HIStory3: Make Our Days Count (2019)

I wanted to wait until I had processed the ending of this drama before reviewing it. The emotional investment I had in these boys and their story stopped me from writing down coherent sentences at first. But here we are, a week later!

For the first few episodes, we see a fairly regular (and wonderfully done) set-up between an A+ student with a poor background and a rebel with a soft heart. I must say, I really fell head over heels for both boys and how soft they are with each other. How much happier Shigu became after gradually letting Haoting inside his heart and life. Haoting shouting from the rooftops how much he loves Shigu...

The promising flow of this story was what disappointed me and resulted in a lower score overall after the last episode aired. Having Shigu die, off camera, and fast forward 6 years felt like a cheap trick for making the audience cry. An ending can be sad without being disliked. This was just bad writing.

Why not let Shigu be sick from the get-go and let the audience experience them fighting-perhaps even losing the fight, but alongside them? Why not show us what happened on that god-awful day and watch Haoting pick up the pieces of his life and move on? Both would have been a lot more powerful in my opinion. And both Wei En and Juan Zhi could have carried that as actors.

I think the decision to take Hao Ting's incredible love for Shigu and make it so he seems stuck at 18, broken and unable to move on, too much. The LGBTQ community has had enough of those sad and useless endings, dramas don't have to be lifelessons. They don't have to have the shock-factor this writer aimed for. Sure, we were shocked. But also pissed off. And I was unable to even talk about it because I was so upset that a poor boy who finally found love and warmth got ran over by a car we didn't even see. One of Haoting's lines at the end even insinuates he'll go climb the highest mountain in the world and die there to be with Shigu again. Healthy image for queer romance? I think not. Sometimes it's okay if dramas wrap everything up in a little bow, making people happy can be just as powerful as making them cry.

I guess in the end, this was not what I signed up for when I started this and therefor I cannot stop my emotional reaction of giving it a lower rating. I do wish for the actors involved to get more work and recognition through this, as it is thanks to their performance that the ending hurt so much and the happiness made my heart soar.

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