gususkies

It’s been one of those dramas that sort of has been on the radar as anticipated by various folks I know. Three of the actors were familiar to me before watching the show: Gong Jun (from Word of Honor and of course, being on that one cooking show with Liu Haikuan), Wang Yizhou (from The Untamed) and also Lu Yupeng (from Super Vocal; this is his debut acting role.)

For others, Zhang Huiwen may be familiar from Legend of Fei. Yao Qingren, who does a nice job in a support role here, has had support roles in Winter Begonia and Ashes of Love. Pang Hanchen has had a bunch of support roles in romance dramas. Most of the rest of the cast (especially the youngsters) is fairly new.

Liu Chao, who puts in a nice performance as antagonist Han Pei here, is also in the line up for My Centenarian Sweetheart, a drama I am very much looking forward to.

The Flaming Heart is a nice little romance drama with some strong background fire and rescue scenes. Huo Yan (Gong Jun) and Yan Lan (Zhang Huiwen) are a nice lead couple, and their CP is ... well, literally in the title of the show (nihao, huoyan lan, though the yan in their names and the title isn't the same). There are three (or four, depending on your view of things) background romances to keep things going, mostly involving pairing up every named member of the fire and medical squad.

The greatest weakness of the show is, perhaps, its inability to decide what genre it really wants to be. It doesn't do a great job at combining the fire and rescue stuff with the romance. It starts strong as a fire and rescue show, takes a sharp turn into romance land, turns back to focussing on the fire and rescue drama with the earthquake arc, then goes back to romance and finishes up with a dive into being a show about corporate espionage. It sort of feels like they'd have been better off pitching it as a show where either it was a fire and rescue procedural that happened to have other romances, or a romance drama where they happened to be firefighters / medical staff, and they seem to have decided to try and be both and I'm not entirely sure it works.