It’s a good thing that I’m not a great believer of love at first sight since I was prepared to hate this Cdrama based on looks alone. The lead female, Qiao Yi, is the most unprepossessing character I’ve seen in a while.

She has limp hair that needs a gallon of mousse to volumize, a five-finger forehead that’s begging to be flicked, and cheeks so wide they remind me of an airplane landing strip.

Don’t get me wrong. Physically unattractive characters don’t usually bug me. In “Abyss” which is currently shown on tvN, the lead character Seyoung is also a Plain Jane as Qiao Yi. But Seyoung doesn’t rub me up the wrong way as Qiao Yi does. Qiao Yi is a bully magnet which Seyoung isn’t.

Put in a nutshell, my problem with Qiao Yi’s appearance is that it conveys her inferiority complex.

Her face coupled with her demeanor (i.e., biting her nails, tucking her chin, avoiding eye contact, speaking haltingly) are visual cues of her lack of confidence. And right now, I’m not in the mood for her type of heroine: an unassertive, timid, helpless and self-effacing girl. Frankly, her personality drives smart and tough-as-nails women bat-crazy because they know that they can’t win when she turns on that Damsel-in-Distress Bat Signal.

Moreover, in this story, it’s easy to foretell where the writer is going with Qiao Yi’s inferiority complex: a break-up. I bet my bottom dollar that that the couple’s misunderstanding and eventual separation will be instigated by either her feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness or her act of noble idiocy/grand stupidity.

A crystal ball isn’t necessary because writers use this trope so often already. Qiao Yi will reject Yan Mo because she doesn’t want to burden him with her cancer, poverty, low IQ,  illegitimate birth, bad luck, broken fingernail, and whatever sob story she can think of.

Remember the angst from “Strong Woman, Do Bong Soon”?  Rinse, recycle, repeat.

Ugh!

Instead of feeling “le coup de foudre” (literally, thunderbolt) or “love at first sight” for the heroine, I expect I’ll give her “le coup de pied au cul” or a good kick in the ass by Episode 10.

But if I overlook this blatant character flaw of the female lead, here’s why I think this series will be a good one.

1. Yan Mo aka Frank 

Like many drama viewers, I’m bored with love stories about a girl moping around and sighing about her unrequited love for Mr. Elusive. This time I want the guy to run after the girl, and Yan Mo/Frank does precisely that in first half of the episode. He bursts through double doors,

streaks through the corridor,

sprints across town and rushes up to his house to search for his wallet in the washing machine.

Only in the epilogue of the show do we find out that he’s worried that his missing wallet would end up soaked in the wash. Why? It contains a photograph of him and Qiao Yi from a paper clipping from their high school days.

It’s clear then that he hasn’t forgotten Qiao Yi and the girl seen playing the piano in his Cambridge house can’t be his girlfriend. It’s the law of contradiction. It’s impossible for him to have another girlfriend while he’s still in love with her. He’s a single-minded, faithful lover.

Aside from running after the girl, or the photograph of the girl, his Western name, “Frank” is another thing I like about Yan Mo. It reminds me of that Oscar Wilde play, “The Importance of Being Earnest,” where the girls were fixated on having lovers with the name of “Earnest” because it “inspires absolute confidence.” lol. The word “frank” is a near-synonym of “earnest.” To be frank means to be honest, plain-spoken, direct and unambiguous. His name inspires confidence in me that Yan Mo is serious about Qiao Yi. He won’t play games with her…like he suspects she’s doing with him. Other viewers will cite numerous reasons why he walks out on Qiao Yi at the end of Episode 1, but I like to think that her dishonesty is the primary reason. In his mind, she’s playing him for a fool. Of course, he immediately recognizes her as the masked woman in the TV show. He doesn’t know that she’s only pretending to be a seven-month pregnant woman, being beaten by her husband for the camera, to drum up viewership for the tv show.

