Disclaimer: this is a review, and as such it contains spoilers of the whole series. Please proceed to read at your own risk if you still plan on watching this show or if you haven’t finished it yet. You have been warned.
Flipped
( 喜欢你时风好甜 / Xi Huan Ni Shi Feng Hao Tian / I Like You When The Wind Is Sweet)
MyDramaList rating: 7.0/10
Hey all! It’s time for one last review before the month is over. Honestly, I’m in a very busy period as I have an important entrance test in a couple of days, but I was nearing the end of this show rapidly and I really didn’t want to wait a full week to finish the final episode and write this review… so here I am, slacking off from my studying for just one day. I don’t think this review will be very long as it’s a fairly simple story. All in all, I liked it. I thought it was refreshing and original, the humor was good and I liked the characters. Of course I have several things to say about it, I always do, but this will be a fairly positive review. I previously mixed up this title with the Japanese drama Switched and I’m glad to say the two are nothing alike. I remember seeing a short scene from the first episode somewhere and putting it on my list as it looked cute. It’s been a while since I became so giddy about a main couple’s chemistry, so that was definitely one of its major bonus points for me. I also liked how they wrapped up the story without leaving too many loose ends, although I did find the ending a bit confusing.
Flipped is a 24-episode C-Drama with episodes lasting about 25 minutes each, and that’s excluding the opening and ending sequences as they take about 5 minutes off the total duration. (Honestly, I’m used to lengthy OP/ED themes in Chinese dramas but the ending sequence here was 4 minutes long and even for C-Dramas I think that is a lot.) This love story with a fantastical twist is about the romance between Qi Xun (played by Gao Han Yu), the founder and chief architect of the architectural design company MIST, and Feng Shuang Shuang (played by Chen Yu Mi/Charlene Chen), a painter who starts working at MIST as a project designer.
Qi Xun has been living with his younger sister Qi Tian (played by Lin Yan Rou) after they lost their parents in a terrible car accident, and after this accident somehow the siblings gained supernatural powers. Qi Xun is able to teleport anywhere as long as he’s been there before or has a picture of the place, and Qi Tian has become clairvoyant, troubled by visions and foretelling dreams. She even has the ability to see into the future, but this takes a big toll on her health. Qi Xun has been starting to feel the side effects of his powers as well. Together with his loyal friend Shi Lang (played by Sun Ke Jie/Jack Sun), he is looking for a way to cure Qi Tian and finds out that besides ‘talented’ like themselves, there are also ‘healers’ who exist to ease the pain of the ‘talented’. A lead to a renowned healer teleports Qi Xun to an art gallery where he meets Shuang Shuang for the first time. Just before this encounter, Qi Tian has another vision and tells her brother that a lady who is a painter will take away his first kiss. Shuang Shuang is a freelance painter who has already provided some artworks to MIST before, and when she’s offered an official contract to work at the company Qi Xun is somehow drawn to her instinctively. Once he establishes the assumption that Shuang Shuang is, in fact, a healer, he initially approaches her with the objective of getting her to cure his sister, but his feelings quickly develop into something more.
What I liked right off the bat was that the relationship between Qi Xun and Shuang Shuang developed so naturally. Although an accidental kiss like theirs in the first episode would’ve sent a regular drama heroine slapping the guy in the face and asking him what the hell he thinks he’s doing, Shuang Shuang immediately goes🤭🤭 and instantly tries to figure out whether he really likes her or not. Although Qi Xun does give her some mixed signals in the beginning -and that’s only because he’s still figuring out whether he’s drawn to her because she’s a healer or because of ~twue love~-, he confirms his feelings to her in episode 8 (which, going by the length of the episodes, feels quite fast) and they build it up nicely until halfway through the show. Their romance developed so naturally and cutely and I loved their chemistry. Especially those kissing scenes, those got me like 👀 because the passion between them was so clear from the start.
In terms of build-up in general, I think it was very nicely written. They built up the adorable blossoming of Qi Xun and Shuang Shuang’s relationship, and then halfway through there’s a turning point when Shuang Shuang becomes aware of her powers in regards to Qi Tian for the first time, doubt comes in regarding Qi Xun’s motives for approaching her, and a new character is introduced. The opening and ending themes also changed halfway through, suddenly adding a more melancholic and somber tone to the series as the truth about the whole situation comes to light. You could definitely divide the show up in two parts, not only based on the OP/ED sequences but also on the developments in the story.
Before I go on, I need to introduce a couple more important side characters, first of all surrounding Shuang Shuang. When we first meet her, she’s run away from home and, more importantly, from her father, Feng Yun (played by Miao Zi Jie). After her mother disappeared when she was still very young, her father has been extremely protective of her, even to the point of locking her up in the house. She was never allowed to go outside or even play with kids her own age, and it took her years to finally escape and try to make her own life without his obstruction. When the story starts, she is hiding from him and when he finds the apartment building she lives in, Shuang Shuang is able to hide with the help of her new neighbor Kun Lan (played by Gu Lan Di). Kun Lan has just moved into the same building as her and seems to have ulterior motives of approaching Shuang Shuang. It’s hinted that he already knows who she is and that he’s bent on watching over her for some reason. After helping her out a couple of times, he reveals to her that they met before as kids, when Shuang Shuang was locked up in her house and they played together even though there was a window separating them. How he’s come to find her and why he’s so determined to stay by her side is revealed when we find out Kun Lan comes from a line of ‘protectors’ or ‘guardians’ who are sworn to protect ‘healers’. The question of why healers need protection is answered when we find out the truth about Shuang Shuang’s mom, Xun Xue (Hong Zi Han), the renowned female doctor Qi Xun also learned about. It really seems that every power has a price, and it’s kind of cruel to think that no one asked for these powers and some didn’t even know about them. ‘The talented’ suffer from exerting their powers and need ‘healers’ to cure them, the ‘healers’ suffer from exerting their powers and need ‘guardians’ to protect them.
