BL Review: Sammy’s Children’s Day 🇨🇳/🇭🇰
It serves a feast, although it is a whole lot more than one can chew.
This one had a herculean effort the moment it decided to adapt such lengthy novel into live action format, and it would’ve worked had it got the standard 24-episodes many C-Dramas get (and a real budget), but alas, this new entry in the new era of C-BLs comes with an economical order of 9 episodes and this limitation proves to be its Achille’s heels.
The material is interesting: set in Hong Kong prior to it’s return to mainland, this tale of gangsters and cops flirts with the Cantonese Neo-noir style like very few do, least of all one with a gay storyline at it’s center. The characters always challenging the usual Manichean beats seen in romances, there is no black and white here, every single character is capable of doing good and bad in equal measures, they are above all else fallible humans and one wrong turn can derail one entire life.
If anything, the narrative choses the difficult path with He Chu San (played by promising rising star He Chang Xi) valiantly pulling gangster crime lord Xiai Liu Yi (sunkissed newcomer He Yan Zhao) into the light. The easier route would have Chu San working with the mafia in timid fashion while juggling with his principles, however the series has his morality working as a set point that never moves or wavers – Chu San is not going into the shadows, he is crawling his way out of them and he is taking Liu Yi with him.
But just because his motives might be noble, it does not mean he won’t get down and dirty to achieve them, He Chu San is one very interesting protagonist, his main trope is the unusual Unscrupulous Hero. And on top of that he is a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing, but it’s not something audiences are privy in the beginning, in fact viewers start realizing that alongside Liu Yi and the rest of the cast, because it’s hard to believe the doe eyed, innocent looking college student is the biggest tactician Hong Kong has ever seen. It’s truly refreshing to have such unique leading character, stated as a mastermind, Chu San could easily be a super villain, he just chose not to, and in that we get a protagonist that is two-steps ahead of everyone, including the antagonists.
In turn, Liu Yi gets the reverse journey. Initially taunted as this fearsome and daredevilish assassin, with each episode we see a new softer side of him – yes, he can be menacing and hard-edged, but that’s mainly because life demanded that from him. Chu San is the one that manages to bring out the docile and adorable aspects of him to the forefront, and that another discovery shared with the audience.
One important aspect of this is the dubbing. For those who don’t know, chinese dramas as a rule are dubbed in order to avoid multiple accents and dialects, however Sammy’s is set in Hong Kong which means it is spoken in cantonese, and that factors in because most of the cast is not able to dub themselves in ADR. This was actually a major concern for He Chang Xi, he was constantly worried that the voice actor responsible for his lines would not match his acting, and unfortunately his concern is founded – one of the scenes he voiced his worries actually crumbles due the voice actor inability to match his acting: when He Chu San’s father falls ill and has him fearing for his life in the hospital, Chang Xi is seen trembling and in the behind the scenes we can hear his voice trembling too, but all of that is lost with the dubbing.
If the main duo is sizzling, the same cannot be said for the chosen side pairing. With minimal presence in the first arc of the novel and weak development in the television series, both Xie Jie and Guangming end up working as good-looking footnotes, their moments almost incidental in the show – especially Xia Jie (native Hong Konger Matthew Han from Fight For You), you could scrap his entire presence and it would make very little difference in the story they are presenting in the live action. They get the short end of the stick, and unfortunately this also means other supporting characters are coasted so they get a better chance in the limelight. The charismatic gangsters Dong Dong and Xiao Ma (standouts Cao Mei Qing and Liao Sheng Pei) could’ve easily been elevated and given better status but production opted for a second BL pair that doesn’t have much going for them to begin with.
The main story works as a matryoshka, every time you think it’s done something else pops up from within and the plot thickens, the media in which is told makes a vast difference because with limited amount of time the television series streamlines much of it in favor of a more concise storytelling, although the result is a far less thrilling and engaging experience.
It does feel like the team behind didn’t know exactly what to cut from the novel nor they knew which point to wrap as a season finale – the novel is extensive, with plenty of fat to cut from, and while that seems like it would facilitate the writers job ended up making even more difficult for them.
There are a few things that get a boost here – Qinglong and Xiaoman are far more interesting here than in the novel – but things that were already weak in the book fell prey to poor adaptation and the sheer volume of the novel proved to be too much of a challenge for this crew. It’s the acting and charismatic characters that hold this show together, with such interesting figures it’s hard not to follow them, messy script and poor-handling of the director notwithstanding.
