As Beautiful As You is a 2024 Chinese drama adapted from the novel ‘As Beautiful As Beijing’. It mainly centers around the main lead, who strives to launch her own company in a fiercely competitive corporate world.
Plot Overview
Ji Xing (played by Tan Song Yun) has worked in the IT field diligently for the past several years. However, undue pressures and office politics drive her to re-evaluate her priorities. She goes back to her old dream of using technology to help people medically. To achieve this, she ends up starting her own 3D printing company that focuses on medical implants.
On her entrepreneurial journey, she meets an old classmate, Han Ting (played by Xu Kai). She manages to get his aid as an investor and mentor. As she works to solve the issues that crop up with his guidance and support, they end up falling in love.
Romance Aspect
For a drama whose main selling point is supposed to be romance, As Beautiful as You is beyond underwhelming. Until the midway point (i.e, around episode 20), the only indication of romance is that the male lead had a crush on the female lead in college. Their present-day interactions are heavily practical and work-oriented, so much so that there are barely any hints of romance. Except for some eye contact here and there.
Their relationship is seriously imbalanced in power. The male lead keeps the female lead in the dark half the time, even when he lends his support to her. Instead of solving problems together, he pushes her and corrals her into the solution he had envisioned. It feels like he is always playing chess games while she is doing her utmost to just survive. Even when he might be objectively right, the way he speaks is so rude that it will just leave you seething. From this twisted dynamic to them getting together the first time feels so jarring that I had to rewind and confirm that I had not missed an entire episode or something.
They do have a falling out due to the exact “hiding important stuff from your partner” reason, but there is no catharsis when they get back together. There is no setting of boundaries, no promises of talking to each other in the future. The “getting back together” is perfunctory. She goes and studies business. Thus, gaining the understanding to realize he is a visionary in the business field. They barely apologize and get back together. She literally just learns business and becomes in 100% perfect sync with him!!! The number of times I rolled my eyes in the last few episodes gave me a migraine.
Character Archetypes
Every character feels flat and two-dimensional. The female lead is a naive, bleeding heart. The male lead is a calculative visionary, only worried about the industry. They spend the whole story trying to temper each other out, but remain stuck in their basic character moulds.
The villains are super generic. The female villain, who is successful in her own right, spends the entire story trying to win the male lead. Even when he has never been interested in her. Literally for no other reason than her belief that they belong together.
The male villain is bland enough to be forgotten. His last moments on the screen are just him standing there monologuing about how the male lead is an absolute visionary. While waiting for the police to grab him for embezzlement and fraud throughout the scope of the story.
There are also the token gruff, grey-coded family members who scheme to take away the family’s wealth. However, when the male lead gets injured, it’s a step too far. After all, family members don’t physically hurt each other. Even if they engage in some healthy back-stabbing and slandering to gain full control of the company, duh!!
Side Characters
The side characters, except for two or three of them, were entirely forgettable. I did like the influencer friend Xiao YiXiao and her story. The mother of the bar guy (Lu Linjia, also referred to as Mr.Lu) was hilarious. Her tiny shoulders did a lot of heavy lifting in the show. It was also refreshing to see a normal, adoring, playful mother-child relationship on-screen. The three lent to some of the best scenes in the series.
Other characters felt a bit aimless, which can be argued is the same in life. A lot of it could be attributed to the fact that there was a build-up in a lot of cases, but no payouts. For example, the third friend, Li Li, and her mother have a harsh relationship. It is explored only as a story device to show how kind the male side character is to her in this context, as a justification for their romance later on.
For another example, Li Li dates the male lead’s right-hand man for a bit in the beginning. There is this whole mystery angle around him, as in he lies to her, disappears, never brings her to his home, and so on. The payout is ridiculous. It turns out that he is a father. No idea why the creators thought to sensationalise it so much, when it makes no sense.
By the end, almost all the friends are paired off. This felt more forced than serendipitous.
Parting Thoughts
The story of As Beautiful as You definitely tries to depict the reality of becoming an entrepreneur. It would have been okay to not focus on romance at all, or make it a minor plot point. Yet now, it has turned into a romance that revolves completely around work. It makes you wonder if the main couple would even be a couple at all if we were to remove work from the equation.
By trying to do everything, it fails at everything. It fails to be a good romance plot. It fails to be a good corporate drama, and even fails to be a good, slice-of-life “friends working together” sort of storyline.
If you want to watch something at the end of the workday, as background noise, while you scroll through your phone, feel free to catch it here. However, if you are invested in the plot and characters, then I would recommend saving your time and watching something else. I reckon a rewatch of an old comfort show would be more soothing.