I have put off watching Well Intended Love (奈何BOSS要娶我) for nearly a year as the plot isn’t that attractive to me. But its continued popularity pulled me in and I gave it a go recently. Do I regret watching? Well, you can check out my Well Intended Love review below for details but suffice to say that it is kind of a love it or hate it drama because of the storyline. I guess there must be many more people who love it than hate it because there is a Season 2 coming up. This is also one of the reasons why I decided to sit through this in one weekend.
Episodes: 20
Type: Romance
Aired: January 2019
Images Credit: Tencent
The Cast
- Xu Kai Cheng as Ling Yi Zhou
- Simona Wang Shuang as Xia Lin
- Ian Yi Po Chen as Chu Yan
- Huang Qian Shuo as Wen Li
- Yang Hao Ming as Nan Jin Tian / Ah Nan
- Liu Jia Xi as Jia Fei
- Sun Jia Qi as An Ran
- Chen Xin Ru as Yang Tong / Tong Tong
- Hou Pei Jie as Chu Fu
- He Qian Ying as Xiao You
The Main Characters
Ling Yi Zhou
Yi Zhou is the CEO of Ling Shi Corporation. He is 29 and a workaholic. Abandoned by his mother when he was 8 and raised by a cold father, he is a controlling man who is not interested in relationships until he meets Xia Lin. Yi Zhou’s best friend is Chu Yan.
Xia Lin
Xia Lin is a young actress trying to secure small roles in films and dramas. She has her principles and tries hard to succeed. She is in the same artiste management company as Chu Yan. Her best friend who is also her housemate is Jia Fei.
Chu Yan
Chu Yan is an actor with lots of fans. He comes from a rich family but has an estranged relationship with his father who is always trying to control his life. His mother left him and his father when he was very young. Chu Yan is a childhood friend of Yi Zhou and they treat each other like brothers.
Wen Li
Wen Li is Yi Zhou’s personal assistant. He is very dedicated to Yi Zhou and will do everything as requested. This gives others the impression that he is in love with his boss.
Nan Jin Tian / Ah Nan
Ah Nan is Yi Zhou’s neighbor. He also comes from a rich family and is acquainted with An Ran.
Jia Fei
Jia Fei is Xia Lin’s best friend and they share the same apartment. She is a scriptwriter and often dishes out love advice to Xia Lin.
An Ran
An Ran is Yi Zhou and Chu Yan’s childhood friend. She is in love with Yi Zhou but he only treats her as a sister. An Ran’s family runs an entertainment company and she is used to getting what she wants even if she has to resort to using evil means.
Yang Tong / Tong Tong
Tong Tong is Xia Lin’s personal assistant. She comes from a poor family who is laden with debt due to her irresponsible father. Xia Lin takes pity on her and hires her as her assistant.
Chu Fu
Chu Fu is Chu Yan’s father. He is always trying to set up Chu Yan with the daughters from wealthy families for business purposes. However, his son doesn’t care for his controlling ways. They are always fighting to the point that he seems to hate his son.
Xiao You
Xiao You is a food delivery personnel. She is a witty and street-wise young woman who knows how to take advantage of a situation.
Synopsis
Xia Lin is rushing to go for an audition and mistakenly gets into Yi Zhou’s car. She wrongly assumes that it is the ride that she has requested. Actually, Yi Zhou is there to wait for Chu Yan to go to the same place. Chu Yan is one of the judges for the audition. When Chu Yan gets left behind because of Xia Lin, he already doesn’t have a good impression on her. The audition makes it worse and both of them starts out on the wrong footing.
Having failed to get the role and then finding out that her boyfriend has been cheating on her with a college mate, Xia Lin faints and ends up in hospital. She is diagnosed with leukemia. Xia Lin finds out that she has a suitable bone marrow donor in Yi Zhou. So, she tries to convince Yi Zhou to be her savior with the help of Jia Fei. Yi Zhou agrees on the condition that she marries him. It is a win-win situation as Yi Zhou claims that he is too busy to date and needs a partner to please his grandmother while Xia Lin needs him to cure her leukemia.
When Chu Yan and An Ran find out about their relationship, both are not happy. This makes Xia Lin thinks Chu Yan might be gay and in love with Yi Zhou while An Ran is jealous. So, what will happen to their contract marriage? Is it as simple as it seems and will they be able to overcome the odds and stay together? You can read the Well Intended Love episode summary for a full recap if you are interested in a more detailed storyline.
Well Intended Love Ending (Spoilers Alert!)
Being a romance drama, it is predictable for Well Intended Love to have a happy ending. Xia Lin is pregnant and goes into labour on their second wedding anniversary. Then, Yi Zhou is shown babysitting their son in the office before meeting Xia Lin to give viewers an impression of family bliss. So, their contract marriage did work out after all despite the way Yi Zhou has tricked Xia Lin into marrying him with the false leukemia diagnosis. Wen Li also proposes to Jia Fei and she accepts. Chu Yan and Xiao You end up being close to each other as their world collides.
Who Is Xiao You?
