gloomy salad days, with bonus idols
20 Dec 2010 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigouThere be spoilers in this post, which is both analysis & recommendation for a Taiwanese drama, Gloomy Salad Days. If you're worried about the subjects tackled by the drama, I'll be going into length, so at least you'll know what you're in for (with the cost of not being surprised).
First thing to realize: the entire series (twenty episodes, now fully fansubbed by SUBlimes -- google it) is inundated with pop-idols. You've got your current pretty-face stars, your rising stars, even bit-parts populated by various winners of various reality-show-idol-competition whatsahoosies. The entire cast list (outside of the few adult roles) is, well, mostly pop idols -- and it does seem that this may be the first major acting many of them have done. If you keep that in mind, you may find yourself not irritated at the low level of acting ability, but instead impressed at just how well many of the young cast members pull off some damn hard roles and storylines.
Second thing: the series is loosely based on a Japanese anime, Jigoku Shoujo (Hell Girl). The Taiwanese version was originally to be titled, "Death Girl" (and that right there is an important distinction); I think the final title is because of the song used as the opening, which fits the dark and often hopeless mood of the interior stories rather well.
I make note of the Hell Girl vs Death Girl, because if the Japanese version is strongly Buddhist, the Taiwanese version has major Taoist leanings instead... so a large chunk of the story has been shifted for the difference in world-view. In Jigoku Shoujo, Hell Girl is contacted via a web-page, where you write the name of the person upon whom you seek revenge. Hell Girl replies to the summons, offering you a straw doll, and if you pull the string from the doll's neck, your revenge will be served and your enemy sent to hell -- with the caveat that upon your own death, you'll be joining the person in hell, as well.
I only watched the first season of Jigoku Shoujo (the second season breaks total continuity and took too long to find its own arc), but that season is what best applies here, as comparison. The framing story is that a journalist is researching the urban myth of Hell Girl, while his young (pre-pubescent) daughter slowly develops a kind of homing beacon for Hell Girl. As Hell Girl works her way through various revenge setups -- and, I should note, the vast majority of which do result in revenge being served -- the journalist is catching up to her. Eventually, the season wraps up with revelations about the ties between Hell Girl, her previous lifetime, and the journalist's own family history and past life.
In the Taiwanese version, Death Girl does not serve revenge per se, nor does she act as the quasi-Charon ferrying souls through the gates of Hell. Instead, Death Girl is actually a guardian of a bridge over the River of Endless Sorrow (the equivalent of the River Styx). The fansubbers translate the bridge's name, 奈何橋 , Nai He Bridge, as 'Bridge of Helplessness.' According to one slight mention, dead who were virtuous in life will cross the bridge easily; those who were evil in life would fall from the bridge into the water below (and lose all chance at a new life). Death Girl's role is simply to guard and/or watch over the bridge; it's only when one cannot overcome life's obstacles that she may become death. While she alludes at times to being able to assist in removing obstacles, the price for her help is to become a rock in her bridge.
Unlike Hell Girl, who is an active participant -- and at times, even walks the line of pushing humans in one direction or another -- Death Girl is almost entirely passive. Her promises are vague at best, and the implications of accepting her help are ambiguous and mostly implied: essentially (near as I could figure out), what she's saying is that if one can't get through something, then requesting death (suicide, bluntly) removes the pain (of life) but also removes the hope of future life, as this removes one from the cycle.
Additionally, where the stories in Jigoku Shoujo only barely, and infrequently, overlap, the stories in Gloomy Salad Days are nearly all contiguous. Nearly every independent story is rooted in the consequences of the previous episode, even after a passage of time: a character's choices as a bystander at the end of one storyline then become the basis for that character's obstacles.
Like the Japanese original, another human stands at the side, as aware observer, but in the Taiwanese version, the role of prescient/linked young girl and investigative man are combined into a single character. The show's publicized premise states baldly that the young man, Shen Qi, is able to see Death Girl because (unbeknownst to him) he's slowly dying from a brain tumor. That's another significant change from the original; where Hell Girl hands out straw dolls, Death Girl is simply following the exchanges from person to person of a strange rock (which is actually a piece of Nai He Bridge).
The final significant change from Jigoku Shoujo -- and possibly the most significant, really -- is that the show's publicity trumpets that the stories are all based on actual events and situations: a boy damaged by his affair with a teacher, a girl selling herself in hopes of saving enough money to get her mother out of an abusive marriage, a young man who's biologically female but living as a boy, two girls who fall in love, an effeminate boy bullied by his classmates. When you consider the subject matters, it's especially startling how blunt the stories can be, when you realize the entire aim was for the early teenage crowd. The ratings records for the shows even break out how well the show did in the 10-14 age range.
But because we've all seen and watched and heard enough of the "means well, horrible execution" stories as related to transgender, same-sex issues, and so on, I'll address those here for any of you who would rather know ahead of time. I don't blame you for not wanting to walk in cold; the world has had enough of the "you cannot be non-normative and happy, so one of you must end up dead, and the other go crazy."
Before I do that, let me reiterate: this show is very dark. It does not pull its punches, either. Each storyline focuses on a character, taking two episodes to cover the story. The first hour is setup, and most of the setup hours go rather slowly, taking time to unfold. Many times, the storyline won't give a clear picture, either, focusing more on setting up sympathy but not entirely explaining what else lies underneath. In the final half for each storyline, the tension and darkness will ramp up exponentially. Some of these episodes are very hard to watch -- the sense of helplessness is almost overwhelming, at times.
