HIStory3 (2019)

I love a bit of angst but I was completely drawn in then wrung out by this powerful story

Ok, so I will admit I watched a snippet of absolute smut from this series on YouTube and felt it was only right and proper to investigate further and what I got was bag loads more than I ever expected in what has become one of my favourite dramas ever.

The story follows two best friends in their final year of high school and their journey to finding love. Xiang Houting is a beautiful, popular, cocky student whose life revolves around earning money, skipping classes and annoying his parents and Sun Boxiang who has known from a very early age that he is gay. When we first meet Houting he is in a relationship with a girl but somehow, and very surprisingly, he is drawn in by the quiet, focused, super nerd Yu Shigu and he goes from tormenting him to falling completely and utterly in love with him. Sun Boxiang works part time for his cousin at his gym where he spots and immediately falls for the much older, emotionally broken Lu Xhigang who doesn’t think that someone much younger than him could possibly have enough emotional depth to be considered boyfriend material.

Unfortunately life has a habit of throwing curve balls into the mix so although we watch how deeply invested these couples become the question is will both of these couples get their happy endings? I won’t spoil it but the final episode had me sobbing like a broken thing and I even went back to the preceding episode (ep 9) to check context and promises and sobbed through ch 10 again.

I take my hat off to all the actors - the break up scene mid way through this drama between Houting and his girl friend was fantastically well acted. Wang Chen Lin who played the jilted Li Siyu gave the most realistic crying performance I have ever seen, wobbly chin and all, as she went from ‘I didn’t see this coming but I can pull up my big girl’s pants and not let him see how upset I am’ to ‘oh crap, my mascara is going to run and I really don’t care anymore’ with such emotional depth and realism that it has stayed with me long after the scene completed and I give it a well deserved chef’s kiss as a result.

The final episode was brilliantly done (though I do think a different actor should have played the climber as this confused me until one comment made me realise why he’d ended up with this second role) and the actor’s raw, wobbly chin and all portrayal of the depth of his heartbreak made me understand how some people never fully recover from a tragedy of this magnitude.

The whole drama was brilliantly written and there were no filler scenes or unnecessary sub plots. (Yay!)

Would I watch this again? I think by looking at the overall score you can guess that I will definitely break my heart over this one again. Bravo to everyone involved.

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