Devil Beside You

Gosh, I should just make this a blog about asian drama serials, and be done with it! Luckily, after talking to my aunt, I have discovered that my addiction to these dramas is a genetic thing. The Tangs are naturally inclined to love watching them - it explains why my dad is eagerly following his Korean drama right now, why my aunt has 57 (at least) full drama series at home, and why I have watched like 6 dramas (each around 20-30 hours long) in the past 3-4 weeks :) On the plus side, my colloquial mandarin is improving dramatically - no longer am I restricted to chinese myths and legends when I am conversing. Now I can also say expressions like "oh that's too exaggerated!" or "the road of love doesn't always run smoothly" haha.

Anyway, a bit about the "Devil Beside You." This time I decided to try a Mike He drama - one that made him a taiwanese screen legend pretty much.
Rainie Yang plays Qi Yue, a sincere good-hearted girl who has fallen for the school's resident nice guy, Yuan Yi (Kingone). She decides to tell him so, and presents him with a love letter (funny how many manga adaptations start this way). However, thanks to some miscommunication, Yuan Yi misses this moment. The entire thing is viewed by Qing Zi (Tsai Pei Lin), Qi Yue's best friend, and Jiang Meng (Mike He), a first-year heart-throb admired for his devilish/bad-boy tendencies. Despite their missed connection, Yuan Yi and Qi Yue start dating. However, Qi Yue begins to fall for Jiang Meng, who despite his rude ways, is extremely kind-hearted and cannot resist helping people in pain. Lots of personal back-story there. Yuan Yi and Qi Yue break up, and Qing Zi and Yuan Yi eventually go out. Qi Yue and Jiang Meng fall in love - but (of course) there's a snag.

They're about to become step-siblings.

Which makes their relationship taboo. Other obstacles include Jiang Meng's complex and scarring family history - which involves his mom leaving his dad and taking his younger brother (but not him) with her, Qi Yue's long-standing tendre for her deceased dad's mentee, and various third parties of the oddest kind. Anyway, after the two spend eons working through issues - including telling their parents about their relationship - they come to the main crisis. (Surprisingly, despite all this backstory, the plot of the story stays tight, and doesn't wander off like other Taiwanese dramas. Major props to the director. Back to the story...) Literally less than a month after Qi Yue and Jiang Meng's relationship is accepted by all, Jiang Meng's mother dramatically returns to the scene, and begs him to move with her to Italy. It's a chance for them to repair their relationship - one that Jiang Meng cannot pass up. However, doing so will mean that he has to leave Qi Yue behind, after all that she's sacrified for them to be together (and honestly, she's gone through a lot to be with him). Jiang Meng tells her not to wait for him - he doesn't know how long he'll be. Qi Yue is devastated, but for Jiang Meng's sake, puts on a brave front - she realizes that JM needs to know his mother to ever be completely happy. So Qi Yue numbs herself, throwing herself into work and school. This was so painful to watch, especially since the 19 episodes before this moment all focused on how the two stayed in love and supported each other through emotional obstacles. I was so into how much they meant to each other and how much they had to over come to be a "normal" couple, that to watch Jiang Meng brush Qi Yue off made me bawl like a baby. I started crying about 5 minutes into the episode, and only stopped 10 minutes to the end...it was horrendous.

The climax comes a week before Jiang Meng has to leave; there is a horribly awkward moment when Qi Yue comes across Jiang Meng as he is packing to leave. Qi Yue is cheerful, and tells him to be careful while he's in Italy, but you can feel this numbing emptiness radiating from her as she talks to him. The contrast to their interactions before is heartbreaking. That night, his friends throw him a farewell party, but don't invite Qi Yue, because they're afraid that attending the party will cause her to snap. Qing Zi and Yuan Yi (the other main couple in the story that I briefly mentioned in the beginning) go drinking with Qi Yue that night instead, and Qing Zi rails at Qi Yue for not sharing her real feelings, for being numb. Qi Yue runs away into the night, her control finally broken. Qing Zi and Yuan Yi search for her, and bump into Jiang Meng, returning from his farewell. JM freaks out when he realizes that Qi Yue is alone, and runs all over Taipei looking for her. He finds her and they have this oh-so-awful scene where he suggests that they break up. Qi Yue screams at him, finally, and runs off into the night again. He follows (this sounds so dramatic when I'm typing it), and finally they discuss the whole situation. Qi Yue cries - when you're gone, what if someone else pursues me? What do I do? Jiang Meng finally loses his control and tells her that it doesn't matter, because he will only love her, can only love her. Goosebumps! They reunite. He still moves to Italy. That was probably a lot of unnecessary detail, but I've never had a single episode of a drama touch me as much as that episode did.

I think I'm going to have to go watch it again.