This review may contain spoilers
An absolute masterpiece worthy of every award
To My Shore is the pinnacle of obsession, love, angst, redemption, and worshipping the ground one's partner walks on. Both actors are amazing. This level of acting has rendered me entirely speechless; I genuinely cried with them, my heart kept getting broken, and my anxiety kept skyrocketing to the point where I had to hit pause time and time again to calm down and get myself in order. I don't even remember the last time I felt so affected. Chemistry and passion are also magnificent here, they are so palpable, wow.Fan Xiao, to me, is a character with clear psychopathic and BPD traits. Manipulation is in his blood; he's cold, indifferent, cruel, and toxic in every way you look at him. What amazed me is that he's actually someone on the aro-ace spectrum! Gray-romantic and graysexual. Until You Shu Lang, he never felt sexual or romantic attraction to anyone. I've never seen it depicted in fiction, so I found it fascinating.
You Shu Lang himself is the perfection of a character. Very often, even if obsession is depicted well in some series, I remain skeptical of the reasons for it. The objects of other characters' obsession tend to be so ordinary that I just don't get what's so special about them to warrant this crazy level of devotion and adoration. With You Shu Lang, I totally get it, and I understand why Fan Xiao grows to worship him.
He's not perfect; he's really not the divine being Fan Xiao sees him as, but he's so deep and so fascinating. He's endlessly good, but he's the opposite of a pushover. He protects himself fiercely and he maintains very strong boundaries. He's unyielding in his decisions: using Fan Xiao's words from the book, if You Shu Lang says no, then it's a no. Hard stop.
You Shu Lang always wants to help people, but if he can't, he's not going to suffer or beat himself up over it. He'll accept it calmly because he understands how life works, and that sometimes we are hopeless in our effort to change something.
He loves his brother, but while he's willing to sacrifice a lot for him, he's not going to let him walk over him even if the price of this decision is high. You Shu Lang has so much dignity and quiet power that you can't help but admire him.
If he feels something is wrong, then he trusts his intuition. If he has difficulties, if he is beaten down, he gets up and carries on. If he is in a relationship, he's entirely devoted: I was amazed at how loyal he stayed to Lu Zhen (his initial boyfriend) even despite being clearly attracted to Fan Xiao at the start of the show. And then… he loved Fan Xiao so much. He took care of him in so many ways - only to get his heart broken and spat on and burned to ashes.
E8 killed me, I was so floored by the level of heartbreak and emotion in it… And Fan Xiao didn't stop after this; he didn't understand he was in love until it was way too late, and then he just couldn't let go because You Shu Lang became the center of his world. Threatening You Shu Lang, ruining his career, forcing him to have sex with him when he's clearly unwilling, all but keeping him hostage - all because Fan Xiao can't imagine how to live without him, and he can't bear to let him go. It was excruciating to watch.
But then the redemption arc began, and I believed it. I think it was done very masterfully. And the way Fan Xiao becomes by the end of the series… he's still psychopathic, he's still an obsessed stalker, but he'd also rather die than hurt You Shu Lang now. He's content to just stare at him for days and days; he forces himself to stay sane time and time again for the price of seeing You Shu Lang happy, even if it's not with him.
And You Shu Lang… being forced into cruelty, something alien to him; understanding he loves Fan Xiao and that Fan Xiao definitely loves him, but still being unable to forgive him… There are so many emotional struggles in To My Shore, and they are all so painful.
The show's ending, despite being happy, still feels a little bittersweet, so I can't wait for the special episodes! And I'm so grateful for the book because it expands on everything and shows what happens next.
So… yeah, I'm a huge, crazed fan now :D Endless thanks to people who recommended To My Shore to me. This show will stay with me for the rest of my life.
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A Badly Written Mess with Superficial Dark 'Romance'
This is a very poorly made series. I shudder when people compare it to other Chinese dark romances because it doesn't come close at all. It's extremely shallow, illogical, and superficial, and most importantly, it's not even a romance.These characters don't love each other, and I don't mean it in "they hurt each other too much" kind of way. No, they truly, genuinely do not love each other. Throughout the series, they hold no meaningful conversations. They don't get to know each other. Until the end, you have no idea what they are supposed to like about each other because it's never shown.
Lu Feng isn't interested in Yichen's thoughts or feelings. He just wants them to be in a relationship: that's where his obsession starts and ends. He's not interested in the person himself, in his worries, his hopes, his values; on the contrary, he shows time and time again that he doesn't know or understand him. In the second half of the show, he blames him for being a gold digger. Like, seriously blaming him and punishing him for it even though there is zero reason to think that. If he doesn't know even this much about his supposed great love years later, what can I say?..
Yichen also doesn't love Lu Feng. He invests precisely 0 effort in preserving or maintaining this relationship. He bends where the wind blows, and in most cases, he bends for everyone and away from Lu Feng. He always, always puts everyone and everything else above him even though there are a million other solutions that a loving, somewhat intelligent person would have instantly come up with. He's so spineless that a stranger could take him from his house, put him in the car, and tell him they are going to another country, and he'll just say "okay" meekly with an empty, drugged-out look. And if you think it's because he's been badly broken: no, not at all. He's like this from E1.
From E1, these characters act inconsistently and make illogical choices. Their problems with miscommunication cannot be treated seriously because they are overblown to an extreme extent. Yeah, I get it, miscommunication is a popular trope, but you still need to adapt it smartly. There is nothing smart about writing in Double Helix. The characters don't talk about the most basic and obvious things just because the plot needs it.
