“Everyone keeps an eye on our every single move. No one thinks we'll have a happy ending. If I'm in love with an assistant, it doesn't matter. But I'm in love with the big boss.”

Shan “Shan” is a small town girl. She's generally considered to be of average looks, intelligence, and capability. Even still, the whole tiny town saw her off when she left for Shanghai and her new job. She hadn't been a big city girl for long when she got a call in the middle of the night. The Chairman's granddaughter is in the hospital with an emergency. She has a rare blood type - the same blood type as Shan's. Very politely, they asked Shan if she would donate her blood.

BaM is a 2014 release that is rated 7.2 on IMDB. It is 1 season consisting of 34 45-minute episodes. It's exactly like a romance novel committed to screen. It's really not dumbed down - it has an average IQ and is quite intelligent at times, just like Shan. This blood-favor puts her in the sights of the company CEO (it was his sister who was ill) as well as the head of the design dept, “Handsome Qi”. It also causes Shan to doubt herself & why she was hired. She will continue to doubt herself for the balance of the show. The necessary exchange of “thank-yous” & courtesies follow, but for other reasons, Shan keeps running into the CEO, “Feng” Teng. Shan is a cutie, but it's her simple genuine nature & her warmth that catch Feng's attention.

While this is going on, Shan's cousin shows up in Shanghai. Shi An Ni (The Story of Xijing, To My 19-Year-Old) plays Xue LiuLiu. I find her interesting. She holds her neck and shoulders too tightly and looks as if she has a cervical injury. As soon as the actress started talking, the screen lit up. She mimics her overbearing mother and it's hilarious. There are times she seems too stiff, but at all times she's unique, which is refreshing. I am looking forward to seeing more of her because I don't have a handle on her skills yet. Anyway, LiuLiu doesn't stay long. She soon moves in with her bf who ignores Shan when they meet. He doesn't seem like a good match for her cousin. I love how cuz LiuLiu never has a hair out of place and Shan is always disheveled.

Zhao Li Ying (The Story of Ming Lan, The Legend of Shen Li) plays Xue Shan Shan. How cute is this gurl? Very. An absolute delight, she makes the show. Hans Zhang (Kunpeng and Butterfly, Here to Heart-3.9) is our ML. He's certainly not my type. Too prickly. He's good with numbers but not people, but he does seem to be decent. You don't have to be the smartest, the richest, the brightest or the most beautiful, you just need to feel like home for your spouse. Shan feels like home for Feng.

Li Cheng Yuan (Lost Love in Times) portrays Yuan LiShu. She's fashioned herself in love with Feng for years (they grew up together) & she don't wanna go down easy. At one point it pained me that I couldn't slap her. They make the point several times that she's hyper-competitive, which does pave a nice long road for her bad behavior. If the object of your affection doesn't reciprocate, it's either the wrong timing, or the wrong person. If it's meant to be, the attraction is always mutual. Move on and work on yourself; Lishu choses self-improvement. “Because of Feng, I found many dark sides of mine in love. The original hearty LiShu became jealous, calculating, and untruthful in love. The dark LiShu is too frightening to be recognized by myself.” Wow. Kudos to the writer - Self-reflection and honesty, with a dash of humility, will NEVER render us more unlikable! Quite the opposite.

Huang You Ming (Mysterious Lotus Casebook, Love and Redemption-10) plays Zheng “Handsome Qi”. He's Feng’s partner, BFF, and the social one of the 2. Both of Fengs's secretaries are darling, but Long Yi Yi (Love O2O, My Sunshine) as Linda looks as good in a suit as any woman ever. Li Fang Ding (Inside Man) portrays Zhou Xiao Wei, who is a superb worker and an awful human being. Shan forgives her too easily. I'm not against forgiveness, I'm against evil: Xiao Wei should be fired. She will only ever cause strife, misery, and chaos, so the company is better off without her. Jin Guo Dong (My Sunshine) & Gu Man (You Are My Glory-5.9, Love O2O-6.8) are the screenwriters. Liu Chun Chieh (Lighter & Princess, Two Fathers-7.5) is the Director

This is a classic power balance romance. The man appears to have all the power in the beginning, but it's really Shan that comes out on top in the end. All's fair in love & war, and all’s well that ends well, right? If a manipulative male is a trigger for you, you may not enjoy this. Feng has no idea how to court a woman. His intentions are good, it's his method that is sketchy.

