Just plain weird. Honestly, there are not many instances that give me the ‘willies’, but watching this series frankly did. Everything about this story left me disquiet. And the way the narrative was fashioned felt like what the two protagonists were somehow involved in, between the two of them, was ‘dirty’. Therefore, the whole drama felt – unclean. Sadly, it did not need to go down that road.

Very little of this story made sense. It is a story of two ‘brothers’, loosely defined. The older brother, Song Li (Zhang Yong Bo) ‘adopts’ a boy from the streets as his brother. His name becomes Song Qi (Liu Xuan Cheng) and both have a stepfather unrelated to either who is abusive towards the two of them. Song Li felt sorry for Song Qi who was existing on the streets and brought him into the family. The two of them, even though they were not related or connected in any way, created their own family and decided to adopt each other and call one another brother. The stepfather is essentially a drunkard and turns his intoxicated rage onto the boys, with Song Li usually taking the brunt of the beatings for both. Because of their abusive upbringing, they learned to rely on each other and indeed grew closer to one another. And clung onto each other for physical and emotional support. Perhaps with the younger one being so susceptible and malleable, only learned what love is by loving his older brother.

The story does not do a very good job of explaining how these two very young boys grew up by themselves, given that the father was killed in an accident when they were young. In retrospect, both remembered that Song Qi was perhaps the inadvertent cause of the stepfather’s death, as he was simply trying to protect Song Li. Unquestionably, this had to have played some role in the way Song Qi formed his personality. Song Li took it upon himself to look after and provide for Song Qi. What transpired after the stepfather’s death was a strengthening of their bond into an intensity that can and should only be described as love. The question becomes what kind of love? I think the series tried to define that love but unfortunately failed at it ineptly.

The personalities of the two brothers could not be more polar opposites. Song Li is quiet, reserved, withdrawn with very little backbone. Handsome in an astonishingly boyish way, he surrenders himself completely to his younger brother. Always confessing his love for him but never clearly, either in his mind or to Song Qi (or others for that matter), how he is defining love. Despite being younger, Song Qi is mature, assertive, and protective, especially towards threats to his brother. Ruggedly handsome, he has a commanding and demanding personality. It is obvious he has fallen in love with Song Li in every sense of that word. Long before he attended college. While he understood they called each other ‘brother’, nothing legally, ethically, morally, or by societal standards made them so. In addition, the signals Song Qi received from his brother, he interpreted as the same feelings he had for him.

Meanwhile, when it finally spills over into a display of intimacy, Song Li recoils. Even though he knows and certainly senses how deep the feelings of Song Qi are for him. He has been telegraphing them for years and finally when they spill over manifest into physical contact affection, he just cannot bring himself to do what he knows is clearly an action that was a long time in coming. Besides, at one point, he was a willing participant.

These are not clearly defined roles and are personas that leave it up to the actors to project raw intense emotions into the characters. Since so much of the characters are unexplained as to who they are, it is up to the forcefulness of the portrayals of the actors to help us understand who they think these characters are. While direction can give us so much, it is the action that we only see. Unquestionably, the two mesmerizingly and strikingly attractive young men portrayed these individuals with radiance, grit, and fortitude, given that the characters are really not clearly determined. We could easily see the conflict and pain in Song Li through the eyes of Zhang Yong Bo. We can see not just the deep respect but also the ardent love Song Qu had for his brother. Liu Xuan Cheng was able to show that love in a multitude of ways and on several levels, perhaps not all grounded in reality, however. Each had to embody those emotions as he saw fit, which could not have been easy. Kudos for displaying complexities in emotional strengths of two very divergent individuals, both of whom were trying to become something of a unit together.

There is nothing that is defined with precision in this series. So much innuendo, obtuseness, and obfuscation abound. Both these young men are in serious need of intervention as they have befuddled what ‘love’ is. Is Song Qi really in love with Song Li or simply obsessed? Is Song Li so crushed by love for Song Qi (which I think he most assuredly is and has been for a long time as well) but because of his weak personality, he is vanquished with guilt, shame, confusion, and cultural pressures? What we are presented with, as outsiders looking in, if we silenced the volume, would be two young men showing inchoate signs that they are in love – hugging, feeding each other, sleeping together, lovers’ affectations like biting one’s shoulder, making confessions in endearing ways that they will never leave each other, declarations that they cannot remain apart from one another again, and on and on. It is only when they kissed (in the usual drunken stupor cliché way) did it enter the forbidden uncomfortable level. Now, they can no longer play act they are in love. They actually showed it.

There is no conclusion to this series. Things were said that obviously needed to be said and more importantly needed to be dealt with. The best way to describe how Season I ends (or at least it had that feel about it) is like we are watching a lovers’ quarrel. A lot of crazy talk, strong emotions, anger, and crying. But the tethering of the two is only separated by a thin glass door that can easily and quickly slide open.

Overall, this feels a lot like another stepbrother trope BL series, only more obscenely because the direction made it feel that way. Rather than being an adult story, they made these ‘brothers’ caricatures – one almost angelic while the other demonic. Completely unnecessary. What would have been so wrong with treating them in average terms, more relatable to the everyday world, rather than truncating them into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ personas? Not everything is either a yin or a yang. Why can we not have something more genuine and real for a change that is relatable?

The real question here about this series is an obvious rhetorical one: What would have been the outcome of this series if the plot had been that the protagonists were not labeled ‘brothers’ but something less salacious? Would we still want to watch it?

If you want determinations, this is not the series for you. It is a series you can either watch or skip.

Rating- 3 out of 5