Northward (2025)

A coming of age & slice-of-life masterpiece that I will never forget

My review will contain spoilers, but I'll warn before spoiling, so you can read the safe parts before watching the show! Also, be ready, this is going to be long, but this drama is so excellent that it's hard to stop myself lol

If you look into my profile, you will know how many korean and chinese dramas I have watched. I rarely write reviews, but I feel like I need to write one for Northward (and also I've been obsessed with this drama since day 1 so I hope writing it all out will help me think of something else lmao).
If you're hesitating to watch this drama : go ahead and try it. This is a masterpiece. But you need to know two things before going : first, this drama was made to be realistic, no character is perfect ; second, while watching, you must analyze the characters yourself through their dialogues and actions and not let characters tell you how A or B is (even when they're talking about themselves). If you're confused about my second advice, here is what I can tell you : in life, you don't necessarily understand your decisions or other people's decisions. You can misinterpret other people, and misinterpret yourself, especially when you're young. So if a character tells you he did this for Y reason, or he thinks X, that doesn't mean it's true. You need to look at what they do and what they say when confronted to the situation to actually know how they feel about something. So, while watching this show, you musn't take everything at face value, you have to analyze their actions and dialogues to actually know the truth If you don't, you're likely to misunderstand them.
This is actually the reason why I loved this drama so much, and why I say it's a masterpiece. Weirdly, my favorite scenes are almost only scenes where characters fight or confront each other, because that's the moments when you actually understand the characters motivations and sufferings. Otherwise, they don't talk about it, just like we don't spend our time talking about what we feel or why motivate us to do X ou Y. We only talk about it in specific contexts.
I know a lot of people hated on Wanghe sometimes, and I get it, but he's definitely my favorite character here. He is so complex and realistic and a mess (just like 4D people are). He was a delight to analyze. I've been supporting him since the beggining and seeing his growth was such a pleasure.
Every character is interesting, very well written and complex, even the less important ones. I admire the screenwriters for how they managed to create such deep and realistic characters.
The cinematography is exceptional ; I was already a big fan of Yao Xiao Feng after seeing Tender Light, and his work here is just as wonderful. I am very peaky regarding the cinematography of the shows that I watch, so when I compliment it, it means it really is great.

I wrote an analysis of the first 28 episodes a few days ago ; you can find it here : https://kisskh.at/740015-bei-shang#comment-21293186 .

