Fireworks of My Heart | Review

A shy doctor who broke up with her firefighter boyfriend wants him back in their dysfunctional relationship.
Notable Actors/Actresses

Yang Yang: Song Yan

Wang Chu Ran: Xu Qin

Director: 

Li Mu Ge

Scriptwriter: 

(Author: Jiu Yue Xi)

Chinese Title
我的人間煙火

My Fireworks on Earth

Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Contemporary Romance

Network: MangoTV

Year: 2023
Episodes: 40

Jump to Remarks | Review | Recs | Comments

Cast

Yang Yang: Song Yan	Wang Chu Ran: Xu Qin
Wang Yan Lin: Jiang Yu	Wei Da Xun: Meng Yan Chen
Zhang Bin Bin: Suo Jun	Yang Chao Yue: Zhai Miao
Yi Da Qian: Zhan Da Peng	Zhang Yue: Li Meng

Romcom/Romance Checklist

How much of the plot is angst/romance?

0 / 1 / 2.9 / 3.9 / 4 / 5

The ML: 

Cold–Lukewarm–Warm / Timid / Falls in Love First / Noble Idiot / CEO / General /

The FL: 

Bold / Cute / Cool & Independent / Timid / Falls in Love First / Better than ML / Noble Idiot / 

Describe the Relationship (the tropes):

Bickering Start / Childhood Connection / Cohabitation / Contract Marriage or Fake Couple / Enemies to Lovers / Hidden Identity / School to Adulthood / Love Triangle / Married Couple (Real) / Secretly in Love (F/ML) / Star-Crossed Lovers / 

Relationship Progress (officially together; first (official) kiss; breakup*):

Ep 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 / 21 / 22 / 23 / 24 / 25 / 26 / 27 / 28 / 29 / 30 / 31 / 32 / 33 / 34 / 35 / 36 / 37 / 38 / 39 / 40

# of CPs (including main CP):
0 / 1 / 2 / 3+

Ending:

Happy / Sad / Open Happy / Open Sad / Bad

Remarks

[Gossip / News] Some gossip first. 

1) Yang Yang and Wang Chu Ran are a real couple during/after this drama's filming. Then this was airing along with The Longest Promise, which stars Wang Chu Ran and Wang Zi Qi who are exes.

2) Yang Yang’s acting became the nation’s laughing stock. 

3) Wang Chu Rang's personality became an issue for months after the show was over.

4) The one man who benefited: Wei Da Xun. His popularity exploded for his character's " German orthopaedic" charm in his forbidden relationship with FL. 

Like a moth attracted to the flame...

Review

by cynlynn

I started this optimistically for eye candy and a deep romance. I can confidently say I got eye-candy. That is all. This review is way too long for how much I truly care about this. It's a show where I liked its parts, but not its whole. 

Romance: I relished the slow buildup

The slow buildup is actually my favourite part of the show. I could feel the sexual tension in the way they stare at each other. I love every bit of those moments. A warning: those moments were few and far in between, though. And I might just be the weird one feeling more chemistry when they looked at each other than when they kissed. 

But. 

It was unevenly slow and the peak lasted too short. So many episodes add nothing to the main relationship. I thought my patience would be rewarded with lotsa fireworks. Well. I got about one. Pew. And it was over. 

Peak ended before water can finish boiling.

Female Lead: I like her

Xu Qin is unlikable. But I like her as an atypical heroine. She’s selfish and she’s a coward. Despite everything she has, she feels like she has nothing. Is she just ungrateful or is there something fundamentally wrong with her? Slowly, I learned to sympathize with her and rooted for her. 

What I didn’t like about Xu Qin is how little there was about Xu Qin. After that explosive drunk confession in Ep10, it’s followed by radioactive silence on her perspective. In her confession, she recounted how she silently fought for herself step by step. I admired that. But Show barely showed any more progression. I really don’t understand this. How do you introduce a problematic FL, not deep-dive into why she’s dysfunctional, and expect the general audience to cheer for her and her romance. I want to defend her, but you’re giving me so little to work with. 

My Highlight Scene: Ep10 (Scroll):

"You’re not a match for me! …. Because I love you more than you love me."

Song Yan furrows his brows, every time he thinks he wants to give up, she’s shaking his fragile heart that he barely mended (if it ever mended).

"I’m not good at socializing. I don’t like making friends. A lot of careers don’t suit me. Only a doctor works for me. I just need to study my profession. I won’t lose my job. I can support myself. [...] I’m planning, bit by bit, to not depend on my family’s money. I’ve been thinking how to not upset my parents, and get their approval without disowning me as their daughter. This is why I’m working hard to become a top surgeon. They can acknowledge this part of me, be a bit more proud of me, and then indulge me a bit more."

