SCREEN STORIES - THE EARLY SPRING: WHEN CHEMISTRY ALMOST MAKES YOU FORGET THE RED FLAGS

 

There is no doubt that The Early Spring has made quite an entrance.

The Chinese workplace romance, starring Jing Boran as Luan Nian (Luke) and Sun Qian as Shang Zhitao (Flora), premiered on 26 August and immediately attracted a huge international audience. In its first week on Netflix, it reached No. 2 on the Global Non-English TV list, with 2.4 million views and 21.5 million hours watched and it entered the Top 10 in 22 markets.

The premise sounds simple enough. Flora arrives in Beijing and begins working for a prestigious advertising company, where she meets Luan Nian, a brilliant but demanding creative director. He is her boss. They clash, they are attracted to each other and eventually they begin a secret relationship which becomes much more complicated than either of them expected.

And this is where my problem begins. Because I have spent a good part of this drama thinking:

I HATE HIM. WHY? WHY?

SCREEN STORIES: THE COURAGE TO SLOW DOWN

 

Some stories entertain us. Others stay with us because, almost without noticing, they ask questions we have been carrying inside for a long time.

Meet Yourself is one of those stories.

When I started watching this forty-episode Chinese drama, I expected a comforting slice-of-life series. What I didn't expect was to find myself wondering, episode after episode, what it really means to build a meaningful life.