The Early Spring Review (2026)

** A COMPREHENSIVE SPOILER FREE REVIEW**

At a Glance

The Early Spring Synopsis

When ambitious fresh graduate Shang Zhitao lands her dream job at a top Beijing advertising firm, she never expects her new boss to be the same coldly dismissive man who rejected her interview days earlier.

Luan Nian, the company's brilliant but famously difficult creative director, makes it clear from day one that he wants her gone. What starts as pure workplace friction slowly gives way to something neither of them saw coming, a connection built through late nights, real danger, and the kind of chemistry that's impossible to ignore no matter how hard they both try.

Set against the backdrop of Beijing's cutthroat advertising world, this is a story about two fiercely guarded people learning, slowly and painfully, how to let someone in. As their careers rise and their secret relationship deepens, old wounds, corporate rivals, and their own stubborn pride keep threatening to pull them apart.

Spanning years, cities, and more heartbreak than either of them bargained for, this is ultimately a story about what it costs to truly be known by someone, and what it takes to finally believe you're worth loving back.

The Early Spring Cast

Shang Zhitao Family and Friend Relationships

Luan Nian Family and Friend Relationships

Lime Colleagues

The Early Spring: Snapshot

Plot Density: 2 — Simple & Predictable

This is a workplace romance first and foremost, and the plot mechanics stay fairly straightforward, corporate rivals, office politics, the occasional external threat. There's real emotional complexity in how the relationship unfolds, but the surrounding plot never asks you to track multiple factions or long-buried conspiracies. What complexity exists lives entirely in the characters, not the story structure.

Romance Intensity: 5 — All-Consuming

This is a show built almost entirely around its central romance, and it commits fully. Real heat, real vulnerability, and a relationship that dominates nearly every scene across the full run. If you're here for the love story, this delivers at maximum intensity from very early on and never really lets up.

Comedy Level: 2 — Low, tagged Witty

Humour shows up in small doses, mostly through Lumi's sharp commentary and the odd bit of banter between the leads, but this isn't a show that leans on comedy to carry its tone. The emotional stakes stay front and centre throughout, with levity used sparingly to break up the heavier stretches.

The Early Spring: Detailed Review

I will preface this general review by saying that I have not read the novel. I am reviewing purely as a drama viewer and I will not be making comparisons to something I have not read.

Standout Performances

Jing Boran carries this show, and it's worth saying plainly, this is some of his best work. Luan Nian could easily have come across unlikeable in lesser hands, sharp-tongued, jealous, often cruel without meaning to be, but Jing Boran finds real vulnerability underneath all of it. There are a handful of quiet, emotionally raw scenes scattered through the back half of the series that are genuinely some of the best acting I've seen in the genre this year.

Sun Qian matches him well, particularly as the series progresses. Her early scenes occasionally lean a touch too soft or naive for my taste, but her character's growth over the course of the show feels earned rather than performative, and by the later episodes, watching her handle herself with real composure is genuinely satisfying.

The supporting cast deserves real credit too. Zhang Yezi who plays Lumi, Shang Zhitao’s mentor, is a scene-stealer in nearly every appearance, equal parts comic relief with her sharp tongue and open-minded ideals. Qi Tian Qing and Liu Xiaobei who play Zhitao’s roommates have storylines that are handled with real care as well, understated until it isn't, giving the show some of its most emotionally devastating moments.

The Storyline

At its core, this is a workplace romance between a brilliant, difficult creative director and the fresh graduate who becomes both his employee and, eventually, his secret partner. The premise is simple by design, corporate rivalries, office politics, personal insecurities, and it mostly plays to that simplicity's strengths rather than overcomplicating things with unnecessary plot machinery.

Where the show runs into trouble is pacing consistency and believability around its timeline. Multiple points suggest significant time passing, sometimes without adequate signposting, and it becomes difficult to track exactly how much time separates major beats.

This isn't just a nitpick, it actively undercuts some emotional moments, since it's hard to fully feel the weight of a long-term relationship when the show hasn't clearly shown us that time passing.

There are also a few conveniently timed plot devices that exist purely to manufacture conflict, external pressures that show up right when the central relationship needs an obstacle, secrets kept for the sole purpose of creating a later misunderstanding.

None of it derails the show, but a sharper edit likely would have smoothed several of these rough patches. Widely reported behind-the-scenes cuts from a longer episode order may explain some of this choppiness, and it does show, particularly from the midpoint onward.

Romance Snapshot

This is a romance that runs hot early and stays hot, genuine chemistry, real intimacy, and an emotional intensity that dominates nearly every episode. It's not a patient slow burn so much as two people who fall fast and then spend years learning, painfully, how to actually be honest with each other. For the full breakdown, Sizzle Factor, Devotion Meter, and the rest of the ratings, check out the dedicated Romance Review.

Pacing & Payoff

This is a show of two distinct speeds. The front half moves briskly and confidently, each episode advancing the relationship in some meaningful way, whether through conflict, tenderness, or genuine plot development. The back half slows down in tone even as the actual plot compresses dramatically, and the imbalance shows.

