In Your Heart (2022)

Spoiler that shouldn't be a spoiler because it's a Trigger Warning

It's insanely rare and nothing short of a miracle to have anything LGBT+ related when it comes to China. It was enough reason for me to watch it so that we get more.

It didn't have a big budget, of course, but I liked it for the most part. I was going to give it a 7/10.

But, then . . . They went the route of Addicted. A.K.A. There was a forced scene.

I'm giving it a 6/10 trying to push that aside in my mind and act like it didn't happen. I shouldn't have to! Because why the hell did you guys have to do that? Why?

Things were going well. The group of friends was fun together, it was light-hearted, and the two MLs were sweet together.

You let about a minute of screen time taint an otherwise fine and enjoyable drama. What a waste.

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The ending ruined it.

All in all the production is very simple. I have watched many very thrilling bl's this year so I appreciated the change of pace. It was slow and progressed meaningfully. I was able to understand the characters, not necessarily their backstories, but their motivations.

I don't write long reviews but what I will say is that I am disappointed. After completing all the episodes I can say that the story is incomplete in many ways.

There is an aggressive scene in the last episode that, is slightly problematic and I did not like it. More importantly, they abandoned the stories of other characters in the end. Yes, the main characters are the focus but they introduced and developed stories of other characters and just left them in the end. I was not sure if it was the actually ending or perhaps setting up for a season two, but it definitely doesn't seem complete.

The acting was acceptable, no complaints there. Music and SFX was a bit off at times but not enough to ruin the viewing experience.

Ultimately, is it worth the watch? This may seem contradictory but yes. I enjoyed it, all but the last episode. The story is actually good.
Would I watch it again? Absolutely not. Once is more than enough.

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Nothing new.. but watchable.

This drama had been one of my most curious dramas of 2022 . The drama being a BL, I was really surprised that China let it happen. But, I didn't have much expectation, knowing well about the bans and censorships that China usually impose on its shows. I watched it out of pure curiosity.

Honestly, I did like the first episode. But, the story didn't seem to keep a fixed pace. Some parts felt too fast, while some felt too slow to me. This is nothing new and I didn't seem to enjoy this as much as I would have watching a BL.

The acting was meh. I didn't feel it at all. Hu Shi Wen, who played Cheng Yi was alright but there is, of course, possibilities of improvement. Anyways, Hu Bo Wen seemed like a robot. The supporting too didn't do the job of making this interesting.

The music was good. This is the only thing in the whole drama that I wholeheartedly liked.

The editing was terrible. Sometimes, it makes the drama unwatchable. That is SOMETIMES. Overally, the drama is fairly watchable, in spite of some substandard elements.

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"It´s the law of gravity" or the dilemma of failing in the second half.

I will make it short, it´s not a bad story and also the actors weren´t bad or at fault for any of the bad reactions. On the contrary, I think the cast did a pretty good job for a low budget series. With all my respect, it´s just simply this kind of rushed scenes, actions and endings that make web series like this not enjoyably enough to give it a high ranking.

Moreover, some of the mistakes could have been resolved easily if the screenwriters had focused more on the quantity of the story than the quality of visual things. I understand that they very likely had a low budget, it´s just that these major mistakes could have been avoided if they had written it a bit more neutral. However, since homosexuality/ or attraction between men is still not accepted in many parts of China, I do partly understand they needed some interesting turning point to get some attention but that scene in episode 8 was definitely not the right choice.

The turn of things is also misleading and provides the wrong image of a healthy relationship/ love story. It would have been different if the focus of the story would have been less light in the overall series or Cheng Yi had been introduced as a bad character.

Apart from the "very toxic misbehaviour", it didn´t even match the pacing of the story. An honest dialogue was the main thing the story needed, not the impulsive kind of unnecessary action. This dilemma seems to be one of the main curses in the BL industry. Overall without the incident, it would have been a higher ranking with a more reasonable ending. Almost no rewatch value.

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Reminiscent of 2016's BLs. AKA Addicted.

Ahh, China. I should have known better than to expect more from you.

For a Chinese BL, it really wasn't that bad. It's very on par with other Chinese BLs, and with BLs from like, 2016 or so.

But if we're rating this with today's standards, with so many amazing BLs like Be Loved In House and Semantic Error, unfortunately it doesn't measure up.

The ending reminded me a lot of The Untamed: very ambiguous, because we know the gays can't be too happy in China.

As for the scene before Cheng Yi left... *sigh* To avoid major spoilers I won't say much, but it was disappointing that we're still going with that trope instead of something more... consensual. Alas.

I'm glad China was able to produce a BL since that huge ban several years ago, but I just wish the plot was better and the ending less open-ended. Let the gays be happy!

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Ugh. Close, but not quite - by about 6 years.

This had some things going for it. The leads are both very attractive. They don't behave like your standard seme and uke (with one extremely large exception) - they're just two guys in love. The plot is conventional and unoriginal, but it has a charming quality to it - maybe a naive sincerity.

But then the ending happened. Because BL seems to require by some unwritten but unbreakable law to have ridiculous manufactured drama thrown in, this was spoiled by an overdramatic crisis with an unfortunate resolution.