In any case, Kun Lan is set on staying with Shuang Shuang and as he seems to already have feelings for her by the time they actually meet as adults, it just feels like the perfect arrangement for him to have her stay at his place while she’s hiding from her father. However, Shuang Shuang only sees him as a good friend and she’s already starting to fall for Qi Xun at this point. Heck, she and Qi Xun have already started dating while Kun Lan is also trying to act like a boyfriend to Shuang Shuang.
At some point Shuang Shuang finally manages to come eye to eye with her father and they make up, although I personally didn’t think she needed to apologize for being inconsiderate towards him in the way he raised her because it definitely was excessive to lock her up like that. When Feng Yun becomes aware of the two men hovering around his daughter, he gets suspicious. He seems to know more about the situation and feels that Shuang Shuang would be better off away from these people. We find out in the end that he is very scared that she’ll turn out the same way as her mother, his wife Xun Xue the healer, who ended up losing her life because of exerting her powers.
About this, I have to also introduce the side plot involving He Zheng Chang. He Zheng Chang (played by Zhu Wen Chao) is introduced as a suspicious-looking delivery man who delivers a package to Shuang Shuang’s apartment. He keeps popping up and is even shown having photos of all the main characters pinned on a wall in his hideout. His story is revealed in bits and pieces, but what it comes down to is that he and his older brother (played by the same actor with greying hair) were suffering from an incurable disease that would make them age much faster than usual. They came to Xun Xue for help but she refused to cure them, and he saw his brother gradually succumb to desperation. On a night when he knew his brother would visit Xun Xue again to try and persuade her, a fire broke out at Xun Xue’s house and they both perished. Although Zheng Chang didn’t see what actually happened to them, he just knew his brother was there and assumed that Xun Xue must’ve killed him. Ever since then, he’s held an insatiable grudge towards Xun Xue and her family, and strives to find her and take revenge on her, convinced she must still be alive as they never found her body in the debris. He first goes after Feng Yun, but then starts going after Shuang Shuang as well. A friend of his, Jian Bai (Yao Mi) also works at MIST and reluctantly helps him get access to Shuang Shuang’s phone, but during the climax in which Zheng Chang tries to kill both Feng Yun and Shuang Shuang, she steps in and manages to make him see clearly that his revenge won’t solve anything, as Xun Xue is already gone and there’s no one left to take vengeance on.
This is pretty much the only ‘extreme’ side plot of the series, the rest of it just focusses on the relationship between Qi Xun and Shuang Shuang and the impending fate of Qi Tian, who grows weaker by the day.
Speaking of Qi Tian, let’s talk about her some more. Depicted as a fragile little princess -Qi Xun doesn’t even like the idea of her walking around on her own two feet- Qi Tian is the embodiment of someone who’s a victim of her powers. She hasn’t asked for them, they just come to her and weaken her without mercy. While she manages to stay unyieldingly cheerful and positive and occasionally even neglects the dangers of her powers –she tends to go ‘just one little peak won’t hurt’ while she’s been told time and time again that looking into the future will only shorten her already short lifespan– the ending reveals that she’s aware of much more than she’s let on. She finds out what will happen to her by herself, and also realizes that in order to save her, Shuang Shuang will have to sacrifice her own life. The fact that even Qi Xun didn’t know this until after Qi Tian had already taken her fate into her own hands and disappeared just showed how little was known about everyone’s powers and how they existed opposite each other. It’s not like there was a manual or some written rules on how things worked, it was clear that no one knew about all the ins and outs of the matter.
After guiding her brother in the direction of Shuang Shuang, Qi Tian also starts seeing visions of herself and Kun Lan, and as soon as she meets him in real life she convinces herself that they must be meant to be as well. She immediately sets her eyes on him and approaches him, even though Kun Lan only has eyes for Shuang Shuang. Shi Lang watches Qi Tian fawn over Kun Lan with envy and sorrow, as it’s clear from the start that he harbors more-than-brotherly feelings for her himself, but still he doesn’t get in their way as he claims Qi Tian’s happiness means everything to him.
I found it pretty interesting that they showed the relativity of Qi Tian’s visions in the way her relationship with Kun Lan developed. She approaches him after seeing him in her visions and just assumes they’re meant to be together, but Kun Lan never actually returns her feelings. He acknowledges them, and it’s clear that despite his initial aversion towards her he does come to care about her a bit, but he never actually becomes the kind of person to her that she envisions. I actually thought it was pretty refreshing that they didn’t go for the obvious choice to make him fall for her after all and prove her visions right. Her visions with him still came true, but only because Qi Tian took the initiative herself in performing those activities with him in order to make her visions come true. I also liked that there were a couple of scenes that she foresaw that then happened afterwards without her or anyone else witnessing it. It was as if her visions were more meant for us, the viewers, to go ‘ohhh, this is the scene that she foresaw!’ when it came around. On the other hand, the scene in which she saw herself laid out in the setting she first assumed would be her wedding was never shown, we never see Kun Lan and Shi Lang meet up there to commemorate her. I liked how they played with the credibility and relativity of those predictions, and how they showed that her idyllic visions of her and Kun Lan together turned out differently from what they initially seemed.
Going back to some other important side characters, there’s Du Wan Tian (played by Wang Si Ping/Jenna Wang). Wan Tian is MIST’s co-founder and Qi Xun’s longtime friend. They’ve known each other for ages and built up MIST together. At the company, she’s known as the ‘Iron Lady’ for her unyielding personality, but when it comes to her feelings for Qi Xun, she’s really just like any other woman with a one-sided crush. She becomes a mentor to Shuang Shuang despite her envy towards her for being at the receiving end of Qi Xun’s feelings. I actually liked her character, despite her tendency to become a bit petty towards Shuang Shuang at some points. I liked how mature she was in separating her personal feelings from her professional ones. I even wrote down a quote of hers from one of the first episodes, in which she and Qi Xun were talking about Shuang Shuang’s capabilities to stay at the company. “I may have come from a wealthy family and I can easily get what I want, but I will never deny anyone’s hard work for my own agenda. I know how hard it is to try and hold onto a dream.” Despite her initial disapproval of Shuang Shuang (seriously, when she went all out on her saying she had ‘low academic qualifications, low capabilities, a problematic work attitude and lack of basic professionalism’ after she’d literally been there for ONE day🙄), and her pettiness towards her when Qi Xun officially rejected her feelings for him, Wan Tian did prove herself to be bigger than that and she even took over MIST entirely when Qi Xun took time off to deal with his personal circumstances surrounding his sister.
