Drama

Sweet Combat (Chinese Drama Review)

• Genre: Youth, Romance, Sport, School
• Date Released: July 2018
• CDrama: 38 Episodes

Cast:

• Guan Xiaotong as Fang Yu
• Lu Han as Ming Tian
• Shao Ivy as Song Xiao Mi
• Pei Zitian as Sun Hao
• Li Mengmeng as Cheng Yanan
• Zhao Yue as Luo Guan Yuan
• Ding Cheng Xin as Fang Zhou
• Jevon Wang as Wang Shiwei

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This drama stars real life sweethearts Guan Xiaotong and Lu Han.  It is a poor boy meets rich girl kind of thing and they kick and box into a romance. 🙂

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Episode 1

Ming Tian did not finish high school because he was left to take care of his two young siblings, who are twins, when his mother up and left because she got fed up with her husband, three years ago.

The husband ended up dead after a while, therefore a teenage Ming Tian had to shoulder the burden of looking after his two young siblings by eking out a living any which way he can.

While on a work errand, he came across a rather arrogant girl, who thought that money is enough to solve everything.  This girl was Fang Yu.

Ming Tian really wanted to go to college and as luck would have it he was accepted into sports university in the Shenzhen City in the Guandong Province of China.

His little family left Macau to be able for him to  enrol at Zhengze University where coincidentally is where Fang Yu is the queen.

The university used to be an all girl school but the director and headmaster were rather sexist.  There were not contented with the trophies and awards won by their excellent sportswomen nurtured by their school.  They reckoned that girls/women’s career in sport are rather fleeting.  They have romance and get married and move on.  They wanted men that would make sport their lifetime career.

For the first time the school offered 10 lucky male students places in the college.  Only one took the place and it was Ming Tian.

Ming Tian was rather self-conscious being the only boy in the school especially when he found out that the school is not really ready for boys in terms of amenities, like boy’s toilet, locker room, etc.

Ming Tian being tall and good-looking became a prize for the girls to fight over.

While escaping from all the girls, he bumped into Fang Yu,who accidentally scratched his arm with her backpack.

Instead of apologising to him, she gave him a wad of cash, which infuriated Ming Tian.   He ended up calling her a monster.

Unbeknown to Ming Tian, the word has a deeper psychological meaning to Fang Yu.

She was six years old before she found out she was a girl.

Being the heir of a conglomerate, when she was  born, her authoritarian grandfather had told her parents that she was to be brought up as a boy, dressed up as a boy.  Even in her primary school she was believed to be a boy.

But her parents had another baby and this time it was a boy.

Suddenly Fang Yu is unceremoniously treated as a girl again.  This did not only confuse the young Fang Yu but also her young classmates, who bullied her and called her monster.

Episode 2

Ming Tian cannot bear to be at the same school as the Queen so he applied for a transfer.  But it was proving impossible to get out of the school, which is determined to hold on to the first boy in their enrolment at all cost.

Ming Tian was working for KFC as a delivery boy.  He has a record to keep of being able to deliver at the shortest possible time.

But during one of his deliveries, he came to the rescue of a young boy being bullied by hooligans.  They then turned on him and brought him to playing field to beat him senseless.

Luckily the three friends, the Queen, Yanan and Xiao Mi were passing through the park and saw what was happening.

Episode 3

The Queen, Fang Yu, finally realised the sad life Ming Tian leads.  He was a poor boy, who needs to work every hour available to be able to bring up his brother and sister and himself.

He thought that if he cannot transfer schools then he would just drop out.  He felt guilty not being able to provide his siblings with better life.

It seems there is a connection between Fang Yu and Ming Tian.  They both love and respect the dead Mr Ji.

Mr Ji was Fang Yu’s uncle.  The only one who understood and supported her transition from a boy to girl in her young mind.

Episode 8

Ming Tian was sent a poisoned cake which his young brother ate and ended up in hospital.  Ming Tian then found out who sent the cake.  It was the bully boy from the rival university to Zhenze.  He went to confront the bully but he ended up almost getting expelled.

