Xia Hua (2023)

Let life be beautiful like summer flowers...

This tantalizing and poignant love story captures the spirit of carpe diem. It opens with a young girl's chance encounter at the hair salon. She is aroused by a strong and silent stranger from the way he caresses her ears and washes her hair. For most girls, it would stop just there; a titillating fantasy not to be acted upon. But He Ran is not like most girls. She throws herself at Xiao Han shamelessly; not one whit bothered that he is well into his prime. Twist and all, this is a simple and very cliched romance plot that hinges on the chemistry between the leads and whether they can convince audiences to root for them.

He Ran's relentless pursuit of Xiao Han can very easily come across as crude and thirsty but Xu Ruohan gets this tricky portrayal mostly right down to the small nuances. She is just an artless young, girl headily experiencing infatuation, desire, and possibly even love for the very first time. She can be incredibly petulant, unreasonable, and childish, like the protected and spoiled little rich girl she is. But she taunts and tempts him with the instinctive provocativeness and burgeoning sensuality of a child-woman. The way she looks at him with her heart in her eyes and the effervescent joy in her smile made me shake my head at the futility of Xiao Han's efforts to evade her charms.

As for Xiao Han, his genuine attempts to resist the ardent allure of this captivating young temptress is just the right touch. He rightly has misgivings - she is too young and they are from different worlds. Xiao Han is a man of few words; a gentle giant who is very still and seemingly unmoved by her attempts to seduce him. Only the smallest microexpressions give him away - the hint of a smile, a tensing of his incredible jawline, a barely perceptible slow sidelong glance, and a whisper of innuendo in his tone. While Xiao Han clearly looks and is more mature, the relationship doesn't come across as exploitative largely because He Ran is the instigator and calls most of the shots. Of course, it helps that Jerry Yan does not look a day over thirty and the only offensive thing about him is how well he wears those sleeveless wife-beater T-shirts.

Their love story unfolds against a lush, almost surreal romantic palette drenched with deep and lush saturated colors of the riotous blooms adorning Xiao Han's intimate seaside home. The couple's sultry chemistry permeates the screen, captured mesmerizingly by the director's avant-garde and sensual visual composition style. The superbly curated soundtrack supercharges the narrative with all the right emotions at every critical juncture. I was invested in their romance the moment I heard the first song, Cantopop hit (半點心 A Drop of Your Heart). At the time, they had barely even met! I am so busy being a Peeping Tom that it takes me a while to notice that the plot doesn't move much. He Ran is just escaping into Xiao Han's world and their relationship is built around "ask me no questions and I will tell you no lies". They are both secretive and repeatedly fail to communicate. Thus despite its addictive beauty, theirs does not bear the hallmarks of a lasting relationship.

He Ran and Xiao Han's relationship shortcomings are amplified by the too coincidental to be true gender reversed second age-gap romance. There the couple actually dares to call each other out and are open about themselves and their doubts and constraints. That said, their initial attraction is too tropey and not convincing and it is a major subplot that develops too late in the main plot line; right after He Ran and Xiao Han's relationship peaks. This long-winded and often boring digression annoyed me and disrupted the momentum of the main romance. Their sizzling chemistry also highlights a more adult passionate intensity that seems missing in He Ran and Xiao Han's encounters.

The Chinese title of this drama 夏花 / Xià Huā or Summer Flowers, comes from Rabindranath Tagore's poem "Let life be beautiful like summer flowers..." After Shakespeare, Tagore is the most widely read and well-loved foreign poet in China. Thus there is already a lot of foreshadowing in the Chinese title. But I think it is not that important how He Ran and Xiao Han's story ends. Because the story's real message is about living in the moment and daring to live and love with no conditions or expectations for the future. That they did and like summer flowers, their love bloomed with wild abandon drenching the earth with the radiant, ecstatic colors of beautiful life. With a little bit of help from Uncle Han, who is just the best fairy godfather ever.

As for the ending, I didn't like it. Not at all. It diminishes both main characters. It is why even though I love many parts of this drama, I can only rate it a 7.5. A better ending would have gotten an 8.0-8.5 from me. I will elaborate on why I am so disappointed in the ending below. It is of course a major spoiler so please don't scroll down if you have not finished watching the drama.









Warning - major ending spoiler way down below.















Major Ending Spoiler

To me killing off a character is a lot better than killing the character of the character. And that is what leaving the door open for some ambiguity does - both He Ran and Xiao Han's characterizations suffer as a consequence. The ending should have been clear and decisive. The drama consistently builds up to it. This loosey-goosey ending makes the timeline messy and creates unnecessary loose ends. Did Xiao Han not accompany He Ran to seek treatment? What about his promise to care for her? Surely he was not growing flowers at home while she was fighting for her life thousands of miles away. But what really takes the cake is He Ran's unreasonable demand that Xiao Han waits for her and loves no one else. It is utterly selfish and insensitive. What if his first love had demanded that of him and he never gave He Ran the time of the day? Dying is easy, it puts her beyond all further suffering and emotion. From then, the suffering begins for the survivors. She sets her mother free but poor Xiao Han is supposed to miss her for the rest of his life? Did she ever even truly love him? Wow! This cop-out ending made me intensely dislike He Ran instead of remembering her poignantly as the brave young girl she was at the beginning. A girl who chose to live life gloriously if briefly instead of wallowing in self-pity.

"Let life be beautiful like summer flowers and death like autumn leaves." - Stray Birds by Rabindranath Tagore

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