That said, not all of them end unhappily, and not all of them end in suicide. (And you might even say that some of the ones that do end in suicide aren't necessarily unhappy, either, if you're going within the story's and characters' interior logic.)
The first two stories are intertwined, and here's the nutshell of the synopsis: Li You arrives at the school, clearly an obscenely wealthy young man (complete with private residence on campus, separate from the boarding students). A lanky, gangly young man with a cheerful countenance (that turns surprisingly wary when facing down girls), he makes friends with the basketball team captain, and eventually develops a private crush on the captain's younger sister (Xiao Ju). Meanwhile, another girl is determined to have Li You for her own, and her weaselly manipulative ways lead her to discover Li You is also a girl; at the same time, Li You hands Xiao Ju a photograph to explain himself.
The script doesn't give you tone, so it may help to remember that Xiao Ju's tone is thoughtful and quiet throughout, while Li You's is bordering on despondent but trying to face rejection bravely.
And then! Because it's romance! We get a kiss! (Note: in Taiwanese dramas, Girls. Kiss. Back. And get handsy.)
[* Yes, the use of "dependable" sounds wierd here, but I think the term is a colloquial that makes more sense in the original. I just can't remember the explanation of what it means/implies in Mandarin, but I think the gist is one of honesty -- in other words, that Xiao Ju can count on Li You to be truthful/open as a relationship-partner, as a result of being upfront in this matter.]
The story is absolutely, undoubtedly, totally clear where its sympathies lie: with Li You. The other-woman who tries to first blackmail him, then slander him, is treated with obvious contempt by the storyline. But like I said about pulling no punches, when Xiao Ju's older brother learns that Li You is actually a (biological) girl, the reaction is nearly identical to the Western concept of gay-panic or whatever the current term is. Ah Guo (Xiao Ju's elder brother) is furious, feels betrayed, doesn't understand -- but it's Li You who opens the door to resolving it via violence.
What Xiao Ju suspects (and Ah Guo doesn't even realize) is that Li You has already made a deal with Death Girl: only one of the two of them are going to walk out of the gym when the fight is done. If they can't resolve it, and Li You can't take Ah Guo down (which Li You seems to doubt, as Ah Guo has a little height more and many muscles more), then Li You wants Death Girl to take Li You, instead. (Brace yourself for the continued repugnance of the smug little bitch who orchestrated the entire thing, by the way. Someone needs to write a fanfic in which she gets her comeuppance in triple-time.)
I was fully prepared for the usual tragedy lines: Ah Guo accidentally/on-purpose beats his former best-friend to death, deliver moral here. Or Ah Guo doesn't, but Li You chooses suicide anyway, insert tragic final lines here.
What I wasn't prepared for was for Li You's message -- that he didn't choose to be like this, but this is who he is -- to get through. Yes, there's violence as they fight it out (and yes, Li You gets in a fair number of harsh blows on Ah Guo, so it's not one-sided by any stretch)... and yes, Ah Guo's greater weight and reach would have him the victor, except for the belated realization that this is a friendship that matters a great deal to him. It's also Li You's words at the end, acknowledging Ah Guo's (surface) fear that Li You will take away (corrupt) Ah Guo's little sister.
"You're right," Li You says, "I don't have any right to take Xiao Ju away. But I am who I am. And you're still my best friend."
It's a culmination of a pretty intense scene, and Ah Guo takes the final step: he kneels down and hugs Li You, holding him for a long space, then helps him rise. Friendship repaired, and -- from the final scene, with Li You departing -- it's clear they're back to being best [guy] friends. Ah Guo even reminds Li You to email Xiao Gu regularly, in the tone and delivery of one guy reminding another guy that it's not okay to break the little sister's heart.
End result: the obstacle is overcome, but at no time in the story did Li You ever waver and think the obstacle was himself (for failing to be normative). He remains firm -- and the story's direction and writing underline this -- that it's not that he has a problem with the world; it's the world that has a problem with him. At one point, Death Girl reminds him that if he can't overcome an obstacle, he'll become one of her rocks holding up her bridge, but he tells her that he has nothing to resolve. It's the world that needs resolving.
As a side-note, Death Girl's reply is rather ambiguous, and I'm not sure of the original line to know which way she means her words (or if the ambiguity is intentional). She tells Li You that the real obstacle is his body. Which it is, in a sense, but the delivery and her expression leave it open whether she's simply stating a fact (that, I guess, his life would lack the obstacles if he had the operation), or if she's accusing him (as in, if you accepted your body you wouldn't be going through this). I think the vagueness is intentional, as at times Death Girl appears to have an almost harsh or cruel way of approaching the various kids' cries about what they can't overcome. Only once or twice does she show any outward sympathy; otherwise, her own priority seems to lie in mending the bridge she guards, and one or two short teenage lives seem otherwise inconsequential in the grand scheme.
That's not to say she goes out of her way to manipulate or orchestrate events to cause any kid to become a rock -- she's completely passive in that sense, nothing more than a bystander. In fact, in nearly every story, it's either very clear in hindsight (or ambiguous enough to raise major questions) that Death Girl did not, in fact, cause any deaths or 'take' anyone away. Each suicide was self-inflicted, and in the stories where kids overcame their obstacles, they did so of their own free will and choices. Death Girl spares a satisfied smile when the kids choose life instead, but that's about the extent of her reaction.
