Resembling photographs that have been magnified in an image editing program or classic video game pixel art, Daniel Chen brilliantly uses these ideas for the basis of his beautiful paintings.
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Ok, so... I never write reviews for the dramas I watch mainly because there are only 2 dramas that have made it into my 10/10 list. One is “I Remember You” (If you haven’t watched that masterpiece... what are you waiting for?) and the other is, yeah, you guessed it: Love & π.
FAIR WARNING: This drama is not for everyone. If you don’t like it when the main leads fall in love after years of growing up together, this is not for you. If you don’t like flawed characters who make stupid mistakes and decisions, this is not for you. If you don’t like a bit of melo in your slice of life, this is not for you.
SPOILERS!!
I’m cool with all those things because I believe they gave this drama the emotional punch and realistic feel it has. I like realistic and layered characters with flaws. That’s what we all are, to be honest: a bunch of walking flaws and bad decisions.
QUICK SUMMARY
Yuan Yuan, Wu Xian and Hou Zi grow up in the same orphanage and are inseparable. After they come off age, the 3 of them decide to head to Taipei in order to start their new lives. WX and YY get accepted in college, while HZ chooses not to study and let the school of life teach him everything there is to know. YY’s main reason for being in Taipei is not really her studies, though. What YY wants the most is to conquer Taipei before her mother does, because she resents her for abandoning her in the middle of the park when she was a child. YY’s bio mom had expressed that this was her dream, and YY wants to take it away from her as a way of getting back at her. Oh, yes, YY has serious abandonment issues that she struggles with. HZ and WX are more focused on their personal growth than their pasts, though. They seem to have accepted their situation and don’t let it affect their minds and emotions. While they want to move forward, YY is stuck in the past. Regardless, they initially support YY and stand by her when she lets them. As the years go by, however, YY gets absorbed by her need for revenge and starts making questionable decisions at work which, in turn, piss off the always by the book WX. Needless to say, this drives a wedge between the two of them.
YUAN YUAN (Ivy Shao)
The story of our main girl opens by introducing a cartoon adaptation of the story of “The Little Match Girl” by Hans C. Andersen. You think you know how the cartoon is gonna end, until the tale takes an unexpected turn...
Oh. Hello there, Zhao Yuan Man! You’re about to become one of my favorite heroines ever.
As you may have noticed YM is the type of girl who thinks outside the box and refuses to settle for less than what she considers fair. She thought the match girl shouldn’t die because the cruelty she was suffering wasn’t fair, and made her a rich inventor with a happy ending instead. Even after everyone mocked her “for not knowing the real ending”, she stood up for herself and told them: This is my imaginary scenario, and no one gets to mess with it. YM is ambitious. She relentlessly fights for what she believes and wants if she believes it’s fair. The downside of this type of personality is that strong convictions can easily deviate into plain stubborness, and YM was a hard nut to crack at times. I loved watching her struggle with her job and with her life as a whole. She wasn’t a Mary Sue or a Wonder Woman. She was real and her struggles were as real as she was.
WU XIAN (Ben Wu)
There’s the Yang to YY’s Yin. One wants to change the world while the other wants things to stay the same. WX is a bit of a know-it-all and he can get a bit self-righteous from time to time, but he’s kind, protective, and loving towards YY. The guy just lurves her since they were children because he both admires and fears her brilliant and ambitious personality. He’s the papa bear of the group, and is always worrying for his friends and sacrificing himself for them... until he gets fed up, that is. I honestly don’t blame him when he basically tells them to shove it, because he was entitled to his anger and both YY and HZ were screwing up big time when it happened.
HOU ZI (Daniel Chen)
Yep, you guessed it. This is the couple’s counsellor. He’s grown up with them (They were from an orphanage. I forgot to mention that!) and is their main supporter. Hou Zi (aka Monkey) is such a special and lovable guy. He loves his friends and wants the best for them as he faces a myriad of issues throughout the drama. One of his most poignant moments is when he falls for a girl who is in love with WX, and slowly drifts apart from him because he can’t stand seeing them together. Yeah, I know, I wouldn’t trade my friends for a crush, but HZ felt betrayed when WX decided to give himself an opportunity with Ruo Yun in order to get over his break up with YY. It’s understandable from both perspectives. Both were hurt and both felt betrayed and affected by the entire ordeal. WX was entitled to date RY because she had made it clear to HZ that she didn’t like him. HZ was entitled to his frustration because WX was blatantly using RY to get over his true love, YY. RY was just cool with getting used as long as WX acknowledged her, so there’s that mess. It felt like a punch in the gut because their friendship was precious, but that’s as true to life as it can get, and it felt strangely refreshing watching WX not sacrifice himself for a change.
THE ROMANCE
There are points in the story when you don’t really know if YY and WX will be able to meet halfway, and find a way to handle their strong differences. They lock horns in more than one occasion, grow tired of each other, let go very easily. WX figures out how to stop YY from pushing him away, and decides to stick it out till the end as proof that he will not abandon her like her mother did. YY is a bit of a porcupine, though. She gives the poor guy a hard time and breaks his heart in more than one occasion, ultimately “abandoning” him herself.
It takes years of distance, evolution and growth until they are finally on the same page. WX realizes that if he truly wants to be with YY, he has to be able to see eye to eye with her and deal with their conflicts maturely. YY realizes that WX only has her best interest at heart. She eventually understands why he grows increasingly frustrated with her when she self-destructs, and how hard it’s for him to see her get hurt by her own actions.
Don’t you just love it when the leads in your drama have these kinds of breakthroughs? The idea of change is one of the main themes in this drama. Are you supposed to be the same forever? How does society change us? Is it okay to change? Which are the kind of changes that are really worth it?
WX was right... back when they dated for the first time, they were an unbalanced see-saw. He was a bit judgy and she was very stubborn. They needed to evolve more to be able to stand in each other’s shoes and truly understand what the other was feeling.
Wu Xian: “Don’t push me away. Okay? I was wrong. I was too weak. I thought I was taking responsibility by doing what I did before. I hurt everyone because I never had courage all along. But now I’m different. I love you. From the first day we met until now. When you are happy, I am happy. If you’re sad, I am sad. All of my emotions are dictated by you. You taught me what love is. Do you remember when you asked me why I had never asked about my birth or wondered about my parents? It’s because of you. You made me feel that as long as you were with me, there wasn’t anything missing in my life. If losing those things, was the price to pay for meeting you, I’m okay with that."
The scene when they get back together in the last episode is just so freaking powerful. The chemistry is through the roof (BW & IS worked together before in “The Perfect Match” but he was the annoying second lead, and I wasn’t aware of their power to warm my heart). Anyway, let’s go straight to the point. No matter what happens during the story, WX always wants to be YY’s hand warmers whenever this “little match girl” faces a freezing cold winter. Even when they are heading in opposite directions they manage to remain inseparable and bounce back to each other.
Ugh, I’m such a sucker for brilliant metaphors and well inserted intertextual components. Props to this writer for the outstanding and seamless weaving of these elements throughout the entire drama. I’m just in awe. This is good and carefully planned writing, people.
