Love Once Again

After a failed relationship, Lin Nuannuan focuses on her career, pushing love aside. Her childhood friend, Shi Guang, supports her dream, but he must choose his own path, even if it means leaving her. Along with two friends facing their own struggles with love and identity, they navigate heartbreak, ambition, and self-discovery, finding strength in each other as they chase their dreams.

Love Once Again (2021-2022) is a Chinese web romance drama created for Tencent Video, a short-form series of eighteen roughly ten-minute episodes. Its protagonist Lin Nuannuan, played by You Jingru, has been left by a failed relationship and turns her energy toward her career, pushing love aside. Her childhood friend Shi Guang, played by Ryan Zhao, backs her dream while wrestling with a choice about his own path, even if it means leaving her behind. Around them, friends Flora (Ariel Ann), Mei Jing (Hong Yike), Yu Xiao (Xu Xiaohan) and Liang Cheng (Liu Xu) face their own struggles with love and identity. The engine of the series is the small, concrete friction of workplace ambition, unspoken feelings, and the decisions friends make about where they want to be. Each short episode moves a single thread forward, and the eighteen episodes form one continuing season of heartbreak, self-discovery and gradual warmth. The tone is gentle, wistful and sincere, with a youthful urban glow. Fans of Sex and the City, Younger and Meteor Garden will find resonance in its mix of career ambition, close friendship and slow-burning romance.

Audiences gave the series a mixed-to-middling reception, with its romance and friendship storylines landing unevenly across its short run.

• Sex and the Cityshared gentle romance tones, career ambition alongside love, close friend group dynamics
• Youngershared young urban professionals navigating heartbreak and friendship, light romantic drama
• Meteor Garden (2018)shared friends to lovers arc and youthful romantic comedy register

Release Date

2021-12-06

Episode runtime

10 min

Rating

7.0 / 10 (117)

What is Love Once Again about?

A young woman who has sworn off love chases her career while her childhood friend quietly supports her dreams and then must choose his own path.

What is Love Once Again like to watch?

Ember's analysis rates the pacing of Love Once Again as brisk, its intensity as mild and its storytelling as simple.

Is Love Once Again violent?

No — Ember's analysis finds no violence in Love Once Again.

What did critics think of Love Once Again?

Audiences gave the series a mixed-to-middling reception, with its romance and friendship storylines landing unevenly across its short run.

Which shows are like Love Once Again?

Shows with a similar feel include Sex and the City, Younger, and Meteor Garden (2018).

How long is Love Once Again?

Love Once Again: 1 season, 18 episodes.

Is Love Once Again still running?

No, Love Once Again has ended.