This review may contain spoilers
Surprisingly Captivating
So I'd like to say first that I haven't read or seen any of the novels or other adaptations of the story so I had nothing to compare it to. This is also my first Chinese "BL" to watch. At first I was hesitant to watch them due to the censorship BL is subject to but I'm glad I gave this one a try. Okay it's not exactly BL but well, we all know those boys were loving.Summary:
Okay, so it's not got the sort of blantant smuttiness of Thai BL (or even the muted smuttiness of SK or JPN ones) so if that's your bag you might not enjoy this. That being said, I started watching this not realising it was a 'bromance' and after several episodes I found out it was but I was still really captivated by the story and actors and continued watching and I'm glad I did. There was enough subtle suggestions of a deeper relationship for me to find it enjoyable as a BL.
Pros:
The acting is great. SuYu and Wu Bi are captivating in their own contrasting ways, Su Yu's dad is just precious and lovely, and depicts the poor but loving father figure so well. And Duo is absolutely hilarious and adorable at the same time.
The story development. I enjoyed the journey Wu Bi and Su Yu were on, watching them go from enemies to...'brotherly love'.
Wu Bi's fight scenes. I thought this was cool! It was like some proper action scene fighting. Okay, maybe it's not totally believable that this lovely twink can beat the crap out of hardened thugs and bodyguards but I was TOTALLY here for it anyway.
Production. All of the production seemed really top class.
So we know that BL has censorship issues in China but what I liked is that a more intimate relationship was suggested the whole way through but in subtle ways. It's hard to read some of it in any way but a romantic relationship between two guys. They just didn't explicitly show it. I was actually expecting them to really push that they were 'just brothers' and I feel that actually it was really suggested that they were NOT 'just brothers'. That tube in the bed wasn't lip balm and we all know it.
All the food. God it all looked so good.
Cons:
Though I had no real issue with his acting, I did find Wu Bi's cousin character tiresome and who could take his villany seriously with that hilarious ponytail thing he had going on. I know he's meant to be a bad guy and you're not meant to like him but I found him more annoying than villainous. The girl going after Su Yu had a more interesting 'bad guy' concept than he did. She was a SNAKE.
The music. While at the start, I found the songs endearing, after hearing them at least once in nearly every episode I found them a bit grating.
The ending seemed a bit sudden though I understand there's a season 2 so I'm guessing we know what happened in that last episode but if I hadn't gone looking, I wouldn't have known. I'm not a huge fan of open-ended things. I like closure and very clear outcomes.
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A Gentler, Sweeter and More Romantic Remake
Subjective Gut Rating: 8.25“Stay with Me” is like the gentler, sweeter and more romantic little brother of “Addicted”. “Addicted” is the more rebellious, sex-crazed older brother, but it also paved the way for many future Chinese BLs (or caused censorship to put the hammer down).
The leads in “Stay with Me” are quite likable compared to their counterparts in the other drama. Wu Bi is quite adorable when he’s so in love with Su Yu and gets all pettily jealous over little things. In “Addicted”, Gu Hai annoyed the heck out of me with how pushy he was. But that was a 2016 drama, and times have changed. Back to “Stay with Me”, the drama never had Wu Bi or Su Yu declare their love for each other, but you know for a fact that this is not a bromance, but a romantic story between them. There are so many moments, gestures, hugs and subtle lingering touches that they shared and I wonder how these scenes pass censorship. I am trying to recall if I’ve seen a Chinese BL with kisses on the cheeks recently.
The main focus of the drama is definitely on our leads, Wu Bi and Su Yu. Two lovely teenagers go from enemies to lovers, complete and fill each other’s hearts with love and care. Surrounding them are Su Yu’s very supportive father and stepmother, an adorable little stepsister, Duo Duo, who is wise beyond her years. We also have a few friends who don’t take up too much screen time. Technically, there isn’t really a character that I dislike, except for Wu Bi’s cousin’s ugly pig tail. That is definitely not fashionable at all. LOL.
The bond between this newly found family is the best part of the show. None of the parents are evil, they just show their love differently. However, the broken families have a big impact on the leads. They both just want to be loved. Simple as that. I love it when there are scenes of the new family together and the theme song, “The Meaning of Family” starts playing. The lyrics are perfect for these scenes, especially when Duo Duo starts singing if you need to look similar or have the same last names to be called family. The scene of this new family celebrating Wu Bi’s birthday is so heartwarming.
