HIStory: Meu Herói (2017)

After delaying it for (I don’t know how many) years, I finally got the mood to watch the HIStory franchise, and this one had my honor to be the first one. lol

Honestly, the story like this wasn’t special and have even existed in several BL films / series, but there is always an unique interest (to me) from the Taiwanese series when it comes to romance like this. 🥺

Throughout this series, I have no idea why but for some reason I always remembered some scenes on Thai series, and I just realized that some of those scenes were actually took (or the subtle language was inspired) from this series.

Leia Mais

The idea is promising, but the execution was very poor. As my friend pointed out, it's like body swapping, but with extra steps. Plus, I would consider this a "fake" BL because one of the male protagonists is, for intents and purposes, a woman who has taken over the body of a young man just to be with her boyfriend again. The boyfriend of the woman didn't even get to properly mourn her before she started using someone else's body to get back together with him, which is just a very shitty thing to do.

Overall, this was really cringey to watch and, while I could have dropped it, there were literally 4 episodes to watch, so I just kept watching.

Leia Mais

Story: Really cute. I love the idea of the story. To  disguise a BL by making the lead a female in a males body was genius and i am surprised i haven't seen much of it. Of course i wish it focused more on the BL aspect rather than making this about a girl in a man's body but for a series it was clever. while some things were cheesy i think it was held together by the chemistry the two had.  It was also SUPER funny. i found myself laughing more than fan girling.

Acting/cast: let me just say that a noticed Mai Ying Xiong  was wearing the same underwear throughout the series. Of course only i would notice that... not that it matters or anything it was just a comment. Plus it was the color grey (my favorite) I do have to say that Gu Si Ren did very well at acting differently between his female character and his normal one. Even though sometimes he seemed to act more like a child than a woman i feel like it fit Lan Xi's personality. But besides that the acting wasn't anything special.  i loved the character development. The way Ying Xiong slowly fell in love with Gu Si was cute. There was nothing about the way they portrayed the characters that i would find to be unique or amazing so for that it gets an average grade.

Music: The music i felt was not played at the right time during one or two parts of the series. None of the music in this series stood out to me the first time watching it. Sometimes i even forget there was music. After the second time i did enjoy it. I did recognize that some of the music was from the other HIStory series. It wasn't bad or anything it just wasn't special.

Re-watch value: as much as i hate to give any BL a low grade this one isn't THAT good. Of course its worth watching but its not one of the best things known to the BL universe. I wouldn't re-watch it unless i was looking to see certain parts again. I was also disappointed with certain scenes but spoilers prevent me from saying which one(s) and why.

Leia Mais

Even if the plot was kinda cliché (and the general idea of it reminded me of the korean drama 49 Days) I think if this was well done it could have been a good drama.

I'm of the opinion that Mai Ying Xiong already had feelings for Gu Si Ren and that's why it was so easy for her to get her "super straight boyfriend", as she said, to fall in love with Si Ren in less than 7 days. It was obvious that he didn't love her that much (if at all) because of his reaction when he saw her dead body at the hospital (there's not much about emotions on this drama anyway, but still) and his overall behavior after her death. Everything in this drama happened in a 7 days period so you would imagine he would have been more sad and less conflicted about his relationship with Si Ren.

My main problem with the drama is the fact that they focused on too many unnecessary details. Why didn't they focus more on the relationship between Ying Xiong and Si Ren instead of giving us random flashbacks about her? You wouldn't have known the boys knew each other or that Hero cared about SiRen if it weren't for his notebooks. And still that doesn't tell us the extent of their relationship. And even with Lan Xi already inside SiRen's body, their interactions were very minimum.

About the characters, the girl isn't likable at all. She's entitled, pushy and homophobic. Ying Xiong seemed like a very nice guy and Si Ren also seemed like a very good kid too. I wish we could have seen more of them together before SiRen's death.

Even though I have many complains about the plot, this was easy to watch and despite the MANY cringe moments it had, I honestly laughed at times. Would I recommend it? No. But if you are curious, you can watch it. It's only 80 minutos of your time.

