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riplever · 2 months

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Review of Lost You Forever S1 《长相思》

4.4/5

Romance versus love, fantasy, xianxia, drama, politics

No better place than here to admit that I initially thought this would be a trashy especially because I have very little patience for romance dramas. But I have to swallow my words now because I was wrong.

Tong Hua is the original author and also scriptwriter for this drama; this lady kept a very close eye on the adaptation throughout. The show was directed by female director Qin Zhen, and with both of them in the car it's no wonder this drama feels different than the romances shot by male directors.

The Plot: The plot is romance, literally, filled with romantic tropes and whatnot; but the not-so-subtle meta is that it's also a meditation on love and romance, through characters and plot developments that debate heartily on the topic. The plot is also about the roles of men, women and "love" in the traditional, patriarchal Chinese society that is the setting. This is overall an intelligent story that endeavors to go beyond just fulfilling romantic notions.

Xiao Yao: Leading lady Xiao Yao is a 300+ year old princess, sharp, resourceful and wiser because of her traumas. In her life, she has been subject to torture and assassination, would rather take a reckless shot at the great unknown than wait away in the deathliness of peace, and has an intimate understanding of men, women and the things in-between, having also lived a good chunk of her life as a man.

Xiao Yao's greatest love is freedom. She loves freedom so much that she would rather have both her legs be broken (ironically) than reconcile with her dearly beloved brother and father — because she knew that meant walking headfirst into the gilded bird cage of stature and politics.

She values freedom of the mind and spirit if she can't have freedom of will and being, and only demands that her husband will have her as his one and only wife. It's a very tall ask in this game of politics. For comparison, her father pulled it off at the cost of devastating war.

Xiao Yao believes in love, but she doesn't believe in romance. She gives and receives love freely, and even on occasion unconditionally — but having learnt that emotional damage is far worse than physical ones, she guards her heart carefully to spare herself from the kind of pain that romantic love will cause.

Ultimately however, Xiao Yao knows that even that stance is one of self-denial.

Cang Xuan: Xiao Yao's brother (or cousin, if you wanna be technical). Interestingly, he's not popular in Chinese and International fandoms for the same reason — exactly like Xiao Yao, he's rational to the point that it's a double-edged blade, and he had unknowingly, intentionally, caused Xiao Yao to suffer immense pain in the beginning.

I wouldn't so much as blame Cang Xuan for that as I would consider it to be a visible metaphor of the kind of self-sabotage that Cang Xuan and Xiao Yao do to themselves when they only consider love for its utility.

Because this is a show about multiple love interests, the argument of "but he was first" works best in Cang Xuan's favor. The two of them are childhood best friends and swore an oath on the deaths of their family members to never be without the other.

With an emotional baggage shaped like Cang Xuan, you miss the point if you only fixate on the boundaries that he can operate in under "romance". He notices his own feelings for her exceed that of brother and sister, but as clinical as he is with romance, marriages and other women, he suspects that the relationship he has with Xiao Yao by birthright is the truest one in the sense of "love".

Does it have to entail her hand in marriage to give or receive her love? Will he not always be by her side through thick and thin, even after her "romantic" matches disappoint her time and again?

Will he still feel so self-assured even after Xiao Yao embarks on her newly married life with her future husband?

Xiao Yao loves him enough to give up her greatest love of freedom of him. She knows that Cang Xuan will always be there for her, and deeply understands that this status quo is the best way to maintain the longevity of their love for each other.

Tushan Jing/Ye Shiqi: Shiqi is the purest form of romantic love + pure mutual companionship that Xiao Yao has ever experienced, full stop and past tense. At the very beginning, Shiqi was just a servant and she was simply his savior. If he could live life exactly as he wanted, he would live it as a love-blind idiot and doting malewife, penniless, besotted and happy.

I can't quite say that he loved Xiao Yao irrespective of her gender, given that he guesses rather quickly as to her true gender.

Regardless, due to his upbringing and trauma, Shiqi is (initially) generous with his heart and kindness, not minding if he's being taken advantaged of, or shamelessly used for money — his love language is acts of service, and he can't think of anyone he'll rather love than the equally kind-hearted stranger who saved his life when they didn't have to.

However, Shiqi is indeed a dream, and he is too good to exist for real. His full identity is Tushan Jing, whose emotional baggage is as large as his soft heart. On one hand, Jing cannot bring himself to sever toxic family members even when it sabotages himself and his relationship with Xiao Yao; on the other hand, both Xiao Yao and him are dependent on his full identity as Tushan Jing to advance their respective interests of: supporting Cang Xuan's bid for the throne; and marrying Princess Jiuyao with all the socio-political razzmatazz befitting her stature.

Because of this, he's guilty of betraying Xiao Yao's heart severely, time and again. The fox does in fact bite.

