Siempre Casa (2025)

Muy bien desarrollada

No me considero fan del trope friends to lovers pero esto estuvo tan bien desarrollado que lo amé. En ningún momento lo sentí forzado o apurado, su historia se fue construyendo episodio a episodio u fue algo hermoso de ver. Por siempre mi escena favorita va a ser cuando el le compra un pedazo de la torta que a ella le gustaba y después cuando le seco las lágrimas, nonono 😭😭😭😭 me muero de amor. La historia secundaria de Song y Qiqi no me gustó, yo a Qiqi no le perdono nada y muy bien que no terminaron juntos.
Al fin una buena historia de romance escolar que no empieza con ellos siendo adultos y ya sabiendo como terminan, así deberían ser todas las series juveniles. Empiezan en la secundaria y se toman su tiempo para contar de cada etapa.

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A moment connected to the soul will follow us for a lifetime.

A moment might just be a period that lasts for a second, but a moment connected to the soul will follow us for a lifetime.

Every moment is like that, every second is the same, each raising of a hand, each breath, or even hours sitting still without moving, will become a part that follows a person's life, forever.

It's been so long since I watched a youth-themed film, and strangely, any film I previously watched—that I considered good—had an unfulfilling ending, to prove that youth is forever the most beautiful period in a person's life, a time where "even if we had to bathe in the rain, we would want to go back one more time." Perhaps that's why, among the forest of youth films, only "Always Home" achieved such emotional heights for me, making me feel empty after watching, feel unfulfilled, not because of an incomplete ending, but because of an ending, a process, a film, a message so complete that I felt hollow, because the ending meant the film had truly ended. And I realized that hollow feeling is what comes after watching a truly good film, one that has truly filled me, comforted me and brought me so many emotions. The film ended, and I felt lost. Perhaps "Always Home" also marks a period in my university days, and has become a part of me?

I must admit, this is a film suitable to watch while I'm in university. I see the past, I see the possible turning points in the future. Society resembles school, and also carries many unknowns, with young people standing vaguely at crossroads, vaguely striving, vaguely running. I have many questions for my future self, and so many words of advice, comfort, and encouragement for my past self, yet, ultimately, the present life is still the most wonderful. The process of growing up isn't actually the moment the clock strikes from 11:59 PM on the day I'm 17 to midnight on the day I'm 18, but the process of time gradually flowing, the soul collecting each second and minute, each choice, each action, each person around us, becoming the soul of our present self. Youth in the drama is beautifully dreamlike, making me feel empathy, admiration, and longing. But thinking again, whether youth is calm or passionate, whether young age is reckless or simply quiet days, in the end, those are still the days of youth we are living, have lived, and will live in. Youth may not be impulsive, people may not be extraordinary, dreams may only appear in dusty frames, the people we've met may just be visitors with no set date to meet again, the cycle of the universe will not stop, and youth has never stopped being brilliant, in the unique way of ordinary, mundane people who have no second version.

The characters in "Always Home" are also ordinary people like anyone else, like me, except their lives only exist in a short period packaged within the duration of a film. They existed in their lives, loved and were loved, lived the most complete life under our observation. Meanwhile, our lives continue out there, perhaps without such beautiful friendships, open career paths, a warm family, a dream love; perhaps to us, they are the lucky ones, the extraordinary ones, but who knows, to those around us, we might be such the lucky person too. The luckiest person in the end is the one who knows they are lucky; each person has their own life, a blank page is the beginning of all the colors we will paint later. Making mistakes is okay, being foolish is no problem—youth is a stage of life where if we make wrong choices, we fix them together because we're still young, we still have time. Therefore, I want to say to my future self, keep living in your youth, even if you think you've matured, don't be afraid, never feel that life has lost its meaning, you still have, and always have, enough time to fix mistakes. Mistakes are also a part of the soul, don't mistreat them, don't regret, don't resent.

Writing this long, in the end, they're just words, old stories about that childish "youth" motif. The cycle, the impermanence of the world, ultimately are all flowery words about things people often mention when reminiscing about the past and knowing nothing about the future. But that's how people operate, everyone is the same, we're all ordinary with flaws, and it's these ordinary things that make us, that make this life. Perhaps it's been a long time since I gave a film this maximum score, because I always feel everything lacks something. But if I don't make an exception for "Always Home," then perhaps I couldn't explain how my mood and emotions operate. My emotions have filled in each flaw, and I feel emotions should still play the main role in each process of my experiencing cinema (art).

So there it is, the characters have accompanied me, entered my thoughts, aroused my anticipation, indescribable emotions, joy, satisfaction, sadness, contentment, excitement, hope, nostalgia, and impression. The setting, music, plot, lighting, colors, ending, meaning... all contributed to creating a story neither short nor long, not telling an entire human life, but stayed with me for a short time, then became a part of my soul.

A youth film, nothing more, and that's a compliment.

In conclusion, I want to affirm that I truly liked the story of each character in the film, the story of their everlasting youth, of young people and those no longer young in age, of those who love and those who are loved, of those still there and those who left their souls there. Perhaps my process of watching the film was truly a special journey that I will never forget.

And, the final final word, the acting was super excellent! I believed in Zhai Xiaowen's acting from the start, but Zhou Keyu surprised me, really. I'm not describing, evaluating, or deeply critiquing each story and character in this review because I'm truly seeing all their stories as one story with a common name—love. (Though I must say I really liked the Song Tong - Du Man couple—the kissing scene truly left me speechless and I had to pause for five minutes to calm down.) Everyone's chemistry was good, from family to friends to romance, especially scenes depicting very slight stirrings, very light touches, for which I must separately praise the director for the scene arrangement, and can't forget the sound and the actors' gazes. For a film with such complex romantic storylines to be so smooth and understandable, such scenes depicting emotion are truly valuable. And really, thank you to my past self from last week who decided to watch this film despite its "roundabout" nature, because these films aren't frustrating about relationships at all.

In general, this is a beautiful film, in every way.

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