Chinese Drama - Diamond Lover

Hello

안녕하세요 

(Annyeonghaseyo)

こんにちは 

(Konnichiwa)

你好

(Ni Hao)

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I'm starting to get my claws into more Asian dramas, Diamond Lover is my 3rd Chinese drama and 2nd from China, my first Chinese based drama was from Taiwan with Murphy's Law of Love. Diamond Lover is a Chinese romance drama, written by Li Jain and directed by Chen Mingxhang and Wu Qiang.
The series aired simultaneously on ZheJiang Television and Anhui Television on the 22nd of July 2015, with the series concluding on the 24th of August 2015. Diamond Lover contains 24 episodes with each episode having a 45 minute run time.

Main Cast:
Rain aka Jung Ji-hoon as Xiao Liang

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Tiffany Tang as Mi Mei Li/Mi Dou

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Luo Jin as Lei Yiming

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Dilraba Dilmurat as Gao Wen

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Supporting Cast:

Yao Yichen as Lin Ziliang

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 Guo Keliang as Liu Siyuan

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Zhang Wen as Ye Qi

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Wang Dong as Shen Dongjun

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Bai Fan as Xiao Zhendong

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Haou Xuelong as Qi Yu

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Bo Fangjun as Han Lin

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 Diamond Lover was a commercial success in China, with a peak rating of 1.249 and more than 3.3 billion views online, Rain spoke in Korean for his role, with him later being dubbed over in Mandarin.

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Even though I did like quite of few of the songs on the OST, they were harder to find than I was expecting, so here is a few of the songs I loved and could find.

Rain - Diamond Lover

yen nguyen

Ivy Yan - 每一次让人心碎的 (Everytime I am Heartbroken)

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Due to her obesity, Mi Mei Li has low self-esteem, and suffers in both her work and life. One day, she meets Xiao Liang, CEO of a diamond company, and falls in love with him. However, due to circumstances, she isn't able to confess her feelings to him. A car accident then changed her fate. After cosmetic surgery, the once obese Mei Li becomes a slim beauty and also changes her name to Mi Dou so no one from her past can recognise her. However, after suffering setbacks in both her relationship and career, she realises hat her physical appearance is not a "free pass" to love. She is no longer bothered about how she looks, and sets her mind to become an accomplished jewelry designer. Her optimism attracts Xiao Liang, and he falls in love with her. At the same time, her good friend Lei Yiming, who has always stayed by her side, also confesses to her. 

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I've had Diamond Lover on my watch list on Netflix for quite a while and last month I decided to get stuck into it. While this was my third Chinese drama, this was actually my first drama starring Korean superstar Rain. I was slightly put off by the fact that Ji Hoon had been dubbed over in mandarin, knowing that, I was often watching his mouth to see how it differed from Korean to Mandarin, bonus was that he was at least dubbed over by someone with decent voice acting.

I thought the casting was a pretty good ensemble, they all seemed to have good chemistry on set, which made their acting believable. This being my first time seeing all the cast acting I was really intrigued to see them in other dramas, I have watched Ji Hoon in a Korean drama and I enjoyed comparing the two, he's able to bring different emotions through well for his characters. I think Ji Hoon's character was the drama cliche, rich, powerful and holding back his heart because of a past heartbreak, for him to soften up as the drama continued.

I have another drama starring Tiffany Tang on my list which seems to be a period drama, so I look forward to comparing her acting in both dramas, while I really enjoyed her acting, it was her character that I wasn't really fond of. At times I felt really confused about her personality, one minute she would be shy as well as clingy, then there would be a quick change and she was sly and headstrong making sure she got what she wanted, I also didn't like the selfish element added to her character.

I absolutely loved Dilraba Dilmurat and her character, it was obvious her carer was her life and she did it because it was what she loved, she's also your cliche rich character that thinks her beauty and wealth gets her what she wants. I honestly thought that our 2nd female lead and 2nd male lead would end up together so was surprised when that actually turns out not to be the case.

I think Luo Jin and his character definitely often added the comedic aspect to the drama, I loved that he and Mi Dou were the best of friends and no matter where he was, if his friend was in need he would be there, which I think towards the end of the drama it annoyed me that they were pretty much using each other to get what they wanted, especially Mi Dou, I think she took their friendship for granted and even after learning about his feelings she still strung him along.

I think the rest of the cast also did well but I got really bored of the whole Lin Ziliang and Liu Siyuan constantly trying to destroy Xiao Liang as well as his relationship with Mi Dou, personally for me that shows that they didn't have much confidence in their own work, relationship or lives and had to resort to dirty tricks to get the power they both desired.

For the plot itself, when I got to the final episode, I felt that it seemed rushed, and I later found out that the reason I felt that was because the series was incomplete and Netflix just ended it how they did because in the original run the drama continued without Ji Hoon, as he had other contracted schedules and couldn't continue the drama. While I did enjoy watching Diamond Lover, there were aspects of the drama that left me cringing and curling my toes because of the plot and script, I also felt at times that there was some emotional abuse, especially between Xiao Liang and Mi Dou, Mi Dou and Lei Yiming and Lei Yiming and Gao Wen. At times it seemed like a drama that the characters just wanted to string each other along to benefit themselves.

Overall I think the cast was good but the plot could have been a little better, I think sadly sometimes a poor script can come across as bad acting but I don't think there was any bad acting anywhere within the drama.

I'm slowing increasing my Chinese drama watched list, I've watched 2 other Chinese dramas since Diamond Lover and I'm also currently watching a Chinese drama alongside a Korean drama. I'm trying to watch more dramas that have been released this year so that I can do a Top 10 Drama List, like I do with my K-pop albums at the start of each year.

Right now I'm currently watching Hotel Del Luna and Love 020.

Have you watched Diamond Lover?

What did you think to the casting?

Did you enjoy Diamond Lover?

Have you seen the full drama or Netflix's run?

Let me know in the comments below.

See you soon!

안녕

(Annyeong)

さようなら

(Sayonara)

再见

(ZaiJian)

Bye