Lastly, we need to talk about Shen Tong. Shen Tong (played by Han Sheng Sheng/Dara Hanfman) is introduced halfway through the show and it’s first hinted that she is also a ‘healer’. We see her taking care of a young boy in a hospital and easing his pain. Shuang Shuang meets her when she ends up in the same hospital after fainting from using her powers on Qi Tian for the first time. The two hit it off well and Shuang Shuang immediately feels like she’s known Shen Tong from before. Shen Tong’s character seems a little ambiguous at first since she’s nice to Shuang Shuang but at the same time tries to seduce and even blackmail Qi Xun into getting intimate with her in exchange for saving his sister instead of Shuang Shuang. She’s also seen with Kun Lan a couple of times, when he offers to protect her as a ‘guardian’. In the end, it turns out she’s not actually a ‘healer’ but another ‘talented’, with the ability to paralyze others, also in terms of taking away people’s pain. We find out that she’s lost the love of her life in the final couple of episodes and she ends up donating her own heart to the young boy in the hospital.
All in all, there’s only a small group of characters including the supporting cast and I think it was enough to establish a meaningful story without too many distracting side plots. Characters like Zheng Chang, Wan Tian and Shen Tong all contributed to the main characters’ storyline in their own way. There’s just a couple of things I want to mention that slightly annoyed or confused me, but apart from that I thought everything came together quite nicely.
I’d like to give some more detailed comments on all the main characters before I go on to my analysis. First of all, my girl Shuang Shuang. Honestly, I was so happy with her character. I loved that she wasn’t a typical drama heroine as in that she was passive or just went along with whatever other people were expecting and asking of her. She seemed to be a really easygoing and simple person and I noticed she naturally smiled a lot. But the aspects that made me like her so much all had to do with the fact that she took no BS. She stood up for herself, she stuck to her own boundaries and she came out with her feelings towards confusing situations very directly. I loved how she just went to Qi Xun to eliminate any doubts or confusions about their relationship, and I also liked that when she heard about Qi Xun’s initial ulterior motives, her first instinct wasn’t to immediately avoid him but to actually talk to him and confirm it herself. When she confronted Qi Xun after hearing him (drunk) talk to Shi Lang, she conveyed her hurt and disappointment in him so clearly that she literally left him speechless. He didn’t have a single thing to say to defend himself because she was so in the right and her feelings were so valid, and this was the case throughout the entire show. In contrast to Qi Xun himself, it seemed like she was way more steady in her feelings, she made sure she had nothing to apologize for to him, she made her feelings clear from the start and she also cared about not ruining her relationship with Kun Lan after he confessed to her. Even when others warned her about not getting too close to Qi Xun/Kun Lan/Shen Tong, she always went ‘they’re good people and I’m going to talk to them myself’ and she never let anyone walk over her. With the exception of some situations at work, for example when she got scolded for that presentation mistake while it wasn’t her fault, she tended to apologize before trying to defend herself, but then when Qi Xun would scold her in private she’d be like ‘are you kidding me?’. She knew when to apologize even if something wasn’t her fault and that made her very professional. I liked how her hobby of painting never fully disappeared from her storyline, until the final episode she’s seen painting in her room. As dramas sometimes tend to forget about such characteristics and traits throughout a show, I was glad at least this remained consistent. She stood up for herself, she protected her own values and on the other hand she also let love in very easily. If she were real I would’ve wanted to be friends with her.
For Qi Xun, he was initially established as a very stoic and anti-social guy, he never let anyone get close to him or his sister and he always tended to keep away from engaging in personal contact with people. However, the way he was drawn to Shuang Shuang was just so natural and it immediately brought such a silly and adorable side out of him that I couldn’t help liking him. Shuang Shuang just immediately caught him off guard and I’m glad they added such a comical side to his otherwise stern character. I really folded over some of his facial expressions and the way he started bending over backwards for Shuang Shuang. At some points I did find him a little dramatic, like when Shuang Shuang confronted him after overhearing him drunk-talking to Shi Lang about why he approached her. Instead of immediately explaining that by then his feelings for her were real he was just standing there clenching his fists and jaw and slapping himself and crying, and I was like, bro, pull yourself together. I also found him a bit dramatical in his decision to just disappear from Shuang Shuang’s life in the end and the way he started gross-sobbing after that one postcard. It just felt like he made things very big in his mind while he could’ve just leaned on Shuang Shuang’s support in those moments. However, all in all I thought he made for a very original male lead character. I liked that they gave him multiple layers and the way they all came out fuelled by his increasing love for Shuang Shuang. Bro really got it bad. I think he was put in a very relatable dilemma when it came to protecting his sister and then falling for the person who could possibly save her, and that was even before he found out that he’d eventually had to choose between the two of them. I feel like a whole new world of emotions opened up for him and he had to get accustomed to that.
As I mentioned before, I really LIVED for the chemistry between Qi Xun and Shuang Shuang. Their kissing scenes were all pure fire and the way they came together and opened up to each other so naturally was really nice to see. Their relationship and chemistry was definitely one of the highlights in this series for me, whenever they had a scene together I would just be like😳😳because I knew there was going to be another passionate kiss at some point. I really enjoyed watching their performance together, it completely drew me in. I have to admit that I was in a kind of delulu-state myself while watching this drama, so that definitely helped in making me feel extra giddy during their scenes together, haha.