She sounds convincing when she says as scripted, “I can’t stand it anymore. I’ve been pregnant for months. Yet I have to sell fruits at a stall every day. He only returns when in need of money. I’m making money only for you! Look at these scars. He’d beat me every time he got drunk. He doesn’t care about my pregnancy at all!”

He looks “thunderstruck” when he hears her on tv.

But he goes to the media station to search for her immediately after watching her on tv. His action demonstrates that, after all these years of being incommunicado and despite his determination to avoid her, he storms the tv station hell-bent on saving her from dire straits.

Hence, he’s disgusted to see that it’s all a hoax. But do you know what he returns for the interview?

Because he’s seen “their” photograph on her desk at work.

He knows what that means. He knows that she’s keeping that photo of herself NOT because it’s a “glamour shot” and she looks beautiful in there (lol). He knows that HE’s the other “missing half” of that picture. #Heknows

In my opinion, he realizes then that she’s keeping the picture for the same exact reason he’s keeping the news clipping too in his wallet. Secretly, privately, they BOTH haven’t let go of the past.

She has this picture of them but she kept his picture out of plain sight.

Meanwhile, he also has this picture of them hidden in his wallet.

That’s why he scoffs while waiting for the elevator. He knows what she’s hiding.

Again, in my view, he isn’t so much disgusted that he caught her lying about being a pregnant woman as he is upset that she pretends not to care for him when she keeps THEIR high school photograph at her work desk.

It’s still very much THEIR high school photograph.

So at the next encounter for the taping of the show, he tries to get some answers from her.

QY: Hi Yan Mo. Nice to meet you.
YM: (grunts)
QY: (mentally talking to herself) This is my work. Calm down. (then starts the small talk with him) It’s been a while since the last time you were here in Nanchuan. Do you think the difference is big.
YM: Huge. The price is much higher.
QY: Have you visited your school recently? It’s said your notes are still popular among the students.
YM: No.
QY: How long will you stay here?
YM: I’m leaving tomorrow.
QY: So soon?
YM: Because I find there’s nothing worth staying for.

Ouch! He means her, of course. Barbed comments like this tell me that he’s mad at her for something she’s done to him. He thinks she’s done something against him which gives him a valid reason to be upset with her. He’s not the one grovelling here.

QY: How are you doing?
YM: In what way?
QY: (sighing) I heard you have a girlfriend. (bites her nail)
YM: Who told you that?
QY: I called you. A girl answered it.
YM: You called me?
QY: Why are you keeping the same number?
YM: Do you think I’m waiting for you? Biting your fingernail when being diffident as always.
QY: (she stops) Why are you changing topic?
YM: Answer my question first then I’ll answer yours. Why did you turn me down back then?

She doesn’t answer. Clearly, the time and setting aren’t optimized for such a confession. But considering that he’s seen THEIR high school picture on her work desk, he probably finds it hard to understand her difficulty in giving him a straight answer. To somebody who considers himself the injured party here, he probably regards her hesitation as a sign that she’s either hiding something or thinking up of a lie.

YM: Sure enough, there isn’t anything worth staying for at all.

All she wants to know is whether he’s been waiting for her to call him up these past years. On his part, all he wants to know is why she turned him down years ago. When she can’t give him a straight answer, he interprets that as a denial. Meaning, she’s unprepared to explain why she’s been keeping THEIR high school picture. Meaning, she’s not going to admit that he means something to her. Meaning, she’s still going to turn him down again.

Thus, he’s not going to admit that he’s kept the number the same all these years just for her.

And he spits out, “Sure enough, there isn’t anything worth staying for at all” then leaves in a huff. He sees her stumble after him, but he doesn’t go back to help her.

I find that moment deliciously ironic.

You see, he runs miles to rescue her photograph from the wash. And he runs straight away to rescue her from a difficult situation. But up-close and personal, he isn’t going to run to her side to help her up because he thinks nothing has changed. She’s still going to reject him. This time around, he breaks the pattern of always running after her and he walks away.