"What about you? What have you done, Song Yan?! For your love, what have you done for me!" 

"Yes. I continue to approach you and I continue to hesitate. I keep wavering and wavering. I’m weak – her voice breaks – but I can’t see hope. I’m scared. You never put in effort for us to stay together. Not a bit. Never. [...] You never thought of approaching me. For a person like you, why are you worthy of me revolving around you. You only stand in one spot, waiting for me to look for you. Even if you see that I fell, you won’t help me up."

"Yes. I’m selfish. I’m very selfish. To someone I love, I am still selfish. I want to see you invest in this relationship, then I’m willing to walk towards you. Because what if when I lose everything, you’re still standing in that same spot. What will happen to me?"

"Yes. I’m not pure (a good person). It’s me who’s petty. It’s me who wants you to invest too. I want you to take a step towards me too."

She shakes him. 

"But why aren’t you coming to me, Song Yan? Why? Your love, I can’t feel it. You must not love me that much. Then why did you say that! Why did you say your love towards me can take your life? I took your words seriously, Song Yan. I took it seriously!" 

And at the end, Song Yan runs to her… 

Actors/Acting: The supporting cast was criminally overlooked

Yang Yang did a remarkable...Yang Yang job, lol. It wasn't offensive and I wasn’t disappointed. Wang Chu Ran stunned me with her high emotional scenes (my highlight). Wei Da Xun pleasantly surprised me as a "villain", and he actually has micro-expressions (lol). I liked him. The supporting firefighting boys (e.g. Wang Yan Lin, Yang Tong, Yi Da Qian, etc.) were excellent! Too bad they were invisible in the eyes of the public that only saw WDX's "orthopaedic" charms, and YY's "greasy" acting. 

Overall Plot: I did not appreciate

The story lacked a real cohesion to its many parts: the main romance, the family story, ML’s firefighting team, and FL’s medical career. I don’t like that drama introduced a lot of plot but didn't follow through extensively (like the entire firefighting team) or resolved satisfyingly (like the dysfunctional family). 

On one hand, I enjoyed the firefighter boys' high and impactful moments (shout out to Jiang Yu, Jiang Yi, and Da Peng). But they are literally moments. Spotted. I think I would love this more if it flowed better with the rest of the story. The emotional moments land as fast as they go. 

I think if drama ended better, the tone of my review wouldn't be so bitter. This dysfunctional family resolution at the end –– Spoiler Alert! –– focused on having Mother Dearest appreciating firefighting, and therefore accepting the ML. But. Why? Why does the mother's approval even matter? After all that she did to our ML and FL, the last message the drama wants to send is that the mother approves of his firefighting career? And because she approves, she can be back in FL and ML's life, happily ever after? This resolution is so far removed from the heart of the problem and addresses nothing the FL or ML have suffered because of her. 九唔搭八. Irrelevant. I rather they just ignore the mother's story in the end. 

P.S. Poor Meng Yan Chen who was miserable his entire life, and was so messed up that he’d passively accepted rape charges. Apparently, to solve his sister's problem, he just needed to set his mother on fire (and then have ML ready to charge in). 

The Insane Amount of Hate

I am only addressing the hate towards the story component of the drama (i.e. not Yang Yang). 

This isn't worse than other professional-themed C-romances, but it received the worst cyberbullying in my drama blogging years. Yang Yang's acting was the nation's laughing stock. That finally died down after the drama ended (earlier than scheduled), but as I'm typing this review two weeks later, it's still not over! It's Wang Chu Ran's turn (and it's not even juicy gossip. People just do not like what they do not like. There's nothing anyone can do about that.)

Drama was merely a vehicle for people to criticize what people wanted to criticize whether it was Yang Yang's acting, the lack of meritocracy in the industry, etc. 

• Very little of the criticisms were constructive to the drama and its plot. I'm not saying they were invalid criticisms. The ones that trended were low-hanging fruits, bordering the show, rather than targeting the heart of the story. 
• Why there weren't constructive criticisms is because Show simply isn't that great. It is not high quality storytelling, and it even loses out on being entertaining. A lot of casual viewers were just not checking in to discuss real plot. 

It was shocking watching the vitriol snowball, and engulf the internet because of a single drama. If there was truly this amount of people who care about strong FL, accurate portrayal of professional careers, Dr. Tang should have exploded. And it even had Wei Da Xun as a real ML. And that is my shameless promotion for that little gem. Bye. 

Rating: 2/5 ♥

Recommendations

Genre List:

Contemporary Romance Central

Unlikable FL	Couple	Random