BLISS RATING: ★★★★
“They say that love is blind, but it is trauma that is blind. Love sees what is.” – Neil Strauss
This BL series is composed of 3 separate distinct stories. The first one is ‘My Hero’. It is a story of soul displacement in which Lan Xi, played by Ying Mei Lin (Patricia), dies and enters the body of a guy by the name of Si Ren, played by Yun Lin Jiang. He also dies but his soul has not yet quite left his body, so he is therefore able to be reborn with a new soul.
This allows Si Ren to enter his body. He happens to be a good friend of her boyfriend, Mai Jing Xiong, played by Aaron Lai. In this twist, she must get her boyfriend to fall in love with her as him and have him kiss her before 7 days in order for her to remain in this new body. There are interesting twists and turns especially in ‘her’ learning to navigate a male body. It is a story of self-reflection and deep realizations. What made this story so interesting is the fact that while she possesses the body, she has no memories or experiences as him. She stumbles across some personal journals of his and begins to realize how deeply in love he has been with her boyfriend Mai Jing. Slowly she begins to realize that she really did not ‘see’ her boyfriend and he was more into trying to please her than love her. She also begins to realize that Mai Jing has genuine feeling for Si Ren and is not because of anything she has done. They do have a bond and a fondness between them.
What I did like about this story is that she came to a painful realization and conclusion that he would never love her like she wanted (and actually never did). Sadly, it is best to allow her boyfriend to live the life that he wants that is based on honesty. genuineness, and realness. She must make the ultimate sacrifice. Overall, it is a good solid story played well and convincingly. This story in enjoyable and the actors are obviously very good looking.
The second story called ‘Stay Away from Me’ is about two stepbrothers. Feng He, played by Edison Song, who is the ‘older’ brother becomes responsible for his younger stepbrother, Cheng Quing, played by Cheng Jing Wu (Duke). Cheng is a celebrity who is narcissistic, arrogant, and self-centered while Feng is studious, grounded, and honest. However, as they are forced to explore who they are as ‘brothers’ they both slowly begin to realize, perhaps not on a conscious level, that they are attracted to each other. Feng has an overbearing friend, named Meng Meng, who is a fujoshi (a woman who is a fan of gay relationships) of the worst kind.
But she is the ultimate manipulator who is trying desperately to hurry along this relationship for her own enjoyment and does not realize what consequences that would have on the two of them. She does something that is so astonishingly despicable that it literally destroys the genuine budding emotions they had between them. And they are forced to start back all over again.
This story is so disconcerting because of the disguising manipulation of someone trying to force something that was not quite ready to fully develop yet. I thought her behavior was reprehensible and disgusting and could have easily caused irremediable damage. While in the end, Feng accepted her apology, personally, I would NEVER have, which disturbed me even more.
This again is a teaching moment and to send a clear message that trying to do things like this is so destructive and self-serving. While she might have thought her intentions were in the right place, it was not hers to make (especially straight people who think they understand). It is already so difficult to develop gay relationships by themselves, organically. It worsens when someone who does NOT understand what is going on or romanticizes about it tries to intervene. It can lead to dangerous and unhealthy consequences.
Overall, conceptually, this story is hard to like especially as a gay man because of the attempted contrived manipulation of the relationship. While it was well very well acted and the actors are adorable, the story is hard to watch.
The third story was called ‘Obsessed’ and is quite controversial in its content. It is very intense and full of assault, violence, closely bordering on abuse, deceit, and passiveness spilling into resignation. I for one did not see this as others saw it. Yes, there is violence but not abuse. Let me try and explain. Shoe Yi Chen, played beautifully by You Cheng Ren (Teddy) has a relationship with Jiang Jing Teng, played by Bernard He.
Through an unfortunate misunderstanding, Shoe Yi is killed by a car but is ‘reborn’ 9 years later. So, his new mantra is to try and make sure he does not develop a relationship with Jian Jing, thus avoiding dying again. But as fate would dictate, there is no escaping. The irony here is that Shoe Yi becomes so obsessed with winning and keeping Jian Jing that he takes extraordinary means to keep the relationship going, even if Jian Jing is continuously trying to keep his distance and to not have it develop.
It gets to the point that Jian Jing realizes that there is nothing he can do to stop it and succumbs to the inevitability. It seems either the positive path or negative path, will lead to the same outcome.
While it seems destiny is written, there are clues that somehow things are different and the story is not the same, even though the path might be the same. As Jiang Jing’s friend tells him, “you should only worry about the future when the future becomes now”. This is so true and might be what will make this outcome different. In this version, Shoe Yi is focused so much on his own obsession, and he uses guilt and other negative traits to get what he wants. All in the name of love and Jian Jing is almost powerless to stop it. At the end, we understand the reasoning for these actions.
Yes, I do understand why some disliked this series as it is driven by a person’s irrational and negative obsession for another. BUT, that person (Jian Jing) in not totally powerless to stop it. He just cannot because he does not want to. He is in love with Shoe Yi as much as Shoe Yi is in love with him. It may not be the story of redemption that is based on a path of understanding, but it is one based on great pain, wrongs, and toxic behaviors.
I thought it was raw, intense, painful to watch, and in every sense of the word, real. Some relationships are based on emotionally painful and toxic journeys before a deeper appreciation and understanding of each other can be attained. This is one of those stories and I, painful as it is, appreciated this approach to a better outcome. In the end (I do not want to give it away necessarily) is a happier one. There is realization and a past mistake leading to tragedy will be avoided this time around. They are indeed deeply in love and no matter what approach is taken; it will always be that way.
Who really S.T.O.L.E. the series? It is difficult to assess a specific individual for this distinction because all of them did exceptional jobs in their respective roles and each story is so different. But for me the individual who had the most impact is Yun Lin Jiang as Si Ren. This is a difficult role to be yourself but possessed by another soul, especially of the opposite sex. The nuances and mannerisms were believable and I was convinced. Kudos for a great acting job.
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