When I first read about the story, I wasn't expecting this series to be amazing though I thought it could at least be decent. It remains that the story isn't exactly the sort that blows one's mind with twists or unexpected plotlines, but this turns out to be a good thing. It is a relatively simple story that is turned into a series that is made very well in practically every way.

In the story, Tian, who suffers from a heart disease, gets a heart transplant. He finds out that the donor is a volunteer teacher in a remote village, and he decides to volunteer for the same job. But this is BL, so you can obviously expect a romance here. At first, I was wondering if Tian would just fall in love with his donor's boyfriend and turn into some kind of replacement for her. But this is certainly not the case. The heart donor is in love with Tian's love interest when she's still alive, but her feelings are actually not reciprocated.

The story doesn't go out of its way to pander to BL fans. Again, this can be a good thing. The other characters are given a chance to be portrayed with nuance, which makes the story of the main characters better. Whether it is the villain who has an understatedly menacing aura or the kindly village chief who is surprisingly wise, the characterization enhances the story. I haven't read the original novel, but I dare say this is a wonderful adaptation because it is so easy to spoil things even with a solid original story that is followed faithfully.

Mix, who plays Tian, has a rather challenging role. Apart from the complicated emotions the character undergoes, Mix has to portray the change in Tian after his heart transplant. But it's not a 180-degree change (and there are subtle developments after the heart transplant too), so it's harder than playing two different characters. Mix manages to play Tian before and after the transplant impressively well. It's not often that we have a new actor who manages to portray the character's emotions without any lines, as Mix does in the last episode when he looks around the hut wistfully and starts tearing up.

Earth plays Phupha, Tian's love interest well enough too, though I'm not sure if I entirely understand the character. Phupha's liking for Tian is quite obvious and he even progresses to blatant flirting with Tian. Yet, it is later revealed that he knows Tian's identity (Tian's father is an influential man) from the start, and he later behaves as though Tian should leave the village and forget about him because Tian has a better life to lead. (Oh, then what's up with all the flirting in the first place?) But perhaps this is love--maybe when he falls more deeply in love with Tian, he wants the best for Tian, even if it means he has to lose Tian?

Perhaps one weakness of 1000 Stars is that it's so good that it belongs to a class of its own and loses some of the trademark fluff of the BL genre. There is, for instance, side BL couple at all. And while most BL focus on the BL romance at the expense of everything else in the story, 1000 Stars doesn't sacrifice the other elements of the story. (An example is when Tian is about the leave the village in the last episode. We can see that he is genuinely emotional about leaving the village and the children he has taught, and it's not just about Phupha's absence or his yet-to-be-fulfilled romance. ) One other series that I think is like that is Until We Meet Again, but it seems that praise for 1000 Stars approaches unanimity more closely.

Ultimately, 1000 Stars is a BL series that BL fans can appreciate for its strengths, but it is also a really good series to watch even if you aren't into BL (well, as long as you have nothing against male-male romance).