--- SPOILERS AHEAD ---

I am SO glad it wasn't a sad ending. I was scared they would end it with Fenghua dying because she deserved so much better, and I felt like Wanghe had gone through enough deads. First Siyi's grandma, then Siyi's little brother, then his employee. And he blames himself for each of them. I can't imagine how much he would have blame himself if Fenghua died. He would've thought he should've made a move on her sooner to enjoy her presence more.
But thanks god : it did not happen. Everyone got the happy ending they deserved.
I am glad the drama didn't push the Siyi/Wanghe agenda too much. As I said in my previous analysis, for me, Wanghe never truly loved Siyi (as a woman). And I don't think Siyi feelings for Wanghe were very deep either. They probably were more linked to her fear of being abandoned, and she may have felt like Wanghe was "abandoning her" everytime she saw him with Fenghua (which made sense, because Wanghe never planned his future with Siyi, outside of his promises to "take care of her", that were, to me, the proof he had a savior syndrome with her). At the end, when they're all watching footages of the younger them and we see Wanghe and Fenghua's interactions, it's so obvious that Wanghe already had romantic feelings for her (even the friends make fun of them and say they're "having a date on the balcony").
I loved LOVED every Wanghe/Xingchi confrontation. As an anti-capitalist myself, I saw my own ideals in Xingchi's, and yet I sided with Wanghe, especially in the fight episode 31. To me, Xingchi thought too high of himself. He thought only his values were important, and that his employees were stupid to put their lives on the line just to get money. It was easy for him to dismiss Wanghe and them by saying they're "evil capitalist". But, in my opinion, it only sounded like a selfish character who imposed his values on other people. I would even say... he sounded like a priviliged character. Just like Wanghe said, it's easy to say money isn't important when you're not hungry ; but when you need money to survive and support your family, money IS (sadly) important. Aknowledging that doesn't make Wanghe the evil capitalist everyone thought he was (including Fenghua). On the opposite, he understood better than anyone that the true problem was political. People shouldn't have to put their life on the line to survive, but the truth is, they sometimes have to, and he could only make sure they would get correctly paid for it. What Xingchi did was foolish and selfish, and not truly for his employee's wellbeing, but he was too immature to understand it. If he wanted to fight for what was right, he either had to climb in a waaay higher position, or make an union with his employees and protest against the politics, or make his own business with his own rules (like Fenghua). Instead of thinking he knew better his employee's needs than themselves, he should have asked himself why they were ready to put their life in danger just for money. And he should have understood their distress, instead of dismissing it and stopping them from making the money the needed. To me, that fight showed that, despite Xingchi's sad background, he was still a boy who knew he had parents and friends who were ready to provide for him if needed. Not even once did he try to understand why people were desperate for money.
Wanghe, on the other side, definitely made mistakes, but he was trying to actually change things in a way higher scale than Xingchi. The scene where Xingchi sees his ex employees eat outside and screams about how unfair it is that the cafetaria got shut down, meanwhile Wanghe actually takes action with his boss to provide correct meals to the employees, shows exactly that - Xingchi was all talk, Wanghe tried to take actions. He's definitely the most misundertsood character in this show : he was not cold-blooded, he just believed he could actually change things from the inside, even if it meant making sacrifices by doing things that did not align with his values and tiring himself out.
One of my favorite scene of the show is when the company refuses to pay compensations for He's death. The way his heart hurts, and he loses balances, and he feels sick, how he throws up in the toilets and curls himself up, all of that filmed as if it was a horror movie : to me, that's when Wanghe realized how much his efforts were in vain, and how evil the world was. He was in so much pain it literally made him sick, but no one knows about that. He doesn't talk about it. And he will forever be seen as the "shark that thrives in Beijing" (to quote Xingchi's lines to describe him).
Wanghe was never thriving in Beijing. He had failures after failures, and a huge pressure on his shoulders. Remember how he was told by his father, as a child, to succeed in life to make him proud? How many promises he made to everyone, that he would succeed and be there for them? And how he thought he needed to be rich to deserve Fenghua? He was not thriving, he was dying inside trying to succeed. In a dialogue with Fenghua, he says himself he can never show his vulnerable side (which shows that he is already suffering) ; later, he says to Haikuo how tired he is in Beijing (and yet he chooses to stay there for the funerals). In Beijing, the easy-going and (apparently) confident Wanghe was so stressed out he had stomach issues (they're mentionned in the beginning of the adult era, as something recurrent for him). But no one aknowledges that because Wanghe just never complains.
Another of my favorite scenes (I think it's my top 1) is the fight between Fenghua and Wanghe in episode 24. That's when Wanghe needed a wake-up call, because he was making ruthless decisions. Xingchi and Haikuo both tried to confront him about it and both only managed to make him angry. The only character who knows how to handle Wanghe is Fenghua : he goes to her already pissed off about his fight with his friends, persuaded he's in the right. Fenghua knows it's useless to scream or attack him. She begins by complimenting him, making him dream of the future he so desperately wants (him being successful). When he takes the bait, and starts seeing himself in this success and tells her he will make her as famous as him, she slaps him with the hard truth : "that day will never come, because I need to stay away from a company who doesn't treat well their employees". BAM. And then she calls him cold-bloooded. DOUBLE BAM. I loooved this scene so much because you can see just how hurt he is. He didn't question himself before that, and if that worked, it's not only because it's Fenghua (of all people) who tells him that, but also because she handled him just right. She's such a smart girl, and the only one who actually gets him and knows how to get to him.
To conclude this (way too long) review, I need to talk about Chen Rui and Haikuo. I loved, loved Haikuo. He was a sensitive lost boy and a certified lover boy. He took so much after his father, and I mean it in the best way, because Yan Lin was the best father of the show (imo). Chen Rui was my second favorite character after Wang He (Fenghua is not in this ranking because she's so much better than the other characters). His crave for his mother's akwnoledgment was so touching. I just love his confrontation with his mother in episode 27 ("the boy who is worthless in the eyes of the world will be recognized by his family. all he needs is just a little trust.").
So, this review is way too long, but hopefully there are people as obsessed by Northward as me who are willing to read all of this. The fact that I have to make myself stop here because I could talk about the details of this drama for hours just shows how good this show is!

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