BLISS RATING: ★★★★+
“Maybe I was destined to forever fall in love with people I could not have.” – Carol Rifka Brunt, Tell The Wolves I’m Home
Just plain incomprehensible. Yet completely absorbing from the beginning and never let go. Although the story itself is notably out of reach, the characters were so compelling; I wanted more. Initially, I thought perhaps it was due to me not understanding the makeup and composition of the story because it was based upon Chinese lore or myth or an esoteric fable. But then as the story merged from crossing into a parallel universe with Chinese legendry, I dismissed that notion. There was a corporal transference during a unique lunar eclipse that simply went beyond my level of perception. Yet all that did was merely make the story more compelling and entrancing for me.
During this lunar eclipse, Yang You (Liu Qiong Yang) inexplicably crosses over into a parallel universe through a mirror into another world like his own but definitely not his. In what he thinks is a serendipitous encounter, yet it is not, he meets Chen Shi (Gao Ming Yuan). From the very beginning, their rendezvous shows signs of being spurious. In the sense that it has the hallmark of both being dishonest in what they know about each of their sudden appearances. It seems that Yang You must be near Chen Shi in this world or he will fade from existence and so he convinces him of his destitution and therefore he needs to reside with him. The story tries to convince us that they are living a mundane ordinary life, but we conceive differently. They establish a podcast so that Yang You can earn money, where they adopt the pen names of Pluto for Chen Shi and Charon for Yang You. The more entangled they become in the ordinariness of living, the greater the risk of a slip-up occurring. And that is what happens.
For we find out that both have been locked into a time loop of meeting and losing each other ad infinitum. While they are intrinsically linked together, they are never meant to BE together. Although their love for one another is immeasurable, it can never be fully absolute. The universes, the fates, and time itself have all determined that they cannot exist together.
Who really S.T.O.L.E.this series? Essentially, this story is a duology; otherwise, it would be impossible to explain. This story is astonishingly deep and layered by incomprehensibility. Both have experienced lovemaking together countlessly, perhaps even millions of times, that the variations have become commonplace. For at least one, Chen Shi, knows it is fleeting. His emotions and feelings are going to be so ‘off’ and different for each version when they meet. Meanwhile, for Yang You it is all new because he does not remember or carry-over previous memories and each of his variations is slightly different. While Yang You senses something is distorted, he knows he entered a parallel universe where his existence is now with Chen Shi and only him. Yet if Chen Shi alters Yang You’s natural selection to deciding, he will die immediately. The acting required to reflect all of this comes without our knowledge and understanding of that until the end. Even if it does not seem like it, their acting is extraordinary and I think missed by most observers. It is near the end that I began to deeply appreciate the nuances and strands of gradations of both their acting challenges in their roles from the beginning. The personas are nebulous at best and are open to interpretation. Liu Qiong Yang and Gao Ming Yuan did an exceptional undertaking by making their two characters feel like they are in love, deeply and passionately, and want to be together, but always with a sense that they never will be. So, there is always a melancholic feeling and dark malaise around them. I found all that encompassing persuasive. They do so with such intensity without giving us any reason to have a false sense of hope. These two young men are abstract actors who deserve our praise for their delicate performances.
This is a dark, brooding, pessimistic BL but it is nonetheless still one and I think an exceptional one. It is misunderstood because it is so avant-guard and so plutonian in scope. Which is so ironic, given its title is one that is astonishing symbiotic as well as so apt. Charon is a moon of Pluto with each relying on the other for its orbit and stability. Each shining towards the other but never destined to meet because if they did, it would mean utter destruction. Much like Pluto and Charon here. They can never be together.
This is such a deep and rich series, esoteric and intellectually stimulating. It is intensely romantic in a darkly brooding way, as you know it is fatalistic. It makes us uncomfortable to watch because one, we do not fully understand, and two, it is not ebullient. In fact, the ending will simply leave you doleful.
Sure, this series needed to be edited better and the translations, especially the last episode, are completely off. Yet, if you want an experience that is different, this is for you. Be warned, there is no happy ending at all nor even a hint of one and you are left with even more questions. But occasionally, we all need to be challenged to see BLs differently and I for one applaud the production and acting of this series.
Even if I am the only one, I say to you: WELL DONE!
Leave a Reply