Kun Lan was that typical second male lead character that we all love for being an absolute puppy to the female lead, but we also know from the start that he’s not going to make his way into her heart like that. I really loved him in his friendship and loyalty towards Shuang Shuang, the way he helped her get away from her father and the way his first priority was always to make sure she was safe. He did get a little bit selfish in his feelings for her, for example in the fact that he just assumed she would be happy with him and claimed that he was the only one who could make her happy. I generally dislike this claim because I believe personal happiness exclusively comes from within and no one is ever fully able to make another person happy. But his feelings came from a good place and that was most important.
I did go😒 when he tried to convince Shuang Shuang of Qi Xun’s bad intentions while he should’ve known how serious Qi Xun was about her, but I also appreciated how besides that he never actively tried to sabotage their relationship, and he took a (quite literal) step back when he finally saw that Shuang Shuang would never see him as anything more than just a good friend. To leave without a personal goodbye to her, though, that also kind of hurt and I could tell that Shuang Shuang had mixed feelings as by then she knew about his true feelings for her and she must’ve known the reason he’d decided to take a distance had something to do with the fact that she couldn’t reciprocate his feelings. I would’ve liked them to remain good friends, but I’m not exactly sure if Kun Lan was planning to keep in touch, even after taking a break.
I also liked that he at least became a bit more considerate towards Qi Tian, despite continuously rejecting her feelings. I sometimes felt like he was a bit harsh, but on the other hand I also thought it was good of him to set his boundaries with her, all the more when he realized how she felt about him. He also probably wanted to protect her from falling even deeper and ending up heartbroken because he hadn’t been clear enough or something. He still acknowledged how much it meant to her and still went on all those activities with her, and I also believe he did feel hurt when she said goodbye to him on that beach. It would’ve been nice if he could’ve started reciprocating her feelings at some point, but I also thought it was more real that he ended up not falling for her at all, because it would’ve been very predictable if they’d ended up together because of Qi Tian’s visions. I liked the scene where they started saving snails together, that was really cute.
Can I just say that I LOVED the dynamic between Qi Xun and Kun Lan? I actually got Goblin/Grim Reaper vibes from them at times. The way they competed for Shuang Shuang and how that resulted in bromance-bordering moments, even though the both of them kept denying any kind of budding affection for one another. I really liked how they would just go😑😒at each other, but in the end they still managed to maintain at least some sort of comradery, without ever speaking the actual words, of course. I really liked their dynamic in trying to one-up each other and those repeating situations of them going for the same foods to put on Shuang Shuang’s plates really sent me.
I already talked a bit about Qi Tian, but I just want to mention that I liked the fact that they didn’t make her a complete stereotype either. She seemed to be the typical fragile little princess with a terrible curse, who kept getting herself into trouble by constantly neglecting the immediate danger of it. She wasn’t even personally involved in her brother’s search for a ‘healer’ and I don’t think she actually asked for one either. In the end, she seemed to be much wiser than she got credit for. I believe that she knew her condition very well, maybe she didn’t actually expect to die so soon until she saw that vision but she had gotten accustomed to her powers and always tried to see the good sides in it. I loved how excited she was when she started seeing visions of her brother finding a love of his own, she really wanted him to be happy and stop running away from living his own life in order to watch over her.
I saw her approaching Kun Lan going either way, and although it was too bad she didn’t end up having her own imagined fairytale wedding, I did think it was powerful to have her face up to the reality of her visions and that just because she saw something didn’t automatically mean it would happen like that. I also really wondered about the genuinity of her feelings for Kun Lan because it initially seemed to be completely based on the fact that she saw him in her visions and she therefore limited the possibilities of someone else being her ‘one and only’. I would’ve liked it if she at least acknowledged Shi Lang’s feelings for her once, because I really felt like she did my guy a bit dirty. While her decision to take herself out of the equation to erase her brother’s painful dilemma of who to save, I still thought it was a bit hurtful of her to just leave like that without even a personal message to Qi Xun. Besides that, she was absolutely lovely and it was really sad that she had such a cruel fate waiting for her.
As I mentioned I was watching this drama a bit sporadically in-between studying and making weekly homework, so while I was really invested in the beginning, in the middle there was more space in-between my watches and I feel like I’ve already forgotten about some events that happened in the beginning of the show. I actually partially rewatched the first episode to remind myself of how exactly Qi Xun came to approach Shuang Shuang. I just want to jot down a couple of scenes that I remember that made me feel certain ways, and I hope it all fits coherently in what I’ve written so far. I will probably go over it again next week when I have more time to see if everything makes sense, lol. (Edit: I did go over it again👍🏻.)
First of all, I want to talk about the part where Shuang Shuang had to prove herself as an asset to MIST, after she first made a mistake during a presentation, which wasn’t even her fault as she was using someone else’s laptop and they should’ve just closed all their tabs properly. She gets to go on a field trip with the designing team to look at the construction of a care home. By this time, rumors about her and Qi Xun were already going around and I really disliked the female colleague that Shuang Shuang had to share a room with. She just went on and on about wanting to know the details about her relationship with Qi Xun AND Kun Lan (as he’d been driving Shuang Shuang to work and had brought the team food a couple of times, making them suspect he was her boyfriend) and I loved how Shuang Shuang just shut her down. Again, I loved this part so much I wrote it down. “First of all, the boy who sent the steamboat (Kun Lan) is my friend. He is neither my boyfriend nor some rich businessman. Secondly, my relationship with Mr. Qi is the same as yours. I am an employee of MIST. Thirdly, I came here for work. I have no obligation to expose any aspect of my personal life to you to fulfill your gossip needs. Please put a halt to your imagination.” 👏🏻 👏🏻 👏🏻 I loved how she set her boundaries and stood up for herself there.
