Add and Subtract Game

[mouse007]

@cenching you're up early!

 

@kokodus Definitely like YS' attitude and how hard she works when she commits herself to it. I love her more and more with each episode.

 

@Lawyerh Soompi went down for a bit (like maybe around 15-20 mins) and then it was back up again.

 

504

[cenching]

@Lawyerh

Die from diabetes and my corpse will be crystallized from the sugar....Actually TYH is way over my sugar tolerance but I keep dousing myself with bitter tea while watching because I love The Grim Reaper dearly.....

 

Btw, are you a lawyer? Do you have any colleague as hot as LDW or maybe near by a mile???

 

@mouse007

I wake up 6 am daily on non holiday but go back to sleep after my children go to school around 8-9 am and wake up around 11 for work...

 

+2 

[cenching]

510

[mouse007]

@cenching I know what that's like, there's no such thing as sleeping in when you have kids. 

 

508

[mouse007]

508

[Ameera Ali]

-2 

[cenching]

508

[cenching]

512

[mouse007]

512

[cenching]

516

[mouse007]

514

[mouse007]

516

[cenching]

@Sejabin

Is the 99 in @Super Gal99 her age???

 

520

[staygold]

 omg SF2!!!! With original cast I am praying!

 

+2

[themarchioness]

For @kokodus, @mouse007, @phikyl, and with thanks to @lynne22, here is the final part of my ISWAK movie recap.  If you'd asked me last weekend how many parts the recap would take, I'd have estimated four.  But the reality is a week later (and with my brain completely filled with IWNLYG), it's embarrassing to admit but my memory has already faded!  Details are hard to recall.  The first section of this third part was actually written last weekend and I think you'll be able to tell pretty quickly where that ends and this weekend's efforts begin because all of the sudden I'm like, "As best as I can recall this is what happened..."  Heh.  Oh well.  I figure you all know the story anyway.  Therefore, this last part of the recap focuses mainly on differences that the movie made as well as my impressions.  I hope it still manages to give you a little flavor for what the movie was like.  And, sorry!   

 

Spoiler

 

ISWAK Movie Recap - Part 3

 

XQ and her two best friends are holding their new class schedule and looking for their classroom.  They’re majoring in some foreign language and although I don’t remember which one it was, it was definitely some obscure language.  This is why they’re now picking their way around abandoned buildings that are covered in cobwebs and overgrown weeds.  The girls comment that this like the university version of the Class F. 

 

They head to the cafeteria for lunch and when it’s XQ’s turn, a gigantic bowl of chirashi sushi is placed on her tray.  The girls look up in a shock and that’s when they discover that A Jin is working behind the lunch counter.  They’re surprised to see him there since they thought he’d gone to work for a restaurant after graduating from high school, but he says he has to intern too (or something like that.  I can’t remember exactly what his explanation was anymore).  As the others behind them complain about the line being held up, the girls hurry to move along and A Jin promises to always give XQ the best food.  The guy behind them in line points to the departing XQ and tells A Jin that he wants the same dish as her.  That’s when A Jin places the tiiiiiiniest piece of fish on his bowl of rice, and sends him away.  Haha.

 

Because ZS is living away from home, XQ hears nothing of him and has no idea where he is or what he’s doing.  But one day, while walking around, she finds a line of women standing outside a vet’s office with all sorts of different animals in their arms.  She asks one of the women what’s going on, and the other woman explains that there’s a new intern at the vet’s office and he’s super attractive.  XQ looks past the line and through the clinic’s window, and finds ZS wearing a white coat as he examines an animal, interviews its owner, and takes notes.  XQ needs to see ZS, but she doesn’t have a pet.  That’s when she notices the woman in front of her has a parrot in one hand and a cricket in the other, which she’s about to feed to the parrot.

 

The next scene we see is XQ approaching ZS with the cricket in her hand.  She says it’s sick and needs his help.  ZS sighs and tells her that the vet’s office has a policy of seeing only things that have a vertebra.  This distinction flies over XQ’s head and as he knows she’ll never understand, he gives in and agrees to see her and the cricket.  But he starts asking the standard questions like: what’s its name, what’s its owners name, and how old is it?  XQ, to her credit, answers quickly by naming it on the spot, calling her its mother, and says it’s only 2 days old or something like that.  I can’t remember what her answers were exactly, but it was cute.  In any event, we all know it’s all an excuse.  She really just wants to know how he’s doing.  At first he doesn’t answer any of the questions that she fires back at him, but when he sees her disappointment, he relents enough to let her know he’s doing okay.

 

XQ ends up waiting for him outside his workplace and then follows him back to his apartment (from a distance, of course).  As he approaches the outside door to his apartment building, she sees that Sha Hui is waiting for him.  This surprises XQ as she thought Sha Hui had gone to study abroad.  She overhears ZS ask her if she’s been waiting long, and Sha Hui smiles and says no.  She shows him the bag that she’s carrying and says she brought dinner.  That causes XQ to look at the own plastic bag that she’d carried with her.  It’s obvious she was also hoping to do the same.  Instead, she’s now forced to watch them enter the apartment building together and then she follows their movement up the windows of the stairwell until she sees them enter one of the apartment units.  To say XQ is disappointed would be an understatement.  She doesn’t want to let herself think about what the two of them staying in an apartment together by themselves for an entire night means.

