Taiwanese Drama: Love at Seventeen (我和我的十七歲)
Episodes: 15
Aired: April 2016
Episode One Recap By Ninja
The scenes opens with our hero running on a sky bridge searching desperately for someone. In a voice over we hear his voice “That year, before I even knew your name I was chasing after you. Who knew after 13 years I am still chasing after you. Where are you Alice?”
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Time jump back to our two leads’ school days.
We meet our heroine first. Feeling bad for her best friend who has been longing for her father to come watch her swim meet, our heroine Alice interrupts Daddy Bai’s (best friend’s father) election rally by throwing her shoe in the air. Squatting down to doge the shoe that suddenly descended from the sky, Daddy Bai looks up to see a smiling Alice.
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While Alice is throwing her shoe around, we meet our hero He Hao Yi as he uses his awesome parkour moves to run away from two policeman who think he might be a runaway.
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Not a runaway exactly but more like an orphan after the death of his father, Hao Yi harbors a lot of resentment towards his mother and twin sister for never answering his pleading letters to visit his father one last time before he died.
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Literally jumping over Hao Yi when they almost collided, Alice is too focused on rushing to her best friend’s swim meet to notice that she lost her wallet. Surprised when she finally notices our hero who has been chasing after her the whole time, Alice gratefully takes back her wallet and points Hao Yi the right way to go once she finds out that he is a new transferred student to their school.
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Instead of rushing off to register himself for school, Hao Yi wonders the hall and finally finds his twin sister’s desk. Sitting down at his sister’s desk, Hao Yi proceeds to systematically go through her things…and mess them up. My favorite thing Hao Yi did was shaking up his sister’s pudding. The pudding is one of those really awesome Taiwanese pudding that has a two layers and shaking it up before you eat it is a big no no for most people.
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Noticing the little bear he saw on sister’s desk hanging on Alice’s backpack, Hao Yi mistakenly assumes that Alice must be his twin sister. Even more convinced of Alice’s identity once he sees her talking with a woman he recognizes as his mother, Hao Yi sneers as he watches his mother lovingly hands a gift to Alice and mutters “Yes, I guess today must be your birthday as well.”
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Unable to swallow the bitterness and resentment towards his twin sister, Hao Yi proceeds to pick on her at every opportunity. Speechless when Hao Yi starts dumping a bag of leafs on the sidewalk she just swept, Alice starts bickering with him. Frustrated with Hao Yi, Alice doesn’t think anything of it when he says “You are such a nag! It’s so sad being your brother,” and yells back “There is only me and my mom so I thank you for my non-existent brother.” Hurt by Alice’s innocent words, Hao Yi becomes even more determined to make her life difficult
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Thoughtful when he saw Alice trying to convince her friend Shu Lei (the same one that had the swim meet) to not smoke the cigarette she stole from her father in an act of rebellion, Hao Yi nonchalantly tells a teacher about seeing someone smoking. Despite being puzzled and confused when the school officials finds a packet of cigarette in her backpack instead of Shu Lei’s, Alice nonetheless quickly took the blame when Shu Lei tries to tell the truth.
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Thanks to a tip from a classmate, Alice soon finds out that Hao Yi is the tattletale and confronts him at the school pool. Foolishly turning back in concern after she pushed Hao Yi into the pool and he disappeared, Alice yelps in surprise when Hao Yi suddenly jumps out and pulls her into the water as well.
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Wet and angry as she walks out of the pool area with Hao Yi, Alice’s anger surges to a new height when Hao Yi freely admits that he has made his mission to torture her.
Immensely satisfied as he looks at Alice’s furious face, Hao Yi’s glee is destined to be short lived however. Stunned when Alice’s friends’ demands “Why are you picking on our Alice?” Hao Yi belatedly realizes that he has been torturing the wrong person all this time. Looking at the three enraged girls in front of him, Hao Yi mutters “I got the wrong person…” before taking running away.
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Disappointed when she shows up at the comic store to find out that the newest publication of her favorite comic has been checked out by someone else, Alice is overjoyed when she sees the very comic book laying on an empty table. Jumping back when she almost has her hand on the book, Alice is dismayed to look up to see Hao Yi standing in front of her.
Perhaps feeling somewhat guilty for everything he has done to her, Hao Yi stops Alice from scampering away and allows her to read the comic book she so desperately wanted.
Busy cooking his Ramen dinner while Alice is reading the comic book, Hao Yi jumps up when the lights suddenly goes out and Alice starts screaming in fear. Calming down enough to stop screaming, Alice looks up and realizes that she is very very close to Hao Yi.
Ninja’s First Impression
Hmm…This one looks pretty promising. I was fairly disappointed with Lego Lee’s last two drama (Aim High and Love Cuisine) so I am really hoping Love at Seventeen is going to be a winner.
Episode one was certainly a good start since both the story and the chemistry between the two leads were all great. My only issue was that it felt a bit weird to watch all these very adult characters trying to act like high school students. For example, as far as the story goes it was entirely reasonable that our 16 year old hero would do all those childish things to pick on a twin sister he secretly misses BUT then it seems kinda silly when that person is Lego Lee behaving in ways that he is too old to be doing. Oh,well. I am just hoping the high school portion doesn’t drag on for too long.
By the way, I didn’t get to cover Edison Wang’s character in the recap but he plays Han Ming the nerdy kid that has a crush on the Alice’s friend Shu Lei. I am used to Edison Wang playing suave playboy sort of character so it was fun to see him playing a nerd for once.
Anyhow, way too early to declare this one a winner yet but episode one was a lovely start and gives me great hope I can put this one on my watch list soon.
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