BLISS RATING: ★★★★★
“True love doesn’t have a happy ending, because true love never ends” – Divyesh Bhagat
This series tricks you. It lulls you into thinking it is going in one direction, only for that to be a ‘red herring’. Or maybe not? That is what made this series so immensely enjoyable and entertaining to watch.
It begins with two friends – one male and the other female. Le Chien (Lukas Huang) and Hsieh Ye He (Tannie Huang) have been friends since they were children. Now older, they work together in a coffee shop to support them going to college. Indeed, they are the best of friends. Le Chien and his good friend Li Ching Lung (Lin Wei Jei) have an adventure YouTube channel, thinking of themselves as swashbuckling adventurers into the world of scary macabre. Li has a boyfriend named Guan Yu Chen (Leo Guo). They have been a couple for some time. Although they are a secondary couple, their relationship is detailed in rather soft tones but so realistic especially for couples that have been together for a long time and have taken each other for granted. But their relationship flourishes and its future will be taken into a new direction.
One day a mysterious individual walks into the coffee shop. He is a young very attractive man coming back from living overseas for a long time. His name is Amber (Eric Lin). He is a very enigmatic individual who seems a bit pensive and obtuse in his responses. Instantly, he and Le Chien hit it off and start to form a bond that makes Ye He uncomfortable. Why she is uncomfortable is because for a long time she has been harboring feelings for Le Chein, perhaps even an infatuation for him. Yet, he is completely oblivious of her feelings and sees her nothing more than a very close friend.
As part of their adventure for their YouTube channel, the four decide to go look for the Guilai Nunnery on the Gudeng Ridge, which means Lone Lantern Ridge. The story behind the legend is that many years ago, a couple was in love, Rong and Yen-Ching, but the families would not permit them to marry because one was poor and the other one rich. Ye-Chen hung himself while Rong’s rope broke. Thus, she moved into the mountains to build this nunnery to keep the lantern for signaling their eternal love. Legend has it that it cannot be found and even if it was, you might not return. The four try to find it but fail but conclude that perhaps it really was not necessarily a legend of a boy and a girl but could have been two boys.
While up there, something deeper happens between Le Chein and Amber. Le Chein senses more heartfelt emotions towards him while for Amber, has obviously had a strong attraction towards Le Chein.
When they return, they are almost inseparable. One could not shake the feeling that Amber is hiding something and hiding something mysteriously. And here is where the series twists the story. I thought that Amber was perhaps a reincarnation of one of two love birds. I, of course, was wrong. Amber was hiding a deeper, more personal reason for being coy. And by accident Ye He finds out the secret.
Throughout this series at the beginning, there are flashbacks when Le Chein, Ye He were youngsters. With the both of them, they had a third friend called WenWen and she and Le Chein were inseparable. As children, they pledged to never part from each other and to remain friends. But suddenly when WenWen was in the third grade, her family moved her, and they never heard from her again. But all Le Chein can talk about is how close he was to WenWen and wonders how she is doing and hopes she is well. It is obvious that he still has strong feelings for her, even if they stem from old memories.
To make any sense of this story, you have to know a key element, and it is a ‘spoiler’ that is unavoidable. Amber is hiding the fact that he is WenWen. Shockingly, now a male and terrified of revealing that fact to Le Chein. He begs Ye He not to tell him. I have read some critiques of this series saying this is an unrealistic plot. This plot is real and is surprisingly common, as common as the number of red heads in the world. What Amber is, is an Intersex individual.
Intersex is an umbrella term describing a wide range of natural variations that affect genitals, gonads, hormones, chromosomes, and reproductive organs. An intersex person is born with reproductive or sexual anatomy that does not fit the boxes of ‘male’ or ‘female’. In Amber’s case, the doctors and family decided that he could more easily identify as a male and therefore he was subsequently altered and raised to be a boy.
So how do you tell your closest friends this kind of secret? Yet, through all of that, whether female or male, WenWen continued to love Le Chien.
Picking the name Amber rings of poetry. Amber is a very valuable gem if you will. Amber in fossilized from is tree sap that dries to a clear color and if any living material is in that sap, becomes preserved as if they are alive. We can see their form clearly of what it was previously but today, it is admired for its real beauty. We can see WenWen inside, but the real beauty is “Amber’.
Who really S.T.O.L.E. this series? This is an astonishing well-acted series. No one had a weak performance, and each are worthy of this distinction. But I give a slight nod to Tannie Huang as Yu He. She was a pained individual who had an unrequited love for Le Chein without him ever seeing it, feeling it, or knowing it. He never saw her as anything more than a good friend and sister. All Le Chien talked about was WenWen. And she knew his first love was her but hoped eventually he would realize the futility of that love and look for someone else, namely her. So she waited. When Amber comes into the picture, she realizes that Le Chen is attracted to him and now her chances of ever being with him are virtually gone. She whispers these nuances with great finesse and you can see in her face and mannerism the loss of hope. And when she discovers who Amber really is and he begs her to not tell Le Chien, she is thrust into an emotional quandary with all of those feelings hitting her at one. She feels, anger, scorn, and must learn to go from being a girl to a woman almost instantly. Does he tell Le Chien? Does she not? And if she does, does she do so for revenge? Her decision is a phenomenal piece of screenwriting and encapsulated her personality. She makes the decision with grace, maturity, with the ultimate sense that friendship outweighs her personal feeling or emotions. The scenes with her lamenting to her brother and then explaining to Le Chien who Amber is are some of the finest acting in this series. Immature Yu He morphs from caterpillar into a full blown graceful, beautiful and elegant butterfly. Worthy of kudos.
This is honestly a beautiful series to absorb because it takes you from the expected to the unexpected. More importantly, you feel these characters. You understand Amber’s pain. You relate to Le Chien’s shock. And you feel Ye He’s disappointment. Two exigencies stand out that takes this series to a higher level of quality. Le Chien’s mother ’knows’ (senses) who Amber is almost from the beginning and her acceptance of her son’s attraction to Amber.
This is so evident from the one scene when she is about to enter Le Chien’s room and she can hear her son and Amber laughing and frolicking. She smiles, with a sense of complete understanding, and turns away. Phenomenal.
The second one is when Le Chien is able to admit he loved Amber for who he is and what he is. He never saw ‘her’ in Amber and will never see him as WenWen. After all these years, he can let go of WenWen and only see Amber. How telling is it when asked if he wants to be called WenWen. He unhesitatingly responds, “No. Amber.” He now is no longer WenWen.
This is ground-breaking in a sense that it tackles a fairly common condition with dignity and gives it a plausible ending. This is often a misunderstood medical condition and hopefully this series will shed some light on something that often brings pain, aguish, guilt, and confusion to an induvial no matter what direction the person has chosen to lead.
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