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Stay with Me chinese drama review
Completed
Stay with Me
1 people found this review helpful
by puwupy
Jan 4, 2024
24 of 24 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 7.5
Story 8.0
Acting/Cast 8.0
Music 6.0
Rewatch Value 7.0
This review may contain spoilers

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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