If you liked Jade in the main story, you'll also warm to this series.
unfortunately, i could never really get on with jade and mai. both characters, like the story, are very flat in my opinion. king and uea's relationship is also different, more childish i would almost say, than in the main series. i think that's a shame, because i've always liked their energy a lot. But to mention a few positive aspects, I really liked the intimate conversations between king/mai and especially those between jade/uea, very believable with nice dialogue! The relationship between Tong and Gus is also great and I was surprised by the bed scenes at the end, beautifully staged, nice lighting.to summarise, i didn't really like the show but it wasn't really bad either. unfortunately i could never really warm up to jade's character so the whole series was exhausting to watch
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This review may contain spoilers
The Middleman’s Love was a deal breaker
As a fan of ‘Bed Friend’ and the character Jade, I wanted to love this. In fact, I did for a little while.Episode one was not a strong opener but I have a soft spot for cringy and slapstick comedy so it was bearable. I highly enjoyed episodes two to four, five started falling off but it was still tolerable. My biggest complaint would be the introduction of the second or even third couple if we count KingUea. This was a sequel/spin-off of the second couple from ‘Bed Friend’ so why introduce a new couple? It might be nitpicking and introducing new couples isn’t a crime but the new couple got so much screen time (I skipped most of their later parts because it was so repetitive and unattractive to watch). Their romantic relationship was also poorly developed and executed.
What the show did well:
- The comedy. It was my cup of tea and I enjoyed Yim as Jade. Some of the better execution would be when Jade was standing in front and middle while they were deciding what to eat as a group. He told everyone to come closer like he was ready to whisper, but he ended up shouting. I laughed so hard
- The consistency between Jade’s relationship with King and Uea. Jade and Uea being the lovey-dovey giggly besties is one of the better parts of the show. Jade’s constant butting heads with King was also great. I only wished his friendship with Gun was more apparent like in Bed Friends. They were inseparable at one point and in Middleman’s Love, they hardly hung out together unless it was a group/company hangout.
- Jade’s family is so precious. The introduction of his brother was funny and his sister is just a ray of sunshine.
- The shot of Jade’s family having dinner in episode 3. They shot it through the door to make it look like a live picture-perfect family. That was brilliant.
- Tutor covering Nunew’s song…OMG, can we get an official cover?
What the show didn’t do so well:
- As comedy was the baseline of this series, continuity errors and bad editing are bound to happen. But there’s only so much you can do before it becomes unforgivable. When Jade introduced the dog to Mai, there was a time when he was supposed to be squatting down beside the dog, but an editor decided to insert a blur, close up of the dog, and in the back, you can see Yim’s shoes as he walked by before they cut back to Jade still being next to the dog. That part stuck out like a sore thumb.
- I don’t know if perhaps Tutor can’t drive in real life or it was a lack of budget but every time Mai and Jade are in the car, they never move. Even when Tutor was ‘driving’ the scenery through the windows remained the same. That was awkward.
- The timeline wasn’t clear and the pacing didn’t seem to match it whatsoever
Jade’s fear of flickering lights in the daytime was never explained…
- Tong and Gus’ relationship shouldn’t have happened. Their amount of screen time didn’t contribute to the main storyline. Their personalities were also swapped halfway through the show. Gus went from a nice, friendly guy to a pouty kid who isn’t easily pleased. Tong wasn’t easily pleased or expressive but was all of a sudden very intimate and clingy. Gus’ relationship with his mother came out of nowhere and went nowhere.
- The NC scenes. Once Mai and Jade got together, they lost their spark and sweetness. The sexual tension heightened and the show attempted to become Bed Friend 2.0.
- Mai’s relationship with his family gave me mixed signals. Sometimes he'd be sweet on the phone with his mom. Other times, he seems annoyed with her. For some time it sounded like he had a falling out with his father and even brother but it was never clear. They also seemed like fine people by the finale episode.
- I'm not going to talk about Jade's uncalled-for, unexpected outburst at his family's lunch gathering because what was that? There was no build-up for that as far as I'm aware.
Though I’m happy to see Uea again, I’m glad this series only has eight episodes.
Unless you’re a fan of the actors, MaiJade, or clumsy comedy, I can’t imagine you’d enjoy this one very much.
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Too over-the-top for my liking
While this sounds like a run-of-the-mill office romance, Middleman’s Love is, in fact, the most over-the-top show I’ve seen recently. Typical of Mandee BLs, expect off-kilter humour, absolutely ridiculous visuals and wonky sound effects all around.I love Tutor and Yim’s cute dynamic (and great visuals!) but Mandee’s over-the-top scripting makes the story a little cringey. Some people see it as a way to evoke laughter, but this is just not really my thing.