 

The next thing we see is XQ and A Jin climbing a mountain.  A Jin doesn’t understand why they’re there.  He thought she wanted to spend Valentine’s Day playing around Ximending (a popular pedestrian only shopping/dining area in Taiwan where young people, especially, like to hang out and play), but XQ’s on a mission.  Specifically, she’s there to spy on ZS and Sha Hui.  They follow them into a fruit grove and when A Jin trips, he accidentally hits a switch with his back causing its sprinkler system to go off.  As water is sprayed everywhere, ZS takes off his scarf and holds it over Sha Hui’s head.  They’re both confused as to where the water is suddenly coming from.  XQ and A Jin, on the other hand, are flopping around like fish out of water as they struggle to see – they’re in the worse area in terms of sprinkler positioning.  Finally, XQ realizes the switch is behind A Jin and she tells him to hurry and turn it off.  It’s too late though because once the sprinklers are off and water is no longer being splashed into her eyes, she finds that ZS and Sha Hui are no longer where they used to be.  And that’s because they’re right behind them instead, with their arms crossed.  

 

ZS asks XQ what she’s doing there and she tries to play it off like they just coincidentally happen to be there as well.  You can imagine how believable that explanation was!  The foursome end up exploring the mountain together.  At one point they’re at an outlook area.  Sha Hui suggests that XQ and A Jin pose for a picture, which she offers to take.  It’s clear she’s trying to link the two of them together, and A Jin is only too happy to agree.  After Sha Hui takes the picture, ZS tells them that there’s a ghost story associated with the very place that XQ and A Jin are standing.  That has the effect of XQ and A Jin scrambling back to where he and Sha Hui are standing, and methinks someone just didn’t like the idea of XQ and A Jin being together.  On the other hand, the minute they clear the area, ZS suggests to Sha Hui that they also stand at the outlook area and take a picture together.  Sha Hui hesitates because of the ghost story he just told, but he tells her it’s okay because she has him.  And so XQ is stuck watching them take a selfie photo together.  Boo.

 

The foursome start to make their way down the mountain and A Jin is the first to run towards a rickshaw waiting for passengers at the bottom.  He slips the rickshaw driver some money and tells him that very shortly, they’re going to be joined by a girl, and once she gets on, the driver is to put his foot to the pedal and hurry off without any delay.  He shouldn’t even look backwards, he should just go.  The driver immediately understands what A Jin is trying to say and says he’s got it, and not to worry, because he’ll take care of it.  I think all of us can predict what happens next.  Because yup, it’s Sha Hui who gets on the rickshaw and not XQ.  A Jin yells for the rickshaw driver to stop, but he’s like, “Nope!  You told me to go and not look back!”  As they hurtle down the rest of the mountain, A Jin asks Sha Hui why she was with him and not XQ, and she yells back, “I don’t know, I was tired and just wanted to sit for a minute while we waited for the others!”  LOL.

 

Back at the foot of the mountain, XQ and ZS are standing there looking at each other like, “So…”  Haha.  Eventually, ZS asks her if there was any place she had wanted to visit and so that’s how they end up in a canoe out in the middle of the lake.  There are basically two important things that take place during this scene.  First, XQ probes him about Sha Hui and he finally explains that they’ve been working on a charity project between their families’ two companies.  It some sort of medical charity type matter (her family owns a hospital) and as it involves someone that lives in the United States, they meet late at night to make phone calls due to the time difference with the U.S.  I should back up here for a minute to explain something I had left out from their high school days.  There was a time when ZS was asked to give a presentation at one of their all-school assemblies concerning an experience he had in the US one summer when he was studying there and participated in a triathlon type race.  During the race, he met a little girl who was battling cancer but still wanted to participate in the marathon.  During the assembly, this story was shared as an inspiring event for all the other students.  But that day, in the canoe, ZS reveals the end of the story was actually scarier than that.  He had to rescue the little girl from the water and he couldn’t do anything to help her until paramedics came to save her.  It’s this little girl and other children like her that he and Sha Hui are now hoping to help through their charity project.  

 

The second important thing to happen in this scene is that, after XQ listens to his story about the little girl, she recommends to him that he become a doctor because she thinks he has the smarts and talents to be one.  He responds by admitting that he’s already had the same thought and has begun working towards that goal.  For you eagle eye ISWAK watchers, you will recognize this moment as the twist on the original story where Yu Shu gets sick and they end up spending a lot of time at the hospital where they end up meeting the other little boy.  I mentioned last week that there was one change that the movie made that I didn’t like, even though it wasn’t any big thing, and it had to do with this part of the story.  Specifically, I didn’t like how ZS had already independently come up with the idea to be a doctor.  In the original version, it’s she who makes the suggestion first and then the idea grows on him after the seed has been planted.  I like the original chain of events because it was always the perfect illustration of how despite XQ’s “deficiencies” (not being smart, etc.) she did add value and brought something to their relationship – she understood him and inspired him.  In letting ZS already have the idea of becoming a doctor, the movie takes that away from XQ and reduces the significance of what is supposed to be a key turning point in their relationship.

 

Anyway, after that, something happens (which I honestly can’t recall anymore, but it probably had to do with her) and the end result is that they’re both dumped into water.  By the time they’ve fished themselves out of the lake, it’s late and they’ve missed their way off the mountain and so they walk dripping with water to the nearest motel – which is old, a little sketchy, and totally looks like one of those love motels.  Indeed, when they enter their room, they find the bed covered in rose petals with the towels twisted into a pair of swans.  Haha.  To escape the awkwardness of the moment, ZS grabs a towel and says he’s going to shower first while she dries off – but honestly, I thought the more gentlemanly thing to do would’ve been to tell her to take a shower first.  I mean, they were just in the water!  But whatever, it all works out because what happens next is he comes out of the shower and finds her lying in wait.  Like she’s lying on the futon with the blanket half open and giving him an expectant look.  Except I also want to say she’s kind of drunk, which is why she’s behaving this way.  If my memory serves me correctly the hotel had provided wine as well, and when he looked in the trashcan he saw that she’d dumped food there so she was basically drinking on an empty stomach. 

