BLISS RATING: ★★★★+
“With my last breath, I’ll exhale my love for you. I hope it’s a cold day so you can see what you meant to me.” – Jarod Kintz
Admitting, I gravitate towards coming-of-age love stories because they present life with such a hopeful future and makes living glow with anticipation. This very short series is no exception to this theme. Cui Tao and Lin Shuai play two high school students who are complete opposites. Chen Zihao is an adorably cute boy who is bubbly, gregarious, fun-loving and last in his class for learning. Yang Yuhang is equally as handsome but is at the top of his class and is a studious individual with no real friends. Something draws Chen Zihao to him and he quite literally through his power of persuasion and tenacity befriends Yang Yuhang as no one should go through life without someone. This is their quest.
And it is a beautiful adventure indeed. Each has something to offer the other. So, an intense friendship develops leading to an incredibly strong bromance. The two become inseparable and help each other out in areas the other is deficient in. Yang Yuhang helps Chen Zihao study and improve his grades in the hopes he could go to college with him. In the meantime, Chen Zihao teaches Yang Yuhang how to relax, enjoy live, and see the pleasures of the world. It honestly is a beautiful story of two young men falling in love, perhaps not really knowing what that is but sensing its presence all the time. In an ironic twist, they have been secretly pen-pals for several years. Yang Yuhang knew while Chen Zihao did not. It was a real ‘cat and mouse’ waiting game.
When Yang Yuhang tells Chen Zihao that his parents are divorcing, he says to him, “Life is like a train. Some people get on and some people get off. But I will never leave you.” Yang Yuhang looks at him with all the innocence of youth, smiles, and an expression of relief is clearly evident in his face. This story lives up to its title because it showed quite unabashedly that these two had a deep connection and were inseparable and could not function without each other. They needed each other equally and unequivocally.
At the end of the school year, as Chen Zihoa is carrying Yang Yuhang on his back, they make this pledge that they will be together and never leave each other’s side.
Unfortunately, this is where the story ends. We do not know if there is a happy ending to this story or if life, as it usually does, forces each to go off into a different direction. It has whispers of that happening, but it is up to us to decide that. In any case, this relationship is one that no matter what happens, they will remember the warm feelings they had towards each other, the love that they shared, and the deep connection that shall remain with them forever. This is their first love.
Who really S.T.O.L.E. the series? Both young men, Cui Tao and Lin Shuai, are deserving of this distinction. Each did an admirable job in being who they were supposed to be. Their youthfulness was both an asset and a liability for them. While they displayed the characteristics of youth, they were never given the opportunity of deepening this relationship. This was not necessarily their fault as this is from China.
To the extent that they could, they showed a deep connection to each other but only in quixotic episodes of playing bantering. Sometimes there were playful hints they were more connected but never on a deep level. It all seemed so superficial. It did not diminish the story; only its intensity. There is no question that these two young men would have and could have taken these roles to a deeper level if produced in another country. The foundation was there, and they took it as far as possible.
I love coming-of-age stories especially ones as beautifully filmed as this one. It was done with great care and effort to show the development of a strong bond between two young boys without any sexual overtones to it. Yet, we are left with the hope that perhaps someday, their relationship will come to fruition and become an acceptable one. I do think that was this story’s core message.
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