Ep 1 – 10:46 – Yong Jie is looking a photos of Xing Si, and they are all soft. XS with a cat, XS with a deer. The shot is the reflection of the images in Young Jie’s eye, telling us this is how he sees Xing Si. (Xing Si’s wistful smile is lethal, but that’s not important right now.)
Ep 1 – 40:20 – Yong Jie is tempted to kiss the sleeping Xing Si but does not, and says he will do it when Xing Si is conscious. This is not symbolic, but it’s important for later.
E2 – 17:58 – Yong Jie tells Xing Si that he likes him – after a long pause, Xing Si plays it off as familial, but Yong Jie doesn’t let him do the “younger bro hair ruffle” – You can see on Xing Si’s face that he knows why.
E2 – 27:50 – As they’re passing Xing Si, the women Yong Jie was cold to describe him as a “lonely bird” – I think that’s what the feather represents on the necklace he dropped when he punched Mu Ren. They speculate that he’s gay, which doesn’t faze Xing Si. At 29:15 there’s a decal on the window behind Yong Jie of a bird (splatted against the window). When he wakes and sees Xing Si, the bird decal is now soaring.
E3 – The conversation at 4:00 is crucial to understanding Ep 4, which is otherwise confusing. Xing Si says he’s lonely and wants to settle down with someone “who can take a hit”. He’s talking about coming out to his father, but we’ve also just seen Yong Jie take a lot of hits. Xing Si says “so he can stay with me as I honestly tell my dad everything.”
E3 – 11:35 Yong Jie tells his mother that he is the only one who can shield Xing Si from his father’s opposition. This is important in Ep 4 as well.
E3 – 16:30 – the ocean is fake. That’s not important, but it’s funny-terrible sfx.
E3 – 16:35 – there is a bottle in the foreground that is a phallic symbol, setting the stage for the upcoming sunscreen application scene.
E3 – 17:35 – The most horrendously timed product placement in the history of human civilization. This is also not important, but that was jaw-dropping. Seriously, right in the middle of an erotic scene?
E3 – 27:45 – Yong Jie makes a rainbow cocktail for Xing Si, sort of a symbolic “outing”.
E3 – 30:30 – Wedding symbolism. Xing Xi is wearing white, with the blue sweater (“something borrowed, something blue…”)
E3 – 34:50 – When Yong Jie tells him he loves him, Xing Xi opens his eyes and doesn’t close them again except for sex stuff. His eyes are shaded but you can see him blinking. The POV for much of this scene is Xing Si’s, e.g. 36:24 & 37:15, where Yong Jie looks into the camera, meaning into Xing Si’s eyes.
E3 – 36:46 – This is why Yong Jie tested how sensitive Xing Si’s nipples are when they were at the beach.
E3 – 42:50 – Li Cheng is a narcissistic idiot. Not important right now, but Jesus. In this scene, Xing Si hasn’t changed out of his “wedding clothes”. I want that bathrobe.
Ep 4 – 9:44 – This is where the VP hands Mu Ren the spiked drink. This is why he has that “Uh oh” look when Mu Ren downs the entire thing in one gulp.
Ep 4 – 11:15 – Li Cheng says “Don’t make everything about tops and bottoms”, which is a reversal for him, and possibly an oblique swipe at BL’s obsession with this subject.
Ep 4 – 13:10 – This scene is meant to contrast with the Xing Si/Yong Jie scene in Ep 3. A lot of people found it romantic, but Mu Ren is obviously heavily drugged and Li Cheng is touching him inappropriately. The lighting is red and the room is full of steam – suggesting something infernal (it’s a cold bath – there’s no steam from that). When Li Cheng wakes up, he’s disturbed. If what he dreamed is what happened, then where his hands were going is problematic.
Ep 4 – 19:00 – Li Cheng is the one actually doing everything he’s telling the girls that Mu Ren is doing. They say that’s a clear sign “Mu Ren” is in love, and it’s starting to dawn on him at this point that he’s in love with Mu Ren.
Ep 4 – 34:25 – In Ep 2, Xing Si says he’s looking for someone who can take a hit and will stay with him and face his father – the ledge represents that, and Yong Jie is there to stand beside him and hold his hand. There was also the explicit meaning, which is that Yong Jie needs Xing Si, and that being ignored by him felt like standing on a ledge in a windstorm – which is what his life was like before Xing Si came into it.
EP 4 – 46:15 – I think there may be a misleading subtitle here – when Yong Jie says “I’ll let you come home”, I don’t think he meant “I’ll give you permission”, which is how it sounded in English, but more like “I can enable your coming home.”
Xing Si begins to cry, so Yong Jie pushes him into the bathroom and shuts the door – symbolically returning him to the closet because he sees he isn’t ready to come out of it.
The reason Xing Si cries is because he realizes that the person that he’s looking for that he mentioned in Ep 2 (and that his friend thought was impossible) that can take anything, face their father and always stand by him is Yong Jie – and that is a situation that is certainly about as fraught as it gets. Can he lose a brother, potentially tear up the family, face the disapproval of society, and any number of other complications to have the man he’s always wanted and needed? It’s too much and he cries.
Loora94:
