DramaDreams100

Three episodes in, Till I See You has an interesting enough premise to keep me watching, but so far I’m sitting at a solid “meh+.”

The story opens with Song Yi explaining that while he was growing up, his stepfather would sometimes call him by the wrong name. Song Yi began to think of himself as only half a person, and imagined that if he could find the person who actually belonged to that other name, the two of them together might somehow make a whole.

That is what brings him from Singapore to the Mainland.

He arrives at a restaurant run by his senior sister, who previously worked for Song Yi’s family at their Japanese restaurant. He asks her to give him room and board in exchange for working there. She essentially tells him that he is a good young master who needs to go home to Singapore, but Song Yi insists that he cannot leave until he finds the person he came looking for.

This is already a little questionable because Song Yi is nearly finished with university and still needs to sit for his finals. Whatever drove him to leave Singapore was apparently important enough for him to skip classes at the very end of his degree and potentially jeopardize years of work, but after three episodes we still don’t really know why the timing was so urgent. At the moment, the answer feels mostly like: because the script needed him there.

His senior sister tells him to find the person and get himself back to Singapore before his family decides to blame her for keeping him there.

And then, naturally, Xu Feiyu walks into the restaurant.

Blindfolded.

Using a cane to navigate because he is temporarily unable to see after eye surgery.

He walks directly into Song Yi.

Senior sister settles Feiyu into a booth, then tells Song Yi to walk him home after he eats. Once Song Yi gets him there, he realizes that Feiyu lives in the house shown in the photograph he has of the person he came to find.

So after traveling all the way from Singapore on this mysterious search: presto chango, there he is.

Feiyu, unfortunately, is not exactly pleasant company. He has already driven away all of his previous caregivers. His mother is apparently abroad somewhere doing something, which is an interesting choice immediately after her son has undergone major eye surgery, but again: script.

Senior sister says she will find him another caregiver, and this time Song Yi basically says, “Challenge accepted.”

Song Yi also has a practical reason to stay. His father has cut off his credit cards in an attempt to force him back to Singapore, so taking care of Feiyu gives him somewhere to live. Why he still cannot go home even after finding the person he came to find is another question the drama has not answered yet.

Feiyu is stubborn, childish, combative, and very loud when he throws tantrums. The performance does not always sell those scenes particularly well, although in fairness, Feiyu is clearly supposed to be a traumatized young man rather than simply an obnoxious one.

When he becomes extremely upset, he hears rats inside his head. He also has haphephobia and normally cannot tolerate being touched, yet he quickly notices that Song Yi’s touch does not trigger the same reaction.

He also seems to fall an impressive number of times whenever Song Yi is nearby, which does make me wonder how he was surviving before Song Yi arrived, especially since he keeps chasing away everyone assigned to look after him.

And I still have questions about the blindfold itself. If Feiyu drives every caregiver away, who exactly keeps tying that elaborate thing onto his head?

Song Yi tries to be a responsible caregiver, partly because he needs somewhere to stay and partly because Feiyu is the person he came all this way to find. Their relationship so far consists largely of bickering, Feiyu resisting everything Song Yi tries to do for him, and Song Yi attempting to placate him.

There are some more interesting moments underneath that.

One night, while Feiyu is asleep, Song Yi mentally asks his stepfather how he could have left Feiyu, because “he is still a child.” That suggests there is considerably more behind Song Yi’s search — and behind the connection between Feiyu and his stepfather — than we currently know.

Song Yi also becomes intrigued enough by Feiyu’s psychological issues that he starts wondering whether he could help him overcome them. When he brings that idea to his senior sister, she gives him what is probably the most sensible advice anyone has offered so far: finish school and mind your business. Good intentions do not always lead to good outcomes.

Acting-wise, neither male lead is particularly strong for me yet.

The actor playing Song Yi is so handsome, and I think he is the better of the two performers so far, but even he frequently feels like someone acting rather than someone fully inhabiting the character.

Feiyu is harder to judge because he has the more demanding role. He has to portray trauma, anger, fear, childishness, blindness, haphephobia, and whatever is happening psychologically when he hears the rats. That is a lot. Unfortunately, some of his bigger emotional scenes feel performed rather than lived in, especially the shouting and tantrums.

Also, I can barely tell what Feiyu actually looks like because of that ridiculous blindfold, although he definitely has excellent cheekbones.

Right now, both actors are okay-ish rather than genuinely compelling. Neither is skilled enough yet to completely pull me into the story and make me forget that I’m watching performances.

Still, I do like the premise. There are enough unanswered questions surrounding Song Yi’s stepfather, Feiyu’s identity, Song Yi’s determination to find him, Feiyu’s trauma, and the unusual fact that Song Yi can touch him without triggering his haphephobia that I’m interested enough to continue.

So for now: interesting premise, very handsome lead, some potentially good psychological material, questionable plotting conveniences, uneven acting, and a lot still unexplained.

Meh+.

But I’m still watching.