Quick Recap & Thoughts on Ep2 of Rock ‘n’ Road A咖的路

The second episode is a lot more exciting than the pilot episode as they introduce the first conflict and our hero, Shu-Yu finds himself standing in front of an intersection, he’s forced to choose between his moral ethics and his love towards his girlfriend. In other words, it’s either hurting the innocent Wei-Zhen or losing his friends and company’s reputation. No matter what his decision is, someone is bound to get hurt.

Quick Recap:

Shu-Yu listens to Jia-Xin’s so-called latest original composition, he’s very eager and excited to fill in the lyrics for her. Seeing how satisfied and excited he is about this stolen work, Jia-Xin doesn’t bother to clarify that it’s a work of others and instead, she decides to keep it a secret from him and shamelessly treat it as her own work. Li-Da who is always supportive of Jia-Xin blindly supports her decision and I’m so disgusted by these 2 people that I want them to disappear from my screen.

As the album preparation is coming to an end, Shu-Yu and the music staffs hang out in A-Ni’s bar for celebration. Being the good childhood friend and admirer of Wei-Zhen, he uses this opportunity to market his crush by showing Shu-Yu her youtube video on phone. Coincidentally, Wei-Zhen is humming to the stolen work in the video and Shu-Yu mistakes her as a crazy girl who will steal works of others in order to be famous. Furious, he swears to sue her to death.

Wei-Zhen who’s as naive as ever doesn’t understand her situation and happily makes an appearance in his office to ask what was that sue threat all about. The sharp-tongued Shu-Yu accuse her being a good actress that fools him with her innocent look and insults her character. Peeved by his accusations, she explains that the song is composed by her father and Jia-Xin, Li-Da heard her playing the tune in A-Ni’s bar the other day and counter-attacks him as the plagiarizer. Finally understanding the full picture, Shu-Yu is disappointed in his long-time friend and girlfriend, he promises to help Wei-Zhen as long as she can find evidence that the song is composed by her dad.

Shu-Yu confronts Jia-Xin and Li-Da and demands an explanation of why they did such an under-handed thing. Jia-Xin gives a weak explanation and tries to play the victim card by pulling out her past sob story when she was hated by the public because of a mistake in broadcast so she really cannot afford to let anyone know about her being a thief. Why did she steal it in the first place and acts like the victim when she’s the criminal? I’m in utter disgust about her moral and working ethic, get her out of my screen!! Li-Da blindly supports her by offering to make compensation towards Wei-Zhen and even gets into an argument with Shu-Yu. Shu-Yu hates the idea of using music to hurt others as he love music and takes pride in his work. He thinks that stealing a work of others is the same as stealing the dream of another person so he’d rather delay the album release press conference indefinitely and wait until Jia-Xin to write her own song. Seeing that he’s being so stubborn about his principles, Li-Da decides to proceed with the album release even if Shu-Yu doesn’t allow as delaying the press conference will lead to the media doubting Jia-Xin’s song-writing ability and he can’t stand Jia-Xin’s ego getting hurt.

Meanwhile, Wei-Zhen goes back to her hometown to find evidence left by her dad and to visit her mom, Mei-Nv, which means pretty woman in chinese, heh! Feeling guilty about the song getting into the hands of others, she tries to compensate her guilt by being extra sweet and caring towards her mom. Mei-Nv explains to Wei-Zhen that the song is a love confession from her shy dad but even before he left the world, she never hear him saying “I Love You” to her so she’ll be extremely happy if some day, someone fills in the lyric and Wei-Zhen sings the song. Wei-Zhen finds a record tape left by her dad in the attic and she decides to bring it to the press conference.

Guan-Guan, the assistant urges Shu-Yu to get ready for the press conference but Shu-Yu ignores her pleas as he’s unable to support Jia-Xin and Li-Da’s decision. As Guan-Guan leave him alone, he thinks about the past and how Jia-Xin helped him out when he was at his lowest. Flashbacks to 8 years ago, Ah-Ann, a singer under Shu-Yu’s label is about to jump down from the roof as she feels hurt from the attacks of the media because of his unintentional speech in his interview. He tries to stop her but to no avail. Shu-Yu is bombarded by the reporters as they accuse him as being the main reason the singer commits suicide and questions whether he will take responsibility by stepping down as a music producer. Jia-Xin who stands by his side assures the reporters that her producer is only one and that is Zhou Shu-Yu, nobody can replace him. The more he thinks about the past, the more frustrated he is as he feels conflicted in whether to go or not to the press conference.

 
Cuts to the press conference, Shu-Yu’s company staff recognizes Wei-Zhen outside the press conference room and she immediately orders people to drag her away from the hall. Shu-Yu arrives just in time to stop this and brings her into the press conference hall. Instead of revealing the full truth about Jia-Xin stealing Wei-Zhen’s dad composition, Shu-Yu announces that Jia-Xin’s new song is inspired by Wei-Zhen’s dad and let Jia-Xin sings the new song. Wei-Zhen calls her mom and put the phone near the speaker for her to listen the song filled in with lyrics as Jia-Xin sings. As Jia-Xin is about to finish the song, Shu-Yu instructs Wei-Zhen to play the tape to the audience and inside the audio is the love confession from her dad towards Mei-Nv. He narrates how he was love struck at first sight when he saw her mom and thanks her for all the happiness she has given him. Both Wei-Zhen and her mom get teary, and when he says the word, “I Love You, Mei-Nv” in the end, they finally burst in tears. Shu-Yu watches Wei-Zhen in silence, feeling conflicted.

