Left Jing Zhi
Jing Zhi’s father was against their relationship due to the vast difference in their family’s status and wealth. He asked her to leave Jing Zhi but she refused. He also requested her to turn down Jing Zhi’s proposal. Xing Chen gave him their proposal location instead. She felt that she shouldn’t say no to the person she loves and his father should talk to his own son if he is against the relationship.
However, Jing Zhi’s father died in a car accident on the way to stop the proposal. Jing Zhi has also lost his memory by then. So, Xing Chen chose to leave him as she felt responsible for his father’s death. She also didn’t know how to face Jing Zhi with her guilt. When Jing Zhi asks for a reconciliation, Xing Chen finally learns that his father had changed his mind about their relationship on his death bed. They become a couple again after 5 years in Episode 11.
Xing Chen leaves Jing Zhi again in Episode 20. This time she does so because she realizes that it pains him to forget her. Jing Zhi is afraid that he will lose his memory again and loves Xing Chen too much to hurt her that way.
Well Dominated Love Review – Saved By A Few Positives
If I’m going to rate this rom-com based solely on the plot development, I would probably give this a different recommendation. But as it is, I would say that it is worth giving it a try. The story starts off well. Viewers are made aware that Jing Zhi has problems with his memory and Xing Chen is connected to him in some way very early on in the drama. So, there is that element of curiosity there of what happened to this couple 5 years ago. This is also part of the reason that made me chase after Well Dominated Love.
However, the reason Xing Chen left Jing Zhi is again an overused storyline. This is still fine with me as her decision is understandable. But the memory loss part then becomes kind of frustrating because it could happen again and again. In Love The Way You Are, viewers have a clear idea that the female lead has a strange disease right from the start. So, it doesn’t feel so annoying as you know what to expect. But in Well Dominated Love, it is thrown at viewers halfway through the drama. So, one might get the feeling of “Oh no, not again!” when Jing Zhi’s memory loss returns as the story progresses. Personally, the condition is bizarre and the plot is frustrating as the couple’s relationship then seems to be going in circles.
What Saves The Drama
What saves the drama for me though is the chemistry between the leads, fun and sweet side couples, and comedic scenes to bring out the smiles. Lulu Xuan and Eden Zhao managed to make Xing Chen and Jing Zhi into a compatible and beautiful looking couple. Their loving and intimate scenes are sweet and sizzling to watch respectively. Furthermore, it is hard to relate to an obsessive compulsive man who is so demanding but Eden Zhao successfully gives Jing Zhi a cute side to make it easier for viewers to fall in love with him. I guess his good looks help just as in Le Coup de Foudre to make him popular with the girls!
It is also rare for a romance drama to have viewers following closely the development of all the couples. For instance, most people can’t get enough of the main couple in Love Designer but the side couple is kind of forgettable. In Well Dominated Love, there is little urge to skip any of the scenes involving the side couples. Perhaps some might find Tong Xin to be immature and even a stalker but the fact that she is innocent and harmless also make it easy to love her.
Apart from the couples, Yuan Fang is fun with his not so serious character while Director Huang and his staff give us the funny scenes with their wrong guesses and assumptions. To me, the comedy is what makes this rom-com enjoyable and adds to the overall watchability.
Well Dominated Love vs Well Intended Love
If you find Well Dominated Love and Well Intended Love to have more or less the same flavor, this is because they share the same producer and director. I think the style is even more similar with Well Intended Love Season 2. Basically, they try to repeat the success formula of the Well Intended Love series in Well Dominated Love – a rich and good-looking male character falling in love with the female character with plenty of sweet scenes and passionate kisses to make viewers swoon.
If you have watched Well Intended Love, you will know that the plot is kind of bizarre. Well Dominated Love is not that far off either in my opinion with its strange recurring memory loss storyline. But one notable difference is that they have managed to take the comedy up a notch in Well Dominated Love. So, I would definitely prefer this more recent production over the earlier one.
My Verdict – Don’t Watch It For The Plot!
I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend a watch for Well Dominated Love. But its plot is not the selling point here. Instead, watch it for the comedy and couples’ great chemistry. Not many rom-coms can really make you laugh but this one has a supporting cast that did the job well to provide the funny moments. So, even if you can’t really relate to the main couple, you won’t feel bored either with the comedy. The other recent rom-com that has laugh out loud moments would be The Romance Of Tiger And Rose which is a costume drama.
For this Well Dominated Love review, I would give it a 7/10 rating. The plot is mediocre but fortunately, the other aspects managed to make up for it to make it watchable overall. It is lighthearted for most of the episodes with just a few teary scenes. However, those scenes don’t really weigh you down unlike a melodrama like Here To Heart. Also, if you like watching series without hateful antagonists à la Love 020, then this would be one of them. But if you prefer more angst and happenings for your dramas, then Well Dominated Love could well be a tad boring for you. Oh! And one last thing – the product placements for this drama are severely overdone. Be prepared for that little annoyance!
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