The next day after visiting the care home, it suddenly starts pouring and when the team rushes back to the bus to return to the hotel and the members are asked to check whether their roommates are all there, the same female colleague just says ‘yes’ without even looking if Shuang Shuang is actually there, and Shuang Shuang gets left behind at the care home. They literally just leave without her, and this wasn’t just on that colleague. Honestly, they were with FIVE people. How did NO ONE, not even team leader Wan Tian, notice her absence?! If you’re only with five people I wouldn’t even find it necessary to check if everyone’s there through a buddy-system, you can literally do a head count in two seconds. Heck, you should be able to see who’s missing right away with just one glance. So yeah, that was really neglectful of them. When Qi Xun found out about it, he literally pushed himself through his car trauma by driving all the way to the care home to find her himself. Wan Tian and the team were just standing around after they realized Shuang Shuang wasn’t there. All because of some petty rumors towards Shuang Shuang’s alleged connection to Mr. Qi. That’s some real professional teamwork, guys.
After Qi Xun found Shuang Shuang, I also loved how normally she responded to his story about his powers, and how she immediately jumped up when he mentioned Qi Tian’s deteriorating health. She wasn’t even aware of how she herself fit into the picture at this point, but just seeing how determined she was to help out definitely triggered Qi Xun to finally confirm his feelings for her and that kiss was absolute🔥FIRE🔥. It was also cute to see how Shuang Shuang went to his house the next day after they’d come back from the trip just to double-check if this now officially meant they were together. The way their relationship was finally confirmed and how it developed from there on was really adorable, it was so cute to see how completely smitten Qi Xun became Shuang Shuang.
There were a few things that confused me a bit, mainly in terms of Kun Lan’s and Wan Tian’s unrequited feelings. Honestly, while Kun Lan’s intentions with Shuang Shuang were obvious from the start, I did find it a bit difficult to gauge him. He also knew more than he let on to Shuang Shuang, and he also even had an assistant (Wang Zha Zha, played by Fang Xin) who would help him figure out stuff about both Shuang Shuang and Qi Xun and who even called him ‘Young Master’ (at least in the less-than-perfect subtitles I watched the show in). The first time Kun Lan and Feng Yun walk into Qi Xun and Shuang Shuang cuddling, I found it kind of strange to see that Kun Lan didn’t even seem surprised. I thought this was the first time he got official evidence of the fact that his feelings for Shuang Shuang were one-sided, and that she was actually already together with Qi Xun to the point of getting physical with him. He remained quite stoic throughout the whole thing. It could be that he just kept believing that, even if she chose Qi Xun at first, he himself would always be the most perfect choice for her and she would come to him eventually, but that would’ve given him a level of confidence that I personally didn’t see in him. I just didn’t expect to him to remain so calm after finding out about their relationship. I also found the way he started poisoning Shuang Shuang against Qi Xun after she found out about his original motives to approach her really toxic. He and Feng Yun really went, “🐍He never really loved you, he’s only ever cared about his sister, he’s used you and your feelings for him to his advantage🐍” and I was glad that Shuang Shuang responded with, ‘please just leave me alone for a moment, I need to figure this out by myself’. My respect for Kun Lan really went down a little bit there, when he tried to use her decreasing trust in Qi Xun to his own advantage.
I also found the way he left in the end a bit vague. After Qi Tian had bid him farewell and he knew he was never going to win Shuang Shuang’s affection, he just decided to disappear whoever knows where. We only see him in one short scene with Shi Lang in the end, where he inquires whether Shi Lang ‘took care of something’, which I guess referrerd to Shi Lang sending Qi Xun that one fake postcard of him and Qi Tian getting married. Other than that we don’t really find out what happens to him, so that was kind of an anticlimax for the second male lead character of the show.
Regarding Wan Tian, I was equally surprised to find her so shocked and distraught after Qi Xun rejected her feelings. I was convinced she already knew about how he felt for Shuang Shuang, because she’d already made some remarks and observations (I thought) about their relationship at work. Still, the fact that she confessed her feelings to him on her own birthday made me feel like she expected it to go well. It’s already a risky occasion to do such a thing as it can make the festive mood go either way, but then she was so shocked and started crying so much after his rejection? That kind of confused me, and I also went ‘nahhh’ when she then started acting all petty towards Shuang Shuang afterwards. Her confession happened during a weird time as Qi Xun was in the middle of winning Shuang Shuang back and Shuang Shuang was just in the process of forgiving him. I don’t know, I just kept being surprised by certain characters’ reactions as I’d assumed they were already aware of Qi Xun’s and Shuang Shuang’s relationship.
Lastly, I have something to say about the ending of the show, and with this I mainly mean Qi Tian’s ending. This was the only part that really made me go ‘???’ First of all, I was already a bit annoyed by the fact that Qi Tian KEPT taking peeks into the future when every single time it would result in her passing out. Maybe she was aware of what she was doing as she’d already seen her own death, but it really seemed to me as if she was just being naïve. Like when she went ‘one more peek’ and she saw her brother in the future looking all haggard and lost and she went ‘oh no, why does he look like that’ I literally went ‘BECAUSE YOU’RE GOING TO DIE SOON GIRL’. Like, seriously, even though she’d already figured everything out by herself and took the choice of dying so Qi Xun wouldn’t have to choose between saving her or Shuang Shuang, this just made her seem so freaking naïve. And I felt so bad for Shi Lang when he was carrying her to the hospital (seriously, no taxis around?) and she just spat a whole blorb of blood over his clothes and then went ‘no, don’t take me to a hospital’. I was like, GIRL, you got nothing to say here! Honestly, I found it kind of harsh of her to go all ‘Shi Lang, if you love me, don’t take me there’, actually using his feelings for her against him. Throughout the entire show she acted like she wasn’t aware of his feelings for her, and then this. Not only that, but she actually asked him to LIE to Qi Xun about it. She told him to just tell her brother he took her travelling. In the end we find out Shi Lang has been sending fake postcards from him and Qi Tian to Qi Xun to make him believe they are out travelling together (at least, that’s what I assume as the video I watched didn’t include subtitles for the postcards so I don’t actually know what was written on them that made Qi Xun start gross-sobbing at the end. Kind of a bummer, DramaCool😒).