The follow-up story to Li You's story is Xiao Ju's story, and I won't spoil it here. It makes a difficult transition, but if you keep the chronology of the Xiao Ju/Li You relationship in mind (when it first developed), you'll be able to see the internal logic. The upshot here, though, is Xiao Ju's story is about how she falls in love with another girl in her class, and while feeling pressured by older brother (who is now Li You's biggest supporter, by the way), runs away with her girlfriend. Everything spirals out of control, and the ending is tragic, but here's the important feature, I think: online gossip, and national news, both broadcasting rumors and images of the two girls, are treated as the ones at fault for the girls' deaths. In the eyes of Xiao Ju's elder brother, and many of the girls' classmates, it wasn't suicide, but murder. Having your face plastered across every major outlet and treated like pariahs is enough to isolate any kid to an extreme.
Another side-note: look for a guy in uniform (seen in the background here and there, but doesn't show up in the foreground until Nicole's story, ep 5&6). I thought he might be the truant officer, but apparently he's the school supervisor. Military, though, so I guess that's a cultural thing about schools in Taiwan; not really sure. Like many of the adults, he's nuanced, far more than you realize at first -- yet he's also hampered by his own understanding of right and wrong, and what makes reality. His response to Nicole turns out exactly what she needs to hear, while his response to Xiao Ju and her girlfriend is every military-man's usual homophobic denial -- and his response to the next storyline is, again, limited by his world-view. But, and here's the important thing, like the kids, he's shown as able to change, given the opportunity, and able to see how his choices may have been wrong. It's not a thorough change, but it's one that befits an adult's slower rate of development. He's also never at the center, so his development is also mostly implied, but it's there.
There are a few majorly-bad characters, but many of them get a fair shake, if only in hindsight. That fair shake really just muddies the waters -- can you hate someone after you discover how much they sacrificed for you? -- but it's still there, and repeatedly acts to absolve at least one or more characters of intentional wrong-doing. That's not a get-out-of-jail card, though. It's more like, with limited information, a character believes he's the cause of another's death, only to learn of other factors, afterwards... in which case, if part of that guilt was relief (at the person no longer being around), it's a bit of a gut-shot to realize the person chose death as atonement.
Episodes 11&12 are notable for what opens the story: the reporters seeking student comments after the deaths of their classmates. The reporters don't hold back in pushing the titillation of "lesbian lovers at the high school", and one of the girls' classmates -- a notorious motorcycle-riding no-good punk -- finally loses his temper and yells back at the reporters, asking them the same questions they're asking him. Roughly paraphrasing his retorts: "Who do you sleep with? You don't like being asked that? Why would you ask someone else? They were my classmates and my friends, and that's all that matters." When the reporters badger him more, he throws a fist, and it's knock-down in the school-yard.
This incident directly precipitates the punk's own obstacle course, but of note -- given the school supervisor's adamant homophobic comments to the reporters ("there are no gay students at this school" etc) -- it's a little more depth that the supervisor turns around and argues for the punk to be punished (for striking the reporter) in some way other than final expulsion. As a result, it's never clear where the supervisor's sympathies really lie, because he not only supports the fighting student, but clearly respects the student's wish to defend his friends.
Anyway, moving onto episodes 13&14, and the series makes up for -- at least, in my opinion -- running this close to the usual "they're both __ and in love, so naturally they must die at the end." In a way, I think the first same-sex couple introduced would have to die (in a literary sense, here), so that it'd balance the next couple introduced, and heighten the sense of fear of any repetition.
These two episodes revolve around an effeminate young man who likes pretty things -- and is the go-to guy for all the girls when it comes to nail fashions. He's not played in the flaming sense (a la Westernized style), so he doesn't even clearly code as "hollywood's version of gay" to me. He simply codes as someone who doesn't like violence, who likes beautiful things, who's generally good-natured and friendly, and wants life to be enjoyable, and who has a kind heart. Unfortunately, and probably unsurprisingly, he's also bullied.
I'm going to give you warning on this, because I think if you miss the nuance you don't see the groundwork being laid: Dong Do is the bully we meet first, coming into the classroom and demanding Xiao Lun pay up if he's going to keep painting fingernails and being all sissy. Xiao Lun insists he has no money, so Dong Do turns to the girls and demands they each pay up the amount they'd pay at a salon -- after all, Xiao Lun is doing all their nails for free. ("But we brought the supplies," one girl protests, and Dong Do points out that they'd still have to pay for the time spent doing the nails.)
Turns out, Dong Do in turn is under the thumb of a larger gangster, one who's wise to the fact that the monies extorted from Xiao Lun haven't been up to par for two months. What gradually comes out -- and never in so many words, but implied here and there -- is that Dong Do is fully aware that Xiao Lun lives with a grandmother who's gradually getting more and more senile. Little money (and less when grandmother ruins the restaurant's dishes), and Dong Do is continuing to make a production of bullying but at the same time finding a loophole that allows him to reduce the amount extorted.
Yet... Dong Do retains an air of brutality and cruelty towards Xiao Lun, and here's another quiet but important detail that I considered a solid (and enjoyable) touch: when Xiao Lun is cornered in the bathroom by Dong Do and his crew, another male student comes to Xiao Lun's defense. Bigger and stronger, the student easily intimidates Dong Do and his cohorts into leaving. Xiao Lun is touched, and as thanks, makes a little cell-phone holder (or some such) with flowers. The student's reply? A very gracious, "it's very pretty," and then a comment that he'll be giving it to his girlfriend. Xiao Lun deflates -- by now his hope has become obvious, where before the actor had played any such attraction very subtly -- but does his best to put on a sunny smile.