 

ZS escapes the room by saying he’s going out for a walk even though it’s raininig.  He’s back to being his usual stern self, but I think he’s just still feeling awkward about the situation they’re in.  After a while, XQ decides to ask the innkeeper for some new blankets because the ones in their room are dusty from lack of use.  The innkeeper sends her to an outdoor shed.  On her way back, she starts to see shadows and hear noises from behind.  She freaks out and starts running and ends up running straight into ZS’s arms.  He asks her what’s wrong and after she tells him she’s being followed, they look past her and see three cats sitting in the distance.  I actually laughed out loud in the theater when I saw that, which I suppose is okay considering I was the only one watching.  Anyway, he berates her for having coming out in this terrible weather and that’s when she explains she’d wanted to get clean blankets for him.  He, in turn, had gone to get food for her.  Aw, these two, thinking of each other.  He ends up taking off his coat and wrapping it around her.

 

Later that night, they go to bed.  I want to say they probably exchanged a few words, with him telling her to go to bed, but I can’t remember.  What I do remember is that the next morning, before he wakes her up, he kisses her.  Full on.  Such that by the time she does wake, she thinks it was all in her dreams.  Sneaky, ZS. 

 

Unfortunately, as they leave the mountain, they receive word that ZS’s father has had a heart attack is in the hospital.  When they arrive, his father’s already undergoing surgical treatment.  He asks what happened and XQ’s father tells him that ever since their argument, his father hasn’t been doing well.  ZS tells his mother to stay at the hospital while he goes to the office and see what’s going on there.  XQ belatedly decides to follow him (I think she was running after him to give him something) and, as a result, sees him run into Sha Hui in the hospital lobby.  Sha Hui’s walking in with a team of doctors and tells ZS that she was just on her way to see her father.  She promises them the best care her family’s hospital can provide.  I think of this moment as the first in a succession of several incidents where XQ starts to doubt herself as well as questions what sort of usefulness she would bring in a relationship with ZS.  

 

After his dad’s heart attack, ZS pretty much spends all his time between work and visiting his father afterwards.  He’s pressured at the office because apparently things had been getting bad for a while, and now with his dad’s illness, things have gone to really bad.  A lot of their investors are pulling out and, at one point, the other company directors tell him that they can’t afford to lose their one remaining contract, which happens to be with Sha Hui’s family, and that he should do everything he can to hold on to it.  Why a hospital would invest in a toy company, I have no idea, but maybe they’re trying to diversify.  Or create a line of healthcare-related dolls.   

 

In one scene, we see ZS collapsed on the living room sofa with scads of paper on the coffee table and his laptop in his lap.  The alarm on his phone goes off and XQ creeps over to turn it off.  She also closes the laptop to set it aside and walks away.  When ZS wakes up a little while later, he’s startled to see the time and has to hurry out of the house.  XQ tries to stop him just long enough to give him the coffee she’d been preparing, but he instead chastises her.  Although she’d just wanted him to get a few more minutes of sleep, knowing how tired he was, he says that because she turned off his alarm , he’s now that much later for everything that he has scheduled on his calendar that day.  Furthermore, he’s going to have to miss his visit with his father.  Although his words are hurtful, that doesn’t stop XQ from looking out for him.  When she notices it’s raining, she grabs an umbrella and goes to wait for him outside her office.  (Why not go into the lobby???)  When he finally leaves work that evening, he’s accompanied by the chauffeur who holds an umbrella over his head.  He then spies XQ in the distance and walks over to ask her what she’s doing.  She holds up the umbrella and explains that she was afraid he might not have one, but of course she can see now that he does.  He sneers at her and calls her stupid, asking her whether it never occurred to her that he might have an umbrella at the office.  Honestly, this for me was probably the most heartbreaking scene of the movie for me.  It just hurt the heart so much to see this girl trying to be thoughtful towards the boy whom she loves, and then get bashed in the heart for her efforts. 

 

Of course, even as my heart hurts, I know that ZS is not as cold and unfeeling as he just came across.  Indeed, as he walks back to his car, you see him clench his fist and he tells his chauffeur to help her find a taxi and send her home since it won’t be easy to find a taxi near their office in this weather.  He then waits in the car while the chauffeur does his bidding.  ZS is clearly being mean to her on purpose, in the hopes that she’ll cut this chord of affection.  He also hates to see her suffering on his behalf, and I can only imagine what must’ve run through his head when he walked out and saw her standing outside in the rain for who knows how long.  If only things were different, but his life and future are no longer his own.  With his father’s health being what it is, he has to think about the company as well.  He makes the decision to take a leave of absence from school and get engaged to Sha Hui.  His father questions him about his intentions.  He says he doesn’t know what the other company directors have said to him, but he doesn’t want his son to marry for anything less than love.  We all know how ZS is once he’s made up his mind though, so that talk doesn’t really go anywhere.

 

Around this time, XQ and her father have their own talk.  He thinks it’s time for them to move out of the house.  With the Jiang family already dealing with the father’s poor health, her father doesn’t want to add to their troubles.  He also thinks that maybe it’s time for XQ to finally let go and move on.

