BLISS RATING: ★★★★+
“I still think about that kiss, and compare it to others from time to time.” – Pernell Quilon (paraphrased)
Stunning, and profoundly moving. This BL series also has a ‘sad’ feel about it from the very beginning. Nothing feels like it quite belongs. This is a slice of live series with no happy ending yet feels real and despondent. It is a story of a student named Su Hai Quing (Yan Ming Chen). Hai Quing lives with his father and grandfather, who is suffering from dementia. Hai Quing is an aspiring artist who is very talented and is trying to get into a Fine Arts University program. He has a love/hate relationship with his father as his father is not particularly supportive of his goals. One day he goes swimming, and, in the pool, he sees someone who gets a cramp and is drowning. He goes into to rescue him. In the changing room, Yan Fei (Ting Yun Wang), simply comes up to Hai Quing and kisses him passionately. Suddenly, he is smitten, and this action will forever change his life. Yan Fi gives him his phone number and tells him to call him.
It is indeed an unusual scene and one, while little is spoken, feels as if both their lives will forever be changed by that kiss. Hai Quing knows nothing else about this person whom he rescued except that this kiss seems very real and passionate, and he is taken in by it. But before he can call, several in the pool area throw his phone in the pool and call Hai Quing ‘faggot’. He tries to find this guy but eventually gives up, accepting that he will never see or meet the ‘love of his live’ (my words) again.
Hai Quing starts to take art classes and a male model poses for the class, who is unbelievably and stunningly handsome with a magnificent body. His name is Chen Pin Jun (Ting Xuan Huang). They strike up a conversation which eventually leads to romance. Pin Jun is there when Hai Quing’s grandfather dies and there is an intimacy that develops that is ‘love’. But there is always something missing in their relationship. Hai Quing never fully commits himself to the relationship or to Pin Jun, who is totally devoted to him, however.
Through a quirk of fate, Hai Quing is introduced to his ‘love’, Yan Fei, and thus the door once thought to be closed, opens. Hai Quing is powerless to stop his feeling for Yan Fei and their relationship intensifies. Meanwhile, Pin Jun finds out about this affair but is so willing to pretend that things are fine. Hai Quin admits that he loves both and cannot decide. There is no question in this type of situation, ‘pretending’ that everything is all right will not last long nor is it healthy.
Almost tragically, Pin Jun is stricken with a life-threatening illness and Hai Quing devotes his time to taking care of him. Yan Fei is also in a relationship with Jimmy (Bai Rui Lin). Their relationship is rocky at best and already destroyed at worst. Neither wanted to see it over but Yan Fei is more into forcing the relationship to end by using passive-aggressive methods, perhaps not consciously, but he cannot help himself. He wants to pursue his love for Hai Qung but again never really taking responsibility of what that has done to his past relationship nor thinking about what it would do to Hai Quing’s relationship. As his friend says to him, “Life is like a beauty app. There is always a filter. You only want to know what you want to know”.
This is an enormously tragic story for all couples involved. Jimmy is angry, frustrated, and deeply hurt by the almost callous treatment from Yan Fei. There are some beautiful dialogues about relationships and love in this series that are so well written and are painfully delivered by persons who have been the subject of some of life’s irrational encounters. The sacrifice that Pin Jun makes in letting go of Hai Quing is painful and very sad. I cried deeply for his loss and for knowing how difficult that decision was but had to be made. He KNOWS that Hai Quing is deeply in love with Yan Fei more than he is in love with him. Pin Jun in a stunningly moving scene hugs Yan Fei and says, “Thank you for giving me a year with Hai Quing”. (In reference to the time that these two had been together before Yen Fei re-entered the picture). I completely lost it in that scene and know from personal experience how painful that decision is. Deeply moving. But in the end, the world must be righted and the only way to do that is to have no one win.
You can see in Hai Quing’s eyes that something is still missing. In the end, he decides to move to America to be with his father for at least 3 years. Yan Sei sits alone in his house. Pin Juan works with a pensive and saddened look on his face. So, this ends up maudlin, melancholic, and everyone being alone. It is a beautifully told story with realistic outcomes. Perhaps not the way we wanted it to be, but fate and destiny have other plans. There are no winners here but plenty of losers and those who paid the ultimate price of falling in love with them.
Who really S.T.O.L.E. the series? This is an astonishing and brilliantly acted series with such deep intensely emotions needing to be felt. I give a slight nod to Yan Ming Chen (Aric) as Hai Quing. While seemingly under some sort of love spell, he remains always just one step away from really falling in love. Aric displays a sense of futility and foreboding throughout this series. Kudos for showing the nuances of the fear of commitment even though it is wanted. He remained sad from the beginning to the end.
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