Anyways, I just found it weird because Qi Xun already found Qi Tian’s journal in which she wrote about her decision and then she and Shi Lang just disappeared on him without a word and he never found out what happened to them besides receiving Shi Lang’s fake postcards. I thought that wasn’t really fair towards Qi Xun as he had always been the one to care for Qi Tian the most, it was him who’d constantly been looking for ways to cure her. The fact that she made that decision by herself without even saying goodbye to her brother, no matter how characteristic of her love for him, was still not really okay in my opinion. Until he received that card stating that Qi Tian and Shi Lang got married (I deducted this from the pictures as, again, I don’t know what was in the letter thanks to the bad subtitling), Qi Xun never stopped looking for the two and he only returns to Shuang Shuang after getting this postcard.
This too, by the way. They all find out about the truth on the same night Qi Tian collapses. Qi Xun and Shuang Shuang had been together just briefly before, walking on the beach where Qi Xun actually PROPOSED and asked Shuang Shuang if she wanted to start a FAMILY with him. When they both found out about this news, they didn’t even get to talk about it with each other. Qi Xun just disappeared after his whole dramatic monologue of how he needed to let go of his past with Shuang Shuang because he couldn’t deal with it anymore after losing Qi Tian(?). But then after getting that postcard a year later (again, no subtitles for the ‘….year(s) later’) he suddenly goes back to her as if nothing’s changed. I was actually happy when Shuang Shuang initially slapped him and started hitting him, because MAN. They should’ve been together while processing what happened to Qi Tian, they should’ve helped each other heal, but no, he just disappeared and then came back on his own terms. I mean, of course I’m happy they still ended up together, but the whole situation, including the build-up to the climax in which first Shen Tong, then Kun Lan and then Qi Tian fell away, gave it such a double feeling and I was kind of angry at Qi Tian for not only rejecting medical help but making Shi Lang do that for her. Qi Xun deserved to be there when his sister, his only remaining family member that he’d spent his entire life taking care of, would pass away and now he didn’t even know what happened to her. I just found that a bit unfair to him. On the other hand, I also found it unfair of him to just disappear on Shuang Shuang after freaking proposing to her, like Shuang Shuang wasn’t even given a chance to decide what she would’ve done, even though it had been the plan from the start to have her cure Qi Tian. It was a bit messy, even though it ultimately ended well.
My final confusion lies with the very last scene. The show ends with several short scenes showing the characters in the aftermath of things, we see Shi Lang making the fake postcards and meeting up with Kun Lan, and we also see Wan Tian in her new element as MIST’s official chief architect. It ends with her being introduced to a new trainee and this is literally the same actor as Qi Xun. I mean, he was a different character but I was like, why didn’t they just introduce a new handsome guy character? Why did it have to be someone with the exact same face as Qi Xun? Like, this just made it seem like Qi Xun had a doppelganger or a lost twin and it just formed more questions than if they’d simply introduced a new trainee for Wan Tian to fall in love with. It may have been a trivial detail, but it definitely made me go ‘???’, especially since it was the very final scene of the entire series.
Something I appreciated about this show is its attention to detail and the fact they came back to certain things or ended up explaining things that might have otherwise been plot holes or loose ends. For example, how they ended up tying everyone’s shared past together.
Qi Xun somehow has a memory of ending up at Xun Xue’s place after his parents’ car accident and during the confrontation with Zheng Chang he remembers being present during the fire that took both Xun Xue and Zheng Chang’s brother. As it turns out, the day of the car accident Qi Xun’s parents had just bought a painting from Feng Yun (who was a painter himself) which showed Xun Xue and their house. As soon as the accident happened and Qi Xun’s powers manifested, he undeliberately teleported to the place inside the painting, and that’s where Xun Xue found him and brought him in. He also remembers her collapsing after healing him and accidentally setting the house on fire, after which Zheng Chang’s brother appeared. Zheng Chang’s brother actually saved little Shuang Shuang and Qi Xun from the house before going back inside for Xun Xue, only to witness her going up in green sparkles and by then it had been too late for him to escape himself. The only error here lay in the fact that Qi Xun couldn’t have personally witnessed Xun Xue going up in green sparkled as he’d already been carried out of the house by then.
As another example, in an earlier flashback we’d seen Feng Yun collapsing outside of the house at seeing the fire, crying about the loss of his wife even though he didn’t have any visual evidence that she was in the house yet. Later it’s revealed that he knew she was dead because he saw the green sparkles dance among the flames, and he knew her body would turn into those sparkles as soon as she died. Little things like that, that just made me go ‘ahh, so that’s how he knew’ just contributed to my enjoyment of the show. I appreciated that they made the effort to clarify several details in certain events.
Admittedly, the fact that Zheng Chang’s entire revenge plan was based on a misunderstanding was a bit of a bitter pill to swallow. It usually kind of debunks the storyline for me, although it didn’t bother me that much here. I personally always find it so annoying when a bad guy goes, ‘TELL THE TRUTH!’ and then, after being told the truth, they’re like, ‘YOU’RE LYING!’, like, do you want the truth or not? I’m glad at least Zheng Chang was able to open his eyes to his own madness when Jian Bai was even willing to set herself on fire if that meant that he would let his vengeance rest. After his story ended, they still let him come back briefly in the final episode, showing him at a Buddhist temple to pray and burn some incense for his brother, so that was a nice final closure moment for his character.
