This review may contain spoilers
I wanna hug Yi Fan and completely shower her with gift!!!!!!
Okay so watching this because of the Hidden Love series made me think it was going to be a light hearted romance drama but I was definitely wrong...
WARNING I TALK ABOUT SEXUAL ASSAULT + ABUSE
Female Lead:
Never in my life have I cried this much literally every episode and all my tears were for Yi Fan . We are first introduced to her as a character that is a victim of sexual assault and it affects her daily life, her life seems boring and tasteless. You can tell that Yi Fan is currently carrying a lot of unhealed trauma from her living conditions to her reaction to certain behaviours. One thing that I was very grateful for this show was that Yi Fan's trauma was meticulously written as her trauma wasn't glossed over or written with the intend of romance. This show clearly depicted how Yi Fan's actions are impacted from this, for example her zero tolerance for any type of harassment despite the 'mildness' of it or any unconsented and unpredictable physical touch from the opposite gender. From this she's seen as having an hard exterior for her willingness to fight justice and knowing who to cut off and set strict boundaries for herself. Her healing of trauma was centred around her meeting her high school classmate Sang Yan, who she had known before her incident, when she was an innocent child and stopped contact after the incident. This truly made her relook into the past with someone from her past and relook at the wholesome memories that were overshadowed by the trauma she faced. She also managed to find a special someone to care for her and reassure her that she should never doubt the intense things she had to face.
Male Lead:
So San Yang was someone I did not really like at all in the majority beginning of the show. This was mainly because of his lack of awareness of what potentially Yi Fan must have gone through. Especially throughout high school, he literally witnessed her being abused and neglected by her family. His ego was to big and when they reunited he was to focused of the fact that Yi Fan left him. However, it was so satisfying when throughout the show it actually presented why San Yang actually thought like this. One of the main reasons was because he grew up in a very loving family that made him oblivious to how much Yi Fan's family impacted her. His ego grew each time he helped Yi Fan out, for example when he overheard her family say she doesn't deserve food her provides her food and thought that was enough to make sure she's the happiest, which is all good intentions but he thought she wouldn't be impacted from the absence of love from her family because of the love he showed her. Therefore when she breaks their promise of going to the same uni San Yang is truly heart broken since he has done all of this for his love for Yi Fan however she replied with going to a different uni. This point is thoroughly explained when San Yang took accountability and apologised for holding such a big ego and had not considered her feeling at all (this scene literally made me sooooo happy cause I was still a little stingy about his character). Falling in love with Yi Fan 'again' was the main route of his character development since it made him question why she choice to leave and cut off contact and genially improved him as a person.
Yi Fan's relationship with her family:
Okay so one of my biggest pet peeve that is apparent in many shows is how despite all the terrible and sometimes criminal act a family does, at the end of the show it's all happy happy and all is forgiven. But in First Frost, it is finally handled realistically and how it should always be handled. Yi Fan and her mother possess a very difficult and strained relationship since after Yi Fan's dad died, her mother needed time alone and made Yi Fan lack a mother figure and made her stay with her neglectful Aunt and that despicable being of a person. Despite all of Yi Fan's plead to be taken back and even opening about how that that despicable being of a person has been sexually assaulting her, her mother brushed it off and was too centred around her life, she neglected Yi Fan. Now Yi Fan's older and her mother has 'settled down' the mother finally wants to start to rebuild the relationship. However, Yi Fan decides to cut off her whole family, including her mother at the end of the show, to symbolise has she's moved from the past and has people she loves now and cares for her. This ending was really satisfying because she clearly states to the mother that when she needed her to most, she wasn't there. Yi Fan says that her mother's daughter has been killed and saying that made a weight leave from Yi Fan's chest.
Yi Fan's dream was to be in ballet, however after that incident that injured her ankles, she is physically unable to reach that dream. In the later episodes when she ran away to Hongkong, she becomes a temporary ballet teacher. This is when us as viewers sees a woman who is so close yet so far from their dreams. This truly made me ugly cry from how much one person can impact ones life. How many people in the world have gone through such intense traumas and still haven't received justice or even allowed to call themselves a victim.
Disadvantage:
I found myself skipping all the scenes with the side couple because it was just so basic, boring and predictable it actually annoyed me how much screen time they took. Also that whole grandpa thingy literally took nearly a whole episode. It was just a really random topic to focus in and did NOTHING to the main plot. Also I genially felt like Yi Fan's and Si Qiao's friendship should have been covered a lot more since this show mainly only focused on romantic relationships and kind of only bought up their friendship when it was convenient. Like when Yi Fan was opening Si Qiao, it was literally cut out and jumped straight into Si Qiao telling Yi Fan she went through a lot and that was it. Also San Yang as a character had literal to no personality or hobbies and kind of just existed for Yi Fan, but this bever bothered me as much because this show was all about Yi Fan and her journey.
Ending:
Okay so despite this being a 'happy ending' I think it is more of a bitter sweet ending. Because yes Yi Fan's perpetrator got arrested, she established her relationship with her family and got with San Yang and even opened up to him. However, this still makes me highly emotionally because despite all her efforts this trauma is still with in her. She still lived through all of this.
