Review of Hidden Love / 偷偷藏不住

For several months, I kept hearing about Hidden Love. Whether it was on Instagram, where I kept seeing clips from the show being edited by fans, or by my friend, who lives in New York and mentioned it several times when we’d meet up, Hidden Love was everywhere in my life for a bit.

I went through a solid phase where I didn’t really watch any Chinese dramas because I thought that they were way too long. I had for the longest time commitment issues when it came to television shows, so when something was a tad longer than the Korean dramas I was watching, I wouldn’t want to watch them.

That said, I ended up watching Only For Love with Dylan Wang and somehow ended up binge watching all of that show, then fell into a Chinese drama moment. I remembered about Hidden Love randomly, then when I opened my Netflix account, I saw it was right there.

So I pressed play. I had no idea what the show was about, but I ended up watching all of it throughout my the time directly before I ended up going to Malaysia for a big trip.

Here’s my review!

Sang Zhi falls in love with her one of her older brother’s best friends.

Our main character in this series is Sang Zhi, who, at the very beginning of the series, is in middle school. She doesn’t do well in class, so her parents and brother start getting concerned about the state of her education. One day, she needs a parent to come in and talk to her teacher, and she enlists Duan Jiaxu, one of her brother’s friends, to help her out and pretend to be her older brother.

By the time she’s in high school, Duan Jiaxu has become her math tutor, as she’s still falling behind when it comes to her grades. He has a soft spot for her, buying her treats and goods when they hang out for tutoring session, and Sang Zhi gets a crush on him.

She lies to her family, though, and says she’s seeing someone online. One day, she goes off and flies to Yihe, where her brother’s university and Jiaxu lives, in order to see him.

At the airport she lies to her parents and him that she was seeing her online boyfriend and he ditched her, but she’s distraught to see Jiaxu with another woman. She ends up in tears because of this, not because of the fake boyfriend, and decides to give up on him after that.

Sang Zhi throws herself into studying, and the next phase of the series begins with her at Yihe University. The timeline in this series is seriously wack, as she goes from middle to high school, then university, then graduating, in such a brief amount of time.

She ignores Jiaxu’s calls throughout the years, and when she goes to karaoke to celebrate with her friends, she runs into him outside of there. Throughout the rest of the series, these two are still going to continue meeting up, sparking her crush for him again, and then she learns about his past.

Turns out his father hit another girl’s father, killing him, now the other girl still comes around begging Jiaxu to pay off of his debts. It’s a bit of a dramatic plot line, and Jiaxu, who now works as a game developer, is telling the girl he’s going to go to the police after she starts trying to ruin Sang Zhi’s life and career.

At the same time, as Sang Zhi and Jiaxu start dating, she never tells her family. Her brother finds out after coming to Yihe and spotting the two holding hands, but as they grow closer and more serious, it becomes time to reveal to them what might be happening behind the scenes.

Overall Thoughts

It was a fluffy, sweet show in the end. I think that there was a lot to definitely enjoy about the romance in this series, and while the time gaps weren’t really believable, I thought that the plot worked well enough at the time of watching it.

That said, it was kind of weird how drawn out the childhood phase of the series was. Sang Zhi opens the first couple episodes as being a middle schooler, and we don’t really get to see her as an adult until around episode seven.

I get that it’s a bit of a puppy love at that point, but it still felt kind of weird to dwell in that period for so long. Jiaxu is a gentleman and doesn’t do anything, but I think I’d rather skip to the adult part of the series a bit sooner, especially considering he still sees her as a kid when they meet aain for the first time in a while.

All in all, go check this one out if you haven’t already. I don’t think it’s worth immense hype, but it’s still pretty decent as a romantic drama.

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