The First Frost (2025) [+]
Dec 03 2025
The First Frost is a Chinese romance-drama of 32 45-minute episodes and is based on a novel. Wen Yifan (Zhang Ruonan) is a local tv station news reporter and one day she runs into Sang Yan (Bai Jingting), her old high-school crush who she broke up with eight years ago for her own reasons. Sang Yan is still in love with Wen Yifan and although he's rather cool and aloof to her he's secretly trying to win her heart. Part of that involves moving in with her when fate burns down his apartment while her roommate moves out leaving her with an expensive lease.
As the story progresses we see that Wen Yifan has had an unfortunate life with the first episode starting off with a married neighbor trying to rape her. But throughout the series we learn that her father died then mom remarried and left her to live with her uncle and his wife while she kept going to high school and they were abusive and a relative tried to rape her and that incident left her with a broken ankle that ended her ballet dreams. And then in her first job another married man pursued her and even though she never did anything once the wife found out Wen Yifan was blamed for everything because she is pretty and unassuming.
Wen Yifan now goes through life keeping her head down and being afraid of men who try to be friendly to her. She internalizes everything so not even her best friend Zhong Siqiao (Zhang Miaoyi) knows everything. It is this shell that Sang Yan slowly cracks and peels as he finds out how bad she's had it. Even though Sang Yan had his own troubles and kept stalking Wen Yifan for years every time he finds out a secret he realizes she's had it worse.
Although it's low key depressing for much of the series it's a slow build as their relationship becomes something and she becomes more and more confident. I guess because the dark parts are revealed slowly and the recovery is also slow it feels less melodramatic and more meaningful and I found I really liked this series.
As the story progresses we see that Wen Yifan has had an unfortunate life with the first episode starting off with a married neighbor trying to rape her. But throughout the series we learn that her father died then mom remarried and left her to live with her uncle and his wife while she kept going to high school and they were abusive and a relative tried to rape her and that incident left her with a broken ankle that ended her ballet dreams. And then in her first job another married man pursued her and even though she never did anything once the wife found out Wen Yifan was blamed for everything because she is pretty and unassuming.
Wen Yifan now goes through life keeping her head down and being afraid of men who try to be friendly to her. She internalizes everything so not even her best friend Zhong Siqiao (Zhang Miaoyi) knows everything. It is this shell that Sang Yan slowly cracks and peels as he finds out how bad she's had it. Even though Sang Yan had his own troubles and kept stalking Wen Yifan for years every time he finds out a secret he realizes she's had it worse.
Although it's low key depressing for much of the series it's a slow build as their relationship becomes something and she becomes more and more confident. I guess because the dark parts are revealed slowly and the recovery is also slow it feels less melodramatic and more meaningful and I found I really liked this series.