Romantic, eh?

What I find interesting about Yan Mo is that he’s one most visibly aggrieved by their break-up/separation/alienation despite having a poker-face.

2. Regrets

I’m sticking around because I want to know how she’s going to deal with her regrets: whether she’s going to stop beating around the bush; whether she’s going to stop looking back at the past and move forward; whether she’s going to take a pro-active stance and run after him for a change.

Her team is given a topic for the next broadcast: How is the one you adored in school doing now.  The lead reporter proposes to approach this from the perspective of a shy teenager looking for her high school crush ten years later. Qiao Yi is asked for her input and she says this:

“I think the setting is flawed. Which one of us here has had an unrequited love for ten years? Although they haven’t contacted each other over the past decade, if she really was concerned about him, she would have tried every possible way to search for any trace of him.

Look up his number, QQ (or group chat), forum ID. Look through all his posts. Follow his weibo account secretly. Maybe his girlfriend’s. Or eve one of his ex’s or his ex’s boyfriend. If there’s any trail of him, she’d definitely go after it. So, she would have found him as long as she wanted to. Unless she dares not…”

Qiao Yi’s point here is that, given the various ways of keeping in touch nowadays with old classmates and friends, it’s no longer difficult to search the whereabouts of a lost love is. That’s why she says that the “premise” is flawed.

For her, the problem is in the absence of determination and will (or “initiative”) to reach out to that loved one. Obviously, the topic resonates with her because SHE KNOWS she could have gotten in touch with Yan Mo in Cambridge but she dared not. The course of action has always been clear to her but she doesn’t want to take that extra step herself.

She prefers to avoid him. lol. She’s even scared to attend her high school reunion with her brother because Yan Mo might show up.

To me, the interesting part of the story is how she’ll try to win Yan Mo back.

3. Their “old couple” sparring

There’s this perception that that new couples are all lovey-dovey while old couples are more honest about showing their flaws and irritation with each other. These settled couples are assured that they’ll be loved no matter what.

QY: We’ve been married for four years now. We were classmates in high school. But we didn’t date early. We were together after graduation.
YM: We weren’t in a relationship until I returned from Britain.
QY: Doesn’t make much difference.
YM: I want it precise.

lol. He wants it precise because it will make it clear whose fault it was that they didn’t date early. So she admits the truth.

QY: We weren’t in touch at all when we were in the university.
YM: You didn’t take the initiative. (See? In his mind, it’s her fault for not contacting him.)
QY: You didn’t, either.
YM: But that’s different.

In his mind, he had a good reason not to call her up. (Probably because she’s the one who rejected him in the first place or she told him not to contact her anymore.)

lol. Now, I’m really curious to know why he thinks his “lack of initiative” to contact her is justified while hers isn’t.

4. Le coup de foudre

As you all know by now, “le coup de foudre” means “thunder strike” or love at first sight. Incidentally, to have a crush on somebody is to have “un coup de coeur.”

In this cdrama, however, I’m not sure if it’s “love at first sight” for Yan Mo and Qiao Yi or simply love that grew over time. It’s interesting to note that the word “thunderstruck” is first used in Episode 1 to described Yan Mo’s stunned and flabbergasted expression when Qiao Yi tries to spin a ridiculous story about an illicit love affair

QY: Brother-in-law, do you think us being like this is being disloyal to my sister?
YM: Don’t worry. Your sister will bless us in Heaven.

Qiao Yi introduces her husband as “this embarrassed man who looks like he’s been struck by lightning.”

Personally, I’m not a great believer of love at first sight. I prefer to watch love develop slowly, over time, out of misunderstandings and communication, from intimacy and trust. Although the lead female character’s appearance and personality leave me cold, I think that this screenwriter will be able to hash out details to make an interesting romcom.

I’m dismissing my initial unfavorable impressions of this cdrama with prejudice and looking forward to the next episodes to review.