Autumn Concerto - one rewatch coming up!
Starting on Material Queen has given me a hankering to rewatch another Vanness drama, Autumn Concerto, a.k.a. Next Stop Happiness, a drama that I adore and that brought me back to twdramas after years of lack of interest. Pairing my huge favorite Ady An with Vanness, NSH is a romance par excellence (though even my infatuated self admits that the second half does occasionally get draggy - it got extended due to being a hit). It hits every fictional kink I have, and even some I didn't know I had before that drama. Let's face it, when it comes to drama narrative, for me star-crossed epic love is still >>>> everything.
Ady An is Muchen, whose name, I swear, must have been picked from the Russian word "muchenitsa", i.e. sufferer. Orphaned, poor, brought up by an indifferent aunt and aunt's sexually abusive husband, Muchen's life is beyond bleak but she hasn't given up her strength and warmth. And then her path crosses that of Guan Xi (Vanness), a rich, violently acting-out and messed-up college student who doesn't believe a woman can be loving and good yet desperately wants and needs to believe that. But she has to leave him to save his life and when they meet again, he does not remember her. It's off to the races with terminal (but not quite) illness, rescues, amnesia and more delicious make-outs and angst than you can imagine.
And yet underneath the sweeping, much larger-than-life romanticism, I really like a certain pragmatism of the underlying tropes - NSH doesn't spend episodes and episodes showing hero's jerkiness/redeeming the jerk (a storyline that usually drives me nuts - if a person is a bastard to everyone, eventually he's going to be a bastard to you). No, NSH quickly establishes Guan Xi as a decent person who would be loving and well-adjusted if he could process past trauma. Ultimately, he's a good person undreneath the mess, he just needed a catalyst to draw him out. More importantly, much as the drama loves going "hero rescues heroine from deadly peril" tropes, she rescues him right back every time - he might physically protect her - from goons, from her abuser, from drowning, from death. But she is the one who gives him a meaning in life, warmth, connection, family, even sanity. She is the one who turns him into a human.
Also, let's face it - how could I not adore a drama which has more hurt/comfort emotional pr0n than you can shake a stick at, a cancer which ends well for the patient (!!!), cute kids, Vanness' body and Ady An's glorious face?
Have an emo MV for a gloriously emo drama:
Ady An is Muchen, whose name, I swear, must have been picked from the Russian word "muchenitsa", i.e. sufferer. Orphaned, poor, brought up by an indifferent aunt and aunt's sexually abusive husband, Muchen's life is beyond bleak but she hasn't given up her strength and warmth. And then her path crosses that of Guan Xi (Vanness), a rich, violently acting-out and messed-up college student who doesn't believe a woman can be loving and good yet desperately wants and needs to believe that. But she has to leave him to save his life and when they meet again, he does not remember her. It's off to the races with terminal (but not quite) illness, rescues, amnesia and more delicious make-outs and angst than you can imagine.
And yet underneath the sweeping, much larger-than-life romanticism, I really like a certain pragmatism of the underlying tropes - NSH doesn't spend episodes and episodes showing hero's jerkiness/redeeming the jerk (a storyline that usually drives me nuts - if a person is a bastard to everyone, eventually he's going to be a bastard to you). No, NSH quickly establishes Guan Xi as a decent person who would be loving and well-adjusted if he could process past trauma. Ultimately, he's a good person undreneath the mess, he just needed a catalyst to draw him out. More importantly, much as the drama loves going "hero rescues heroine from deadly peril" tropes, she rescues him right back every time - he might physically protect her - from goons, from her abuser, from drowning, from death. But she is the one who gives him a meaning in life, warmth, connection, family, even sanity. She is the one who turns him into a human.
Also, let's face it - how could I not adore a drama which has more hurt/comfort emotional pr0n than you can shake a stick at, a cancer which ends well for the patient (!!!), cute kids, Vanness' body and Ady An's glorious face?
Have an emo MV for a gloriously emo drama:
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