This drama is not without its faults. I think the acting of the leads could be better. I am also disappointed that they are both dubbed and not using their original voices. Heck, even Duo Duo uses her original voice and that adds 10000 points to her adorableness. There are a couple scenes with very fake green screens. There are only four songs in the OST and it lacks variety, though they are lovely. This is definitely not a big budget production, so maybe that’s why I am having all these minor disappointments.
Overall, I had a good time binge-watching this drama. The pacing is not bad but the ending might not be satisfactory to all. I knew what kind of ending it had before starting this. I am prepared, still not happy though ?
Completed: 11/3/2023 - Review #372
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A decent remake, yet incomplete
This remake has some similarities with the original but switched out most of the testosterone, impulse, lack of consent and lust with a whole lot of found family, slices of life, fluff and dare I say romance.Do not get me wrong there is still the need to own the other person and signs of addiction towards each other, just not as hard core and where there once was pinning down, and more or less kidnapping we now have playful games and kisses on the cheek.
How this made it though the notorious hands of Chinese censorship is beyond me but I thank who ever let the obvious gayness slide and called it "bromance" instead. there are som pretty decent friendships, an odd use of crossdressing, and whole lot of meals. The star of this show is however the boys little sister.
The things that drag down the score are the over use of flash backs and never ending montages, the uneven pacing and odd ending leaving me with a feeling of incomplete, which is a bit to bad.
All an all a decent watch but just a little bit incomplete...
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THE BEST CHINESE SERIES ARE THE CENSORED ONES
Yes, Stay With Me is a beautiful story of friendship and coming of age.Yes, the actors are cute and good even if the series is shamefully badly dubbed.
But sorry there was a precedent: first a book and then an adaptation of it savagely censored by the Chinese regime.
I loved so much the first adaptation, Addicted (2016), based on the first volume of the book that I read the volume two. At my big surprise the book was going much much further deep in the relationship between Bai Luo Yin and Gu Hai. It was openly gay and sexual with some torrid bed scenes when in the BL drama all the kiss scenes were censured and replaced by a screen saying Kiss Scene Censored.
Gu Hai was the son of a general of the Chinese Army, very close to the power and like all the apparatchiks extremely rich. Gu Hai’s family situation added a new political dimension that was making a lot of sense. The two actors were formidable, more mature even if also finishing high school and their relationship was therefore more adult, with a lot of physical desire. Their couple was funny, direct, conflictual at time, in one word, real.
All these characteristics have been erased in Stay With Me. Wu Bi’s money comes from his family business empire. The direct link with the Chinese regime does not exist anymore and it’s the first reason why the drama was tolerated.
The second one is that Wu Bi and Su Yu are nice kids even if Wu Bi is a bit rebellious and turbulent. Everything is safe in this Chinese environment. Their friendship is wonderful, unique. They are inseparable but they are so innocent that nobody sees what’s going on beyond the friendship. Like in adaptation # 1, they live together, sharing a bed with the benediction of Su Yu’s father. In adaptation #2, the very smart trick has been to create a new character, the little sister, Duo Duo, and to give her an excessive importance in the story of her big brothers. This fact has transformed a bromance/ love story into a family drama. She is in all the scenes at home, interfering into the boys’s affairs. This makes the boys characters even more boyish, young. They are kids, they cannot be lovers … They are 18, living together, sharing a bed but their teenage bodies do not exist. Who is believing that? Nobody!
So the story is indeed beautiful but so hypocritical, unreal, it’s a Chinese dream.
Let’s see what will be the promised season two …
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I Want More!
I loved the story of enemies, turned friends, and then into more. I feel they did a wonderful job, conveying the relationship between the two characters in spite of their having to censor. I’m glad they didn’t spend a lot of time on Wu Bi’s dysfunctional family. However, if there is a season two(fingers crossed ?? ), I’m sure we will see more development in that department.I loved seeing the blended family grow together, and that little girl is such the glue that holds and bridges that family, without putting extra pressure on her into that roll.
There are slight clues in the last scenes that indicate a positive outcome, we can only hope that is the case if we don’t get a second season.
