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Psych

I usually skip anything about psychological drama, as I've dealt with enough of that in real life. Actor Jing Boran playing the male lead in the Chinese romantic drama series Psychologist is who snagged my interest, as he's an interesting guy. He completely flips his persona in this long drama, and the female lead is equally as interesting to watch, but as for the rest . . . . we'll get to that, too.

Here's the set up for the series: He Dun (Yang Zi), a psychologist with some major childhood trauma, loses her job as a crisis counselor and decides to start her own clinic. She meets up with Qian Kaiyi (Jing Boran), a broadcaster and former school classmate who wants to recruit her to work with him on a mental health radio show. He's fascinated by her, and doesn't know she had a secret crush on him in school (he also humiliated her back then, too.) Conflicts start popping up involving both clinic and radio show patients, a secretive new neighbor, He Dun's longtime mentor/surrogate Dad, and Kaiyi's intense rivalry with another broadcaster.

Since Kaiyi is kind of a lounge lizard type, and He Dun is super serious, you can't imagine at first how these two will end up in a romance. That slowly evolves, and it's pretty convincing. I was startled and then weirdly absorbed by how different Jing Boran is in this role. He was super serious in Road Home, but this time he's like another person entirely. There's a big cast, and other interesting side plots, but the romantic relationship between the leads is slow but very nice. I also liked the supporting cast a lot.

Onto the problems with this series: there are a lot, I'm afraid. I've never seen patients with serious mental health problems be completely cured by a couple of talk sessions; all of the patients in this drama are. I cannot believe what the secretive new neighbor does so easily, how long he gets away with it, and how when he's caught the cops basically give him a slap on the wrist. This guy would be in jail for twenty or thirty years for the same offenses here. Also, apparently the side effects of Prozac in China turn one into a maniac, if this story is to be believed. He Dun has some serious flaws, but the way she behaves in the last couple of episodes makes me question everything that came before them. Finally the whole series is cut short because the producers had to drop eight episodes due to a new episode limiting law over there.

Despite all the problems I did like Psychologist. The stylization and illustration of the patients' disorders was creative and, if not exactly accurate, very interesting. Jing Boran was again fabulous in his role; the guy is a total chameleon. I think if they ever release the final eight episodes (they were broadcast as a part two/followup series) I'd like to watch them just to see how He Dun gets over her troubles and cements her relationship with Kaiyi. Available on Viki.com.

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