Stand By Me (2012)

A beautiful story about the trials of life and forgiveness

I honestly thought this would be tragic and melodramatic and too heavy for my taste, especially since I myself had once an autistic sibling, like the female lead.
But I actually loved it. They succeeded in offering a sober and simple writing, without making it heavily tragic. They just represent honestly what life can be for some people : harder. But not necessarily impossible to overcome. We can even get some joy and happiness if we work hard enough and if we show enough courage.
One of my favorite points of the story is that no one is purely bad or selfish here, like it is in so many melodramatic dramas. The story succeeds in showing how easy it is to make some bad decisions with the best intention in the world, only to realize later WHY this was a mistake. The parents of the female lead, both mother and father, are the best example : Winston Chao offers such a beautiful performance as the repenting father who accidentally abandoned his wife and his kids, even though this wasn't his initial intention. This man is fascinating character : despite the premises, we quickly find ourselves unable to hate this man, as we understand that his intention was never to be selfish, to run from his responsibilities or to hurt anyone. But life struck him like everyone and it's not always easy to take the best decisions or to realize we're taking the bad ones. Moreover, through the whole series, we follow with emotion his progress to redemption and his reconciliation with his children. I like the fact that the forgiveness and reconciliation is not sudden : it is slow paced, which is actually more realistic. After all, you can't forget and forgive being abandoned in just one night. The father's efforts to reconnect with his autistic son who grew afraid to see anything connected to his father due to the trauma are striking to follow. It is unfortunately sad that in reality we rarely see this kind of parents who are really eager to work hard to make up to the children they wronged and seeing one in a drama with a storyline properly executed feels like a sweet relief.
Now for those who don't want just slice of life, yes, there is a bit of romance : although the romance isn't the main point of the story, it is still interesting to follow, despite the fact that there's the usual cliche "childhood friends". We love the bound between Pu Tao and Mo Li and the two actors have great chemistry.
Also the story never stops moving. It is not boring or stagnating, there's always a progress.
And all of the characters have a personal storyline, and show a great performance (except maybe one, but I won't give name : it is someone that I've never considered as a good performer anyway but I'd say that here, this person did okay compared to usually). Like I said, there's no white or black character : everyone has its flaws, its qualities, its reasons, its mistakes, its successes, its background, its storyline... There's no villain, just life.
In short, a beautiful story about the trials of life, family, forgiveness and about the difficulties of having an autistic child in your life, as well as about the happiness that they can bring you, despite their condition. As someone who, I said it, had an autistic sibling, this is a very important point for me.

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