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How to bury a maybe-BL under a whole load of other stuff
This remake of the earlier censored "Addicted" is like being offered water after you've already drunk several bottles of Soju. Lacking the sexual tension and physical interactions of "Addicted", "Stay With Me" becomes a long (24 episodes? Really??) slog through a history of 3 families, connected by marriage, divorce and accident. The relationship between the two boys too often takes a back seat to the melodrama of parent conflict, child-rearing and earning a living. The series looks great: photography and action on-screen is top grade, although the missing millions of Beijing (car scenes on empty streets, for instance) is bizarre.Was this review helpful to you?
The chemistry between the leads is unreal. I knew the actor who plays Su Yu, but I never really paid attention to him, in this drama he shines, same with Wu Bi.
The story is soft and cute, and I loved everything about it, I just felt like they could've kissed I KNOW WHY IT DIDN'T HAPPEN, but I was just rooting for it every single moment. But even though it was disappointing, didn't affect the story or how I viewed their romantic relationship.
I'm happy to know that there's gonna be a season 2, can't wait.
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I couldn't suspend my disbelief any further
When I opened this MDL page I read in the comments that there will be no second season, which is awful since it leaves this drama without a proper ending - not even for its own season. The last episode ends with a cliffhanger, so we will never know what was supposed to happen to any character, even the protagonists. I was very tempted to lower my rating when I read the news, but I guess I'm feeling generous.The story is about Su Yu and Wu Bi, two high-schoolers who come from very different environments (Su Yu lives with his father in a poor neighborhood, Wu Bi lives a comfortable life with his rich father), but end up in the same classroom and gradually become best friends thanks to a series of coincidences. Little do they know that Su Yu's mother, who abandoned him after divorcing from his father six years prior, just got married to Wu Bi's father, who had been a widower for a few years.
The initial tangle of different relationships between the characters was very interesting to follow and actually made me more and more interested in everyone, even the secondary characters. The resolution of the first main conflict between Su Yu and Wu Bi, however, led the story to a less interesting and much more annoying part: one full with misunderstandings and lack of communication between the main characters. After that, the plot got a lot slower and fluffier, with cute and touching moments between the two main leads and also lots of "fanservice" moments. There were some events here and there to make the plot more lively, but for some reason everything felt much slower and I had trouble getting through the second part of the drama in particular. I also had to suspend my disbelief in multiple occasions, because the abilities of certain characters and the convenience of certain elements of the plot were just too much for me to take them seriously. I could have ignored it if it was just one thing or two, but there were too many times I rolled my eyes at the screen.
The main highlight of this drama are the two main characters. I felt like Su Yu and Wu Bi's feelings were truly genuine and that was great to watch. I know that this was an adaptation from a BL novel and that the love story had to be censored, but the production team managed to include lots of lines, gazes and moments that were just ambiguous enough to make it in the final version of the episodes. The main theme of the story was the idea of "family", in theory, but to be entirely honest I couldn't feel much of a bond between the characters other than between the two protagonists.
The secondary characters did an okay job, with some shining and others not so much. The parents of Su Yu and Wu Bi definitely had a better treatment as their characters got explored.
The production felt a little lacking. I am not aware of how much budget did they have, but there were multiple times when I just thought "oh, I guess they couldn't afford doing this thing properly?" and similar.
The OST seems to be made of two songs that are played at least once per episode, sometimes at moments that didn't fit the mood of the scene at all. To be entirely honest, sometimes I wished they didn't use music at all.
Overall I can't say that I'm entirely unsatisfied, because I felt like the relationship between Su Yu and Wu Bi developing and getting stronger and stronger across the episodes was definitely worth my time. However, considering that this drama is not finished, I'm not sure I want to recommend this to anyone. If you like bromance and you don't mind an open (VERY open) ending, go ahead.
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Yes please watch it, it's worth all 24 episodes
As a remake, it fixes all all the problems that made Addicted subpar.Stay With Me has complex (and likeable) characters, depth in its storytelling, and exceptional visuals.
Fundamentally, the narrative has so much potential because all of SWM's characters are carefully constructed to show how they are missing something in their lives.
Both Wubi and Suyu feel like they don’t truly belong to their families. And it is in the context of these circumstances that they realise: In a relationship that involves only them both, perhaps they can belong to each other.
Over the course of 24 delicate episodes, the series weaves a wonderful narrative on relationships and parental love, high school friendships and romance, and what it means to feel like one belongs. The episodes are easy to watch and draw you in quickly with heartwarming stories of their family life.
