SOUL SESSIONS

cyn lynn : HER | Recap and Review

A boxer who loves cooking chases her dead mom and her dreams.
Notable Actors/Actresses

Chinese Title
她的生存之道

Her Way of Survival

Year: 2025
Episodes: 15/24

Recap Grade: C/D
First Impression: 3.75/5

Cast

Introduction

Just when Liu Yan turns 13 years old, Liu Yan was abandoned by her mother, Jiang Fang, a head chef. Now 25 turning 26, Liu Yan is a professional boxer…and a full-time pushover. She cooks, cleans, and silently endures the insults of her teammates, all for a real shot at competing. But even then, she’s denied a fair chance in the ring. Then everything changes when she receives a letter from a lawyer about her mother… dun dun dun!

The story takes place in Jiaya, a fictional country where both Cantonese and Mandarin are spoken. You’ll hear plenty of authentic Cantonese from actual native speakers (and they’ll speak bad canto-mando = bad-mando).

Mini Recaps

Not full recaps. Just my 3-5 highlights per ep.

[Ep1] [Jump to: Top | Comments]

Meet our FL Liu Yan: a professional boxer with a passion for cooking. Her love of food might be genetic: her mother was once a head chef. She’s also the one who nicknamed her ‘Xian jie‘ (Salty jie) because the Yan 鹽 in Liu Yan literally means salt.

Wang Yang isn’t the ML, but I love the support he gives Liu Yan. When she’s fired with nowhere to go, he takes her in without hesitation. He promises her, “只要我有一口饭吃，就有你的一口” – As long as I have a bite of rice, so will you.

Thirteen years have passed since Liu Yan was abandoned by her mother at age thirteen. Then, unexpectedly, a lawyer contacts her with news: her mother is dead. Along with the shock comes an inheritance. Sweet! But Liu Yan doesn’t want money; she just wants her mom. Imbecile.

Song Yan Fei (as Tang Shuang Shuang) speaks Korean a little too well. I can’t speak to the accuracy, but it sounds natural enough that I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s a fellow K-drama binge-watcher too xD. And in that scene with the “multilingual” taxi driver, the Chinese subs claim he’s asking, “Are you Korean?”in Korean. As someone who also wasted too many hours on Kdramas, I’m pretty sure What he actually says is, “Do you know Blackpink?”

As for the inheritance? L.M.A.O. Liu Yan gets called in by a Very Suspicious Lawyer who hands her a contract entirely in English. Naturally, she signs it. Congratulations! She has inherited… her mother’s debt. Brilliant.

And then she digs up a grave. Because obviously, the next step after losing your mom is to get drunk and go dig up her grave because you miss her (and don’t realize she left you a debt). But um, wrong grave. HAHA. Liu Yan unearths someone else’s mother—specifically, a hotel CEO’s. RIP to that woman again XD. And now she’s detained for emotional misdigging.

And that’s still not the twist.

The mom might not even be dead. And that sketchy lawyer? That’s Liu Yan’s stepbrother, Li Zan, whom she meets for the first time today. He’s played by Wu Jia Kai, who I know, but found unrecognizable even though it should have been incredibly obvious under that fake moustache ^^”.

Enter ML Liu Tian Chi, who jumps at the grave-digging case thinking Liu Yan’s rich. He’s an elite in his field – like bribing the officers, telling her to act insane for sympathy, etc. Now he can’t even get back the money he spent on bribes. No wonder this isn’t set in China.

Liu Yan kidnaps her high school stepbrother (yes, kidnaps, like ropes him up and drags him across asphalt) for scamming her, ties him to a…I don’t know, rocket ship(?), then finds out he’s broke, still in school, and drowning in their mom’s debt (and not even his bio mom). So scratch the sad inheritance plot. We’re now chasing down a debt-dodging, gambling-addict mother. Except our dumb FL is ~~enraged not but~~ elated that her mother is alive. That’s all that matters.

She wore his fake moustache, hahaha

After scamming and kidnapping each other, the step-siblings… cohabitate. And bond. AWWW?? It’s because Liu Yan actually starts caring about Li Zan’s future. He wants to drop out (even though he’s a genius) to work off the debt. She won’t let him, especially because she never got to go to college herself and doesn’t want him repeating her mistakes. Such pure babies inside.

After their place gets raided by loansharks, the step-siblings with nowhere to go cohabitate with – you guessed it – the lawyer, our ML. It was didi who roped in the ML into letting two broke clients crash at his place like it was his legal responsibility.

Then comes the ramen. Lu Tian Chi is visibly suffering because if Liu Yan just let him boil the instant noodles like a normal person, he’d be eating by now. But no, she insists on steaming them like buns and crafting a sauce

Liu Yan: Maybe because Lawyer Lu, you’ve never been at the end of one’s rope (走投無路 = desperate with nowhere to go).

Lu Tian Chi: What do you mean?

Liu Yan: When you’re at the end of your rope, have a meal first. Jiang Fang said that.

Lu Tian Chi vacuums up the food – it’s bliss. Between bites, he suggests she open a noodle shop. It’s so good, the man’s eating the plate if he could.

The red-white-blue plastic bag that Liu Yan refuses to part with – even when they’re basically homeless and she’s hauling it everywhere — does not contain gold or silver. No. It’s filled with pots. And pans. The red-white-blue bag is the most iconic bag to ever exist in Hong Kong. It’s cheap, tough, and practical. It is Hong Kong resilience in bag form xD. It is also Liu Yan in bag form. Then the new grimy place they rent, she should be more concerned about all the mold, but instead it’s the table she’s fussing over. Because how can a home be without a dinner table? Li Zan solves it: the mahjong table from Jiang Fang. This mom was useful for one thing.

Li Zan tasting heaven from Liu Yan’s homemade candy and Tang Shuang Shuang going full Mamma Mia over the noodles. Liu Yan captures everyone’s heart with her food.

Liu Yan has no luck with lawyers because ML also isn’t one. LOL. That’s two scams, two! But to be fair, Lu Tian Chi’s business card never claimed that. He’s a legal consultant.

Sibling bonding ~ 🥹 Li Zan is touched when jiejie packs lunch for him. Awwww. Then Liu Yan is touched when he offers to buy groceries for whatever she wants to make. They were strangers just 5 episodes ago. *Sniffles*

Lu Tian Chi was a lawyer until he sacrificed his career and served two years in prison for faking evidence in Tang Shuang Shuang’s abuse case. She was his first client. And even if she’s his last? He has no regrets. Him and Liu Yan are the same people eh. 濫好人. Compulsively good. Excessively good. That’s why we have a story!
Lu Tian Chi is so not hot… until he is. Why does holding cotton swabs like a cigarette make him sexy?? I must be sick. It’s also unhygienic! Stop it!

Liu Yan offers a wild way to pay back her (mother’s) debt to Old Luo. She tells him to bet on her in a boxing match against a dude literally named “Ferocious Beast (猛獸).” Nobody will think she can win. Which is exactly why the payout will be massive. High risk. High reward. And low survival.
Food 🤤

[Ep6] [Jump to: Top | Comments]

These melons.
No really. These melons secretly contain the martial arts technique required to snap Ferocious Beast’s neck.

Awwww Li Zan, in full didi mode, decides to commit manslaughter to stop his sister from fighting. O_O Because if he hits her opponent (with a motorbike) before the match, maybe Liu Yan won’t have to die in the ring. What’s juvenile detention for his sister! D: This grown-up kid. So then Liu Yan asks Lu Tian Chi for a favour: use any means to put her brother to jail. LOL. Just temporarily before he does anything stupid before the match. And if she dies in the ring, can he use that one good photo of her he took of her as her funeral portrait? Thanks. D:
They don’t jail Li Zan. They maroon him. On a boat. In the middle of a lake. The boy can’t swim. LOL. But also, ow ): He breaks down crying, begging to come back. He’s finally felt what it’s like to be loved: Liu Yan nagged him about school, cooked for him, cared about him in a way no one else ever did. There’s finally family who actually 心疼s him. He can’t lose her too. I love this didi.

The mom appears! And she’s awful. She actually bet money on her own daughter, fully confident she’d win – and now that she’s got money, she ditches her bald-dead daughter in the dust. Jiang Fang does love her daughter… but she also really loves money. Like, a lot. This woman is sick and toxic. The whiplash of love and abandonment.
Lu Tian Chi bought Liu Yan a turtle. Because he wants her to be strong. Like the turtle. Hard on the outside, and immortal on the inside or something. It’s sweet. Also, Lu Tian Chi bet against Liu Yan so the payout would be bigger if she won. That’s right. He didn’t profit off her suffering – unlike someone. But wait. Liu Yan bet herself. Ha. She’s definitely allowed to bet on herself. She’s broken everywhere, but at least she’s not broke.
The win was rigged, LMAO. I was fooled. Lu Tian Chi and Li Zan (remotely, from the boat. I forgot about him, haha) drugged the yogurt of the opponent.
Liu Yan wants to go to a Ferris wheel when her face is bruised and body is broken. Lu Tian Chi takes her somewhere better. An elevator. Yes. He decorates it with light placards and sends it up and down like a VIP amusement ride. Romeo! xD.

She rejects being spoon fed, lol.

Ohhh something’s happening in that headlock. Wang Yang literally asks Liu Yan out like that. Another Romeo.

Nothing’s happening here but…

Li Zan goes ballistic at Lu Tian Chi for sexually assaulting the disabled (i.e. his sister). He’s so cutely overreactive and protective with his puny biceps shaking in rage xD.

Lu Tian Chi is jealous of Wang Yang, and he’s next level as he manipulates the innocent (so innocent!) Li Zan to whine to his sister so that she doesn’t leave with Wang Yang to Beijing. Li Zan was so desperate lol and Lu Tian Chi is so smug. A+ meddling.

These 3 boys fighting over 1 girl xD

[Ep9] [Jump to: Top | Comments]

Li Zan makes Liu Yan extra long birthday noodles because in Chinese culture, long noodles = long life. He also promises to knot noodles for her every year. But he does have a real present: a gold necklace passed down from his actual mom (not Jiang Fang). Aw. Liu Yan is more than a jie to Li Zan.

Lu Tian Chi asks Liu Yan out! Right here in this meat locker with all these pork carcasses👆👇 What a Romeo. (FYI: our ex-boxer-turned-butcher works here while chasing her dream of becoming a chef and our Romeo pays a customer to buy pork specifically from her. What a CEO move, lol.).
Jiang Fang is back. *Eye roll* Only Liu Yan is happy. But the mother only left her a gift and left again. It’s dandelion. It’s a weed. Symbolic? Maybe. Trash? Most definitely. Now that she knows Jiang Fang is back, Liu Yan prioritizes that. Romance is paused. (Must we?). Li Zan ain’t happy either and doesn’t understand how a brain like hers has survived this long. RIGHT.

Jiang Fang is missing again. Liu Yan, who isn’t allowed to call her mom mom, cries, “Why doesn’t my mom love me?” Her mom is addicted to gambling and Liu Yan is addicted to motherly love – both delusional.

[Ep10] [Jump to: Top | Comments]

Li Zan comforting his jie. AWW. And he reminds her it’s time she wash her hair as he stares at his oily hand, loool.

He Guang Yuan! Remember him? The hotel CEO who’s mother’s grave Liu Yan almost unearthed? She’s like Jiaya sure is tiny. I’ve seen your dead mom, and you’ve almost seen me dead in the competition… Sooo, you hungry? Haha.

Dude feels his head whenever food’s good

Our FL has leveled up from butcher to hotel restaurant staff, courtesy of CEO He Guang Yuan. Show is actually using a lot of romcom tropes. This place is filled with polyglots: Cantonese, Japanese, Korean.

[Ep11] [Jump to: Top | Comments]

Trigger Warning: This episode continues depiction of sexual violence.

I’m shook. This show’s a harem, and He Guang Yuan might be contestant number three in the race for our ex-boxer, debt-loaded FL.
Liu Yan is almost r*ped by the head chef. If only Lu Tian Chi hadn’t been such a jerk at dinner, she wouldn’t have dressed up for him at all… but no, scratch that, the fault is 100% on the predator. Thank god she was a boxer. She’s furious – wants revenge, wants justice, wants to leave – but everyone around her have misplaced priorities. Lu Tian Chi tells her to calm down, the manager says to hold off until the hotel gets through the crisis and Li Zan doesn’t want to leave because… what would he even do in Beijing? Go to school? Yes, actually. Li Zan is actually spiralling because he has convinced himself Liu Yan is ditching him.

[Ep12] [Jump to: Top | Comments]

Liu Yan has left Jiaya behind, and she’s thriving – opening a snack bar, hopping on an influencer’s livestream, and sprinting from the police because her food stand is illegal. She’s a viral hit.

The second Li Fei (Wang Zi Xuan cameo) calls Liu Yan jie, you just know she’s drawing a line between herself as Wang Yang’s girlfriend and Liu Yan as the childhood friend. But actually, I find it a rather realistic jealous-girlfriend portrayal. Do not hate her for it at all. Wang Yang is the one making her insecure.
Meanwhile with Liu Yan gone, Lu Tian Chi’s a mess. And harassing our poor Li Zan.

It’s not even alcohol, it’s 100% saliva all over Li Zan’s face

Wang Yang is everywhere Liu Yan is. He’s pouring himself into helping her open a restaurant: scouting for locations, drinking with investors, and possibly throwing in his life savings… We sure he’s someone else’s boyfriend? Because this is giving ride-or-die husband material for a childhood friend.

Where are they finding all these pretty ladies who speak different languages well + Mandarin. Even the hotel manager (the same one who brushed off the sexual violence) had perfect Mando and Canto.

[Ep13] [Jump to: Top | Comments]

Liu Yan finally secures her investment; her restaurant dream is about to happen – except Li Zan is hospitalized. Without a second thought, she drops everything and runs back to her brother.
But Wang Yang. He’s shattered. This man really did pour in his life savings. His heart was already all in. And Liu Yan just packs her bags and leaves. She comes and goes from his life whenever she wants, never sparing a thought for the guy who’s always there to catch her when she falls. Oh no! I’m feeling for Wang Yang. She tells him there’s a saying she believes in: never have extremely high expectations of someone. (OH PLEASE. Liu Yan, you’re the last person to say when you continue to wait for your mom). She apologizes, and he’s standing there, eyes glassy. Then he forces a laugh to break the tension. He forgives her because he loves her that much. Always has, probably always will.

Liu Yan approaches Old Luo – the city’s most infamous loanshark – with food. She wins his stomach and gets a favour. It’s not for money to solve Li Zan’s problem. She wants to borrow his men…for intimidation. (Ok, but what about some actual money to pay back Wang Yang D:

[Ep14] [Jump to: Top | Comments]

He Guang Yuan’s got mother issues too. >_> His whole life, she chipped away at him, telling him he was garbage, talentless, a piece of fart. Her exact words. He’s a brilliant chef, okay. But every meal he cooks is met with a degrading insult. It messed up something in his brain and heart. He is like a Liu Yan. The love and respectful for a mother who ruined you.
He Guang Yuan fires Philip! Good riddance to the r*pist. With the ceiling (aka Philip’s mediocrity) finally lifted, the restaurant can actually thrive. And the female manager who covered up the sexual assault for the sake of the hotel…fired by He Guang Yuan too. He has no tolerance for this sh*t. I like him.
Liu Yan returns to the hotel – with a promotion. Because she made He Guang Yuan rub his head.

Tang Shuang Shuang goes to bat for Lu Tian Chi, explaining to Liu Yan that decking Philip was a massive risk for Lu Tian Chi. He has a record; if Philip had pressed charges, it won’t just be two years in prison.
The city’s most infamous loanshark (Old Lao) is also obsessed with Liu Yan’s cooking. Of course. If he wasn’t a grandpa, he’d be part of the harem too.

[Ep15] [Jump to: Top | Comments]

I just realized Lu Tian Chi and Liu Yan are nine years apart. And he’s got a criminal record. Lol. Talk about your atypical male lead.
Liu Yan spent her whole life cooking for hungry people. AKA, the rest of us mortals. But now she has to learn how to cook for the “not-hungry” i.e. those who eat just for luxury. Lu Tian Chi looks at her. “Are you speaking human?”A food vendor shares the same sentiment: “Wtf is a not-hungry human?”

“Lu Tian Chi you fake lawyer. You big fat liar.” Incessantly on repeat in canto, lol.

Someone save Tang Shuang Shuang from another(?) abusive relationship. Her fiancé swings between beating her and love bombing her, weaponizing affection just to keep control.

Lu Tian Chi tells her to stare into a tiger’s eye for inner peace lol. She’s marrying a tiger irl. Please.

Jiang Fang (the mom) lives in the sewage. I kid not. She drops Lu Tian Chi a pin, and he actually finds it.

Remarks

[First Impression (Ep1-3)]

I didn’t expect to go beyond sampling Ep1, especially since it wasn’t even that appealing. But here I am!

By Ep3 someone gets scammed, someone else gets kidnapped, a grave is emotionally misdug, and ramen becomes a source of life wisdom. It’s so random, and yet so grounded, but still so random. After scamming and kidnapping each other, they somehow form a bond. Meanwhile, a lawyer thinks he’s scored a rich client, only to end up housing two broke bums. And now we have a mother mystery. You will have no idea where this story is heading, and that’s the fun.

The opening theme was weird, but weirdly catchy, starting off with a dramatic “Ma-ma!” Turns out it’s sung by Faye Wong! (And the FL). Did not see that coming. Then again, I didn’t expect any of this from the show.

Pssst, FL doesn’t look it, but she attracts a lot of guys ^^”

⚠️ One warning though – this is a real bad spoiler. I’ll keep the actual detail in the comment section. It’s about the ending which is a dealbreaker for a lot of you. But I am genuinely glad I went in blind. I got to enjoy the full ride without the dread, and I liked how it wrapped up. So: you do you. A suggestions if you may: if you’re even slightly intrigued by the story, I suggest giving it 3 episodes blind as well. By then if you love the uncertainty and absurdity, then don’t read the spoiler. Commit and embrace the ride. Be brave. LOL.

[Cast&Crew] FL actresss Leah Dou (Dou Jing Tong) is a singer-songwriter. It’s not her first time acting. She has been in two movies before, one with He Kai Lang and the same director.

[Ending] [A Highlight]

[Review & Rating]