The real message? When the dust settles, it's that the student who doesn't have any issue with Xiao Lun, and isn't bothered by Xiao Lun's interest either in boys or in girly things, and does consider Xiao Lun a friend... that's the student who has a girlfriend and is well-adjusted. Given the story outline, I'm sure you know the rest of the way it'll go, so I appreciate the subtle detail for the younger viewers that between the bully and the defender, the defender's lack of insecurity about his own sexuality is the reason he holds no cruelty towards Xiao Lun. Or, shorter version: the one stressing out the most about being "man enough" is... the one who's terrified he isn't. (This point is driven home, as well, by having Dong Do's elder brother be one of the Taiwanese National Champs for Boxing.)
There are a few scenes in these two episodes that had to have been difficult to film -- and even more impressive when you consider the two leads (for Xiao Lun and Dong Do) are relative newcomers to acting. They did not get easy roles, and they both manage to fill their roles with minimal amounts of the self-consciousness you usually see in new actors (as evidenced by some of the lulls and lags in episodes 11&12). Anyway, some of the episodes were difficult to watch, too, but I remain pleased, at the very least, that the story stays squarely on seeing Xiao Lun as the sympathy-point. His wish to just get along, to enjoy life, to live unmolested, is treated as not just okay, but perfectly right, and at no point does the objective text ridicule or belittle him. Instead, Dong Do -- as the bully doing the ridiculing -- is undercut and undermined.
Again, the characters have to go through the fire, but the message seems to be that accepting one's inner self is the key to overcoming the obstacles. Or, at least, making peace with oneself. (The first story might be the exception, in that the protagonist of those two episodes seems to decide that peace is the same as atonement... but his storyline also contains what has to be the cruelest and ironic denouement, of all of the stories.) Li You's story is partly about his own peace -- in refusing to mangle his principles or his understanding of who he is -- but it's also about Ah Guo's acceptance of his friend and their friendship. Xiao Lun also faces a test of his strength (in that he won't go against his principles no matter who's bullying him, classmate or adult) -- but his story also runs concurrent to Dong Do, who must face up to himself and realize that his own fears are never justification enough for wishing another person's death.
In the end? It's a happy ending, or at least a peaceful ending, as Xiao Lun and Dong Do join Shen Qi (the over-arching narrative story-framework protagonist) in burying Death Girl's rock. Of course, by the next episode, the rock's been found again and things continue, but at least for Xiao Lun and Dong Do, there's no longer any need of Death Girl.
Much shorter version: the series is dark, melancholy, at times hampered by inexperienced acting (but not nearly as much as you might expect given the relative inexperience of the cast overall), but the script is solid and thoughtful writing, and it keeps its sympathetic focus entirely on the outcast characters, whatever their role. Transgender, gay, lesbian, abandoned child, child-prostitute, and so on. Some of the episodes are stronger than others, but that's to be expected with such a large and continually changing cast. All in all, though, this isn't your usual candy-fluffy pop-idol drama where someone's making sure the camera always gets the good sides, and the fact that this was marketed for and broadcast to 10-14 year olds just boggles me... and impresses me mightily. Overall, it's a damn gutsy television show.
Lastly: the final four episodes attempt to tie up the connection between Shen Qi and Death Girl, a la the original Jigoku Shoujo... but it's too much at once. The previous episodes had kept a better balance of how much melodrama was piled on, mostly because each storyline focused on a specific part/type of dramatic incident. The final four episodes throw in everything and the kitchen sink, including the dreaded "inappropriate feelings between siblings" (with the nearly-throwaway line to alert you to fake-out, that both siblings were adopted) -- and frankly, even the two experienced leads don't have the chops to keep the melodrama from crushing them. I've mostly browsed through the episodes, only stopping randomly.
You may enjoy the final four, or you may MST3K it out the wazoo, but if it helps, the final four episodes are not really required for any overall understanding. Each two-episode storyline could be considered reasonably standalone (with the possible exception of episodes 7-10, since Li You's story comes into play in Xiao Ju's story).
ps: I guess the wiki entry got un-reverted, because every change I made is now in there. *whistles*
First thing to realize: the entire series (twenty episodes, now fully fansubbed by SUBlimes -- google it) is inundated with pop-idols. You've got your current pretty-face stars, your rising stars, even bit-parts populated by various winners of various reality-show-idol-competition whatsahoosies. The entire cast list (outside of the few adult roles) is, well, mostly pop idols -- and it does seem that this may be the first major acting many of them have done. If you keep that in mind, you may find yourself not irritated at the low level of acting ability, but instead impressed at just how well many of the young cast members pull off some damn hard roles and storylines.
Second thing: the series is loosely based on a Japanese anime, Jigoku Shoujo (Hell Girl). The Taiwanese version was originally to be titled, "Death Girl" (and that right there is an important distinction); I think the final title is because of the song used as the opening, which fits the dark and often hopeless mood of the interior stories rather well.
I make note of the Hell Girl vs Death Girl, because if the Japanese version is strongly Buddhist, the Taiwanese version has major Taoist leanings instead... so a large chunk of the story has been shifted for the difference in world-view. In Jigoku Shoujo, Hell Girl is contacted via a web-page, where you write the name of the person upon whom you seek revenge. Hell Girl replies to the summons, offering you a straw doll, and if you pull the string from the doll's neck, your revenge will be served and your enemy sent to hell -- with the caveat that upon your own death, you'll be joining the person in hell, as well.
