Actress’s “Fake” Kiss Scenes In New Romance Series Trigger Frustration, Annoyance

Some fans who were expecting a spicier viewing experience are not pleased by the lack of lip action in a new romance series.

Based on the title alone, one would expect Be Passionately in Love to be, well, passionate when it comes to the lead couple’s relationship. The series, which began airing on May 28, tells the story of a top student who becomes entangled with a troublemaker during the summer after her college entrance exam. The two are total opposites, but you know what they say: opposites attract.

This C-Drama is based on a webnovel of the same name by Er Dong Tu Zi.

Although details are often changed when a written work is adapted for the screen, there is one notable difference between the webnovel and the C-Drama: kiss scenes.

Whenever the leads, actress Liu Haocun and actor Wang Anyu, go in for a kiss, the camera shifts to block their lips from view, zooms out, etc. to hide the extent of the kiss. In other words, viewers aren’t actually seeing the lead couple’s lips touch. Already, some fans are frustrated and annoyed by the lack of kissing. The webnovel features plenty of kiss scenes, and the book version of the heroine isn’t shy about them. So far, her C-Drama counterpart isn’t nearly as bold.

Some viewers have speculated that the kiss scenes were changed for Liu Haocun because the actress, who debuted in the 2020 film One Second, has a history of not doing kiss scenes in her work.

This speculation has not been confirmed, and since the show is just getting started, it’s possible that things could heat up between the lead couple later on. Check out the trailer here: