Perfect Match (2025) So far...

Episodes 1-22

Perfect Match is a tough one to evaluate. It’s unadulterated fluff to be sure. Highly addictive and hugely entertaining. It’s all about plot and messaging rather than characters. Indeed I’m inclined to think of it as a chess game with all the pieces located in strategic places promising plenty of flash and bang. To give credit where credit is due there is something masterful about maneuvering an ensemble cast with subplots and multiple romances to make a series of salient statements about the state of the institution matrimony but what’s somewhat lost in the light show, to my mind, is consistency in writing characters. This not to say that there aren’t characters or even some semblance of character development come where they may.

In a way, it’s inevitable. Perfect Match is a soap opera and by that I mean that odd dramatic things just happen to happen. On top of that it’s fuelled on recognizable tropes. For instance Wang Xingyue’s character Cai An just happens to be walking by stumbling upon a domestic dispute and the next day he’s made the scapegoat of rape and murder. Presiding over that case is the fresh out-of-the-box grumpy-about-marriage husband of fourth sister who in an incident hits his head and suffers amnesia. Before that the oldest of the Li sisters is hitched to a third-ranked scholar whose long-lost birth father happens to be living in the same neighbourhood. Later said scholar-husband plays the noble idiot card which leads to a divorce (apparently) and then it turns out that said oldest sister’s husband’s best mate happen to have an encounter with oldest sister at another time and place. It was love at first sight. Why not? It happens. And she’s a good-hearted soul.

Happenstance rules.

There are a myriad of plot conveniences undoubtedly. If one can accept them as well as the fact that so much conflict can afflict one family in a short period, the show can be enjoyed for what it is. It boils down to whether the audience can buy into this Austenesque-inspired fantasy with a view that the young ladies get their men despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Can the couples overcome the challenges, jump through the hoops and sprint to the finishing line as winners in the marriage stakes?

In our most recent podcast, I raised a phenomenon that’s become known as the “Peter Pan” syndrome in relation to the male characters of this show. Back then I had only seen 5 episodes. Now that I’ve completed 22, I’m more convinced that my original observation is what’s at the heart of Perfect Match. Traditionally marriage have not just been about women gaining protection but about transforming boys into men in earnest haste. In a real enough way, the expectations of marriage have always been much greater of men than women. It is a rite of passage that sees him taking responsibility in not only bringing about the next generation but protecting it even with his life. “Responsibility” being the operative word. When a man marries he cannot think only of himself or to put it more positively, he has to consider the bigger picture of his own household and how that feeds into the larger community. That is why marriage is never just about the two people who complete the ceremony together because every marriage has social, legal, political and spiritual ramifications.

On the surface the show pays homage to Jane Austen. But perhaps it has more in common with Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Certainly Mrs Li is trying to find husbands for her daughters but there’s an undercurrent actively insisting that the show is more concerned about the men finding the “right” kind of wife — the kind of wife that will mature him, a wife that will compel him to break free from his mother’s apron strings and become a father as well as a respectable member of society.

I was deliberately unkind when I called Fan Lianghan “the loser cousin of Chai An” on our podcast but I suppose it’s the nature of the writing here to trade in caricatures and stereotypes. Yes, he’s Mummy’s Boy and to some degree so is Chai An and Yuan Ming who never knew his mother. Mothers are certainly deeply respected figures in this story but there’s no doubting that when she devours, she’s a terrifying beast that must be at the very least… tamed… much less slain.

The notion that one has to break free of Mother’s grip is woven into the fabric of this narrative. Many of Fan Lianghan’s marital issues stem from his inability to detach himself from his mother’s influence/interference. Like it or not, when push comes to shove, he has to prioritize. A man can’t have two women in his life trying to grab the reins without being locked in constant tug-of-war. With Chai An, who is far more calculating, the fact that his mother is the widow who raised him singlehandedly is what causes much angst for him and Kang Ning. How does one triangulate (as in his case) his mother, his future bride and his mother-in-law-to-be? He has to get them all to agree at the same time which seems an untold labour of Heracles. In the case of Yuan Ming, the idealist who has spent more time in books than with actual human beings, he’s tethered to the past. He has married the perfect wife (by any metric) and abandons her to claim injustice for his dead mother. The man-boy has to learn the hard way that now that he has pair-bonded for life, his immediate obligations lie not with justice by suicide. Making life changing decisions unilaterally goes against the interest of the marriage, not to mention a lack of trust and respect. More recently is the union between fourth sister Haode and the marriage averse Shen Huizhao. Well, apparently he also has mother issues which animates his distaste for marriage. It’s absurd of course. Being the only eligible male in his family capable of producing offspring, he really has no reason to refuse marriage. He is obligated to by the customs of his day. Hence, this is really a modern preoccupation. No man of his time especially of his stature would fail in his duty to his ancestors. But of course, the drama isn’t actually about men in the Song dynasty. Next on the roll call… Shen Huizhao enters into a contractual agreement with Haode without ever really intending to stay married. That is until he conveniently hits his noggin in an accident and forgets everything. For him the forgetting allows him to enjoy the benefits of marriage however temporary rather than to see it as a privilege that he is unworthy of. The brain wipe is undoubtedly a second chance for him and for her. Early on Shen Huizhao is depicted as a passionless judge beholden to the rigours of the law. (Although it is ironic that he’s not rigid enough to follow tradition to the letter) Evidently the lesson he took away from the family tragedy that’s a shadow is that he is the “wrong” person for marriage although the show states in no uncertain terms that change is possible if the man meets the “right” woman that he’s eager to make changes for.

At the end of the day a large part of marriage is about accommodation. Marriages are always works-in-progress. There are different schools of thought about the foundations of a good marriage. Some talk about finding the right person. Others say that one has to be the right person. Depending on what one means, there’s certainly some truth to all those pieces of counsel. The perspective of this show (and one that I probably share) is that marriage itself is a mechanism/vehicle for maturity… for becoming the “right” person. The training ground to be better than what you are. With the right attitude of course. When two people with flaws come together with this degree of intimacy, there’s bound to be conflict because things that are hidden emerge. We are forced to confront our own selfish tendencies in ways that we wouldn’t have to otherwise.

In light of what’s been said, Perfect Match could be classified as a coming-of-age story. Perhaps for the young women but certainly for the men who despite their worldly successes need to learn to be husbands in order to be much better men.