 

If there’s one scene out of the entire movie that I wish I could rewatch for the purposes of this recap, it would be the one that ZS and XQ have in the hospital lobby.  It’s THE climax of the movie.  But I’m not going to let myself rewatch this scene because, if I do, I’ll just end up translating the whole thing and that would defeat the purpose of what’s supposed to be a summary/recap.  Hehehe.  But because I’m not rewatching it, my memory is sadly fuzzy for what is a very important scene in the movie.  Here’s what stands out to me in my memory though.

 

XQ had come to the hospital to deliver bone broth soup that her father prepared for ZS’s father.  ZS won’t take it though.  He says it’s too oily and since his father already has a heart condition, it won’t be good for his health.  Not positive on this one, but I think he also tells her that Sha Hui has prepared food for his father instead, because in my memory I recall her saying something along the lines of Sha Hui would know better than her what was good for his father.  ZS basically makes her feel like she’s pestering him and his family, and that her good intentions are not welcomed.  As a result, XQ tells him that she and her father will be moving out soon.  It’s like she’s telling him that she’s giving up.  And so, as she walks away, he says to her, “I like you.”  And ARGH.  It turns out he’s doing that thing that he likes to do.  Similar to when she tried to give him her love confession letter, he said one thing, paused, and in that few seconds pause allowed her brain to think one thing, before he continued on to complete his thought.  Here, he follows the, “I like you,” with, “Isn’t that what you once said to me?”  It’s like he’s challenging her, reminding her that she had once pledged her devotion to him, and wondering why she’s giving up so easily.  Except how can she not?  She’s received no encouragement and ZS’s just told her that he’s going to get engaged to Sha Hui.  What else is the poor girl supposed to think?  The other thought I remembered thinking while watching this scene was, “This is a mess.”  LOL.

 

After this confrontation with ZS, she never sees him again and moves on with her life.  She and her father move out of the Jiang family home and are seen off by ZS’s parents and little brother.  When it comes time to say farewell to Yu Shu, she holds out her hand for a handshake, much like she did when she greeted him, except instead of ignoring it as he had back then, Yu Shu takes her hand.  This is the movie’s acknowledgment that their relationship also changed over time.  After XQ and her father ride off in their moving truck, we get a glimpse of her former bedroom.  She’s left behind all the posters, pictures, etc., of ZS that she used to keep and placed them in a trash can.

 

When we see XQ again, she’s trying to stick a needle in a patient and she’s the one screaming at the top of her lungs.  LOL.  In a voiceover, we learn that she decided to switch her major in order to become a nurse.  We also see, however, that she is not exactly blessed with natural talent in this area.  The patients tend to run out of the waiting room when they see it’s her on deck and she gets berated by the head nurse.  It’s not easy for XQ, but she’s determined and trying. 

 

One afternoon after work, XQ’s walking around and checking her phone.  Although she hasn’t been in touch with ZS for over a year, the one indulgence she allows herself is peek in on his social media.  She flips through all the photos, of which there aren’t many publicly posted ones, and assumes they’re all related to Sha Hui.  After all, when this year’s Valentine’s Day rolled around, he’d even posted a picture from the previous year to remember the trip he’d taken with her to the mountain.  Specifically, the photo he posts is from the same location in which he’d taken a selfie with Sha Hui.  As she’s checking his social media, she spies a new post.  It’s announcing that ZS is giving a talk at their high school.  She tells herself that she can’t go, but somehow she finds herself on the old campus anyway.  She reasonhad bes to herself that since there already, she might as well as go in.  Except when she enters the auditorium she finds it empty.  Just as she’s wondering if she misread or the event got cancelled, ZS appears.

 

If there was a second scene I wish I could rewatch for this recap, it’d probably be this end part because my fuzzy memory does not do this moment justice.  But basically she learns that all the pictures he’d posted in the past year had been posted because of her.  That includes the Valentine’s Day remembrance photo, when he’s been thinking about the time he spent on the mountain with her, not Sha Hui.  Similarly, when he’d posted a picture taken at the hospital, we actually learn in the ZS’s end flashback monologue that he had posted this picture to serve as an encouragement for her.  On the day that the head nurse had been chewing XQ out for getting something wrong, another nurse had been standing off to the side serving witness.  She’d then told ZS about it and so he’d posted the picture to remind her to not give up on her dreams.  After ZS proposes and they kiss, XQ tells him that this is their third kiss, and he corrects her that it’s their fourth, finally owning up to the stolen kiss at the inn.  They kiss again and then the drama ends with the just mentioned montage of flashback scenes where we finally get to hear from ZS how he fell in love with her.  Totally reminded me of “A Love So Beautiful,” but it worked for the ISWAK movie as well. 

 

Anyhow, that’s it for the movie recap!  Hope you enjoyed.

 

+2

[Guest]

   Life is good popcorn and drama time.... -2  Sending you all some love...

[Lynne]

1 hour ago, themarchioness said:

For @kokodus, @mouse007, @phikyl, and with thanks to @lynne22, here is the final part of my ISWAK movie recap.  If you'd asked me last weekend how many parts the recap would take, I'd have estimated four.  But the reality is a week later (and with my brain completely filled with IWNLYG), it's embarrassing to admit but my memory has already faded!  Details are hard to recall.  The first section of this third part was actually written last weekend and I think you'll be able to tell pretty quickly where that ends and this weekend's efforts begin because all of the sudden I'm like, "As best as I can recall this is what happened..."  Heh.  Oh well.  I figure you all know the story anyway.  Therefore, this last part of the recap focuses mainly on differences that the movie made as well as my impressions.  I hope it still manages to give you a little flavor for what the movie was like.  And, sorry!   

