This review may contain spoilers
A beautiful story of love, loss, and redemption, with a dash of magic realism
This is so deep and beautifully portrayed. While the story appears to revolve around two sweet love stories at the surface, its soul runs deep and brings out several philosophical life questions around love, loss, regrets and redemption.
BL-Needle Score: 7.5 Reasonable BL-ness
He Xiang Yong and Chen Hao Wei were school-day friends with a promise of becoming more, but a misunderstanding around Chen Hao's behaviour, intentionally complicated by a girl in their class, leads them to fall apart. He Xiang Yong leaves behing the friendship and also their island home to work in the bigger main island and they no longer remain in touch. Cut to the present, He Xiang Yong comes back home after complications at his workplace and is afraid to share the truth with his father, who he sees as overtly critical of him. But he comes back and finds that Chen Hao is working with his father at their guesthouse. Chen Hao seems to be looking for his old friend, among other things. But He Xiang Yong and his childhood friend Le Wang Zhe, both seem frustrated with their lives and in a state of drunken frustration wish for what's troubling them most to go away - He Xiang Yong wanting to no longer live as himself with all the problems of his life and Le Wang Zhe wanting someone to love him truly. They wake up the next day to find their wish fulfilled and all hell break loose!
From hereon the story takes us through an unique experience for both these people who had their wishes fulfilled to realise that their lives may not have been that bad and all the ideas that they had about people in their lives were not correct after all...as they struggle with the changed reality and the absurdity of it all, they find their own wishes backfiring on them...and realise that the price to pay for a fulfilled wish is too high....He Xiang Yong struggles to convince Chen Hao he is He Xiang Yong and the love Chen Hao is waiting for and Le Wang Zhe is afraid that the love from Hama-chan will vanish somehow.
What transpires after this is a beautiful journey of them trying to find their selves back, their memories, families, love...people that love them instinctively feel that they know something , can remember memories that feel more like dreams than actual lived realities...He Xiang Yong understand his father's love and concern for him, Le Wang Zhe gets past his cowardice and tendency to run away everytime something goes wrong, and Che Hao realises that that He Xiang Yong is the same He Xiang Yong that he is pining for, even though he can't seem to remember anything - as if his heart and soul-memory is helping his cognitive senses to reconstruct a reality that didn't exist
The story is portrayed really beautifully.... the doubts, regrets, and frustrations of having lost one's own self and all memories, and emotions connected with that self....the wish to forget and run away, made them realise how much they loved and wanted the life that they were running from and yet, the same life seems unreachable because of their own doing...
I loved the twists, the portrayals, and the deep life questions this brings up. The love stories are cute too, but they are just the surface for this deeper tale. A BL from Taiwan after a long time didn't disappoint. Definitely recommended.
BL-Needle Score: 7.5 Reasonable BL-ness
He Xiang Yong and Chen Hao Wei were school-day friends with a promise of becoming more, but a misunderstanding around Chen Hao's behaviour, intentionally complicated by a girl in their class, leads them to fall apart. He Xiang Yong leaves behing the friendship and also their island home to work in the bigger main island and they no longer remain in touch. Cut to the present, He Xiang Yong comes back home after complications at his workplace and is afraid to share the truth with his father, who he sees as overtly critical of him. But he comes back and finds that Chen Hao is working with his father at their guesthouse. Chen Hao seems to be looking for his old friend, among other things. But He Xiang Yong and his childhood friend Le Wang Zhe, both seem frustrated with their lives and in a state of drunken frustration wish for what's troubling them most to go away - He Xiang Yong wanting to no longer live as himself with all the problems of his life and Le Wang Zhe wanting someone to love him truly. They wake up the next day to find their wish fulfilled and all hell break loose!
From hereon the story takes us through an unique experience for both these people who had their wishes fulfilled to realise that their lives may not have been that bad and all the ideas that they had about people in their lives were not correct after all...as they struggle with the changed reality and the absurdity of it all, they find their own wishes backfiring on them...and realise that the price to pay for a fulfilled wish is too high....He Xiang Yong struggles to convince Chen Hao he is He Xiang Yong and the love Chen Hao is waiting for and Le Wang Zhe is afraid that the love from Hama-chan will vanish somehow.
What transpires after this is a beautiful journey of them trying to find their selves back, their memories, families, love...people that love them instinctively feel that they know something , can remember memories that feel more like dreams than actual lived realities...He Xiang Yong understand his father's love and concern for him, Le Wang Zhe gets past his cowardice and tendency to run away everytime something goes wrong, and Che Hao realises that that He Xiang Yong is the same He Xiang Yong that he is pining for, even though he can't seem to remember anything - as if his heart and soul-memory is helping his cognitive senses to reconstruct a reality that didn't exist
The story is portrayed really beautifully.... the doubts, regrets, and frustrations of having lost one's own self and all memories, and emotions connected with that self....the wish to forget and run away, made them realise how much they loved and wanted the life that they were running from and yet, the same life seems unreachable because of their own doing...
I loved the twists, the portrayals, and the deep life questions this brings up. The love stories are cute too, but they are just the surface for this deeper tale. A BL from Taiwan after a long time didn't disappoint. Definitely recommended.
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