Metaverse (2023)

What are dreams and what is reality ?

I binge watched the 20 short episodes series, and came back to watch the movie edition of this nice story about the possible interaction of a real life gamer and an AI character she feels more than protective of.

The story is very logical, should appeal to those who like science fiction and thinking, beyond looking only for love and kisses romance (not that this one does not have any: it does) and "hunting for plot holes" to kill it (not that you'll find so many in this one.)
It has not got high traffic cast and went relatively unnoticed when it aired, most c-drama watchers being more interested in more hyped ones, following their own fandom favorites, so it did not benefit from a Bai Jinting who drew many to watch the excellent Reset, back in beginning 2022. As a "new story", Reset stays as the most remarkable science fiction c-drama recently, with the exception of The Three Body Problem in 2023 (which was long anticipated after the success of the Liu Cixin novel). Other ones were less successful although not bad : the Chinese remake of a Korean time-loop story, 2022 Love In Time, or a comedic and somewhat mock syrupy time loop like Secretary Ba wants to Resign every single day, both a nice watch.
There are not many science fiction C-dramas now: many are closer to "fantasy" than to speculative fiction and often presented only as fantasy even when there are "aliens" in them : 2022 My Girlfriend is an Alien series, Thousand years For You, 2023 The Parallel World... Or they just are drawing on "dreams" after an accident like in Legally Romance, dreams also being the beginning of full fledged fantasy c-dramas like Eternal Love 1-2-3 and Oh!My Emperor! or of the stories where authors find themselves part of their own novels. But some new and upcoming ones look more related to science fiction genre : 2023 I am Nobody (still trending) and upcoming Bionic (12 episodes about a murder investigation with robots in 2035!).

Metaverse here is available as 《跨越世界来见你 Falling to Your World》 on the YoYo channel of YouTube, which has both the 20 episodes and the "movie edition" that glues them together, without repeating the beginning and end credits.
It is called Metaverse on the original platform We Tv which broadcast it in August 2023, and it is included in the binge watch challenge of September on the platform until Sept.29 to try to win VIP access for a year or 3 months on the app.
Original title 跨越世界来见你 [Kua Yue Shi Jie Lai Jian Ni] Across The World To See You.
From a story titled 《元宇宙·恋语》/Yuan Universe Love Language, by Yang Zitong 杨紫彤 , who was also screenwriter here.
The drama is directed by Peng Ke 彭柯 (no further information available on Baidu).

The characters are:
- An Mei 安美 (gamer and art designer in a game company),
- Lu Ting 陆汀, an NPC (non playing character) who is deemed not popular enough to be kept in the game.
- Director Fang (played by Chang Haoyuan) is an ambitious decision maker who hates employees to challenge her authority.
- Director Zhu Zhenjun (played by Daniel Zhu XinZong 朱信宗, 34 years old Taiwanese model and sometime actor) is the company leader, who tries to balance company interests, employees well being, and his own interests in AI development.
- A private assistant to Lu Ting, called NaiNai, in the game (played by Na FeiSha 娜菲莎),
- Huang Baoqiang coder friend of An Mei who follows instructions,
- and a meddling but well meaning younger brother of An Mei are the main other supporting cast.
An Mei is played by Guan Xin 关芯 who, at 28, has been playing in 16 other dramas, mostly in supporting roles including in big productions such as Love O2O and Legend of Fuyao), but also as main in lesser remarked dramas. Lu Ting is played by Yang Hao Ming 杨昊铭, who, at 23 years old, has already played in 7 other dramas since 2018) .

The opening sequence shows a character in the game who is being shot. That would not raise the eyebrows of the RPG First Shooter gamers, who are used to see characters offed casually, winning points with each kill. But this game is different, since it is supposed to be a dating one, where gamers fulfill their unrealized yearnings for perfect love or at least friendship with characters who look almost real. Lu Ting is among those, and the twist is, that he has been both designed and cared for as almost brain child of game art designer An Mei, who can't bear to see him eliminated because of a drop in popularity. As both a designer with a dream and a sadness that has been alleviated by her co-creation, and a fan, she will try her utmost to keep him in the game, although she has little power, being neither a coder nor a decision maker in the company.

This is a story of an AI and a real world person who fixates her love on a character, but it can also have us think about the destiny of entertainment stars and their anonymous fans. Some great actors fall from grace spectacularly because of personal mistakes.But many, especially lesser known ones, fade away and see their posters disappear and at best, serve as table cloth to janitors, while their fans are left out cold, the entertainment companies having only interest in what drives in revenue.

At personal level some of the questions raised are: can beautiful dreams of other worlds help or not to better adjust to reality? Will AI characters replace real actors to serve as magnet for real world audiences likes and yearnings? Are dreams necessary to keep up hope for a better future or just a sign of an addiction? Is love really "all we need", as a Madonna song claimed ("Nothing Really Matters")?

The production was low budget, so there are not many remarkable features, and the OST is pleasant and not to obtrusive, but not very memorable. Nevertheless, it was an interesting, quick watch (about 2hrs in the "movie edition".) It deserves more watches, so I deliberately gave it a higher rating, since 7.5 is too low in my opinion. In its modest category, it is not bad at all.

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