You Light Up My Life Again (2022)

Awkward piece of work

This one is clearly supposed to have been a BL series. This is not to say that it isn't BL. I won't even group it together with censored BL series from China in which the romance is turned into bromance or in which there are clever suggestions of romance between the main leads. This series can't be labelled easily and not in a good way.

As I said, it is quite clearly meant to be BL with some vague enemies to lovers trope. Apart from how it recycles songs from other Thai BL series, there are the tropes of Thai BL that by 2022 have mostly either gone out of fashion or become controversial, such as an effeminate side character and a conniving ex-girlfriend. Yes, what is the ex-girlfriend doing if not to break up the lead and his newfound love? I mean, she already seems quite unhinged if we assume that the deliberately causes her her ex's new love interest to be locked up in a sports facility--how much more unhinged would she be if we assume that she merely sees her ex playing basketball with his roommate and gets to jealous that she causes him to be locked up somewhere?

Unfortunately, even though the BL elements are not simply turned into bromance despite the mention of friendship on more than one occasion (at least in the Chinese dubbing and I don't think there is an uncut Thai version something), there aren't enough attempts to cleverly suggest romance. Instead, the emotional intensity of the scenes are lost. For instance, instead of fully exploiting Qin Jun Hao's jealousy when he sees his "roommate" with his arch-rival (or rather old friend-cum-rival) to suggest romantic interest, the portrayal of the jealousy is rather muted. When Yuan Zhi Ming disappears because he is locked up in the sports facility, Qin's panic is obviously not merely that of a friend, but again, there is no attempt to exploit it.

To make matters worse, the scene that best suggests romance is not between Qin and Yuan but between Qin and his friend-cum-arch-rival, Yi Tang. In a haphazardly inserted scene, Qin tries to trick Yuan into going into a room only to end up being locked up together with him there. Filled with a top/bottom joke, the scene ends with tenderness as Qin carries an injured Yi away. No one watching the scene can be blamed for thinking that Qin and Yi are the main ship. The series would have been better if there had been such a scene between Qin and Yuan.

I cannot help but feel that the series could have been so much better even with censorship. Qin, Yuan and Yi all have back stories, but these are not really fleshed out well. The change Qin undergoes after meeting Yuan is not clearly portrayed. Yuan has a guitar he treasures because it's a present from his father--something happened after he gets the present, but we don't know what. Yi has a brother who drowned (a storyline that is reminiscent of Between Us)--Yuan is the spitting image of his brother, but there is no attempt to show whether Yi manages to overcome his trauma and guilt because the subplot lacks development.

It is not clear why what is essentially a Thai BL (the studio, director and many actors are all from the Thai industry) is dubbed in Mandarin. It seems intentional given that even the songs have Chinese versions. I can only speculate that there are Chinese investors involved who wanted to promote the Chinese actors, though this may not explain why what is clearly supposed to be BL is turned into this awkward thing that can't even be qualified as a censored BL. (Perhaps it is meant to be streamed on Chinese platforms?)

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