As a “thank-you" for her help with their health emergency, Feng’s sister starts sending in lunch boxes for Shan to help rebuild her health and stamina. Food is the way to Shan's hungry heart, but the whole company knows about this immediately as Mr Fang's secretaries are doing the lunch deliveries. Before long Shan scuttles off somewhere quiet to eat alone. She's found the perfect place - a little balcony area that nobody ever comes to, equipped w/ a beautiful bench. Most of all, it's private. She eats. She exults In her happiness exercises. She jumps around and throws her arms up saying: “You are a ray of sunshine loaded with happiness.” The windows are mirrors - she can watch herself do her routine. What she doesn't know is that, on the other side of the window, is Mr Feng. He's been watching her, enjoying her, and eating right alongside her w/ only a thin pane of glass between them.

“When he called my name just now it felt so intoxicating. Why does my name sound so amazing from his mouth?” The actress sounds like an excited 4 year old at Disney. Shan can't handle the stress of all the attention, as Feng's behavior is attracting the entire company, not just Shan. He probably has no concept of his inclinations, or at least hasn't faced them fully. He's used to bossing people around and he has never had to chase a woman, so he starts forcing her to do things to be around him - like eating lunch together. She tries to weedle out of the box lunches but only ends up being invited to his office to eat with him directly. He's tired of the glass between them. Obviously, that's the very definition of sexual harassment. The difference is intent. His motivations are actually pure underneath his improper forcefulness. (IRL, this behavior is usually intended to take advantage of someone sexually and discard them. That's not what's going on here. A controlling man separates and isolates his woman. Feng is a blessing to all who support Shan).

Everybody's abuzz over her relationship with Mr Feng. Nevertheless, the steady meals cause Shan to feel like he's a wolf and she's a pig that he's fattening up for slaughter. It would never enter her mind, at this point, that he might be interested in her personally. She feels like a blood factory. Does HE know she's a human?. She ends up faking illness as an excuse to avoid lunchtime. It backfires. We're not even up to ep10, but the next thing that Shan tries is to say that she can't have lunch with him because she needs to study for the CPA exam. The next thing she knows, she's ensconced in his office at lunchtime with a bunch of CPA exam guides. ‘This is the perfect quiet place for you to study,’ he explains.

Well before Feng & Shan get together her friends were already swooping in to tell her that trying to make it work w/ a rich guy is a mistake. There's no security. She'll probably be dumped b/c rich guys have endless options & endless temptations. Next, during a home visit, her parents specifically tell her: “We don't want you to bring home someone wealthy.” They don't think that would work out at all. This is all contrasted with cuz LiuLiu, whose mother is the opposite. She tries to force her daughter to stay with a horrible man only b/c he's loaded. Another contrast to Shan is her roommate's parents, who don't like Lufthan, roomie’s new bf, b/c he's not successful enough. Opinions. Everybody's got one. When you're giving advice, it's probably best to not tell people what to do but to tell them to “consider” whatever questions/points you want to share with them. The people giving Shan advice know nothing of her relationship with Feng.

All this while, Shan fashions herself enamored w/ Handsome Qi. Handsome, friendly, and pretty much a chick magnet, he's the type of guy that everybody's a little bit in love with. Mr Feng is more complex and difficult to love. “When you give up a tree that doesn't belong to you, you'll find that there's a whole forest there waiting for you to explore,” Handsome Qi says to Shan. They've just had a discussion about how they like each other, but like isn't love. They're friends - another reason e'erbody at the company is talking about & watching Shan.