Leia Mais

Quality of acting = 10.0

*outline*
What could've been a simple love story was successfully turned into something much more interesting. Rather than making the cliche rich x poor, smart x dumb, popular x i-don't-even-know-what, much more fantasy was given to a basic plot. Plus, the level of imagination this must've required...


*analysis*
STORY : The story continuously remained unique from the beginning to the end. Because it's not one of those stereotypical takes playwrights usually take, I never knew what was going to happen next. HIStory have really done well for themselves; be it the actors, the director(s), the playwright(s), etc. The whole team clearly worked really hard on this drama so I'm proud to be able to say I finally got around to watching it. I pre-judged the drama because it was an old HIStory but I was so wrong. The pacing was amazing, we never fell off track from the original goal in the drama. The confession and kiss was just timed so perfectly, my heart was practically in my throat by trying to keep my BL-lover screams down from excitement at like... 5 am. The visual fx and production were also done very well, so credits to editors too. Because there's also some straight-ness to this drama, it's a family friendly watch too. (Except for maybe the kiss, but of course that depends on you.) I really don't understand what's so confusing to understand about this drama but I saw another review that said they couldn't keep up with the story. How? It's so simple... but oh well. Everyone has different opinions and takes on each story.

ACTING/CAST : More than anything, as soon as Lan Xi possessed Gu Si Ren's body, I fell in love with Yun Lin Jiang's acting. Imagine how difficult it must've been to act like you've been possessed by someone of the opposite sex, especially as a male (no sexism intended). Yun Lin Jiang was truly the highlight of the entire drama for me. Aaron Lai's character was a little ambiguous which sort of drew me to him. I don't know if ambiguity is his general persona or it was part of his role but either way I liked it. Funny thing actually, Yun Lin Jiang had more focus throughout the whole story so I ended up forgetting Aaron Lai has a main role in this drama, not a supporting role.

MUSIC : There was one track that was played here and there that I didn't see fit in some of the scenes, but other than that, the rest of the tracks were quite nice to listen to and suited the themes of the scenes. Especially the theme song.

REWATCH VALUE : I don't know if I'd personally come back to this drama so I gave it a 9.5 but I assure you there are other people who definitely will. A lot of people, actually. Especially because this doesn't only focus on BL, but also a straight couple so it's a drama that is open for everyone to watch. Weird but yeah. If you don't follow too well with the story, which somehow some people don't, then you should probably rewatch it. It just means that the possession stuff hasn't sunk in so you need to rewatch it to fully understand, or you were distracted but I think it was probably the latter.


*recommendations*
Literally, the rest of the HIStory dramas. You have to watch them. Especially 'Crossing the Line' and 'Trapped'. They've been rated the best ones out of the whole lot too and it's really no surprise why.

And :
Visit my Asian BLs Custom List to see some more of my watches and ratings !! ^.^ Including: Korean, Taiwanese, Japanese and Thai !
Also, please vote to show your view on other dramas :)

Leia Mais

The story is wacky and I think on paper, it is great, If you consider this series to be light, comedy and simple, then probably it works.

But I feel like this is such an odd series if you actually watch it more closely and really understand what's happening.

Mai Ying Xiong did not fully understand what is really happening. I think it is important for him to understand that. This made you think if Mai Ying Xiong fell in love with the real Gu Si Ren or fell in love with her girlfriend Lan Xi (who obviously is controlling the physical, mental and emotional aspect of Si Ren during the time they were together). At the end, did Mai Ying Xiong kissed Si Ren or Lan Xi? It was confusing especially the writers made it a point to show Si Ren as Lan Xi.

For me, it was disappointing because I can see Ying Xiong fell in love with Lan Xi in the physicality of Si Ren. Si Ren (his real self) was left unclear of what is truly happening and in the span of 7 days, it was not him who fell in love together with Ying Xiong. So in reality, the love between the two does not really exist in the span time Lan Xi is in Si Ren. I just think the whole backstory was a rushed way of saying to the audience that hey Ying Xiong fell in love with the real Si Ren, but IMO that's bullshit. And even then, Lan Xi deserved an apology even if she was dead (had Ying Xiong knew what happened - then this should happen and clear closure between the two is just right)

The execution of the story is cute and fun tho. I think it deserved a second run where the real Si Ren is with Ying Xiong.