The side couples, King and Uea (from Bed Friend) and Tong and Gus (new pairing) bring some variety but also predictability to the cadence of the show since Jade can get a little over-the-top as a character.
The censored YouTube cut, which is shorter, gives you the minimum info you would require to understand the story, but the quality of the story and the depth of the relationship development suffers quite a bit from the edit. Spicy scenes are left out (understandably so, since it’s a censored version) and some extended emotional scenes are truncated, which makes the show seem even more shallow than it actually is.
Speaking of which, the spicy scene between Mai and Jade was WACK. I wanted to bury my face in the ground from the secondhand embarrassment. Just, um, sorry, no.
Full review: https://asianblreviews.wordpress.com/2024/01/07/middlemans-love-2023-bl-review/
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"todos merecem um romance" (e os tutoryim merecem um BL melhor)
🩵 história: o plot deseja passar a ideia de que o amor independe da maneira que um indivíduo é taxado socialmente, desde "desinteressante" a "esquisito", tendo como exemplar, jade, um homem de 28 anos com conduta extremamente infantil e imatura, o qual possui dificuldades em expressar e aceitar sentimentos, sejam próprios ou externos. mai, por outrora, é seu estagiário, a quem sempre lhe foi imposta a pressão de ser um homem "perfeito", sendo este o par romântico de jade.os problemas dão início assim que a série abre diversas lacunas para, no final, corrê-las em meio a 8 episódios, que por sua vez, possuem diversas cenas sem agregamento com intuito humorístico, mas que somente geram uma enorme vergonha alheia vinda totalmente por parte das atitudes de jade.
assistir esse lakorn foi como aguentar uniformemente a vergonha dos episódios, para chegar no penúltimo e soltarem toda a carga com a famigerada "forte vontade de dropar" nos meus braços, junto a um drama sem sentido*, para aliviar no último episódio, com cenas fofas dos protagonistas, já como casal, e um leve amadurecimento no jade, na segunda metade do mesmo episódio (8)
sobre o "drama sem sentido", este deu a impressão de ter sido feito como qualquer clichê de romance pré adolescente, tirando o fato dos dois protagonistas terem até 28 anos de idade, sobretudo, sendo um casal homossexual dentro de uma empresa. é sem nexo quando aplicado à realidade, e poderia ter sido abordado diversos temas que preferiram somente irrelevar. porém esse é o ponto mais compreensível até então, por se tratar de um "lakorn de comédia" e irrealista.
por último, a indecisão de público alvo em faixa etária. algo comum que eu vejo acontecer em lakorns são temas tão simples sobre relacionamento e maturidade sendo tratados como tentativas de "lições de moral", nos causando a impressão de que é voltado para um público muito jovem que ainda tem dificuldade em compreender a dinâmica de relacionamentos e os sentimentos envolvidos, os quais estão embarcando nesse meio que é a adolescência. porém, logo em seguida, nos é mostrado cenas mais íntimas entre os protagonistas, trocando totalmente o foco juvenil para um público mais maduro, sem manter uma estabilidade de roteiro, ou falhando seriamente em tentar deixar lições de vidas implícitas de maneira mais sútil e "adulta".
💚 personagens: não me agradou a maneira que o personagem de jade foi construído, nos apresentando claros problemas de socialização, compreensão de sentimentos, autoestima, maturidade, comportamento, além de espécimes de "traumas" gerados pelo seu primeiro relacionamento, que por sua vez tenta justificar alguma de suas atitudes, sem buscar tratar de nenhum deles, ou sequer explorar o seu crescimento como indivíduo. o único feito de jade durante a série, que poderia acarretar em uma "melhora" em alguns de seus problemas, foi namorar e se abrir com o mai.
gus e tong foram um dos pontos positivos desse lakorn, possuindo um desenvolvimento decente para a quantidade de episódios, cativando o espectador sem ultrapassar o tempo de tela e profundidade do casal principal.
uea e king, por já terem tido seu desenvolvimento em "bed friend", cumpriram o papel de mentorear jade e mai em diversas questões sobre relacionamento. vale ressaltar que a maturidade de uea me impressionou, em meio a tanta dor de cabeça que eu estava passando devido ao jade.
🩷 atuação: conheci o yim (jade) e o tutor (mai) por cutie pie, e desde então eu venho vendo um enorme potencial neles, o que não me decepcionou nessa série. a atuação de ambos foi ótima, e creio que eles se sairiam perfeitamente protagonizando um BL com a proposta mais séria. sobre o james (uea) e o net (king) eu não tenho nadica a reclamar, adoro o trabalho deles. e por último, fiquei feliz em conhecer o trabalho dos atores que fizeram os papéis do gus e tong (tai e leo), espero vê-los atuando juntos novamente!