BaM is about adjusting. He declares his love ⅓ into the show. When Feng&Shan finally get together, it's a secret. She doesn't feel secure in the relationship. She's depressed. And why doesn't he want to celebrate Valentine's Day? Everyone else got flowers. He's stiff and never shows his hand, so she never knows what he's thinking. As Valentine's Day approaches, He remarks that his grandfather was traditional and they never celebrated any Western holidays. At the same time, Shan's friends are asserting that Feng must not love her. One of the family's close friends is living at his family's house because she's going through a trauma. Shan's friends put unnecessary pressure on her by insisting that Feng's two-timing her. There's a thin line between cautioning someone & arrogance.

This segues nicely into the theme of BaM, the primary one being the destructive force of gossip.

Let's gossip about gossip. Why do we do it? Why does it feel good? Gossip is a function of pride. Pride always compares and competes. We gossip to make ourselves feel superior by comparison. We usually have no idea about the real story, the person's challenges, strengths, weaknesses, abilities, flaws, advantages and disadvantages, background… Gossip is basically a vat of lies that we enjoy taking a bath in once in awhile. Not only is it pathetic, but it's cruel and pernicious. Anyone who gossips IS part of the problem.

The gossip at work worsens over the course of the entire show. When they were just sizing each other up and he kept bringing her to the office to eat, they weren't dating, but everybody assumed that they were. Once they start dating, they keep their distance, so everybody assumes that she was tossed to the side. Every incident is misinterpreted in the most vile way. She's a pariah. No one can just have a relationship with her (except her cousin and bestie). She's constantly measured and found to be not good enough. As Feng is hard to read she's always ill-at-ease. When they finally do go public, Shan has to deal w/ a whole different kind of gossiping. She's become a zoo exhibit. Everybody suddenly wants to talk to her, greet her, & suck up to her. Everyone in Feng's sphere thinks the beautiful, composed, & sophisticated LiShu is a better match. Shan is adorable (she wears that tedious bun in her hair most of the show, and it ain't her best look) but she doesn't care about clothes & makeup (just food), so there's constant comments that she's mid. While Feng is under pressure, Shan is the one who really suffers, and Feng remains mostly oblivious to it. Shan even stresses over her raise, concerned that it will be lower to prove there's no favoritism. When she gets her raise, people comment on how it should have been more, so she isn't that special. There is no winning this contest.

China excels at showing how none of us are truly free. Another common theme in Chinese entertainment is that it's lonely at the top. They often portray CEOs, kings and denizens of the inner palace as miserable people in miserable places. Feng's suffered through the wrong attentions for the wrong reasons and lacks genuine interactions. The Great Gatsby factors significantly. It's a story about a man going to extraordinary efforts to attract a woman's attention, but in the end, the woman is a shallow person who doesn't deserve the love & effort he invested in her. Shan's the furthest thing from shallow & greedy. She prefers a simple life.

Some of the fashion is painful to look at. Mr Fang actually has a shirt with a leopard plushie collar. It's beyond awful. There's a bike trail scene that is very pretty. The soundtrack isn't bad at all; Roll the Dice, by Shan Gao is good.

BaM is a romance for romance junkies, not the general public. This show is the perfect formula for me when I'm exhausted and my brain doesn't want too much stimulation. China excels at such entertainment (for obvious reasons, but I digress). Where BaM truly does itself proud is that it does have a poignant & worthy message. “Don't try to change yourself only for me.” Feng loves her as she is. Shan's feelings of inadequacy just made both of them uncomfortable. The truth is that we should all never stop working on ourselves. But her motivation should be self-improvement, not to feel that she's worthy of him. (Whatever. She can't eat that ;) This ain't Shakespeare. But it has its moments. Shan decides that the only thing to do is to become the best version of herself so that she can stay on proudly next to Feng. That's the answer. Ding ding ding.

QUOTE📢

That's the way marriage is. You can't choose the best one, you can only choose the right one


〰🖍 IMHO

📣7 📝7.5 🎭7.5 💓7 🦋6 🎨6 🎵/🔊6.8 🔚7 🤗6.5 ▪ 🌞5.5 ⚡3 😅3 😭2.5 😱2 😯3.5 🤢1 🤔5 💤0


Age 14+ mild adult situations & sexual content including sex & pregnancy outside of marriage
Language: b!+ch ×1


Re-📺? not as rare a possibility as RH- blood