So if you want to watch this, I would recommend stopping after the kiss.

On to spoilers. There are also spoilers for Addicted in here as there are obvious comparisons to be made.

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First of all, a lot of people are going to use the R word. That's not what this was, but hear me out. Rape is horrible. If he had been raped he would most likely be bloody and bruised, physically and psychologically, need medical and psychiatric attention, hospitalization, and depending on where it happens, criminal charges would be automatically filed because doctors are required to report it and neither of their families have the power to cover it up. Also, the "victim" was clearly fine with it afterwards, and after they start he appears to immediately join in willingly, although you only have feet to judge by.

So what was it? That's the problem. It's not supposed to be rape, but it's not exactly not-rape. Let's compare it for a moment to the infamous scene in Addicted. There, the two are already in a relationship, they're already phyiscal (albeit not anal yet), and one doesn't want to do anything solely because he's afraid he has a communicable disease, and in the uncensored version, it's clear the sex was just a hand job, which can be sexual assault, but it's really, really hard to do that to an unwilling person for... reasons anatomical. I get why people didn't like this, but at least it didn't have a morally repugnant motivation on the part of the writer.

This wasn't a hand-job, and they hadn't done anything physical yet whatsoever other than a lips-barely-touching kiss. So we've returned to the incredibly homophobic idea that it's morally unacceptable for a man to desire and pursue being penetrated, and therefore he has to be forced, because somehow rape or sexual assault are less morally objectionable than being gay. This is also common in straight romances, for the same reason - a woman shouldn't want or pursue sexual pleasure, so she has to be forced. So it's repugnant as a message. That was not a factor in Addicted. When they finally had anal sex, Luo Yin is afraid it will hurt, and Gu Hai offers to bottom instead, but Luo Yin wants to be f@#$ed. So there's no judgment of top vs bottom in the writing.

As drama, a BL setup can be as ridiculous as you want - one of them can be a ghost or a vampire, or they can be in magical universe where all boys pursue other boys - but within that context, people on an emotional level need to act like people. If Zi Ming wanted to have sex, then it doesn't make sense for him to try to fight him off - and there were punches to the face involved, so he felt serious violence was necessary to defend his virginity. So if he didn't want it, then he was raped, in which case it makes no sense that he was fine with it afterwards, unless he has some sort of severe trauma in his past that makes him feel like he deserved it, which there is no sign of in this story. So it's bad writing. It would have been OK for him to resist a bit because he was upset Cheng Yi was leaving without talking to him, but this was not that. This was "guys don't let other guys do THAT to them."

Further, in Addicted we also had some love scenes, and interaction as a couple. Here we didn't - just the force part, and none of what it is implied that followed, i.e. love-making. And then one of them leaves for contrived reasons and the ending is ambiguous, although it's implied they're staying together and planning to reunite (all that stuff about gravity).

Cheng Yi's motivation seemed to be trying to get Zi Ming to to admit his feelings. So, here are the options:

Option 1: Tell him that you love him, and ask if he feels the same way about you.
Option 2: Have a fist fight and rape him until he admits he likes you.

So in the end, we get a regressive message about gay being worse that sexual assault, we got an unoriginal story with writing that doesn't make emotional sense, and we got an unsatisfying ending. What's not to like?

As for the contrived reason for leaving, I get that his grandmother feels she's getting too old to take care of him - but he's 18. He's now at an age where he can take care of her, or at least be equal in that regard - so what kind of nonsense is this? If she felt it was for his own good, then she should have sent him away years ago, and if she's selfish, then she should hold onto him. But it's not selfish keeping someone you love and who loves you with you instead of sending him to a parent he doesn't love and who doesn't really seem to love him. So again, a fail on the emotional level for the writing. She seems to be aware of how important Zi Ming is to Cheng Yi, so she comes off as a homophobe who doesn't care about her grandson's happiness or thinks it's some passing phase.

Addicted was really funny and the transgressive things that happened made sense in the context of the story and characters. Here we had a cheap and unimaginative knockoff that replicated the transgression for no apparent reason and without it really fitting the story or characters. Also, have you ever tried to have a fist fight and force someone to have sex in a small apartment with someone's parent in the next room? That's not likely to end well. Even if she wasn't home, the neighbors would hear every bit of it.

I was enjoying this up until the kiss at the end of Ep 6, and then it accelerated downhill to a terrible ending. I want to support Mainland Chinese BL, but if bad knockoffs of Addicted is all we can expect, maybe forget it. Wait till Xi dies and then shift the high-production value bromances back to BL.

Story: 4.5 - unimaginative but relatively coherent plot-wise, less so from a character perspective.
Acting: 7 - average. Not great, clunky at the beginning, but improved throughout.
Music: 6.5 - not bad, not intrusive, not special.
Rewatch Value: 1. There's not even a shower scene to replay over and over. You get only a cruel glimpse at Zi Ming's beautiful body and then it's over.
Overall: 5 - I went with the suggested average. 5 sounds about right.