There is no logic or psychology here in general. You have the oddest situations occurring, like one character allegedly trying to commit suicide and both characters forgetting about it in the very next scene, or a brother deciding to abandon his hurt brother with a man they haven't known long for 5+ years for the weakest reason of hiding, and then 'hiding' by working in a publicly known wife's company. Or a kidnapper inviting the powerful wife of the kidnapped to his place to show her abused husband to her for some reason, and her just so happening to carry a gun even though she didn't know the kidnapping took place. And then the very loving brothers reuniting after years like some random schoolmates with no emotional ties between them. Characters will appear when it's convenient and disappear when their presence is not convenient - and it happens all the time. It's a big annoying mess, just flashes of scenes with no logical or psychological connection.
The kindapping/abuse part everyone dreaded and kept freaking out over was done very, very poorly. There is just... barely anything happening there. Maybe Yichen gets assaulted, but it's shown very weirdly and he seems to be at least partly into it. Other than this, nothing. For 99% of time, it looks like a middle schooler got put on house arrest. There is no nuance, no psychological breaking, no depiction of how challenging and torturous this was for Yichen to live through; he just keeps eating apathetically as Lu Feng brings people over, never thinks of asking for help, and makes the same face in every situation. This can't be compared to what other red/black flags did to their partners in other dramas, so I never understood why everyone kept calling Lu Feng the king of black flags. He's crazy, that's true, but the biggest problem in their dynamic is a clear lack of love. The abuse itself is superficial as hell, so if you've come looking for dark and gritty stuff that horrifies and fascinates you, and has long-term consequences and a challenging road to redemption, you won't find any of it here.
The music is pretty good; one song in particular has stolen my heart. The acting... honestly, I'm not a fan, although I blame direction and weak script for it first and foremost. There are good scenes, the actors clearly have talent, but a lot of these scenes are very exaggerated, and Yichen's actor is walking around with the same empty expression for a major part of the series, even in situations that don't warrant it. These people deserved a way better script.
It's just old and beaten tropes over old and beaten tropes. These tropes aren't connected or presented well, so it feels like you're watching an outdated parody on quality dark romances. The actors seem absolutely lovely, their BTS are a treasure, but unfortunately, in my opinion, the series is a massive waste of time.
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A Much-Needed Epilogue
I'm used to special episodes being completely plotless or just outright nonsensical, so I was very curious what a high-level production like To My Shore might end up coming up with. I was (mostly) pleasantly surprised!I'll start with the drawbacks: the kisses feel very restrained after what we've seen in the main series, and it's a bit awkward to see regular tourists gawking in every single scene. It's especially jarring at the very end, when Fan Xiao and You Shulang share such an important moment.
At the same time, these drawbacks can be actually explained by the plot, so I'm not as annoyed as I might have been otherwise. You Shulang is canonically restrained when it comes to public displays of affection, and if I saw two beautiful men making out on the beach, my eyes would probably linger, too.
Now, to the strong side, which is basically everything else. This special episode actually has vital bits of character development. They closed the chapter with Lu Zhen in a way I felt missing in the series, and they revisited Fan Xiao's trauma and gave him a way to take another healing step forward.
The way You Shulang reframed Fan Xiao's view of his trauma is incredibly beautiful. I was so moved I went speechless. My loved one has also become a part of the sea, and I used to feel like they embody it now. You Shulang put my half-baked thoughts into such clear concepts that I felt myself healing along with Fan Xiao. I could re-watch this moment endlessly.
Their final pre-wedding internal conversations with their Moms... Such a powerful, beautiful moment. A perfect epilogue that erased the "bitter" from the "bittersweet" I felt after E15.
And the overall character development was fantastic. We can see that Fan Xiao is still intensely jealous and insecure; we can see You Shulang being tolerant toward it and allowing him to act out, but only to a certain extent. He puts a stop to it when he feels it's too much, and Fan Xiao listens to him. It's a realistic reflection of the people they became after the end of the main series. I admit I laughed that Fan Xiao had to be reminded to be good twice within the first 10 minutes of the episode :D That psycho.
To My Shore is the very best dark romance I've ever watched, and this special episode is a blessing. I do wish it was longer. Now, we have 3 mini-episodes coming out on the 11th, 14th, and 17th; looking forward to them!
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This review may contain spoilers
Smart. Well Acted. Unusual
Desire is definitely my most favorite at the moment. This series has gripped me from the first episode, even though I found it somewhat awkward. E2 was perfection in my eyes, and from then on, my love has only grown.The theme of obsession has always fascinated me, and Desire lives and breathes it. I'm delighted by the intricate web Hua Yong has spanned; the way he pretended to be so fragile and vulnerable to get Shaoyou to finally notice him, how he used a whole insane arsenal of the wildest manipulation tactics to get him attached… and, well, it sure worked. I was skeptical at first because how can a relationship blossom when it's based on such a complete lie? Hua Youg is pretending to be a completely different person for a big chunk of the series, so I kept wondering how Shaoyou can realistically love him still when the truth is revealed.
When the reveal did happen, I found it, and all further progression, absolutely flawless, though. And nothing delighted me more than the new, honest dynamic between these two. Shaoyou really is starved for love, and Hua Yong has tons of it to give - but only to him and no one else. They are both messed up, and I love how genuine and unhinged they are at present, how they are so utterly dependent on one another. I really don't want this series to end. Also, I'm completely in love with OSTs, they are addictive.
The actors did a phenomenal job; the psychological game is the most brilliant thing I've ever seen, with every little part meticulously thought out, from the nervous twitch of Hua's hands to his epic chess game in terms of business deals.
The second couple is also fascinating. They didn't get a proper ending; the last episode was very rushed, unfortunately, but I still loved them, and I'm glad they have every chance to be happy together.
I already re-watched Desire several times, and I will keep doing it, just enjoying every second of this universe. Also, the novel is quite good, too, so I definitely recommend reading it.
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