Hidden Love (2023) Review: A Crush That Grows Up Slowly

Is Hidden Love worth watching?

Yes. Hidden Love is a tender, finely judged slow-burn romance, and the chemistry between Zhao Lusi and Chen Zheyuan turns a simple premise into one of the most beloved C-dramas of recent years. The series is at its best in the small moments: a glance held a beat too long, a message left unanswered, a gesture that means more than either character admits. The reservation is its pace and structure, since 25 episodes stretch the story thin in places, and the early age gap between the leads makes some viewers uneasy until the romance moves firmly into adulthood.

What is Hidden Love about?

Sang Zhi (Zhao Lusi) has had a crush for years on Duan Jiaxu (Chen Zheyuan), her older brother’s best friend, who has always treated her like a little sister. When she grows up and heads to university, fate brings them back into each other’s lives, and a childhood longing starts to become something more equal and adult. The series follows that shift from campus days into early adulthood, with Zhang Jiongmin and Victor Ma among the supporting cast.

Hidden Love was directed by Lee Ching-jung and adapted from a popular web novel by Zhu Yi. It is a Chinese series in Mandarin that first streamed on Youku and reached a large international audience through Netflix. This review covers the complete series: one season of 25 episodes, and the story has ended.

Longing, played in miniature

The pleasure of Hidden Love is how much it does with restraint. The script lets feelings accumulate through ordinary encounters rather than big set pieces, and the direction gives the actors time to play silence and hesitation. Sang Zhi’s inner life, her private hopes, embarrassments and small triumphs, is conveyed with enough specificity that the audience shares her anticipation.

Zhao Lusi is ideal for this. She plays Sang Zhi’s youthful eagerness and her growing maturity with the same openness, and she is very funny when the character’s composure collapses. Chen Zheyuan gives Duan Jiaxu a warm, teasing ease that slowly reveals a guarded, lonelier side, and it is his gradual realisation, rather than any grand declaration, that gives the romance its payoff.

A romance that respects both people

What lifts Hidden Love above many campus romances is its insistence on equality. The story knows the imbalance of a teenage crush on an older man, and it makes Sang Zhi’s growth into an independent adult a precondition for the love story rather than an afterthought. Their relationship becomes one of mutual care, with each supporting the other’s ambitions and wounds. That emphasis on kindness, along with a strong sibling dynamic and a soft, sunny visual style, explains why it found such a devoted audience at home and abroad.

Where the slow burn cools

The same patience that gives the first half its charm can make the series drag. Once the central question is settled, the later episodes rely on family objections and backstory to generate conflict, and the tension drops noticeably. Some supporting storylines feel like filler, and the episode count could easily have been trimmed. The early scenes, in which Sang Zhi is still a schoolgirl and Jiaxu a university student, are handled innocently, but the premise will still put some viewers off.

Who should watch Hidden Love?

It is ideal for fans of romance that favours sweetness over melodrama, viewers who enjoy slow-burn love stories, and anyone looking for an accessible C-drama. At 25 episodes of around 45 minutes, it is a significant but easy-going commitment. There is almost no violence or explicit content, making it broadly family-friendly.

Two follow-ups:

• Meteor Garden (2018), another Chinese campus romance that became a streaming hit, with a more dramatic, class-clash flavour.
• The Romance of Tiger and Rose for a lighter, more comic C-drama romance.

The verdict

Hidden Love is a sweet, carefully performed romance that understands the ache of a long-held crush and the work of turning it into a grown-up love. It runs long and loses tension in its second half, but Zhao Lusi and Chen Zheyuan make it one of the most charming C-dramas of its year.

Rating: 4/5