"Addicted" stars Xu Weizhou (许魏洲) as Bai Luo Yin, Huang Jingyu (黃景瑜) as Gu Hai, Ling Fengsong (林枫松) as You Qi and Chen Wen (陈稳) as Yang Meng. All of these actors were fairly new to the entertainment industry in China but this series made everyone pay attention to these upcoming talents.
The 10 episode web drama with each episode being 21-25 minutes in length captured major attention in China with the series's episodes garnering millions of plays by the middle of the season one. The show also captured my attention when i saw the OST cover on an chinese music streaming site and i knew right away it was a boy's love story. I had to go and look into this show some more and i'm sure glad that i did.
The plot of Addicted is a very simple one, Students going to school and trying to make it through each day given the trials of growing up and problems with family. The story is so simple that you don't mind that its simple because the actors breath life into the spaces that would have made the viewer bored after awhile.
Characters Bai Luo Yin and Gu Hai showcase their parts respectively well, painting a world of a poor teenage boy verse a rich spoiled teenage boy in Bejing China. Both characters could not be anymore different but they fall into place like a puzzle that was meant to be connected when they meet. Their relationship is a game of cat and mouse with Gu Hai show ing every bit of his witty, masculine, persona as the cat and Bai Luo Yin being the smart, family centered, passive aggressive mouse. Their acting feeds off of each other and it makes their chemistry so strong that you wonder is love a homosexual or heterosexual subject? Is it not possible to drawn to someone regardless of their gender? Addicted raises this question as both characters do not clam gay in the series. Bai Luo Yin and Gu Hai's classmates known as Ling Fengsong and Chen Wen layer on the comical relief that makes the scenes at school light hearted and rememberable. The way each and every character interacts with each other takes the viewer into that time of adolescence. A time you only have once in a lifetime. What makes me sad is that Fengsong and Chen Wen didn't get that much screen time and a lot of the scenes that were going to be in the show got cut out. Their story didn't really start to form until the later half of the series.(This could be alright if season two is made.)
The shooting of Addicted was raw and straight forward since the series was filmed on a low budget. If I am to quote my friend, "The budget for the show is so low that it looks like a reality show." I wouldn't go as far as to say it looks like that but you can tell it was made on a low budget. Even with that being said, I personally love the way the show was shot because you couldn't sugarcoat the poverty of some of the locations.(those outdoor showers!) I notice that chinese cinema does this a lot with many of their movies and its showing a truthful way of life. The upscale nicer locations looked nice too because nothing was added to try to make it more than what it was.
As for the soundtrack of Addicted, actor Xu Weizhou lent his voice and penned the lyrics for the opening theme song(If Hai has Yin海若有因) and the closing theme song(Walk Slowly慢慢走). I don't want to talk too much about these songs because i will make another post but I won't lie, Walk Slowly does something to my heart every time I hear it.
Addicted is a drama that has great acting to make up for its simple storyline and characters that you will remember for a lifetime. It seems more and more likely that season two will not be made since this series was banned from China's streaming sites do to "inappropriate themes". I still say you should support by watching on youtube and sharing with your asian drama friends. I haven't completely given up hope for season two either.
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