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

ISWAK Movie Recap - Part 3

 

XQ and her two best friends are holding their new class schedule and looking for their classroom.  They’re majoring in some foreign language and although I don’t remember which one it was, it was definitely some obscure language.  This is why they’re now picking their way around abandoned buildings that are covered in cobwebs and overgrown weeds.  The girls comment that this like the university version of the Class F. 

 

They head to the cafeteria for lunch and when it’s XQ’s turn, a gigantic bowl of chirashi sushi is placed on her tray.  The girls look up in a shock and that’s when they discover that A Jin is working behind the lunch counter.  They’re surprised to see him there since they thought he’d gone to work for a restaurant after graduating from high school, but he says he has to intern too (or something like that.  I can’t remember exactly what his explanation was anymore).  As the others behind them complain about the line being held up, the girls hurry to move along and A Jin promises to always give XQ the best food.  The guy behind them in line points to the departing XQ and tells A Jin that he wants the same dish as her.  That’s when A Jin places the tiiiiiiniest piece of fish on his bowl of rice, and sends him away.  Haha.

 

Because ZS is living away from home, XQ hears nothing of him and has no idea where he is or what he’s doing.  But one day, while walking around, she finds a line of women standing outside a vet’s office with all sorts of different animals in their arms.  She asks one of the women what’s going on, and the other woman explains that there’s a new intern at the vet’s office and he’s super attractive.  XQ looks past the line and through the clinic’s window, and finds ZS wearing a white coat as he examines an animal, interviews its owner, and takes notes.  XQ needs to see ZS, but she doesn’t have a pet.  That’s when she notices the woman in front of her has a parrot in one hand and a cricket in the other, which she’s about to feed to the parrot.

 

The next scene we see is XQ approaching ZS with the cricket in her hand.  She says it’s sick and needs his help.  ZS sighs and tells her that the vet’s office has a policy of seeing only things that have a vertebra.  This distinction flies over XQ’s head and as he knows she’ll never understand, he gives in and agrees to see her and the cricket.  But he starts asking the standard questions like: what’s its name, what’s its owners name, and how old is it?  XQ, to her credit, answers quickly by naming it on the spot, calling her its mother, and says it’s only 2 days old or something like that.  I can’t remember what her answers were exactly, but it was cute.  In any event, we all know it’s all an excuse.  She really just wants to know how he’s doing.  At first he doesn’t answer any of the questions that she fires back at him, but when he sees her disappointment, he relents enough to let her know he’s doing okay.

 

XQ ends up waiting for him outside his workplace and then follows him back to his apartment (from a distance, of course).  As he approaches the outside door to his apartment building, she sees that Sha Hui is waiting for him.  This surprises XQ as she thought Sha Hui had gone to study abroad.  She overhears ZS ask her if she’s been waiting long, and Sha Hui smiles and says no.  She shows him the bag that she’s carrying and says she brought dinner.  That causes XQ to look at the own plastic bag that she’d carried with her.  It’s obvious she was also hoping to do the same.  Instead, she’s now forced to watch them enter the apartment building together and then she follows their movement up the windows of the stairwell until she sees them enter one of the apartment units.  To say XQ is disappointed would be an understatement.  She doesn’t want to let herself think about what the two of them staying in an apartment together by themselves for an entire night means.

 

The next thing we see is XQ and A Jin climbing a mountain.  A Jin doesn’t understand why they’re there.  He thought she wanted to spend Valentine’s Day playing around Ximending (a popular pedestrian only shopping/dining area in Taiwan where young people, especially, like to hang out and play), but XQ’s on a mission.  Specifically, she’s there to spy on ZS and Sha Hui.  They follow them into a fruit grove and when A Jin trips, he accidentally hits a switch with his back causing its sprinkler system to go off.  As water is sprayed everywhere, ZS takes off his scarf and holds it over Sha Hui’s head.  They’re both confused as to where the water is suddenly coming from.  XQ and A Jin, on the other hand, are flopping around like fish out of water as they struggle to see – they’re in the worse area in terms of sprinkler positioning.  Finally, XQ realizes the switch is behind A Jin and she tells him to hurry and turn it off.  It’s too late though because once the sprinklers are off and water is no longer being splashed into her eyes, she finds that ZS and Sha Hui are no longer where they used to be.  And that’s because they’re right behind them instead, with their arms crossed.  

 

ZS asks XQ what she’s doing there and she tries to play it off like they just coincidentally happen to be there as well.  You can imagine how believable that explanation was!  The foursome end up exploring the mountain together.  At one point they’re at an outlook area.  Sha Hui suggests that XQ and A Jin pose for a picture, which she offers to take.  It’s clear she’s trying to link the two of them together, and A Jin is only too happy to agree.  After Sha Hui takes the picture, ZS tells them that there’s a ghost story associated with the very place that XQ and A Jin are standing.  That has the effect of XQ and A Jin scrambling back to where he and Sha Hui are standing, and methinks someone just didn’t like the idea of XQ and A Jin being together.  On the other hand, the minute they clear the area, ZS suggests to Sha Hui that they also stand at the outlook area and take a picture together.  Sha Hui hesitates because of the ghost story he just told, but he tells her it’s okay because she has him.  And so XQ is stuck watching them take a selfie photo together.  Boo.

