Bromance

After thoroughly enjoying Refresh Man, I decided to try another Taiwanese drama. The selection on Netflix is actually really good now, which is why I'm annoyed that only the cheapest or oldest Korean drama (and almost no Japanese drama) make the cut. Bromance was what I decided on - mostly for the title, but also because I can't ever resist a cross-dressing romance. I wasn't disappointed.

Pi Yanuo's parents were told that, if their child was born a boy, they'd excel at anything they put their mind to and have supreme luck. But unfortunately, Yanuo was born a girl, and therefore to trick fate her parents decided to raise her as a boy until her 26th birthday. With her birthday now approaching, Yanuo happens to witness a fight between one man, triad leader Du Zifeng, and members of an unspecified gang. Having learned martial arts growing up, she steps in to help him, and later happens to help his sister, Du Zihan, who is immediately infatuated with her. Feeling grateful, their Mother convinces Yanuo - who refuses to accept a reward - to become Zifeng's 'sworn brother', and therefore his best friend. She doesn't have much of a choice. It leads to complications, danger, near-death experiences, and a deep bond between her and Zifeng that soon turns to love. The problem is that she risks jeopardising that love if her true gender is ever revealed.

Firstly, I thought that this drama made no sense whatsoever. If my parents raised me as a boy, I'm sure I would have felt some resentment towards them (although Yanuo's attitude to living as a boy contributes to why I love her as a heroine), but moreover there are so many factors they must have encountered which aren't considered. What about school? Did they tell all the teachers Yanuo's secret so no-one was suspicious, or did they just convince people she was ill every time she had to do PE? I wish they would have at least explained how some of the situations were handled as Yanuo grew up, because otherwise I find it very hard to believe that a girl could be successfully raised as a girl without any non-family members finding out the truth. But ignoring that, aside from the giant logical flaws of this concept, I really enjoyed watching Bromance. 

  Yanuo's casting was fantastic. A common flaw in gender-bender drama is that it often isn't believable at all that people would mistake the character for the opposite sex. In Coffee Prince, it seemed completely plausible that Eun-chan was misconceived to be a boy, but in To The Beautiful You (the horrible Korean version of Hana Kimi), for example, Sulli was poorly cast since she isn't androgynous at all. Megan Lai made both a beautiful girl and a completely convincing boy, which I really appreciated. She was also a fantastic actor - I noticed gradual changes in her interpretation of Yanuo over the course of the story, as if she was trying to convey how Yanuo was beginning to accept and embrace her identity as a girl - but these little touches were minimal, and did nothing to diminish my love for her character. 

  But the best part of Bromance was undoubtedly the romance. The development of the relationship between Zifeng and Yanuo was nicely done. The substance of the plot was fairly standard, but Bromance took typical storytelling devices I've seen a thousand times and used them to squeeze as much cuteness from the romance as physically possible. If the romance weren't quite as engaging as it was, and if the chemistry between Megan Lai and Baron Chen wasn't off the charts, I definitely would not have enjoyed Bromance as much as I did. It reminded me of why I love romantic-comedies so much. Some come along that take themselves too seriously (Love Rain) and some don't take themselves seriously enough, being carelessly-written since romance is perceived to be the easiest genre to master (Cinderella and the Four Knights). Done right, a romance story has the potential to get to the nitty-gritty of emotions and human nature whilst being fun and uplifting. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but that's how Bromance made me feel.
  I also loved the addition of the sub-story between Zifeng's friend Qingyang and Yang Nana, a cheerful girl sick with cancer. It balanced well with the main story; whilst one made my heart race, the other was milder and more sentimental, dealing with the romance of life and how people cope with the knowledge that their days may be numbered. Bromance hit so many sweet spots for me by doing this. 

I had a few complaints - the director loved sweeping camera shots at the end of scenes, which infuriated me because I kept thinking the characters were being spied on by someone on the sidelines, not to mention how their choices for music were clearly terrible since they often used dramatic or creepy music in completely inappropriate scenes - but overall, I'm leaving Bromance feeling very satisfied. I hope the next drama I marathon is as feel-good as this.