Despite the ambiguity in Wubi and Suyu’s relationship, the show drops plenty of hints to suggest the depth of their emotional bond, making it clear that the nature of their relationship isn’t that of mere buddies.
Full review: https://asianblreviews.wordpress.com/2023/08/26/stay-with-me-2023-bl-review/
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Despite frustrating ending + writing flaws, worth it for the butterflies that the romance provides!
I have watched the previous chinese adaptation "Addicted" of the novel and was curious to see the newest adaptation and how the director and screenwriter will be able to build up this BL relationship while meeting the censorship criteria. Fortunately enough, I think they did a very good job regarding the development of the relationship.They choose to develop the story in a less toxic way. I liked how toxic it was in the previous adaptation, but here they made it something else and it is as interesting and much more wholesome and candid. They managed to handle the censorship very well: the relationship between the two guys is clearly romantic and with a lot of chemistry despite not being able to show much. Everything is in the subtext, which I really enjoyed.
The downside of the story resides in the last third of the series with a not very inspired resolution to some of the familial conflicts as well as an abrupt ending that felt very much open and which was to me super frustrating. It seems that once again an adaptation of the novel is stopped in the middle of a narrative arc. A season 2 would be more than welcome to conclude better the series but sadly enough, I don't think anything is planned in that respect.
The two actors casted as main leads were really good. They had a great chemistry together and I totally believed in their characters' strong feelings for each other. They managed to convey so much with just their eyes, the looks they were throwing to each other as well as each of their very innocent touching. That's impressive to express so much with so little skinship: every little hints they gave regarding their affections and even more felt like a precious gift to the viewer. The secondary cast was more of a mixed bag in terms of performances.
I enjoyed the production value of this drama. There were a lot of very pretty and memorables scenes between the leads showcasing very well sweet moments between them. I also enjoyed the soundtrack: I liked less the opening song but the other three songs were very solid and such a vibe fitting the romance very well.
I would recommend this to people looking for a Youth BL that really put the focus on developping in a wholesome and believable way the relationship between its main leads. The scenario might be a bit wonky at time as well as the actions of some of the side characters but the main relationships (as well as the two actors acting as leads) is really worth the time invested. Be aware that the ending might be frustrating, but the journey of the romance really offset this point to my eyes.
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As Close As You’ll Get To A Chinese BL
Let’s address the elephant in the room. There are no overt love confessions or overt intimate contact due to Chinese censorship rules for the entertainment industry. Therefore, all Chinese bls produced in China have to be packaged as ‘bromances’. Saying that, this is the closest I’ve seen a Chinese bl come to being ‘overtly bl’ since the implementation of the censorship rules. This drama walks the tight rope between adhering to the censorship rules and portraying a couple in love onscreen. You’re able to see them be more intimate in the latter episodes and we are promised an uncut version once season 2 is out.What this show does well is that it’s able to do so much with sub-text and emotional undertones. The emotions are strong and the performances are compelling. Like its predecessor, it has relatable down to earth characters and plenty of heart. It does manage to set itself apart from Addicted/Heroin and find its own voice and story along the way. I thoroughly enjoyed it and think future Chinese bls should follow its blueprint.
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Far more than expected….
As someone who adored the original and the source novel(s) … I put off watching this (for obvious reasons) but have been more than pleasantly surprised.Casting is very good (especially Su Yu - exceptional - and not far off Bai Luo Yin .. making him a bit “weaker” was an interesting choice though!)
The adaptation and deviations, are most definitely on the whole decent, and some neat shifts to move the plot along and improve a bit on the story telling front - in this world but also this clearly has a higher budget than the original and has been filmed with the lessons learned.
The downsides are it’s lost a bit of the “special” that made the original, IMO.
As much as I think Wu Bi character is a good adjustment, the actor cast is good and delivers well - I mean in this universe a fully fledged Gu Hai is not even remotely feasible, I personally feel this is the biggest let down and I can’t work out whether it’s the physicality, the actor or the adjustments to the narrative (or a combination of all 3), that are lacking - for me. There are still glimpses of the intensity but just they’re lacking that certain something!
But this is far better than expected and whether I’d feel the same without Shangyin .. difficult to honestly assess.
Worth the time and effort watching so far, invested to see where it progresses over the next couple of weeks and if the flaws (for me) get lessened
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