I only watched the first season of Jigoku Shoujo (the second season breaks total continuity and took too long to find its own arc), but that season is what best applies here, as comparison. The framing story is that a journalist is researching the urban myth of Hell Girl, while his young (pre-pubescent) daughter slowly develops a kind of homing beacon for Hell Girl. As Hell Girl works her way through various revenge setups -- and, I should note, the vast majority of which do result in revenge being served -- the journalist is catching up to her. Eventually, the season wraps up with revelations about the ties between Hell Girl, her previous lifetime, and the journalist's own family history and past life.
In the Taiwanese version, Death Girl does not serve revenge per se, nor does she act as the quasi-Charon ferrying souls through the gates of Hell. Instead, Death Girl is actually a guardian of a bridge over the River of Endless Sorrow (the equivalent of the River Styx). The fansubbers translate the bridge's name, 奈何橋 , Nai He Bridge, as 'Bridge of Helplessness.' According to one slight mention, dead who were virtuous in life will cross the bridge easily; those who were evil in life would fall from the bridge into the water below (and lose all chance at a new life). Death Girl's role is simply to guard and/or watch over the bridge; it's only when one cannot overcome life's obstacles that she may become death. While she alludes at times to being able to assist in removing obstacles, the price for her help is to become a rock in her bridge.
Unlike Hell Girl, who is an active participant -- and at times, even walks the line of pushing humans in one direction or another -- Death Girl is almost entirely passive. Her promises are vague at best, and the implications of accepting her help are ambiguous and mostly implied: essentially (near as I could figure out), what she's saying is that if one can't get through something, then requesting death (suicide, bluntly) removes the pain (of life) but also removes the hope of future life, as this removes one from the cycle.
Additionally, where the stories in Jigoku Shoujo only barely, and infrequently, overlap, the stories in Gloomy Salad Days are nearly all contiguous. Nearly every independent story is rooted in the consequences of the previous episode, even after a passage of time: a character's choices as a bystander at the end of one storyline then become the basis for that character's obstacles.
Like the Japanese original, another human stands at the side, as aware observer, but in the Taiwanese version, the role of prescient/linked young girl and investigative man are combined into a single character. The show's publicized premise states baldly that the young man, Shen Qi, is able to see Death Girl because (unbeknownst to him) he's slowly dying from a brain tumor. That's another significant change from the original; where Hell Girl hands out straw dolls, Death Girl is simply following the exchanges from person to person of a strange rock (which is actually a piece of Nai He Bridge).
The final significant change from Jigoku Shoujo -- and possibly the most significant, really -- is that the show's publicity trumpets that the stories are all based on actual events and situations: a boy damaged by his affair with a teacher, a girl selling herself in hopes of saving enough money to get her mother out of an abusive marriage, a young man who's biologically female but living as a boy, two girls who fall in love, an effeminate boy bullied by his classmates. When you consider the subject matters, it's especially startling how blunt the stories can be, when you realize the entire aim was for the early teenage crowd. The ratings records for the shows even break out how well the show did in the 10-14 age range.
But because we've all seen and watched and heard enough of the "means well, horrible execution" stories as related to transgender, same-sex issues, and so on, I'll address those here for any of you who would rather know ahead of time. I don't blame you for not wanting to walk in cold; the world has had enough of the "you cannot be non-normative and happy, so one of you must end up dead, and the other go crazy."
Before I do that, let me reiterate: this show is very dark. It does not pull its punches, either. Each storyline focuses on a character, taking two episodes to cover the story. The first hour is setup, and most of the setup hours go rather slowly, taking time to unfold. Many times, the storyline won't give a clear picture, either, focusing more on setting up sympathy but not entirely explaining what else lies underneath. In the final half for each storyline, the tension and darkness will ramp up exponentially. Some of these episodes are very hard to watch -- the sense of helplessness is almost overwhelming, at times.
That said, not all of them end unhappily, and not all of them end in suicide. (And you might even say that some of the ones that do end in suicide aren't necessarily unhappy, either, if you're going within the story's and characters' interior logic.)
The first two stories are intertwined, and here's the nutshell of the synopsis: Li You arrives at the school, clearly an obscenely wealthy young man (complete with private residence on campus, separate from the boarding students). A lanky, gangly young man with a cheerful countenance (that turns surprisingly wary when facing down girls), he makes friends with the basketball team captain, and eventually develops a private crush on the captain's younger sister (Xiao Ju). Meanwhile, another girl is determined to have Li You for her own, and her weaselly manipulative ways lead her to discover Li You is also a girl; at the same time, Li You hands Xiao Ju a photograph to explain himself.
The script doesn't give you tone, so it may help to remember that Xiao Ju's tone is thoughtful and quiet throughout, while Li You's is bordering on despondent but trying to face rejection bravely.
Xiao Ju: [looking at photograph] So you used to attend an all-girl's school?
Li You: Mm. [takes photograph back]
Xiao Ju: I never thought you'd be hiding such a big secret.
Li You: After coming here... [tears up photograph] I thought I could be happy and be myself. But when I found out I like you, all the troubles seem to be coming back again.
Xiao Ju: [deep sigh, but still thoughtful] Why does love have to be between a guy and a girl, anyway?
Li You: ...it's okay if you don't want to be with me. I'm sorry.
