BLISS RATING: ★★★
“When I’m with you, I feel safe from the things that hurt me inside.” – lovethispic.com
Honestly, you have to suspend this series’ entertainment value from any sort of connection to reality because if you do not, your mind would be twisted into a pretzel of contradictions. It is a cute, entertaining BL at face value but if you dig deeper, it is a series that has so many incongruities in it and abuses, that it is hard to ignore those aspects of it. Let us start with what makes it entertaining.
A fumbling, good-natured, starry-eyed young man starts out at a company obviously wanting to make money so he can help his family back home. His name is Yao Shun Yu (Hsiao Hung). He is as the newbie in the department assigned to work as the personal secretary to the General Manager, Xia Shang Zhou (Parker Mao), who is an exceptionally difficult individual to support. Every other secretary who has worked for him has left or been transferred because he is moody, difficult, demeaning, degrading, and very temperamental. Initially, he is the same way with Yao Shun Yu which of course makes him even more nervous and unsure of his skills.
But Yao Shun Yu has special skills that others did not have. When the General Manager gets one of his severe headaches, Yao Shun Yu offers to practice acupuncture on him and is able to reduce the intensity and frequency of his headaches. Slowly but effectively, the two of them start to form a bond. However, because Xia Shang Zhou is unable to fully express how he feels and is rather inept at formulating any type of connections with people, he simply presses forward rather assertively with his feelings towards Yao Shun Yu. Since he does not know how he really feels about him, Yao Shun Yu does not know if these overtures towards him are real, or he is just being played with. Both in essence are new at expressing feelings, let alone both being ineffective at dealing with feelings.
The General Manager begins to dot over him rather assertively and at one point aggressively sexually attacks Yao Shun Yu. Again, in context, from different perspectives, this might be entertaining but I found it shockingly inappropriate and abusive. You have a boss attack you sexually in your own apartment of a new employee still on probation!? How is that supposed to be all right? I did not and could not find that entertaining. While I understand that Yae Shun Yu was beginning to like him and perhaps that whole scene, if real, would have been titillating, it presents a wrong picture on how to begin a relationship between an employee and an employer. This is how the series unravels for me.
To add to the trauma, Yao Shun Yu is kidnapped, because he is mistaken for Xia Shang Zhou. That whole scene is done with great sensitivity and with humor and brings out a key element in this series because Xia Shang Zhou had a similar kidnapping experience when he was younger and never quite go over it. Perhaps that explains a lot about the development of his personality and character.
While these episodes are not long, it does seem that Yao Shun Yu’s understanding of the General Manager is particularly dense. While he is completely inept at explaining and showing his behavior, one has to be as dumb as a box of rocks not to realize that all of Xia Shang Zhou’s behaviors and attitude shows that he is deeply in love with Yae Shun Yu. But it takes him some time to realize it.
When he finally does, in comes Xia Shang Zhou’s mother, who is the President of the company and promptly slaps him not once but twice and orders him to stop seeing her son. The scene between these two literally saved this series and is a sight to behold. It is masterfully written and very well acted and frankly a bit surprising. He stood up to her with great conviction and she literally backed off. One of the better moments in any BL series between a rather controlling mother and her submissive son.
Who really S.T.O.L.E. this series? Honestly, I thought the acting here was a bit uneven throughout, but they were all cute. But really the one who I thought was so even in his approach to not only who he was as a character but as an actor was Yorke Sun as Li Hui Wang as the Vice President. Not only is he drop-dead gorgeous, he plays this part so dead-pan with extreme effectiveness. He knows exactly how toxic the General Manager is and he treats him with the exact same gentle forcefulness he treats everyone. He manages to manipulate him into turning around what is an ugly situation into a more positive one and allows him to think he had something to do with it. He really is a masterful manipulator in a way that does not look like he is. And he is astute enough to know how to use what he knows about others to his advantage. While he never throws his weight around, he always gets what he wants through manipulating others in the most gracious of fashion. He is also astute enough to know what is going on between Yao Shun Yu and Xia Shang Zhou. He is such a likeable character and portrays such a character that is easily approachable. A rare commodity in today’s business world. I liked him!
I already alluded to what is wrong with this series. This is so much abuse going on and there is no way to sugar-coat this and to say it is not. To be forcibly attacked by your boss in your own home is simply unacceptable. To be forced to sleep with your boss on trips and forced to be carried by your boss and to be asked to drink for your boss are all forms of coercion, no matter how you look at it and frankly while presented in an entertaining way, is not acceptable behavior in the real world. And to be slapped by the President of the company and attempted to be paid a considerable amount of money to leave her son alone is beyond the pale. I know this is perhaps supposed to be light-hearted and not real, but it does not take away from its cringeness and uncomfortableness and unacceptability. And frankly unfairness of what is the employee supposed to really do?
I know this is a BL and that portion was done in an entertaining way. While they made a cute couple, I never bought they were a couple, which of course did not happen until the last episode and then the screen was filled with moonbeams and hosannas. It was just a bit too Pollyanna and rushed.
In the long run, I am inclined to agree with the mother. What does he have to offer her son? Hence, my quote from above. Xia Shang Zhou and Yao Shun Yu are on two different paths and levels and once the feeling wears off and reality sets in, so much is unknown. I never saw much intensity to their relationship except superficiality. There are so many dimensions to a relationship that they have yet to explore. Let us see if ‘you are mine’ which feels so possessive, still holds after 5 years.
I really hope so.
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