One of the most scathing commentary I saw about Jing in the Chinese fandom was that Xiang Liu spent 37 years saving Xiao Yao's life, while Jing spent the same amount of time lying down (in a coma).

I'm not sure if or how this metaphor will bite back later in S2, but Xiao Yao's favorite childhood toy/Chekov's gun is a nine-tailed fox tail. Her evil torturer who knew the truth about her birthright is also a nine-tailed fox. Tushan Jing himself is the descendent of nine-tailed fox.

Fangfeng Bei/Xiang Liu: I almost wanted to write Fangfeng Bei separately given that all the other guys (except Cang Xuan I think?) all said something remarkable: that they think Fang Fengbei is the best man for Xiao Yao. Even I thought that was cheap dialogue thrown in to artificially lend weight to "Team Bei", and I am on Team Bae.

I eventually realized that they said that because they are all clever people, and know that Fangfeng Bei epitomizes freedom (the character for "wind" is in his name), and also that while they might compete for her heart, freedom is what Xiao Yao yearns most painfully after.

Probably this is why Xiang Liu is allergic to saying goodbyes, preferring instead to come and go like the wind does — silently.

Interestingly, Fangfeng Bei also has another recurring metaphor, this one vis-à-vis our good cousin Cang Xuan. Cang Xuan's most tried and trusted strategy of handling whatever life throws at him is to "not hope", and thus not have to bear the brunt of disappointment.

Fangfeng Bei is obsessed with hope. He says hope is the lie that keeps people going. He is the de facto commander of an army that's been defeated for centuries. In the underground fighting ring he mocks Xiao Yao for her shabby encouragement attempt, but is the one to give the fighter real hope by sharing about his own real survival story. Four decades later, he pretends not to care when the fighter finally earns his freedom, but is pleased to see Xiao Yao gift the fighter priceless resources. When he was still pretending to be a different person than Xiang Liu he taunts her, over and over again, "Who do you hope for me to be?" and "What do you hope for me to say?"

Xiang Liu is massively popular in the Chinese fandom as the OTP for Xiao Yao (contrasted against Jing's popularity on tumblr). An interesting tidbit is that the drama team made character social medial accounts for them on Weibo, and these are their follower counts at this point of time in writing:

Xiao Yao: 485k

Xiang Liu: 461k

Cang Xuan: 384k

Tushan Jing: 378k

Countless other literature have been written, and countless fights have been had over how much Xiang Liu has done for Xiao Yao in the name of true love. I will say that in contrast to Jing, who desperately attempts to blur the boundary between himself and his idealized self (i.e. Ye Shiqi); Xiang Liu endorses the idea of Fang Fengbei within limits, and personally cuts off Xiao Yao's wishful daydreams before they can gain any kind of traction. This is one part (of many) where the two of them are similar, because transacting within the confines of terms and conditions is what makes them comfortable.

He can't forgive her for breaching his lines where he drew them. She said "If I'd been the one to save you, I'll let you be Fangfeng Bei forever. Free and without burdens or worries."

She can't forgive him either for breaching her lines where she drew them. She told him "You're not the kind of man that any woman should dream of". She had already dreamt of him a long long time ago.

Let's just conclude for now that Xiang Liu has incredible finesse at snaking back and forth across enemy lines.

My Guess as to What "Lost You Forever" means for S2: I've always wondered why so many Chinese drama claim variants of "love" and "longing" in their English translated titles when the Chinese words are so much more vividly metaphorical about other things (I'm talking about "A Journey To Love" for 一念关山 and "Love And Redemption" for 琉璃).

That being said, "Lost You Forever" is a pretty straightforward and semi-direct translation of “长相思". The translation of the original novel title is actually much closer, "Miss You Forever". The drama title dramatizes it.

/**SPOILER WARNING/**

Xiang Liu dies, and Xiao Yao ends up with Tushan Jing.

Pretty much all the Chinese fans know this. They're familiar with the novel (and on-set leaks) and know that the drama will be faithful. The actors have also divulged this while doing press and promotions since they shot the entire story in one go. Xiao Yao's actress Yang Zi and Xiang Liu's actor Tan Jianci both tend to get teary-eyed or choked up whenever they address Xiang Liu's fate. Yang Zi describes her story with Tushan Jing as "the official pairing", and her relationship with Xiang Liu as "意难平", which is hard to translate because it's three little words that encompasses a broad and vague feeling. It means any or all of the following:

The one that got away (see: the Katy Perry song)

The one I can't ever let go of (see: the Pink song "Who Knew")

The one that I wasn't willing to lose (see: Li Xiangyi in Mysterious Lotus Casebook)

Some tragedies will imprint upon the heart more deeply than some loves ever will.

The titular characters are Xiao Yao and Xiang Liu. They made indelible impacts on each other's souls and are destined to lose each other "forever".

#长相思 #lost you forever #xiao yao #xiang liu #tushan jing #cang xuan #chang xiang si #c drama #drama review

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