《Meet Yourself》

[yesmissjane]

So, during the week I finished 《Meet Yourself》, and the whole thing was a lovely surprise. It's the story of a 30 something woman whose fast paced life in Beijing is not working out and when she suffers a personal loss, she resigns from her job and takes off to spend three months in the country. There are so many things I loved about the drama, but mainly it was the gentle and relaxing vibe of the whole thing... the set up is a bit sad and hectic (which is narratively necessary to set up the 'getting away from it all' story line), and there were a couple of tense moments scattered throughout, but generally it was incredibly low stakes and all the better for it. There were several episodes along the way where very little happened, but none of it was boring (to me), it just felt warm and happy.

Crystal Liu is wonderful in it as the FL and central character. I've enjoyed her in everything I've seen her in. She's very pretty, and she also has an absolutely beautiful speaking voice. The character she plays in this is both a pitch perfect romantic heroine (beautiful, competent, kind to children and old people, with enough personality to not feel like a complete cypher) and a compelling 'every woman' who is trying to find her feet after a hard knock.

Li Xian the ML is also very easy on the eyes, and the character he is given here is much more to my taste than the cold, domineering romantic lead he played in the one other drama of his I've seen, 《Go Go Squid》. (Just an aside: what is it with the whole 'Tall, Cold and Bossy' thing that plays so often in asian dramas? I guess you *could* put LWJ in this category, which just makes me a complete hypocrite, but I've seen it so often and I largely do not get the appeal.) I like that he is a genuinely good guy, but even still he needs to learn to change his ways and meet our FL halfway on certain things as their relationship develops. I also absolutely ate up the scenes where they had his character visibly affected by his interactions with the FL. There's one in particular, from before they get together, and when circumstances seem to be against them having much of a chance, where she is tending some scratches on his neck. He is extremely businesslike with her, but once he gets out of her sight his knees go weak, hand on his obviously hard beating heart and basically swoons. It was such a relatable moment, you can see he has a crush on her the size of a planet; but nevertheless, he respects that that doesn't mean he gets to have her; that her path is her own to travel.

Apart from the main couple, I love all the little side stories: there's heaps, and they each are dealt with with their own weight. There's a writer who is the focus of a couple of episodes, and how they talk about being a writer was really moving. There's an older woman dealing with her fear and pain over her son who's in prison, and then when he's released that's its whole thing too. There's the crazy meditating Mr Ma, who turns out to have his own whole second act. There's the young convenience store laoban with her crush on the ML. There's the ML's cousin, with her messy divorce and young daughter. Probably my favourite of the side story's is the woodcarver's apprentice, who we see grow up from a kind of petulant post adolescent into an actually admirable young man over the course of the drama. He also has a crush, on the FL's friend who is not an immediately suitable match, and the way they left the two of them was just right, if you ask me.

Anyhow, it was an extremely enjoyable drama, in a quiet way. Not appointment viewing, maybe, but nevertheless a jolly good time.

C-Drama's seen so far in 2023:

Lighter & Princess ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
She and Her Perfect Husband ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
New Life Begins ⭐️⭐️1/2
Triad Princess ⭐️1/2
Ashes of Love ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Meet Yourself ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Comments

[spookykingdomstarlight]

This looks really good! Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts about it!