Leia Mais

I am watching this HIStory series and I am enyoing all the stories, even though they are far from perfect.

This one is about Lan Xi , a girl that accidentally dies but a grim reaper gives her the chance to move into another person's body to continue living. She gets into Gu Si Ren's, a lonely guy that is bullied at school and when he accidentally dies too she takes the opportunity. But now she has seven days to make her boyfriend Ying Xiong fall in love with her again but this time in a male body. Will she make it?

I was kinda weird with the whole thing but then like in episode 3 everything made sense. I know it's sad for Lan Xi to found out that Ying Xiong was actually in love with the original Gu Si Ren and that he love him too. It's sad for her but in the end makes the right decision even if it's painful and sad. The story moves to humorous to sad and deep in no time and still we had great, cute and funny moments (the water bottle scene killed me).

I do not think it's the best story of the series but it's nice to see that hero knew he liked men long before and not just for being magically converted into "OMG I like men" in just seven days. I LIKED THAT. Overall it's fun and lovely at the same time.

Leia Mais

Very Surface-Level

This HIStory series is supposed to showcase different BL tropes, and this installment did exactly that and no more. The show was super quick to watch (just hardly over an hour altogether) and easy to get through, but it really lacked substance and development. The concept of the show and how the BL storyline progressed could have been so much better if more time had been spent on it, and if the rest of the story was fleshed out more. We know pretty much nothing about our characters even by the end, and the scenes have no real substance or character to them. Even the ending was really quick and unexplained, which just left me feeling unsatisfied.

It's not bad by any means, but it could have been so much better.

Leia Mais

I didn't know what to feel while watching this. However, I really felt for the girl. I think this story was more about her than the other two. I really hoped that the ending would have been more dramatic, because I actually really felt bad for her at the end. Finding out your boyfriend was actually gay, and that he didn't really like you at all and was just staying with you because of how he was afraid of other people's judgment and because you were a good accessory for him, it was really sad, especially since she wasn't supposed to be the one who's dead in the first place. Also, throughout the show, it was the girl's soul who was doing the things with the guy, so, yeah. Anyway, I still enjoyed it. They all look good, too! The show was also funny.

Leia Mais

Lighthearted romance, easy watch, but cringy at times

[NO SPOILERS]
I didn't read the description, so going into this, I didn't know what to expect. I had heard on Twitter that the HIStory 1 series was basic and simpler than the others, so I was prepared for a fluffy romance.
For the most part, we got that. The beginning was really confusing, I didn't quite understand what was going on and, on episode 2, had to rewatch the first 10 minutes of the series to better understand who the characters were. Although we didn't get a clear understanding until the very end of the show, I made some sense of it and was able to continue with little problem. Once the show established everything, the pacing was really good. I can't complain at all.

If you are looking for a pure homosexual BL, I wouldn't recommend this. Despite the 2 main leads being male, one of the characters is a female in a male body, so the element of BL is lost slightly. But, it is still a quick, fun watch.

As you can imagine with there being an FTM body swap, there is a bit of toilet humour. I did find it funny but I also found it a bit uncomfortable to watch. As a female, I've always been uncomfortable with urinal scenes, and BL has so many of them unnecessarily, but that's what you get for watching a male-focused drama.

[SPOILERS]
I found the ending 50/50 satisfying. I was really hoping during the last quarter of the show that Lan Xi would realise that Hero doesn't love her anymore and that staying in Gu Si Ren's body will just upset both of them. So I'm glad that she selflessly let Gu Si Ren return to his body and accepted that she is dead. In that sense, it had a satisfying ending. But there was a straight kiss that was longer than the gay kiss, so I was pretty annoyed about that...

Leia Mais