 

The foursome start to make their way down the mountain and A Jin is the first to run towards a rickshaw waiting for passengers at the bottom.  He slips the rickshaw driver some money and tells him that very shortly, they’re going to be joined by a girl, and once she gets on, the driver is to put his foot to the pedal and hurry off without any delay.  He shouldn’t even look backwards, he should just go.  The driver immediately understands what A Jin is trying to say and says he’s got it, and not to worry, because he’ll take care of it.  I think all of us can predict what happens next.  Because yup, it’s Sha Hui who gets on the rickshaw and not XQ.  A Jin yells for the rickshaw driver to stop, but he’s like, “Nope!  You told me to go and not look back!”  As they hurtle down the rest of the mountain, A Jin asks Sha Hui why she was with him and not XQ, and she yells back, “I don’t know, I was tired and just wanted to sit for a minute while we waited for the others!”  LOL.

 

Back at the foot of the mountain, XQ and ZS are standing there looking at each other like, “So…”  Haha.  Eventually, ZS asks her if there was any place she had wanted to visit and so that’s how they end up in a canoe out in the middle of the lake.  There are basically two important things that take place during this scene.  First, XQ probes him about Sha Hui and he finally explains that they’ve been working on a charity project between their families’ two companies.  It some sort of medical charity type matter (her family owns a hospital) and as it involves someone that lives in the United States, they meet late at night to make phone calls due to the time difference with the U.S.  I should back up here for a minute to explain something I had left out from their high school days.  There was a time when ZS was asked to give a presentation at one of their all-school assemblies concerning an experience he had in the US one summer when he was studying there and participated in a triathlon type race.  During the race, he met a little girl who was battling cancer but still wanted to participate in the marathon.  During the assembly, this story was shared as an inspiring event for all the other students.  But that day, in the canoe, ZS reveals the end of the story was actually scarier than that.  He had to rescue the little girl from the water and he couldn’t do anything to help her until paramedics came to save her.  It’s this little girl and other children like her that he and Sha Hui are now hoping to help through their charity project.  

 

The second important thing to happen in this scene is that, after XQ listens to his story about the little girl, she recommends to him that he become a doctor because she thinks he has the smarts and talents to be one.  He responds by admitting that he’s already had the same thought and has begun working towards that goal.  For you eagle eye ISWAK watchers, you will recognize this moment as the twist on the original story where Yu Shu gets sick and they end up spending a lot of time at the hospital where they end up meeting the other little boy.  I mentioned last week that there was one change that the movie made that I didn’t like, even though it wasn’t any big thing, and it had to do with this part of the story.  Specifically, I didn’t like how ZS had already independently come up with the idea to be a doctor.  In the original version, it’s she who makes the suggestion first and then the idea grows on him after the seed has been planted.  I like the original chain of events because it was always the perfect illustration of how despite XQ’s “deficiencies” (not being smart, etc.) she did add value and brought something to their relationship – she understood him and inspired him.  In letting ZS already have the idea of becoming a doctor, the movie takes that away from XQ and reduces the significance of what is supposed to be a key turning point in their relationship.

 

Anyway, after that, something happens (which I honestly can’t recall anymore, but it probably had to do with her) and the end result is that they’re both dumped into water.  By the time they’ve fished themselves out of the lake, it’s late and they’ve missed their way off the mountain and so they walk dripping with water to the nearest motel – which is old, a little sketchy, and totally looks like one of those love motels.  Indeed, when they enter their room, they find the bed covered in rose petals with the towels twisted into a pair of swans.  Haha.  To escape the awkwardness of the moment, ZS grabs a towel and says he’s going to shower first while she dries off – but honestly, I thought the more gentlemanly thing to do would’ve been to tell her to take a shower first.  I mean, they were just in the water!  But whatever, it all works out because what happens next is he comes out of the shower and finds her lying in wait.  Like she’s lying on the futon with the blanket half open and giving him an expectant look.  Except I also want to say she’s kind of drunk, which is why she’s behaving this way.  If my memory serves me correctly the hotel had provided wine as well, and when he looked in the trashcan he saw that she’d dumped food there so she was basically drinking on an empty stomach. 

 

ZS escapes the room by saying he’s going out for a walk even though it’s raininig.  He’s back to being his usual stern self, but I think he’s just still feeling awkward about the situation they’re in.  After a while, XQ decides to ask the innkeeper for some new blankets because the ones in their room are dusty from lack of use.  The innkeeper sends her to an outdoor shed.  On her way back, she starts to see shadows and hear noises from behind.  She freaks out and starts running and ends up running straight into ZS’s arms.  He asks her what’s wrong and after she tells him she’s being followed, they look past her and see three cats sitting in the distance.  I actually laughed out loud in the theater when I saw that, which I suppose is okay considering I was the only one watching.  Anyway, he berates her for having coming out in this terrible weather and that’s when she explains she’d wanted to get clean blankets for him.  He, in turn, had gone to get food for her.  Aw, these two, thinking of each other.  He ends up taking off his coat and wrapping it around her.

 

Later that night, they go to bed.  I want to say they probably exchanged a few words, with him telling her to go to bed, but I can’t remember.  What I do remember is that the next morning, before he wakes her up, he kisses her.  Full on.  Such that by the time she does wake, she thinks it was all in her dreams.  Sneaky, ZS. 