The most significant pacing issue for me sits squarely in the final stretch. A major turning point in the relationship arrives quite late in the 24-episode run, leaving only a handful of episodes to resolve years of accumulated conflict and, crucially, to actually show either lead standing on their own two feet before any reconciliation happens.

What could have been a genuinely meaningful stretch of independent growth largely gets compressed into an accelerated time jump instead, and I felt that undercut the emotional weight of that growth. I know viewers are torn on this by design, some appreciate the slow, deliberate build of the earlier episodes and see the compressed ending as a fair trade-off, while others feel the middle stretches run repetitive precisely because that time could have been better spent giving the final act room to breathe. I lean toward the latter camp myself.

The ending itself, despite the compression, largely earns its payoff. It offers a genuinely inventive way to close out years of accumulated secrets and small gestures, recontextualizing a lot of earlier scenes in a satisfying way. That said, one significant thread never fully gets tied off, leaving one layer of emotional closure just out of reach, and the rushed final stretch means the reconciliation arrives with less room to fully land than it deserves.

Cinematography & Visual Style

The show has a clean, contemporary visual identity that suits its modern Beijing setting well, sleek office interiors, warm domestic lighting in the apartment scenes, and a genuinely gorgeous change of pace once the story ventures beyond the city. One sequence involving a stunning natural phenomenon is particularly beautifully shot, understated rather than showy, letting the emotional weight of the scene carry itself without over-relying on spectacle.

Music & Sound

The OST does real emotional heavy lifting throughout, and Liu Yuning’s contributions in particular are worth calling out specifically, an acoustic reprise of “Her/She” deployed at a key emotional turning point is genuinely one of the most beautifully placed music cues I've heard in a drama this year.

Li Changgeng’s “You Should Know” during the intimate scenes is the perfect score to highlight the heat and passion and now forever wired in my brain! The score also knows exactly when to hold back and let silence do the work too, which makes the moments it does swell in feel earned rather than manipulative.  

Secondary Characters

This is one of the show's real strengths. Sun Yu, Zhitao's closest roommate, could have easily been reduced to comic relief, but she's given real interiority of her own, her own heartbreak, her own quiet loyalty that never wavers even when she doesn't have the full picture of what's going on with her friend.

Yuanzhu's arc is handled with genuine care too, his quiet struggles never overplayed for melodrama, which makes his eventual fate land with real, devastating weight when it finally comes.

And Lumi, Zhitao's colleague and mentor at work, is a scene-stealer in nearly every appearance, sharp, funny, fiercely loyal, with her own understated romantic disappointment adding a genuine layer of heartbreak to the wider cast rather than existing purely to support the leads.

Cultural Context

The show offers a grounded look at contemporary Beijing's cutthroat advertising industry and the very real pressures facing young professionals navigating that world, workplace hierarchies, the stigma around office relationships, and the immense pressure of trying to build an independent life in a hypercompetitive city far from home.

A shift in setting during the back half offers a nice contrast too, a slower, more community-oriented pace that underscores exactly why the pull toward home eventually wins out.

Warnings

This show deals with real depression and mental health struggles as a major plot point, handled with care but still genuinely heavy, and worth knowing going in if that's a sensitive subject for you. There's also a serious sexual harassment and assault storyline involving a secondary antagonist that some viewers may want to be aware of beforehand.

Pacing dips noticeably in the back third, and the show's timeline can be genuinely difficult to track at points.

Compare & Contrast

If you're drawn to intense, chemistry-driven office romances with real emotional stakes and don't mind a slower, messier back half, this is a strong pick. Skip it if you're looking for a cleaner, faster-paced watch, or if workplace power dynamics and prolonged relationship secrecy are dealbreakers for you, this show leans into both fairly heavily for most of its runtime.

Final Verdict

This is a romance that succeeds almost entirely on the strength of its two leads and the genuine, messy chemistry between them, even when the plot around them occasionally stumbles. The lead performance in particular is strong, and the show's willingness to let its central couple be flawed, frustrating, and slow to grow feels more honest than most dramas in this genre manage.

It's not a tightly plotted watch, and the pacing wobbles more than I'd like in the back half, but for anyone who wants a love story that actually earns its ending through real work rather than a single grand gesture, this delivers.

If you're after some serious romantic heat that sizzles, a red flag male lead slowly turning green through plenty of pain and mistakes, and a vulnerable female lead who eventually finds her footing, this is for you. I was addicted from the beginning and couldn't tear my eyes away. I now have a genuine hangover from their absence on my screen.

The trope itself is highly cliché, nothing groundbreaking here, and some may even see real shades of toxic masculinity in his condescending approach, which may be hard to watch at points for some. But as viewers, we're drawn to familiarity, and plots like this remain popular precisely because they work, however predictable the formula might be.

ilovecdrama.com Rating: ⭐9.5/10

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The Early Spring: All Episode Recaps and Full Reviews