Xiao Ju: [takes Li You's hand] I don't seem to have that problem, or feel upset. ...Whether we're suitable to be together or not, is what we should be asking ourselves. Am I right?
Li You: I don't know.
Xiao Ju: I just realize after finding out you're a girl, that I won't dislike you just because of this. On the contrary, I feel that you're dependable*. I'm relieved.
Li You: But...
Xiao Ju: All that matters is we're happy together. Our sex doesn't matter for happiness.
And then! Because it's romance! We get a kiss! (Note: in Taiwanese dramas, Girls. Kiss. Back. And get handsy.)
[* Yes, the use of "dependable" sounds wierd here, but I think the term is a colloquial that makes more sense in the original. I just can't remember the explanation of what it means/implies in Mandarin, but I think the gist is one of honesty -- in other words, that Xiao Ju can count on Li You to be truthful/open as a relationship-partner, as a result of being upfront in this matter.]
The story is absolutely, undoubtedly, totally clear where its sympathies lie: with Li You. The other-woman who tries to first blackmail him, then slander him, is treated with obvious contempt by the storyline. But like I said about pulling no punches, when Xiao Ju's older brother learns that Li You is actually a (biological) girl, the reaction is nearly identical to the Western concept of gay-panic or whatever the current term is. Ah Guo (Xiao Ju's elder brother) is furious, feels betrayed, doesn't understand -- but it's Li You who opens the door to resolving it via violence.
What Xiao Ju suspects (and Ah Guo doesn't even realize) is that Li You has already made a deal with Death Girl: only one of the two of them are going to walk out of the gym when the fight is done. If they can't resolve it, and Li You can't take Ah Guo down (which Li You seems to doubt, as Ah Guo has a little height more and many muscles more), then Li You wants Death Girl to take Li You, instead. (Brace yourself for the continued repugnance of the smug little bitch who orchestrated the entire thing, by the way. Someone needs to write a fanfic in which she gets her comeuppance in triple-time.)
I was fully prepared for the usual tragedy lines: Ah Guo accidentally/on-purpose beats his former best-friend to death, deliver moral here. Or Ah Guo doesn't, but Li You chooses suicide anyway, insert tragic final lines here.
What I wasn't prepared for was for Li You's message -- that he didn't choose to be like this, but this is who he is -- to get through. Yes, there's violence as they fight it out (and yes, Li You gets in a fair number of harsh blows on Ah Guo, so it's not one-sided by any stretch)... and yes, Ah Guo's greater weight and reach would have him the victor, except for the belated realization that this is a friendship that matters a great deal to him. It's also Li You's words at the end, acknowledging Ah Guo's (surface) fear that Li You will take away (corrupt) Ah Guo's little sister.
"You're right," Li You says, "I don't have any right to take Xiao Ju away. But I am who I am. And you're still my best friend."
It's a culmination of a pretty intense scene, and Ah Guo takes the final step: he kneels down and hugs Li You, holding him for a long space, then helps him rise. Friendship repaired, and -- from the final scene, with Li You departing -- it's clear they're back to being best [guy] friends. Ah Guo even reminds Li You to email Xiao Gu regularly, in the tone and delivery of one guy reminding another guy that it's not okay to break the little sister's heart.
End result: the obstacle is overcome, but at no time in the story did Li You ever waver and think the obstacle was himself (for failing to be normative). He remains firm -- and the story's direction and writing underline this -- that it's not that he has a problem with the world; it's the world that has a problem with him. At one point, Death Girl reminds him that if he can't overcome an obstacle, he'll become one of her rocks holding up her bridge, but he tells her that he has nothing to resolve. It's the world that needs resolving.
As a side-note, Death Girl's reply is rather ambiguous, and I'm not sure of the original line to know which way she means her words (or if the ambiguity is intentional). She tells Li You that the real obstacle is his body. Which it is, in a sense, but the delivery and her expression leave it open whether she's simply stating a fact (that, I guess, his life would lack the obstacles if he had the operation), or if she's accusing him (as in, if you accepted your body you wouldn't be going through this). I think the vagueness is intentional, as at times Death Girl appears to have an almost harsh or cruel way of approaching the various kids' cries about what they can't overcome. Only once or twice does she show any outward sympathy; otherwise, her own priority seems to lie in mending the bridge she guards, and one or two short teenage lives seem otherwise inconsequential in the grand scheme.
That's not to say she goes out of her way to manipulate or orchestrate events to cause any kid to become a rock -- she's completely passive in that sense, nothing more than a bystander. In fact, in nearly every story, it's either very clear in hindsight (or ambiguous enough to raise major questions) that Death Girl did not, in fact, cause any deaths or 'take' anyone away. Each suicide was self-inflicted, and in the stories where kids overcame their obstacles, they did so of their own free will and choices. Death Girl spares a satisfied smile when the kids choose life instead, but that's about the extent of her reaction.
The follow-up story to Li You's story is Xiao Ju's story, and I won't spoil it here. It makes a difficult transition, but if you keep the chronology of the Xiao Ju/Li You relationship in mind (when it first developed), you'll be able to see the internal logic. The upshot here, though, is Xiao Ju's story is about how she falls in love with another girl in her class, and while feeling pressured by older brother (who is now Li You's biggest supporter, by the way), runs away with her girlfriend. Everything spirals out of control, and the ending is tragic, but here's the important feature, I think: online gossip, and national news, both broadcasting rumors and images of the two girls, are treated as the ones at fault for the girls' deaths. In the eyes of Xiao Ju's elder brother, and many of the girls' classmates, it wasn't suicide, but murder. Having your face plastered across every major outlet and treated like pariahs is enough to isolate any kid to an extreme.