Shu-Yu chases after Wei-Zhen as she leaves the hall after the end of the press conference, he questions why did she allow him to fool the audience. She answers that because who gets the song is not important anymore as long as her mom can listen to the song and making her mom happy is her priority. Because she is weak and she doesn’t know when she will make it big enough to sing the song, she would rather have Jia-Xin sing the song so her mom can listen to her dad’s confession than not able to reveal the song to the public indefinitely. Shu-Yu watches her leave with a heavy heart.

The staffs are happy about the success of the press conference and hold an after celebration party but Shu-Yu quietly stands in a corner. Jia-Xin keeps on stealing glances on him as his foul mood is obvious. Sensing the awkward atmosphere, Li-Da tries to comfort him by saying that Wei-Zhen has already accepted the fact so there’s no use for him to be unhappy anymore. Shu-Yu replies that no matter what, he will never forget this issue in his entire life and will always be ready to reflect on his actions. He left the party earlier as the CEO of the company arrives.

In A-Ni’s bar, Wei-Zhen is feeling down and orders him to prepare beer for her. She confides to him that Yang Jia-Xin sings her dad’s song today and nobody will know it’s composed by her dad. A-Ni furiously stood up for her and asks to see Shu-Yu in agitation. Coincidentally, Shu-Yu arrives at the bar and A-Ni immediately demand an explanation from him and ask them to talk it out. She sighs at the sight of him and gulps down the big mug of beer. Seeing how unhappy she is, Shu-Yu questions her why she cooperated with him to proceed with the act in the press conference if she finds it hard to accept the fact.

Getting drunk, Wei-Zhen retorts back that it’s not his place to blame her and explains that there will be no more opportunity for her dad’s song to be released to the public if she reveals the truth in the press conference so even though she really wants to sing the song, she can’t do it. Shu-Yu asks whether she knows what went wrong in her last audition and bluntly tells her that because her performance is so exaggerated that it distracts the attention on her vocals. He suggests her to take away unnecessary things and choose a song that fits her vocals. Wei-Zhen accepts the fact and drunkenly says she will give him another chance to watch all of her performance and if it’s really bad, he can ignore her in the future and she’ll leave the music industry. He agrees and she immediately asks him to not accept phone call again and run away like last time and he must watch all of her 198 kinds of performances. He cringes as he watches her crazy drunk antics.

Thoughts:

Sparks! I see sparks flying between Chris Wu and Kimi Hsia during the confrontation after the press conference. Even though it’s more like Shu-Yu feeling sorry and guilty to Wei-Zhen, there’s no doubt that he’s seeing her in a new light and that could be the start of an attraction. I’ll repeat myself like a broken record, Kimi Hsia is stronger in her emotional and serious scenes as that scene was so far, probably one of her best moments in the show and my favorite moment of this episode other than the daughter and mother emotional scene at the press conference. The way her eyes turned red as she tries to contain her tears and explains how helpless she is affects me and I felt so sorry for her. That was a strong emotional punch onto my heart. I feel like she’s slowly getting into character and that confrontation shows potential chemistry between Chris Wu and Kimi Hsia. I can’t wait for their romance to start because I can’t stand Jia-Xin’s character.

Chris Wu is charismatic and a strong actor, he’s really great in every single scenes. I could feel his frustrations, the conflicted feelings about having to choose between his principles and his loved one, everything is just deliciously angsty. Shu-Yu is a man with strong principles so his conflict felt very real, it was like a two-way dagger, choose either one and someone is bound to get hurt. In the end, it was the innocent Wei-Zhen who gets hurt the most from the resolution and I could feel Shu-Yu’s trust in his girlfriend slowly crumbling down to pieces. Even if he said he don’t care about this matter anymore, there will always be a cord between him and Jia-Xin. Their growing differences is becoming more obvious and the crack in their relationship is widening to the point where there’s no way back. After this event, I don’t think Shu-Yu can ever see Jia-Xin again in the way he used to as she’s a living reminder of him surrendering to reality and giving up on his principles.

Wei-Zhen toned down her hyper-puppy act by quite a lot in this episode until the end where she go crazy again under alcohol influence, heh! But even though, I do find her annoying at times, I just can’t seem to dislike this type of female lead because she’s kind and pretty cute when she’s being normal. Especially when you compare her side by side with the horrible and selfish Jia-Xin, she’s like an angel. I know her character is a cliche but classics never die, LOL! Li-Da is just so blinded by his own admiration towards Jia-Xin, he’s like a horrible parent that spoils his child no matter what grave mistake she made. I hope they would understand that covering up mistake with another mistake will just be an endless cycle of wrongdoings. Just the sight of these two people makes my blood boil, get out from my screen, you two! I will try my best to resist the urge to fast-forward their scenes even though it’s difficult.

I did say it’s a quick recap but I think I covered most of the important scenes. I don’t think I can do this for every episode as it’s draining my energy but I will try my best to include brief thoughts for every episode in the future. Note I said “will try my best”, no guarantee there.

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