As someone who's reached that stage in life where I see my parents and relatives noticeably aging and realize that time flies, movies and TV shows about aging and age-related illnesses hit too close to home for me. In fact, even hearing actors I grew up watching on the big screen talk about things with a sense of finitude makes me incredibly emotional. Last week, I rushed to the theater to see Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning and felt an immense sense of euphoria and excitement (and I did). But by the time the end credits rolled, I was in floods of tears because the film had blurred the line between Tom Cruise and Ethan Hunt to tell the audience that the man, the myth, and the legend is getting too old to do his own stunts for our entertainment. So I can safely say I was in the right frame of mind to binge-watch Forget You Not.
However, in addition to being emotionally vulnerable, I'm also critical. Forget You Not by Rene Liu, written by Shing-Ming Ho, Liu and Pao-Chang Tsai, tells the story of Cheng Le-Le, who works in a retail store during the day and as a stand-up comedian at night. She is about to marry Chang Kai, a high-profile lawyer. Her best friends are Lin Chia-Yun, a homemaker, and Huang Su-Fei, a tour guide for Dragon Tours. And then there is Le-Le’s enigmatic father, Cheng Kuang-Chi. After Le-Le’s mother, Hsiao-Fang, abandoned the family when Le-Le was just a child, the responsibility of looking after Le-Le fell on Kuang-Chi.
Stars: Ying-Hsuan Hsieh, Chin Han, Tracy Chou
But since he used to be a sailor, he had to be at sea most of the time, forcing Le-Le to be her own mother, which in turn caused her to develop some resentment towards her father. This is compounded by the antics of Kuang-Chi, who spent his final years hospitalized after suffering freak accidents. Still, everything is manageable for Le-Le because he has a job, a fiancé, good friends, and a father who can practically take care of himself. However, when those pillars of his life begin to crumble, he finds himself in the middle of a storm of chaos, anxiety, and grief. Whether Le-Le will survive or succumb to this stagnation is the crux of the series' story.
Forget You Not has a lot to offer because it seeks to balance between an everyday story and a heartbreaking family drama about dementia. When it manages to find that balance, it manages to evoke the reaction it seeks from its audience. When it fails to do so, it becomes a nightmare. I don't want to give anything away because I assume this is a highly anticipated project for fans of Taiwanese series. So, I'll just say vaguely that everything involving Le-Le and Kuang-Chi is perfect. The portrayal of how, after a certain point, the father becomes the son and the son becomes the father is perfect. The way the writers highlight the difficulties of being a caregiver for your parents while carrying the weight of capitalism and Alzheimer's is immensely relatable. And I'm pretty sure that, in the end, watching the characters use comedy to commemorate each other will bring tears to your eyes. However, the reason it didn't resonate with me as much is because of the subplots. Le-Le and her friends would have made a great series, especially since it explores the lives of three women in three very different circumstances, but here, it feels like a distraction. The same can be said for the class conflict between Le-Le and Chang Kai; it simply takes up too much space and undermines the main narrative.
As I mentioned before, I'm susceptible to emotional manipulation these days. That said, I'm also wary of deceptive emotional manipulation. So, when Forget You Not sparingly intercuts scenes between Kuang-Chi taking care of Le-Le in the past and the opposite in the present, it works. The themes of fatherhood and the responsibilities of a child after 40 are palpable. But as soon as they get overdone, with the addition of slow motion, unmotivated lighting, and orchestral music, I stop taking it seriously. Then it feels like it's parodying the genre in which the show is set. The tone is generally good. The fourth wall breaks, the occasional flashbacks to Le-Le's story, and the comedic monologues are fine. However, when all of that is juxtaposed with scenes of Le-Le with her friends or her fiancé, the show's overall impact diminishes. This is mainly because, visually, these scenes aren't groundbreaking and, moreover, they don't fit substantially into the main narrative. It seems like all the writers had a bunch of conflicting ideas, which they tried to cram into a haphazard box, thus ruining the final product. Had Netflix ordered them to make eight scattered episodes instead of five or six focused ones?
The performances in Forget You Not are all great. Hsieh Ying-Xuan is terrific in the dramatic moments, but what really impressed me was his stand-up comedy. For some reason, scenes of actors doing stand-up comedy in movies and TV shows always aren't as funny as live or recorded stand-up comedy performed by real comedians. To be honest, when real comedians do a stand-up comedy scene in a movie or TV show, it falls flat. The reason can be anything from bad writing to bad comic timing. But Ying-Xuan is fantastic; please take note.
Chin Han is excellent. The way he goes from a carefree veteran to a shell of his former self is heartbreaking. He's a legend, and I expected nothing less from him. Tracey Chou and Esther Liu are incredible. That said, I would love to see them appear in a series, along with Ying-Xuan, focused exclusively on the struggles of a group of friends struggling to stay together due to their personal and professional responsibilities. Wallace Huo, Chen Yiwen, Bo-Chieh Wang, Julia Wu, and the rest of the supporting cast are splendid. They all deserve a resounding round of applause.
Forget You Not is definitely a series worth watching for fans of sentimental family dramas. I'm sure they'll be swimming in tears by the end credits of the final episode. The acting is great. There are some interesting twists and turns. But the sheer number of episodes and subplots can hinder the overall experience. As for the overall message, I think it's also a bit mixed. It tries to emphasize the importance of loving your parents when they're around, rather than lamenting your lack of attention once they're gone.
However, it chooses to avoid any examples of bad parenting, thus avoiding the question of what children should do if they've grown up in an abusive home. Still, the responsibility of caring for these parents falls squarely on their shoulders. The series deglamorizes the arduous task of being a parental caregiver, especially in an economic climate where one must juggle two or more jobs to make ends meet. That said, just when things get tough, they put aside all sources of conflict to deliver a perfect ending.
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