 

Unfortunately, as they leave the mountain, they receive word that ZS’s father has had a heart attack is in the hospital.  When they arrive, his father’s already undergoing surgical treatment.  He asks what happened and XQ’s father tells him that ever since their argument, his father hasn’t been doing well.  ZS tells his mother to stay at the hospital while he goes to the office and see what’s going on there.  XQ belatedly decides to follow him (I think she was running after him to give him something) and, as a result, sees him run into Sha Hui in the hospital lobby.  Sha Hui’s walking in with a team of doctors and tells ZS that she was just on her way to see her father.  She promises them the best care her family’s hospital can provide.  I think of this moment as the first in a succession of several incidents where XQ starts to doubt herself as well as questions what sort of usefulness she would bring in a relationship with ZS.  

 

After his dad’s heart attack, ZS pretty much spends all his time between work and visiting his father afterwards.  He’s pressured at the office because apparently things had been getting bad for a while, and now with his dad’s illness, things have gone to really bad.  A lot of their investors are pulling out and, at one point, the other company directors tell him that they can’t afford to lose their one remaining contract, which happens to be with Sha Hui’s family, and that he should do everything he can to hold on to it.  Why a hospital would invest in a toy company, I have no idea, but maybe they’re trying to diversify.  Or create a line of healthcare-related dolls.   

 

In one scene, we see ZS collapsed on the living room sofa with scads of paper on the coffee table and his laptop in his lap.  The alarm on his phone goes off and XQ creeps over to turn it off.  She also closes the laptop to set it aside and walks away.  When ZS wakes up a little while later, he’s startled to see the time and has to hurry out of the house.  XQ tries to stop him just long enough to give him the coffee she’d been preparing, but he instead chastises her.  Although she’d just wanted him to get a few more minutes of sleep, knowing how tired he was, he says that because she turned off his alarm , he’s now that much later for everything that he has scheduled on his calendar that day.  Furthermore, he’s going to have to miss his visit with his father.  Although his words are hurtful, that doesn’t stop XQ from looking out for him.  When she notices it’s raining, she grabs an umbrella and goes to wait for him outside her office.  (Why not go into the lobby???)  When he finally leaves work that evening, he’s accompanied by the chauffeur who holds an umbrella over his head.  He then spies XQ in the distance and walks over to ask her what she’s doing.  She holds up the umbrella and explains that she was afraid he might not have one, but of course she can see now that he does.  He sneers at her and calls her stupid, asking her whether it never occurred to her that he might have an umbrella at the office.  Honestly, this for me was probably the most heartbreaking scene of the movie for me.  It just hurt the heart so much to see this girl trying to be thoughtful towards the boy whom she loves, and then get bashed in the heart for her efforts. 

 

Of course, even as my heart hurts, I know that ZS is not as cold and unfeeling as he just came across.  Indeed, as he walks back to his car, you see him clench his fist and he tells his chauffeur to help her find a taxi and send her home since it won’t be easy to find a taxi near their office in this weather.  He then waits in the car while the chauffeur does his bidding.  ZS is clearly being mean to her on purpose, in the hopes that she’ll cut this chord of affection.  He also hates to see her suffering on his behalf, and I can only imagine what must’ve run through his head when he walked out and saw her standing outside in the rain for who knows how long.  If only things were different, but his life and future are no longer his own.  With his father’s health being what it is, he has to think about the company as well.  He makes the decision to take a leave of absence from school and get engaged to Sha Hui.  His father questions him about his intentions.  He says he doesn’t know what the other company directors have said to him, but he doesn’t want his son to marry for anything less than love.  We all know how ZS is once he’s made up his mind though, so that talk doesn’t really go anywhere.

 

Around this time, XQ and her father have their own talk.  He thinks it’s time for them to move out of the house.  With the Jiang family already dealing with the father’s poor health, her father doesn’t want to add to their troubles.  He also thinks that maybe it’s time for XQ to finally let go and move on.

 

If there’s one scene out of the entire movie that I wish I could rewatch for the purposes of this recap, it would be the one that ZS and XQ have in the hospital lobby.  It’s THE climax of the movie.  But I’m not going to let myself rewatch this scene because, if I do, I’ll just end up translating the whole thing and that would defeat the purpose of what’s supposed to be a summary/recap.  Hehehe.  But because I’m not rewatching it, my memory is sadly fuzzy for what is a very important scene in the movie.  Here’s what stands out to me in my memory though.

 

XQ had come to the hospital to deliver bone broth soup that her father prepared for ZS’s father.  ZS won’t take it though.  He says it’s too oily and since his father already has a heart condition, it won’t be good for his health.  Not positive on this one, but I think he also tells her that Sha Hui has prepared food for his father instead, because in my memory I recall her saying something along the lines of Sha Hui would know better than her what was good for his father.  ZS basically makes her feel like she’s pestering him and his family, and that her good intentions are not welcomed.  As a result, XQ tells him that she and her father will be moving out soon.  It’s like she’s telling him that she’s giving up.  And so, as she walks away, he says to her, “I like you.”  And ARGH.  It turns out he’s doing that thing that he likes to do.  Similar to when she tried to give him her love confession letter, he said one thing, paused, and in that few seconds pause allowed her brain to think one thing, before he continued on to complete his thought.  Here, he follows the, “I like you,” with, “Isn’t that what you once said to me?”  It’s like he’s challenging her, reminding her that she had once pledged her devotion to him, and wondering why she’s giving up so easily.  Except how can she not?  She’s received no encouragement and ZS’s just told her that he’s going to get engaged to Sha Hui.  What else is the poor girl supposed to think?  The other thought I remembered thinking while watching this scene was, “This is a mess.”  LOL.