Another side-note: look for a guy in uniform (seen in the background here and there, but doesn't show up in the foreground until Nicole's story, ep 5&6). I thought he might be the truant officer, but apparently he's the school supervisor. Military, though, so I guess that's a cultural thing about schools in Taiwan; not really sure. Like many of the adults, he's nuanced, far more than you realize at first -- yet he's also hampered by his own understanding of right and wrong, and what makes reality. His response to Nicole turns out exactly what she needs to hear, while his response to Xiao Ju and her girlfriend is every military-man's usual homophobic denial -- and his response to the next storyline is, again, limited by his world-view. But, and here's the important thing, like the kids, he's shown as able to change, given the opportunity, and able to see how his choices may have been wrong. It's not a thorough change, but it's one that befits an adult's slower rate of development. He's also never at the center, so his development is also mostly implied, but it's there.
There are a few majorly-bad characters, but many of them get a fair shake, if only in hindsight. That fair shake really just muddies the waters -- can you hate someone after you discover how much they sacrificed for you? -- but it's still there, and repeatedly acts to absolve at least one or more characters of intentional wrong-doing. That's not a get-out-of-jail card, though. It's more like, with limited information, a character believes he's the cause of another's death, only to learn of other factors, afterwards... in which case, if part of that guilt was relief (at the person no longer being around), it's a bit of a gut-shot to realize the person chose death as atonement.
Episodes 11&12 are notable for what opens the story: the reporters seeking student comments after the deaths of their classmates. The reporters don't hold back in pushing the titillation of "lesbian lovers at the high school", and one of the girls' classmates -- a notorious motorcycle-riding no-good punk -- finally loses his temper and yells back at the reporters, asking them the same questions they're asking him. Roughly paraphrasing his retorts: "Who do you sleep with? You don't like being asked that? Why would you ask someone else? They were my classmates and my friends, and that's all that matters." When the reporters badger him more, he throws a fist, and it's knock-down in the school-yard.
This incident directly precipitates the punk's own obstacle course, but of note -- given the school supervisor's adamant homophobic comments to the reporters ("there are no gay students at this school" etc) -- it's a little more depth that the supervisor turns around and argues for the punk to be punished (for striking the reporter) in some way other than final expulsion. As a result, it's never clear where the supervisor's sympathies really lie, because he not only supports the fighting student, but clearly respects the student's wish to defend his friends.
Anyway, moving onto episodes 13&14, and the series makes up for -- at least, in my opinion -- running this close to the usual "they're both __ and in love, so naturally they must die at the end." In a way, I think the first same-sex couple introduced would have to die (in a literary sense, here), so that it'd balance the next couple introduced, and heighten the sense of fear of any repetition.
These two episodes revolve around an effeminate young man who likes pretty things -- and is the go-to guy for all the girls when it comes to nail fashions. He's not played in the flaming sense (a la Westernized style), so he doesn't even clearly code as "hollywood's version of gay" to me. He simply codes as someone who doesn't like violence, who likes beautiful things, who's generally good-natured and friendly, and wants life to be enjoyable, and who has a kind heart. Unfortunately, and probably unsurprisingly, he's also bullied.
I'm going to give you warning on this, because I think if you miss the nuance you don't see the groundwork being laid: Dong Do is the bully we meet first, coming into the classroom and demanding Xiao Lun pay up if he's going to keep painting fingernails and being all sissy. Xiao Lun insists he has no money, so Dong Do turns to the girls and demands they each pay up the amount they'd pay at a salon -- after all, Xiao Lun is doing all their nails for free. ("But we brought the supplies," one girl protests, and Dong Do points out that they'd still have to pay for the time spent doing the nails.)
Turns out, Dong Do in turn is under the thumb of a larger gangster, one who's wise to the fact that the monies extorted from Xiao Lun haven't been up to par for two months. What gradually comes out -- and never in so many words, but implied here and there -- is that Dong Do is fully aware that Xiao Lun lives with a grandmother who's gradually getting more and more senile. Little money (and less when grandmother ruins the restaurant's dishes), and Dong Do is continuing to make a production of bullying but at the same time finding a loophole that allows him to reduce the amount extorted.
Yet... Dong Do retains an air of brutality and cruelty towards Xiao Lun, and here's another quiet but important detail that I considered a solid (and enjoyable) touch: when Xiao Lun is cornered in the bathroom by Dong Do and his crew, another male student comes to Xiao Lun's defense. Bigger and stronger, the student easily intimidates Dong Do and his cohorts into leaving. Xiao Lun is touched, and as thanks, makes a little cell-phone holder (or some such) with flowers. The student's reply? A very gracious, "it's very pretty," and then a comment that he'll be giving it to his girlfriend. Xiao Lun deflates -- by now his hope has become obvious, where before the actor had played any such attraction very subtly -- but does his best to put on a sunny smile.
The real message? When the dust settles, it's that the student who doesn't have any issue with Xiao Lun, and isn't bothered by Xiao Lun's interest either in boys or in girly things, and does consider Xiao Lun a friend... that's the student who has a girlfriend and is well-adjusted. Given the story outline, I'm sure you know the rest of the way it'll go, so I appreciate the subtle detail for the younger viewers that between the bully and the defender, the defender's lack of insecurity about his own sexuality is the reason he holds no cruelty towards Xiao Lun. Or, shorter version: the one stressing out the most about being "man enough" is... the one who's terrified he isn't. (This point is driven home, as well, by having Dong Do's elder brother be one of the Taiwanese National Champs for Boxing.)
