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His Cat chinese drama review
Completed
His Cat
3 people found this review helpful
by tristram
Apr 12, 2022
Completed
Overall 5.0
Story 6.0
Acting/Cast 6.5
Music 5.0
Rewatch Value 1.0
This review may contain spoilers

Terrible production quality but the least-censored censored Chinese BL I've ever seen

(Yes, even less censored than Word of Honor)

The production quality is poor. The script introduces a lot of ideas that it doesn't develop, and nothing really happens in the first half. Yuwei in particular gets little character development. The English subtitles are sometimes incomprehensible. The dubs are delayed and actors are mouthing out whole sentences that are covered with just a few words. The acting is passable but doesn't really tap into the emotional spectrum of the characters, and to top it off, the main leads don't know how to properly hold a cat.

And yet, the second half still charmed me in its own way (but I almost dropped it before then). At first, especially after seeing the comments, I thought this was going to be the typical censored Chinese BL where you have to really squint to read between the bromance lines. But Cheng Han confesses his feelings twice (2x)! Cheng Han asks Yuwei whether he wants to be "together with me," and Yuwei answers in the affirmative, puts his arm around Cheng Han, and lays his head on Cheng Han's shoulder! Cheng Han asks Yuwei to "wait for him" at the end when they go off to different colleges! How are the comments interpreting this as a bromance?! You know straight people don't talk to their friends like that. I don't understand how this made it past the censors, because these boys verbally confirmed their feelings for each other in several different scenes.

So even that was a nice treat in a Chinese show, but what I really enjoyed was the small side plot with their moms. After Yuwei's mother overhears Cheng Han's first confession, she forbids Yuwei from seeing him again (see, even she knows their relationship isn't platonic). Cheng Han's mother responds by personally going and talking to Yuwei's mother about it, telling her their sons are happier and better together. Yuwei's mother thinks about it and later tells Yuwei that having a "bosom friend" who "can light up his inner world" might be hard for him in the future, but she wants him to be happy now, so she's giving permission for them to see each other. Then she tells him to invite his bosom friend over for dinner.

Um, my heart?? Literally one of the most supportive parent plot lines I've yet to see in Asian LGBTQ film/dramas, with parents from *both* leads on board! It made me really happy.

So I wouldn't necessarily recommend this due to all the reasons mentioned in the first paragraph, but it does seem like a landmark in Chinese BLs. I'm happy it got made, and I look forward to the day when having filmed media in which LGBTQ people can openly talk about their feelings and have their parents support them won't be such a rarity for China.
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