‘Meet Yourself’ – Final Review

What can you say about a drama that is perfect in almost every aspect? Well, I guess I will try my best.

Xu Hongdou goes through the trauma of losing her best friend to cancer. She resigns from work and retreats to the countryside for a rest. And we get to come along on this journey full of ordinary people, ordinary talks, and ordinary life problems. The food featured in this drama, however, is not ordinary.

Let’s talk about a few things.

THE FEMALE LEAD

For a drama that aims to emphasize the beauty of daily life, the main thing you need from the leading character is likability since she is the eyes through which we discover this fictional world and its values; and Liu Yifei certainly brings a whole truck’s worth of likability to the screen.

The death of Hongdou’s best friend serves as a motivation for her journey, and as the story requires, Liu Yifei’s performance is the strongest whenever Hongdou recalls her late friend. There isn’t much more I could ask for.

THE ROMANCE

Hongdou and Zhiyao meet each other in episode 2, but only officially start dating in episode 31, making this a super slow burn. But this drama just has a way to show you that the “romance” part of this relationship is not as important as the ordinary interactions. In the end, it’s hard to say which is more romantic: their first kiss or Hongdou wiping ice-cream on Zhiyao’s T-shirt.

They are just two people meeting and falling in love in the most natural fashion. They don’t get together because of tropes or destiny, but through respect and understanding. The problems they deal with are ultra-relatable in today’s world:

What to do when you like someone who leaves in two months? Long distance relationship? What to do when your career is in limbo, your future is undecided, and your life goals are uncertain? Is it a crime to just want to go out and enjoy yourself? Is it a crime to lead someone on when you can’t even figure yourself out? Does being in a relationship mean you are responsible for each other’s happiness?

Hongdou and Zhiyao take you on a journey to confront these seemingly small questions.

The acting is believable, as it is with every character in this drama. It could be that the cast was chosen based on their real-life personality, or how well they get on with each other behind the screen. Whatever it is, it works well.

Once Hongdou and Zhiyao start dating, they do get a bit excessive with the whole “look at how healthy our relationship is”. The drama frequently finds excuses for Hongdou to be tired and stressed out, making her the sole solver of all problems and Zhiyao her perfect boyfriend.

For instance: when Nana is bullied by her online stalkers, we get a long, long scene of Hongdou and Zhiyao hugging because Hongdou received too many harassing texts about Nana.

Really? Nana is the one with a ruined career and you’re going to make me watch Hongdou sulk over spam messages?

How about the differences in Hongdou and Zhiyao’s management styles? Clash of interests? Hobbies? Expectations? There must be some kind of conflict to explore, they can’t always agree with each other.

But again, things like these only happen after episode 32, so you don’t have to endure them for too long.

THE CHARACTERS

This drama offers a huge pool of personalities. Every viewer can find a character whom they can relate to.

If I have to pick my least favorite character, it would be the bar singer. Not because there’s anything wrong with him, but because his struggle isn’t as intriguing as the others’. Plus, his romance is a little unnecessary and the girl can do better. It would have been better if he’d remained a background character with occasional bad singing.

THE PLOT

There is no plot. Just Hongdou and her everyday’s little discoveries. There is no rush and no cliffhangers with this drama, yet every episode is a pleasant invitation for you to come back for more.

Meet Yourself’s main objective is to make this town feel like home for the audience, and it has achieved that with flying colors. Enormous props to the writers because it takes serious skills to write ordinary conversations in a way that doesn’t bore your audience.

HOWEVER…

As good as this drama is, I do have one major complaint. Here goes:

The amount of times people whip out their phones to video-record is quite atrocious.

With the age of social media comes a sharper awareness of privacy and consent. Or so it should be. Some occasional video-recording is not a problem, but this practice is played out in the drama like something to be celebrated and encouraged.

For instance:

Hongdou recording a mare giving birth. She drove a considerable distance to witness a horse being born, so why not just… you know, watch it?

Hongdou recording SUNRISE. What is the point of being out in the first light of dawn if you look at the sun through a camera’s lens?

Zhiyao taking pictures of his grandma eating peaches and sending them to other people despite how she doesn’t like the way she looks in the picture.

A father recording his daughter’s music performance without proper permission. There are other children in there too, hello, and you can never know if their parents are comfortable with their kids being in your video, even if it is a private video.

And here is the worst one yet: Hongdou recoding Zhiyao’s reaction when she returns to the village to surprise him. He keeps turning away and she keeps following him with the camera on. It ruins the effect this reunion should have had; also, I’m afraid I don’t get the purpose of recording and keeping on recording someone who obviously just wants to be free to express himself.

Listen, lady, I did not follow your romance all this way to get second-hand embarrassment.

Firstly, this obsession with recording makes Hongdou’s trip seem more like a trip to collect data to prove to herself and her dead friend that she has indeed travelled more than a true journey of self-reflection. For a drama that promotes the idea of savoring the moment and embracing what is around you, it does little to address the rising problem of not living in the moment.

Secondly, all of these instances are played out as casual fun. No one ever complains – why, because they’re all always camera-ready, of course. The only one who ever has a serious response to this phenomenon is Nana, but that is due to the trauma from her past. The drama somehow fails to recognize that regular people don’t need a tragic past to reject the camera’s attention.

Thirdly, it is highly distracting for viewers. When something important happens, we want to see the characters’ reaction to the situation, not to the camera that is recording the situation.

The only non-consensual video recording I find acceptable in the context of this drama is between Xiaxia and his teacher. Xiaxia disobeying the teacher is a reoccurring theme, and the recording is only one thing on his long list of mischiefs, so, okay, we can live with that.

FAVORITES

This is completely subjective.

Best characters (as in, I care about everything they say and do): Hongmi, Nana.

Best getting-things-done character: Xiexie.

Funniest characters: Ma (meditation guy), Xiaochun.

Best story: Nana’s.

Best pairing: not Hongdou and Zhiyao, sorry. I am on Nana and Xiaxia’s ship.

*Spoilers ahead

They’re friends. They’re both quiet. They both make mistakes before and during the drama and both have something to feel ashamed about. He’s younger than her and is aware that she’s self-conscious about it. She, on the other hand, is quite determined to cast him down to the baby zone and give him food every time he’s around her. In the end, he leaves town to study sculpture, and his only wish: let’s keep in touch.

Xiaxia goes away for his career, of course. But we can also see it as Xiaxia’s way to put a distance between him and Nana, so that when he comes back, she can look at him differently. I get you, sneaky drama writers.