My Treasure (2021)

Wholesome Story, Excellent Acting, Great Pacing

Where do I even start? I came across this show serendipitously after watching Roy Chiu in Man in Love and boy do I not regret it.

The story follows the life of Qiu Dong Na who despite having grown up poor is aiming to become a certified accountant. We follow her ups and downs as she joins the corporate world as an intern after college, and hopes to make a name for herself.

First, let’s talk about the characters as a whole and then we’ll take a look at the two main characters, Qiu Dong Na and Gu Fei.

Before this one, I’d never seen such a humanistic take on characters in C-dramas. Every single character has very honest and realistic flaws. No character is shown as being perfect or as having it all together. No one is cancelled for making a mistake or for coming short. On the contrary, we are shown what it looks like to grow and to learn alongside people who are willing to support and love us despite our fallibilities.

This show doesn’t present this frail and incapable female character who relies on her boss in order to obtain what she wants. Instead, we are introduced to Qiu Dong Na who is nothing less of a brilliant, capable, creative, and hard-working genius. She is young, and yet she knows exactly what she wants, how she wants it to look like, and the lengths through which she will go through in order to achieve it. Qiu Dong Na is like a sponge, willing to absorb all the knowledge she can get from those who are more knowledgeable than her. She is strong and has a deep set of values that she is unwilling to trade for all the gold in the world. She is kind, introspective, curious, funny, helpful and immensely reliable. She’s deeply involved in all of her interpersonal relationships and doesn’t favour one relationship over the other. Qiu Dong Na is most definitely not the type of friend who will ditch you for a guy! She is a great friend, a great girlfriend, a great colleague, and even a great daughter.

This very well-written character could not have been brought to life without a great actress. Vicky Chen who I believe was only 17 when she filmed this drama is most definitely an actress to look out for. If this is what she’s able to do at 17, I cannot wait to see how her skills will evolve in 10 years!

As for our male lead, Gu Fei… Ah, what a good, and posh-looking man. I was swooning for this man during the entirety of this show. Gu Fei is obviously a genius, he’s kind, helpful, and witty with just the right amount of sassiness. Fei is a great mentor who knows when to get involved and when to let Dong Na learn for herself. He constantly pushes Dong Na to give her all and always knows how to encourage her. I love how assertive Fei is. He always says what he wants to say and there’s not a single word that he’s ever spoken to Dong Na that he hasn’t meant. He always shows up for Dong Na and truly is her biggest cheerleader. As much as he leads and teaches, he’s also open and willing to learn from Dong Na. I love that he doesn’t dim her light and that instead, he helps her shine brighter. He has never been inappropriate towards Dong Na as her mentor, and he has never used his position to take advantage of her. He respects her boundaries and also respects her pace.

I truly and honestly do not think that anyone could have done a better job at portraying Mr. Gu than Roy Chiu himself. He brings so much life to this character who could have been one-dimensional despite the great writing for his character. The emotions that constantly play behind his eyes… Man does it draw you in!

The last thing I’ll address is the reason I’m deducting 1 star, which is the age gap between the leads. I’ll speak solely about how it affected the show because the transition from friends/ mentor/mentee to lovers ended up being a bit lacklustre for me. The whole appeal behind Dong Na and Fei’s relationship before it evolved into a romantic one was the intimacy behind their banter, their serious talks, and even at the office. It was so clear that Fei had a soft spot for Dong Na. I was disappointed to see that that same level of intimacy and affection during their somewhat platonic days was unable to be carried into their romantic relationship. Obviously, Roy Chiu is an adult and Vicky Chen is not so that’s understandable. Yet, I felt like the casting folks compromised the romance aspect which is honestly not a huge deal since it’s such a small component of the drama itself.

Overall, this is the best C-drama I’ve watched. My Treasure will keep you engaged throughout all of the 35 episodes and will probably make you laugh, cry, swoon, and smile, but most definitely, it will remind you that the best thing in life is the people who love and support you during your best and worst hour.

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