WARNING I TALK ABOUT SEXUAL ASSAULT + ABUSE
Female Lead:
Never in my life have I cried this much literally every episode and all my tears were for Yi Fan . We are first introduced to her as a character that is a victim of sexual assault and it affects her daily life, her life seems boring and tasteless. You can tell that Yi Fan is currently carrying a lot of unhealed trauma from her living conditions to her reaction to certain behaviours. One thing that I was very grateful for this show was that Yi Fan's trauma was meticulously written as her trauma wasn't glossed over or written with the intend of romance. This show clearly depicted how Yi Fan's actions are impacted from this, for example her zero tolerance for any type of harassment despite the 'mildness' of it or any unconsented and unpredictable physical touch from the opposite gender. From this she's seen as having an hard exterior for her willingness to fight justice and knowing who to cut off and set strict boundaries for herself. Her healing of trauma was centred around her meeting her high school classmate Sang Yan, who she had known before her incident, when she was an innocent child and stopped contact after the incident. This truly made her relook into the past with someone from her past and relook at the wholesome memories that were overshadowed by the trauma she faced. She also managed to find a special someone to care for her and reassure her that she should never doubt the intense things she had to face.
Male Lead:
So San Yang was someone I did not really like at all in the majority beginning of the show. This was mainly because of his lack of awareness of what potentially Yi Fan must have gone through. Especially throughout high school, he literally witnessed her being abused and neglected by her family. His ego was to big and when they reunited he was to focused of the fact that Yi Fan left him. However, it was so satisfying when throughout the show it actually presented why San Yang actually thought like this. One of the main reasons was because he grew up in a very loving family that made him oblivious to how much Yi Fan's family impacted her. His ego grew each time he helped Yi Fan out, for example when he overheard her family say she doesn't deserve food her provides her food and thought that was enough to make sure she's the happiest, which is all good intentions but he thought she wouldn't be impacted from the absence of love from her family because of the love he showed her. Therefore when she breaks their promise of going to the same uni San Yang is truly heart broken since he has done all of this for his love for Yi Fan however she replied with going to a different uni. This point is thoroughly explained when San Yang took accountability and apologised for holding such a big ego and had not considered her feeling at all (this scene literally made me sooooo happy cause I was still a little stingy about his character). Falling in love with Yi Fan 'again' was the main route of his character development since it made him question why she choice to leave and cut off contact and genially improved him as a person.
Yi Fan's relationship with her family:
Okay so one of my biggest pet peeve that is apparent in many shows is how despite all the terrible and sometimes criminal act a family does, at the end of the show it's all happy happy and all is forgiven. But in First Frost, it is finally handled realistically and how it should always be handled. Yi Fan and her mother possess a very difficult and strained relationship since after Yi Fan's dad died, her mother needed time alone and made Yi Fan lack a mother figure and made her stay with her neglectful Aunt and that despicable being of a person. Despite all of Yi Fan's plead to be taken back and even opening about how that that despicable being of a person has been sexually assaulting her, her mother brushed it off and was too centred around her life, she neglected Yi Fan. Now Yi Fan's older and her mother has 'settled down' the mother finally wants to start to rebuild the relationship. However, Yi Fan decides to cut off her whole family, including her mother at the end of the show, to symbolise has she's moved from the past and has people she loves now and cares for her. This ending was really satisfying because she clearly states to the mother that when she needed her to most, she wasn't there. Yi Fan says that her mother's daughter has been killed and saying that made a weight leave from Yi Fan's chest.
Yi Fan's dream was to be in ballet, however after that incident that injured her ankles, she is physically unable to reach that dream. In the later episodes when she ran away to Hongkong, she becomes a temporary ballet teacher. This is when us as viewers sees a woman who is so close yet so far from their dreams. This truly made me ugly cry from how much one person can impact ones life. How many people in the world have gone through such intense traumas and still haven't received justice or even allowed to call themselves a victim.
Disadvantage:
I found myself skipping all the scenes with the side couple because it was just so basic, boring and predictable it actually annoyed me how much screen time they took. Also that whole grandpa thingy literally took nearly a whole episode. It was just a really random topic to focus in and did NOTHING to the main plot. Also I genially felt like Yi Fan's and Si Qiao's friendship should have been covered a lot more since this show mainly only focused on romantic relationships and kind of only bought up their friendship when it was convenient. Like when Yi Fan was opening Si Qiao, it was literally cut out and jumped straight into Si Qiao telling Yi Fan she went through a lot and that was it. Also San Yang as a character had literal to no personality or hobbies and kind of just existed for Yi Fan, but this bever bothered me as much because this show was all about Yi Fan and her journey.
Ending:
Okay so despite this being a 'happy ending' I think it is more of a bitter sweet ending. Because yes Yi Fan's perpetrator got arrested, she established her relationship with her family and got with San Yang and even opened up to him. However, this still makes me highly emotionally because despite all her efforts this trauma is still with in her. She still lived through all of this.
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