 

After this confrontation with ZS, she never sees him again and moves on with her life.  She and her father move out of the Jiang family home and are seen off by ZS’s parents and little brother.  When it comes time to say farewell to Yu Shu, she holds out her hand for a handshake, much like she did when she greeted him, except instead of ignoring it as he had back then, Yu Shu takes her hand.  This is the movie’s acknowledgment that their relationship also changed over time.  After XQ and her father ride off in their moving truck, we get a glimpse of her former bedroom.  She’s left behind all the posters, pictures, etc., of ZS that she used to keep and placed them in a trash can.

 

When we see XQ again, she’s trying to stick a needle in a patient and she’s the one screaming at the top of her lungs.  LOL.  In a voiceover, we learn that she decided to switch her major in order to become a nurse.  We also see, however, that she is not exactly blessed with natural talent in this area.  The patients tend to run out of the waiting room when they see it’s her on deck and she gets berated by the head nurse.  It’s not easy for XQ, but she’s determined and trying. 

 

One afternoon after work, XQ’s walking around and checking her phone.  Although she hasn’t been in touch with ZS for over a year, the one indulgence she allows herself is peek in on his social media.  She flips through all the photos, of which there aren’t many publicly posted ones, and assumes they’re all related to Sha Hui.  After all, when this year’s Valentine’s Day rolled around, he’d even posted a picture from the previous year to remember the trip he’d taken with her to the mountain.  Specifically, the photo he posts is from the same location in which he’d taken a selfie with Sha Hui.  As she’s checking his social media, she spies a new post.  It’s announcing that ZS is giving a talk at their high school.  She tells herself that she can’t go, but somehow she finds herself on the old campus anyway.  She reasonhad bes to herself that since there already, she might as well as go in.  Except when she enters the auditorium she finds it empty.  Just as she’s wondering if she misread or the event got cancelled, ZS appears.

 

If there was a second scene I wish I could rewatch for this recap, it’d probably be this end part because my fuzzy memory does not do this moment justice.  But basically she learns that all the pictures he’d posted in the past year had been posted because of her.  That includes the Valentine’s Day remembrance photo, when he’s been thinking about the time he spent on the mountain with her, not Sha Hui.  Similarly, when he’d posted a picture taken at the hospital, we actually learn in the ZS’s end flashback monologue that he had posted this picture to serve as an encouragement for her.  On the day that the head nurse had been chewing XQ out for getting something wrong, another nurse had been standing off to the side serving witness.  She’d then told ZS about it and so he’d posted the picture to remind her to not give up on her dreams.  After ZS proposes and they kiss, XQ tells him that this is their third kiss, and he corrects her that it’s their fourth, finally owning up to the stolen kiss at the inn.  They kiss again and then the drama ends with the just mentioned montage of flashback scenes where we finally get to hear from ZS how he fell in love with her.  Totally reminded me of “A Love So Beautiful,” but it worked for the ISWAK movie as well. 

 

Anyhow, that’s it for the movie recap!  Hope you enjoyed.

 

+2

 

@themarchioness  

Thank you for the recaps nonetheless.... 

I must say.. I'm super impressed with Jelly Lin the actress that plays Xiang Qin... this Xiang Qin still felt very sincere, cute and adorable.... and she can deliver her vulnerability too.. 

Even when XQ is pursuing ZS, she somehow can deliver XQ's feeling of unworthy.. she thinks she won't be able to get him.. but she wants to try and sends her sincerity anyway... 

About ZS... 

Spoiler

 

I kinda agree with you that this ZS is mean.... I mean I get his reasoning.. He's jealous lols. 

But seriously his jealously make him mean...

Sometimes I want to laugh at his jealously.. but when I see that the ones that got hurt was always XQ.. I dunno what to feel.

 

I think after the mountain outing he has figured out his feeling to XQ, but his father's accident makes him hesitate again. And I agree, I feel like he does wants to make XQ cut the ties with him...

 

 

-2 

 

[themarchioness]

54 minutes ago, lynne22 said:

 

@themarchioness  

Thank you for the recaps nonetheless.... 

I must say.. I'm super impressed with Jelly Lin the actress that plays Xiang Qin... this Xiang Qin still felt very sincere, cute and adorable.... and she can deliver her vulnerability too.. 

Even when XQ is pursuing ZS, she somehow can deliver XQ's feeling of unworthy.. she thinks she won't be able to get him.. but she wants to try and sends her sincerity anyway... 

About ZS... 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

I kinda agree with you that this ZS is mean.... I mean I get his reasoning.. He's jealous lols. 

But seriously his jealously make him mean...

Sometimes I want to laugh at his jealously.. but when I see that the ones that got hurt was always XQ.. I dunno what to feel.

 

I think after the mountain outing he has figured out his feeling to XQ, but his father's accident makes him hesitate again. And I agree, I feel like he does wants to make XQ cut the ties with him...

 

 

 

Right?  I thought she was the best in the movie, in terms of acting.  She really brought XQ to life and given the large shoes she had to fill, that's no easy task.  And I'm glad to hear I wasn't the only one who felt that way about ZS's character. 

 

536

[cenching]

25 minutes ago, Lawyerh said:

546.

Btw is there any reward for reaching 1000? 

Im newbie here.. sorry for being clueless.

 

The only reward is the right to brags that Team Add won!! and the opportunity to jeers at Team Sub the loser!! Team Add won!! Team Add won!! Again!! Again!! and vice versa and repeat.....

 

548

[cenching]

554