Before going on to my cast comments and conclusion I just want to mention a couple more things, one of them being, as I mentioned this before, the fact that the writers played with the relativity of supernatural powers. I thought it was really powerful that they actually showed a darker side to it, emphasizing the downside of the powers rather than the fantastical awesomeness of them. The fact that everyone with powers, ‘talented’, ‘healers’ and ‘guardians’, were basically fated to suffer in one way or another gave an unexpected edge to the show that I didn’t see coming. In hindsight it really made me think that everything is so relative. Even things you foresee in the future may not happen the way they seem. It just gave a different layer and load to it all. Despite being allegedly aware of her powers and how they worked, Qi Tian still remained naïve in interpreting them, she still failed to consider the true twists and turns her visions could take.
I also want to comment on the series’ title, because I’m actually not sure what the English title ‘Flipped’ could possibly refer to. The Chinese title apparently translates to something completely different, something along the lines of ‘When I Like You, The Wind is So Sweet’ or ‘I Like You When The Wind is Sweet’. That title also doesn’t make much sense to me, as it’s never mentioned as a phrase and there’s no reference to any sweet wind throughout the show. I find it hard to come up with a suitable title myself, which isn’t my job of course, but I think both these titles are actually quite ambiguous and don’t necessarily refer to any specific key element of the show.
Lastly, I just want to address some reviews and comments I saw on MyDramaList, as many people seemed to have been disappointed by the development and the ending of this drama, and even described the writing as bad and the acting as cringe-worthy. I don’t agree with that. The only cringe-worthy thing to me was the dubbing, but the acting itself didn’t bother me at all and I’m usually very critical on that. I also thought the writing was pretty good, as I mentioned they paid attention to detail, the dialogues were good and the humor was actually funny. I also don’t understand why people would find the ending so disappointing, as people’s ratings usually depend on the main couple ending up together and that was the case so what’s the complaining about? I only found the ending confusing and a bit bothersome when it came to how they wrapped things up with Qi Tian, or rather how she chose to wrap her own story up and took Shi Lang with her in that, but besides that I honestly don’t have much to criticize. I wasn’t sure what the story would be about, I only knew there would be some fantastical element in it and I think they incorporated it well enough into the story without making it too far-fetched. I’m glad I watched it with an open mind and I was able to enjoy it just fine. So yeah, that’s as far as my commentary goes.
Let’s go on the cast comments now! As usual with Chinese dramas, I knew absolutely none of the cast members which made it very refreshing and exciting to watch. What I found interesting when looking up the cast is that about half of the actors is actually Taiwanese, and now I’m wondering if that may have contributed to the reason for the dubbing, as some people may have had different accents? I’m not sure, but I found it interesting.
I have the feeling that I have some more dramas on my list with Gao Han Yu, but I’d never seen him before. For some reason his face gave me Hwang In Yeop-vibes… maybe it’s the slanted eyes🤷🏻♀️. Anyways, I liked seeing different sides of his acting in this show. He made such an obvious typecast for a stoic, pokerfaced evil boss, but I really liked that he showed some silly and funny sides as well. He occasionally had me laughing out loud with his facial expressions and I actually went😳😳a couple of times in the kissing scenes because he definitely brought the sexy back! Although I found him a little bit overdramatic at times, it still didn’t bother me enough to get annoyed with his character. Honestly, until his character’s final decision to disappear from Shuang Shuang’s life without a word, I really loved how he was always looking out for her, and literally ‘Apparating’ by her side whenever she was in need. She became all he could think about and I was so glad that he just pushed Shen Tong aside when she started making advances on him, he never once got tempted to just give her one kiss so she would help him or something, he stuck to his morals. I liked his performance. Also, I just realized how well his younger version was cast. Guo Dian Jia really has the same (Hwang In Yeop-vibe) kind of face as Gao Han Yu, I thought that was kind of cool.
I just found out Chen Yu Mi is the same age as me 👀 She has such a beautiful natural smile and I really liked her portrayal of Shuang Shuang. She was so sweet and innocent, but she never became a pushover, she stood her ground and set her boundaries and I really appreciated the fire in her character. I also really loved how well she interacted with her fellow actors, I remember the scene where she was sitting with the boy in the hospital who didn’t know he now had Shen Tong’s heart in him, and the way she was looking at him talk, just pure love and sadness in her eyes… I will personally come for anyone who calls her out for bad acting because it’s simply not true. She performed greatly and I stand by that. I hope I’ll be able to see her in more C-Dramas in the future!
I just found out this was Gu Lan Di’s FIRST drama performance. Funny, because he was the only cast member that made me think I’d seen him in something before, haha. Anyways, I liked the way he portrayed his character. He was such a puppy in appearance, I couldn’t help but feel fluffy when watching him, lol. I kind of liked how they showed more than only his kindness towards Shuang Shuang; they actually made him seem a bit petty and harsh when it came to things that weren’t as important to him, even towards Qi Tian. I would’ve liked his character to get some more final closure though, because he just went away and I was like, ‘where’d you go, man?’. He’s been appearing in several things starting from this year, so I can only hope he’ll be able to develop his acting career and maybe I’ll see him perform in something else in the future.
Adding to the surprise, Flipped was also Lin Yan Rou’s first drama project! It definitely didn’t seem like that. Sure, her character was supposed to act a little childishly, but I also think she did a really good job in portraying the hidden layers of Qi Tian. I remember this scene where she’d just seen the vision of her own death and she was talking happily with her brother, and the second he left the room her eyes suddenly clouded over. Like, she did very well in switching between moods and emotions in my opinion. The dubbing definitely annoyed me a bit in her case, especially in adding all the soft sounds in-between and the way she was whispering to Shi Lang not to take her to the hospital when I couldn’t even see the actress’s lips move. But I wasn’t actually bothered with her acting itself in any way. I think she did exactly what she was supposed to, perform the fragile, innocent little princess who went a bit too far in exploring the boundaries of her cursed powers. I liked that they made her so unexpectedly wise in knowing exactly what was going on, and while I still feel that it wasn’t completely fair of her to just leave her brother out of her decision altogether, I still think it was a very brave and noble thing to do, as she cared for her brother’s happiness with Shuang Shuang more than anything, especially after accepting her own sad fate.