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4 because I am feeling generous and it's from China

gosh i wanted to like this bl a lot coming from china and knowing the culture there i appreciated the effort, but seriously no, don't bother if it's done like this.
The story per se is simple and could be passable, but seriosuly i am not watching bl to get an annoying fake realisting ending that is a cover for prejudice in real life.
Also, really 20 minutes and making them boring is a feat for the director, to push trough it i've had to watch the series double speed. and the puppy love between the main couple could be cute if quality was not so abysmally poor that it made even the lowest thai bl look classy in comparison.
I want to save the acting because i appreciate the actors for doing this, and acting is probably the best part of this drama (not to say it's stellar, but not so terribly different drom other dramas) but no matter the amount of acting this drama is just a total no under every other aspect, and not even the kissing and love making scenes (that i was kind of surprised to see) could redeem this.

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Disappointing to say the least

I was really looking forward to this drama after watching the trailer, and with streak viewership on Bl in china I did have my reservations.

I did enjoy this drama, but it felt like was missing something altogether, the story itself was not at all bad, the leads were okay, and well matched, With all my respect, it´s just simply this kind of rushed scenes, actions and endings that make web series like this not enjoyably enough to give it a high ranking. the story didn't seem to keep a fixed pace. Some parts felt too fast, while some felt too slow to me .

For me the most disappointing part was the last 2 episodes, especially the ending !!! it just seemed to have ruined the whole drama. I am not even sure what was the point to the ending?

Ultimately, is it worth the watch? This may seem contradictory but yes. I enjoyed it, all but the last episode. The story is actually good. Would I watch it again? Absolutely not. Once is more than enough.

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A Brilliant Series with repulsive scenes

Perhaps I am the only one who saw this BL as an allegory and a beautiful story. Of course it has some repugnant scenes in it but if you look at it as an allegory, perhaps it makes a bit more sense. This is painful no question but should not be dismissed because of the prism in which we view this series. We are NOT these guys. What happened between the two of them can not be undone but in this case ONLY they can decide and call it what they want. Does that make it right? NO! But it explains a lot. They have little time to explore their feelings and no avenues to do so. Can you imagine leaving your soulmate without ever knowing his touch, his warmth, his intensity. I can not judge their actions but only accept it. Life does not always follow the yellow brick road to happiness.

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In My Heart I will give you a 10. But this is not the case

Where do I begin with this? On learning that a Chinese BL was actually being made, I was so frickin ecstatic. And then it premiered. And I sat down and watched the episodes while they aired and....HUGE dissapointment.

Story-5/10
Now because it's a Chinese BL, I had (some) high hopes for this series, as it has been awhile that we were actually given a Chinese BL. And now that it's completed, I realized that I shouldn't have put such hopes on it as it is basically like all the previous Chinese BL that I have watched. And in this day and age, I feel like we have grown past those forms of story telling.

I also felt like I was getting whiplashed with some of the scenes as they were not flowing cohesively. And because of this, the story itself did not flow well for me, making me feel lost and confused when watching it. And then when I watched the final episode...yeah, I got annoyed.

Acting/Cast-6/10
As the storyline didn't flow properly, I felt that thier acting wasn't able to come across as well as it should have. I must say that I did grow to like Yue Yu Zhi's character, eventhough I didn't like him in the beginning. He grew on me.

Music-8/10
The music was by far the best art of this whole series. Loved thevsongs so much!

Rewatch Valu -2/10
Because of the outcome of the story, I honestly do not see myslef coming back to watch this series. Like at all.

Overall-5.5/10
Overall I give this series a 5.5. I wanted to give it more, because it is a Chinese BL and they are so rare and few. But, honestly, this series did not live up to what I expected it to be.

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Beautiful surprise

I watched the first couple of episodes with a sort of distance. I saw all the faults (the acting, the badly done dubbing, ... as often in the Chinese series ...). But little by little I let myself be taken in by this beautiful love story. This series is very short (five episodes) and therefore there is no room for secondary stories. Everything focuses on the couple Cheng Yi - Ling Zi Ming. Their story is a classic teenager/highschooler story. Childhood friends, broken families. They built themselves. Inseparable friends, impervious to the amorous convolutions that swirl around one or the other (that poor Lu Xiang Lin who does everything to show his love to Ling Zi Ming who does not see him, as if he were literally transparent and who endures snub after snub).
And we come to the last two episodes which are poignant, with a very beautiful and poetic dialogue. Cheng Yi who explains to Ling Zi Ming that their love is governed by gravity: they are irresistibly attracted to each other. Dubbing becomes a kind of voiceover. It's very moving and dignified at the same time.

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Newton's Law of Gravity

I see a lot of bad reviews on here, and plenty of people saying the show is not worth watching. There's only 8 episodes, and they're 20 minutes long with the credits. Give it a chance, it'll surprise you. The acting is actually quite good, the story does draw you in, some parts are sprinkled in a trope comic relief, and the love story (though ultimately, and realistically, heart wrenching) makes it worth watching. As far as the ending, it definitely leaves one quite thirsty. Perhaps leaving it open for a spin off? Or for dreamers to write fan fiction? Who knows. I'm used to the European open-ended ending, so I just pouted and moved on. 😭❤️

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