Fated To Love You – Review

I began watching Fated To Love You without high expectations. It sounded very Full House-esque with the trappings of a marriage contract slowly turning into love. The addition of the female lead becoming pregnant within the first episode perhaps sets the plot apart a little from other dramas following a similar vein, but I wasn’t expecting miracles from this drama.

After the first few episodes, however, I began thinking I’d been wrong. This drama had some really darn likeable characters. There was some convincing relationship-building going on. The humour actually succeeded in being funny, not simply slapstick. My gosh, was Fated To Love You going to become one of my favourite Taiwanese dramas of all time?

Well, no.

Before I start on the negativity, I want to commend the first half of the drama. It’s good. It’s REALLY good. It’s addictive type good, the type where I couldn’t wait to get home to watch the next episode. But then came the twist in around episode 10/11. Without giving away any spoilers, the course of the remainder of the drama is irrevocably altered, and the feel-good feeling is all gone. Our main lady, Xin Yi, decides to up sticks, away from Cun Xi who she can’t forgive. She moves to Shanghai with her long-time admirer, Dylan.

And that’s pretty much where I recommend you stop watching. Make up your own ending. Be creative. Come up with something heartwarming, conclusive and lovely for the leading pair. Whatever you decide on, I can guarantee it’ll be better than what the writer’s plucked from the discarded remnants on the editing room floor.

If I could sever off the last half of this drama like a gangrene-infested limb, I would. Gone is everything that had made the drama so wonderful and likable before. The charm of pretty much all of the characters is lost in their ‘transformation’ over the two years that the drama skipped. Naive, gentle Xin Yi becomes sassy, no-nonsense, with a career bitch haircut to match. Cun Xi wheedles his way into becoming needy, stupid, and, frankly, desperate at times. And how about the supporting characters? I don’t think even the writers knew what they were trying to say with Dylan and Anna. Is Dylan a well-meaning friend, or a serious love rival? Are we meant to feel sorry for Anna, or view her as a wolf in sheep’s clothing? By the end, the only characters that had remained consistent seemed to be Grandma, who is just lovable the whole way through.