Xiao You does food delivery and bumps into Chu Yan when he is escaping from his kidnappers. She needs money initially because her mother is stricken with cancer. Her father is a tycoon who had abandoned her and her mother years earlier for a rich woman. However, the woman is barren and her father has been trying to get her back as his daughter.
When Chu Yan’s relationship with his father improves after he was thought to have died, he tries to help him in the family business. So, Chu Yan agrees to meet a businessman’s daughter as a duty and she turns out to be Xiao You who is just as reluctant to be forced into a blind date. Although Xiao You and Chu Yan is not officially announced as a couple in the drama, the indications are that they are close to and care for each other.
Did Chu Yan Expresses His Feelings For Xia Lin?
No, Chu Yan kept his feelings hidden all the way to the end as he knows he shouldn’t fall for his best friend’s wife. Chu Yan’s hate turns into admiration and love as he interacts more and more with Xia Lin. He also knows that Xia Lin only loves Yi Zhou. While Xia Lin suspects Chu Yan has feelings for her at one point, he denies it to keep things light and friendly between them. Yi Zhou knows his friend has feelings for his wife though but they trust each other and there is no animosity between them. The appearance of Xiao You towards the end also takes the edge off Chu Yan’s feelings for Xia Lin.
What Happened To An Ran And Ah Nan?
An Ran is arrested for her involvement in an arson and Chu Yan’s kidnapping. She also hypnotized Yi Zhou after his accident to get him to forget Xia Lin. Towards the end, she is still bitter and refuses to reveal Ah Nan as the main instigator when Xia Lin goes missing.
Ah Nan is actually Yi Zhou’s stepbrother. Yi Zhou’s mother left her husband to marry Ah Nan’s father when Yi Zhou was 8 years old. Ah Nan’s own mother died because of an illness which was aggravated by his father’s extra marital affair with Yi Zhou’s mother. Therefore, he hates Yi Zhou’s mother. He wanted to hurt Yi Zhou through Xia Lin because he thought that would make his stepmother suffer. He gets Tong Tong to help him as he has paid off her debts in the past and she admires him.
Ah Nan wrongly assumes that Yi Zhou’s mother still loves her own son very much. However, Yi Zhou’s mother is only putting up a front to gain control of Ling Shi Corporation for her husband. When his initial plan to kill Xia Lin fails and he didn’t get the satisfaction of seeing Yi Zhou’s mother suffer, he kidnaps Xia Lin again to try to force Yi Zhou into cooperating with him to take revenge against his stepmother. But the police came after Chu Yan raised the alarm that Xia Lin has gone missing. Ah Nan is shot by the police and arrested while trying to negotiate with Yi Zhou as he holds Xia Lin hostage.
Well Intended Love Review – Watch It With An Open Mind
I can understand why Well Intended Love is a hit drama and we are getting a sequel. It is sweet in its own way with great chemistry between the male and female lead. There is romance and there are also quite a few kisses to make you swoon. I don’t think the number of kisses can match The Love By Hypnotic but there is certainly enough to delight romance drama fans.
However, Yi Zhou’s character has its flaws as he is used to controlling and manipulating others to get what he wants, especially with the wealth that he has. If you can ignore this bit about him, then you will be able to appreciate his love for Xia Lin. The antics of this cute couple is both sensual and sweet and this is what carries this drama through. It doesn’t have the innocence of Go Go Squid! to make it feel cheesy and neither does it drag out too much with the push and pull feeling you would get with Here To Heart. In these areas, I think they did get the balance right.
Ian Yi as Chu Yan is interesting to watch too. Chu Yan falling for Xia Lin is predictable though. What is not expected is his decision to keep his feelings buried because I would have thought a confession would spice things up between him and Yi Zhou. One-sided love confession is typical is many romance dramas such as Lucky’s First Love but we don’t find this common plot in Well Intended Love.
My Overall Verdict
In fact, I think it is the plot twists that would make or break this drama for you. It is either you can accept it and continue watching or hate it that it makes no sense. The story can seem over the top and in reality, you can bet that no woman would tolerate this kind of trickery from their man. It is cruel no matter how much he claims to love you. The identity of Ah Nan is also a surprise but his actions do seem farfetched as well. He hates his stepmother but takes it out on her son’s wife who regards him as a friend. It is kind of surreal that he wants to kill Xia Lin to make Yi Zhou miserable who in turn would cause his mother to suffer.
So, if you want to enjoy Well Intended Love, you have to watch it with an open mind. You must not question the plot too much and just go ahead to savor the sweetness dish out by the couple. I know many people would not be able to accept the bizarre plot twist to continue watching. This key turning point is halfway through the drama in episode 10. So, be aware that you would have watched half of this drama by the time the plot twist hits you in the face.
For this Well Intended Love review, I would rate it as average. It is far from being on the must-watch list but it has its saving grace in the sweetness level of the couple. Ignore the plot and you will enjoy it more. But if you need a good storyline to go with your romance, then this would highly likely be a potential disaster. So, watch at your own risk!
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