I may not have talked about Wan Tian all that much in this review, but I do think Wang Si Ping was a nice addition to the cast and I also liked her performance. Her image as the ‘Iron Lady’ fell through quite fast as soon as we saw the way she looked at Qi Xun, but I still liked to see how human she was, even in her switching between being mature and petty while she was figuring out how she felt about Shuang Shuang taking up that spot in Qi Xun’s heart that she desired so much herself. I kept feeling that she was a good person who just occasionally slipped up in her way of handling the situation. I liked that despite her instinctive reaction towards Shuang Shuang as a love rival, she kept trying to treat her professionally at work and ended up respecting her for the work she did. I really liked the scene where they got drunk at the same restaurant and there was this brief moment of sisterhood between the two of them, I wanted to believe that Wan Tian did kind of warm up to Shuang Shuang more after that.
Sun Ke Jie also has a very small number of projects to his name, only two! I kind of felt sorry for Shi Lang because he just had to take care of stuff for Qi Xun and then had to go out with Qi Tian at random moments of the day (and night). Occasionally it did feel like his presence was taken a bit for granted, and I still don’t fully forgive Qi Tian for pulling the ‘if you love me’ card on him after ignoring his feelings for her throughout the entire show. What was so good about him was that, despite his own feelings for Qi Tian, he never got actively petty towards Kun Lan, he was actually willing to tolerate Qi Tian getting together with Kun Lan, or with anyone for that matter, as long as it made her happy. He literally says ‘Qi Tian’s life is my life’ in the very first episode. Another example of the consistency in this show was that it ended showing him editing photos of him and Qi Tian, something he was also doing in the first episode when we’re first introduced to him. To keep that element going until the end again proved to me the writers paid attention to detail and knew what they were doing. I felt mostly sorry for Shi Lang, but I really loved how loyal his character was throughout.
Zhu Wen Chao kept reminding me of Kim Sung Chul 👀 again, probably because of his facial features. I kept wondering what his deal was in the beginning when it wasn’t completely clear yet what his intentions were. The fact that he just kidnapped a woman from the care home without first checking if she was actually Xun Xue kind of made me go ‘…’, like if you’re going to make a revenge plan, at least execute it properly. I did appreciate that he didn’t additionally harm Shuang Shuang the first time just because she got involved, because sometimes people get hurt as collateral damage even though they got nothing to do with nothing. But then when he kidnapped her again together with her father and went on about his revenge plan even though Xun Xue was long gone… I also found it fitting that Feng Yun just kept repeating, “you want to know where Xun Xue is?” “you want to know where Xun Xue is?!” because the question was just so ridiculous to him. Although Zheng Chang’s side story may not have seemed completely relevant in the beginning, I did like how they used the climax of it to establish what truly happened the night of that fire and how everyone’s fates had somehow already been intertwined ever since. Besides from the excessive angsty expressions, I think he performed well enough.
Again, I may not have talked that much about Feng Yun before, but Miao Zi Jie definitely did well in portraying the double sides of a concerned father. I think it was a good thing that they explained his past with Xun Xue in the end, because it did justify his actions towards his daughter a little bit. I still found it quite excessive of him to lock her up from the outside world entirely, but I did empathize with his wish for her not to end up like her mother, knowing she possessed the same healer powers. He had personally seen how it had killed his wife, and he knew people would be coming for Shuang Shuang as well once they found out she was Xun Xue’s daughter, so he did everything he could to protect her. He never had any ill intentions towards his daughter, he just escalated a bit in trying to guard her from the dangers of the world. While I understood his initial suspicion towards Qi Xun and Kun Lan, I did feel like he could’ve dropped his guard a little bit once he understood how much they truly cared about his daughter. I did like that when Qi Xun came back to Shuang Shuang in the end, he didn’t butt in, he just stepped back and even cried a little, which suggested that he finally gave them his blessing.
Han Sheng Sheng/Dara Hanfman (apparently she’s half Taiwanese half English, which would explain her slightly different look) also has only two drama titles to her name. I did find her on Instagram and she seems to have her own clothing line, so that’s cool. Anyways, as confused as I initially was about Shen Tong, as she suddenly started blackmailing Qi Xun into getting physical with her so she would help him out (which she wouldn’t have been able to do, in hindsight, as she wasn’t a ‘healer’). It first seemed like she might be two-faced, but I’m glad it was just an act she put on. Still not exactly sure why she felt the need to put the act on, but I’m glad she turned out to be a good person. I also think her story contributed in the way that she, like Xun Xue, became a victim to her own powers as it kept pulling people to her who only wanted to benefit from the way her powers made them feel at ease. It was really sad that she lost the love of her life so suddenly, and I thought it was a really powerful decision of her to get her heart transplanted into the young boy, who was suffering from the same thing as her loved one. Despite her short presence in the story I still think she shared a meaningful message.
I think with this I’ve summed up my comments and opinions about this series well enough. As I said, I may go over it one more time after my busy week (edit: which I did), but I just wanted to get this first version out there before the end of the month (not me setting deadlines for myself, lol). All in all, I found this a very entertaining watch, it was an original story and I liked the characters. I saw some people complaining about the absence of a real threat or bad guy but seriously, it only made for a nice, easy-to-follow story without adding more drama than necessary. Every character contributed something to the story in their own way and despite some debatable decisions and confusions in the end, I don’t really have any serious criticisms to share about it. I’m glad I was able to watch it, as it had been on my list for a long time and I enjoyed it, that’s all that matters to me.
I’m now going to go on with a part of my watchlist that includes several K-Drama that over very much overdue and I’m very excited to finally watch them! I hope to be able to provide my next review within next month but then again I also don’t want to rush anything. I’m not going to spoil anything either, but let me just say that I’m definitely going to get in the summer mood for my next couple of watches.
Thanks for reading all the way through my review again, and until next time!
Bye-bee! ^^