Episode 9

This episode is the cutest so far.  Ming Tian and Fang Yu are very tentatively getting closer.

Fang Zhou, Fang Yu’s brother, is the 15 year old CEO of their family business.  He had been trained to take over almost before he could walk.  He is ably assisted by Ming Tian.   Brother and sister have a very filial to one another.

Ming Tian’s problem with the bully has given him the push to seriously learn self defence and he is now being trained by the three lead girls.

Episode 18

Fang Yu and Ming Tian had a really cute ‘date’ at the funfair.  Yanan and Guan Yuan romance is so sweet and romantic but is still yet to end up in misunderstanding as Guan Yuan had been asked by Yanan’s father as one of the three conditions in teaching him the death strike/blow was to date his daughter, Yanan.   The cutest scene so far of the drama was when he told her that she is the apple of his eye.

Episode 19

I have to say the romance between Fang Yu and Ming Tian is very slow boiling.  But at least in this episode, we know that Ming Tian is really into Fang Yu.

Episode 22

Yanan had a confrontation with Luo Guan Yuan about her being just one of the conditions for him to train under her father to learn the death strike.  Yanan broke off from her budding romance with Guan Yuan despite his protestation that he was only humouring her father that he really like her himself.

Episode 23

Yanan, Ming Tian,  Xiao Mi and Sun Huo went to Macau to represent their school and to hopefully recruit more students to attend their school.

While in Macau, Ming Tian was surprised with a visit from Fang Yu, who was on her way to Dubai.

Episode 24

Fang Yu’s grandfather found out her detour to Macau and the reason why.  He categorically told her to break any relationship with him as they were not compatible in any way.

Fang Yu rebelled and run away with her personal chef to Yanan’s house.

Her grandfather withdrew her from the university.

Episode 34-37

Fang Yu’s grandfather cannot allow her to end up with a no-hoper, poor boy so he did everything to separate them.

Knowing that Fang Yu’s weakness is her Uncle Ji, her grandfather used him to drive a wedge between Fang Yu and Ming Tian.

He paid Uncle Ji’s widow to lie to Fang Yu about the circumstances of her husband’s death.  She made it sound as if the accidental death from boxing was premeditated.  She said that Ming Tian’s Dad was a dirty fighter, who hired people to rough up Uncle Ji before the fight.  Then he used the death strike to finish off Uncle Ji.

Fang Yu was so upset and cannot get over the fact.  It seems she loves Uncle Ji more than she cares for Ming Tian.

Ming Tian himself was heartbroken.  His beloved father, he thought, was just a fake.

In the end Fang Yu succumbed to her grandfather’s wishes for her to break up with Ming Tian and study abroad.

A year had passed….

The case of Mr Ji is not an isolated one.  Mr Car also died from boxing but the insurance company found out that it was a fraud.  Mr Car had a brain complication before the fight which he did not declare when he took out an insurance.

This case made Xiao Mi remember that she actually overhead a conversation between Mrs Car’s wife with another woman, who mentioned her husband had the same illness before he had a fight.  He knew he was likely to die but he decided that the insurance money would support his wife and daughter.  This was Uncle JI.

In the end everything was revealed.

Fang Yu came back from studying abroad.  Though she misses Ming Tian, she refused his offer of starting over.  He accepted his decision afterall he really have nothing to offer her.

But Fang Yu’s brother had other ideas.  He persuaded Ming Tian to go look for Fang Yu before it was too late.

They met up by the fountain in Macau and reconciled.

The End….

I have to say that this drama is rather lackluster despite having superstar leads in Lu Han and Guan Xiaotong. Though they are in a relationship in real life, they did not have that sizzling chemistry in this drama.  It was so sedated, they may as well be brother and sister.

The story/script is all over the place.  The story is repetitive.

How many times do we need to see the leads and they friends washing cars?

How many times do we need Luhan dressed in a rabbit suit giving away flyers?

The romance between Fang Yu and Ming Tian was slow boiling, it was almost already on two-digits episodes before that got together.

The saving grace though was the clothes worn by Guan Xiaotong.  She looked lovely in all of them.  And Lu han is of course an absolute eye-candy.