There are a few scenes in these two episodes that had to have been difficult to film -- and even more impressive when you consider the two leads (for Xiao Lun and Dong Do) are relative newcomers to acting. They did not get easy roles, and they both manage to fill their roles with minimal amounts of the self-consciousness you usually see in new actors (as evidenced by some of the lulls and lags in episodes 11&12). Anyway, some of the episodes were difficult to watch, too, but I remain pleased, at the very least, that the story stays squarely on seeing Xiao Lun as the sympathy-point. His wish to just get along, to enjoy life, to live unmolested, is treated as not just okay, but perfectly right, and at no point does the objective text ridicule or belittle him. Instead, Dong Do -- as the bully doing the ridiculing -- is undercut and undermined.
Again, the characters have to go through the fire, but the message seems to be that accepting one's inner self is the key to overcoming the obstacles. Or, at least, making peace with oneself. (The first story might be the exception, in that the protagonist of those two episodes seems to decide that peace is the same as atonement... but his storyline also contains what has to be the cruelest and ironic denouement, of all of the stories.) Li You's story is partly about his own peace -- in refusing to mangle his principles or his understanding of who he is -- but it's also about Ah Guo's acceptance of his friend and their friendship. Xiao Lun also faces a test of his strength (in that he won't go against his principles no matter who's bullying him, classmate or adult) -- but his story also runs concurrent to Dong Do, who must face up to himself and realize that his own fears are never justification enough for wishing another person's death.
In the end? It's a happy ending, or at least a peaceful ending, as Xiao Lun and Dong Do join Shen Qi (the over-arching narrative story-framework protagonist) in burying Death Girl's rock. Of course, by the next episode, the rock's been found again and things continue, but at least for Xiao Lun and Dong Do, there's no longer any need of Death Girl.
Much shorter version: the series is dark, melancholy, at times hampered by inexperienced acting (but not nearly as much as you might expect given the relative inexperience of the cast overall), but the script is solid and thoughtful writing, and it keeps its sympathetic focus entirely on the outcast characters, whatever their role. Transgender, gay, lesbian, abandoned child, child-prostitute, and so on. Some of the episodes are stronger than others, but that's to be expected with such a large and continually changing cast. All in all, though, this isn't your usual candy-fluffy pop-idol drama where someone's making sure the camera always gets the good sides, and the fact that this was marketed for and broadcast to 10-14 year olds just boggles me... and impresses me mightily. Overall, it's a damn gutsy television show.
Lastly: the final four episodes attempt to tie up the connection between Shen Qi and Death Girl, a la the original Jigoku Shoujo... but it's too much at once. The previous episodes had kept a better balance of how much melodrama was piled on, mostly because each storyline focused on a specific part/type of dramatic incident. The final four episodes throw in everything and the kitchen sink, including the dreaded "inappropriate feelings between siblings" (with the nearly-throwaway line to alert you to fake-out, that both siblings were adopted) -- and frankly, even the two experienced leads don't have the chops to keep the melodrama from crushing them. I've mostly browsed through the episodes, only stopping randomly.
You may enjoy the final four, or you may MST3K it out the wazoo, but if it helps, the final four episodes are not really required for any overall understanding. Each two-episode storyline could be considered reasonably standalone (with the possible exception of episodes 7-10, since Li You's story comes into play in Xiao Ju's story).
ps: I guess the wiki entry got un-reverted, because every change I made is now in there. *whistles*
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Date: 22 Dec 2010 12:08 pm (UTC)(although I maintain that watching Hana Kimi with only Chinese subtitles is almost bearable - the pain of trying to figure out what they're saying just manages to balance out the pain of of the idiocy. Well, that and Wu Chun is possibly the prettiest pretty-boy in Asia, which is saying something. )
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Date: 25 Dec 2010 07:12 pm (UTC)It takes a LOT of digging, I'll tell you that much! And maybe because twdramas haven't had massive popularity (in the west) or maybe just the overall dearth of twdramas (so there's not really a juggernaut for it like, say, Hallyu or doramas or even wuxia) -- but sometimes, even a really good twdrama is going to be available only in such incredibly low quality that it's like... well, I think I've seen third-generation VHS tapes that took the re-copying better than the VHS-to-rmv-to-avi conversions.
(I suppose it counts as a twdrama, even if it's based on a Japanese manga, but the only copies of Mars that you can find are incredibly compressed -- and sometimes slightly corrupted -- versions in rmvb or avi, and the avi versions are four times the MG and absolutely no increase in quality. At points the sound is so muddy from the various compressions that the voices could be speaking Swedish and I couldn't tell -- it's like watching an old Charlie Brown segment with the teacher speaking. Wah, wa-wah, wah, wa-wah. If there weren't subtitles, I wouldn't have a freaking clue. So... no good for helping with Mandarin, but the story itself is still worth a watch. Just very, very hard to find -- and strangely, the only video missing from the backlists of what are now two major Taiwanese stars. That, I can't figure out at all, why it's not available when all their other works are. Maybe distribution/copyright issues with original story creator/s? No ideer.)
Still, you should definitely watch Longest Night in Shanghai, though.