BLISS RATING: ★★★★★
“In the daily life that is too ordinary to be called destiny but too beautiful to be called a coincidence, I finally realized that I already have all the answers I want. Our days are filled with unquestionable happiness.” – Quote from Love for Love’s Sake
I must admit that this series is an astonishingly sophisticated and complex story to navigate. This story may also be the beginning for the creation of fictionalized BL worlds blending video gaming with reality, an interesting new format to say the least. Since I do not play ‘video games’ and had no idea of the lingo or the rules for computer gaming, this was a challenge for me to traverse. I had to stop and find definitions to terms I am unfamiliar with, admittedly. Additionally, this series uses a combination of allegory, fantasy, and twists to realities in an almost Avant-Garde fashion. And the story itself is oblique and sometimes enigmatic. This is not your standard BL series by any means.
Tae Myung Ha (Lee Tae Vin) is asked to read and critique his senior’s new work of fiction. The characters have a happy ending except for one individual, who Tae Myung Ha seems to identify with. Tae Myung views the character in this book without a happy ending, much like himself. So, the author asks him if he wants to help him create a happy ending for this character. Interestingly, this fictionalized work is being converted to a game, Tae Myung is told.
So, his friend, now acting like a moderator if you will, asks him if he would like to change the ending. He transcends Tae Myung Ha back to being 19 again via a character in the video game in his story. His return to being young again is to make Cha Yeo Woon (Cha Joo Wan), the unhappy character in the book, ‘happy’ and in that process, perhaps see his own life differently. So, he now becomes part of the game. But how can he make Yeo Woon happy? That realization becomes their journey.
It honestly is as much a story of Tae Myung as it is Yeo Woon’s, perhaps more so. Both their happiness is inextricably tied to each other. Both have isolated themselves to the point that neither are capable of receiving love. Life has simply become going from one painful experience to another and when someone does show them love, each is incapable of recognizing it let alone feel he deserves it. If Tae Myung fails in his mission, the option is death. Which means, what in accordance with the rules of the game?
The beauty of this series is that fate and destiny are not the same and we are capable of changing either; or are we? The road to self-discovery is laid out before us to take but how we decide to traverse it remains ours to determine. Once someone enters that road with us, does that person help us to change our direction? Our lives become complicated and is it necessary for us to perhaps rewrite our own story? How we rewrite it becomes central. Do we do so with regret? With hope? With a change of mind? Or an acceptance of the fate that was supposedly given to us as its inevitability?
Who really S.T.O.L.E. this series? This is one of those rare times that I shall name the entire ensemble for this distinction. From the main leads to the often times quixotic minor characters to grandma (Joo Boo Jin) simply because she is Grandma to everyone. Each enhances this series to make it unique without anyone overwhelming it. This series could have become very maudlin, but these performers knew enough to keep their performances at peak level. They played the scenes as if each one was a stand-alone skit, making it feel as if each one stood alone in its importance to the story. The actors showed the personalities of the characters more so in how they expressed themselves than in the words they used. You could literally understand their emotions without words. Movements were natural and seamless. Kudos to one of the best ensembles of actors/actresses I have seen in a long time.
This series has a realist feel about it. While I know nothing of computer gaming, the feel and look of its cinematically appears right. It gives the impression that you are part of a game but feeling it in real time. Tae Hyung’s sense of who and what he is never leaves him and that gives it an extra appeal. As he falls in love with Yeo Woon, he knows it is perhaps not ‘right’ yet he is induced to do so. He is 29 in thinking but 19 in the game. How does he act? He tries to get Yeo Woon to dismiss his feelings for him, but it merely deepens the connection. Their kissing is some of the cutest I have seen in a long time. It looks awkward, unsure, clumsy, but oh so damn sincere!
If you are looking for clear answers to what this series is all about, you will not find it. It is profoundly deep in every sense of that word. It deals with death in a very esoteric way, much like it does with love. This is one of the few BLs that looks at love not with starry-eyed lust or merely physical attraction but simply because the two make each other happy and complete each other; they were meant to receive each other’s love to truly understand love.
I would have renamed this series to a more apt title. I would have called it “Love Supremacy Zone” defined as ‘an attitude or tendency that posits being in love as the highest goal in life and the only core condition for marriage’. Tae Myung Ha and Cha Yeo Woon certainly achieved that.
I like to think all of us have our own love supremacy zone. Or it is out there somewhere for us.
One of the Best for 2024.
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