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Lighthearted and fun, contrary to popular belief
I must say after watching the series I was surprised by how low the reviews were on the series.First of all I mainly was interested in watching the series because of Tutoryim and honestly their performance was great, especially Yim really shocked me with how good he was on the role. It is mainly a comedic series and while people don't like it because of that I found it really fun and lighthearted.
Story wise, it's very basic, nothing that we haven't seen before but as someone that watched it without the knowledge of Bed Friend the series it might have been even better that way, as no expectations were set before hand. So if there's someone that hasn't watched Bed Friend, giving this series first a try might be a good idea!
Of course the series isn't perfect, I resonated a lot with Jade's story which might be why I also grew attached to the show and are biased to some extent, but the way in which some scenes are portrayed in order to make the audience understand the character more can honestly be not as effective as they might've thought. In this case seeing the feedback on the comment section of the episodes was a great help in understanding Jade better. Also the comedy in the series might seem unnecessary at first but I felt like it gave it more of a cheeky and fun vibe to it and unless you're someone that really doesn't like comedy, I don't see it as being that much of a big deal.
It's an overall entertaining show, and while it might not be everyone's cup of tea, I highly recommend anyone that's second guessing to give it a try!
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A missed opportunity?
Now as someone who partially watched this drama because of TutorYim, I won't hide the fact that I was disappointed from the get go.The plot had everything to make a cutesy yet memorable drama, however the plot flow definitely did not deliver in any satisfying way (imo). I'm all for fan service with those little cute moments between the characters, but the story pacing was quite irregular which very much influenced my viewing experience and impression of the show as a whole. The resolution of the main issue felt very conveniently fixed and enabled a very rushed ending filled with fan service (which in my opinion was too much for one episode, let alone a finale). As I finished the show, I was left wondering what truly happened between episode 3 and 7 that was substantial to the development of the story or characters.
All in all, I have to say I was quite disappointed the way the show turned out and knowing it could have been something much better if a little more care was put in the writers room.
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too much
the first episode was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever made myself sit through. it was a constant fight to finish and I kept dropping the show.it took about five episodes for me to see any appeal to tutoryim, though i found leotai a lot more interesting. the script was all kinds of bizarre, the comedy was laid on a bit too heavy for me, and the times I did enjoy anything, it was really just a quick scene and would be over before I knew it.
it may just be that I don’t enjoy this type of comedy, but it bugged me that it had the potential to be a lot better. I do hope to see more of Leo and tai though.
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This review may contain spoilers
I need a side story of Tong and Gus
This drama was not one of the best ones of 2023, but we all were waiting for it all the way once it was announced and after bed friend finished, but it wasn’t too good. I’m only giving this a 3.5 just because of my favorite couple in this series which was TongGus. They were just so cute every single time they were on screen and had so much chemistry together. Every scene that they were in made me so happy from the very beginning of Gus falling for Tong right away saying he’s his type and made him a coffee while flirting, when they left the office all the time together, when they had hot pot together and Gus saying his sad past with his mom, telling Tong off saying that the listener always remembers what the speaker says, when it was songkran and Tong was trying to make Gus like him again, when it was the office event and Tong got injured and Gus told the medic that to take good care of his boyfriend, and let’s not forget their steamy scene it was so insane I was screaming the whole time.I can’t really write too much about this show because I can’t really seem to find a lot of good things about the show because it was either to messy or to chaotic. I do love both Tutor and Yim and think their a good pair, but this show was not it for them and plus Jade was also super duper loud throughout the show. Their would also be some comedic parts, but didn’t really help make the show more enjoyable. I also feel robbed about their being barely any scenes of Uea and King, because I do think they would also would’ve helped make the show a little bit better, but we only had to scenes which were valentines and a wedding ring scene of them because I do think they would also have helped make the show a little bit better. I would recommend this show, but their might be a lot of non enjoyable parts of the show.
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For the love of everything read the book
If you read the book it becomes super ovious why this did not work. Bed friend and middleman run at same time. Same timeline. Jade thinks Mai has a crush on Eua and tries to play middleman to them. While giving snacks etc to King and Eua from staff who like them. King and Eua are not together yet as i said same timeline, i dont know why they didnt just stick to that. Than have them be a married jelous couple. Baffling. There is not secondary couple although might be what saved this show. And Jade swears a lot and gets pissed hes not a weak mouse. He has personality but very little confidence. Mai makes him feel special but all the time he thinks Mai is only doing that to get closer to his crush. Its heartwarming and just a fab book. But whoever rewrote it just made it up its not true to the book except characters and name.Was this review helpful to you?
My impression of this series
I wanna say this is just my opinion and you dont have to agree but i just wanted to express the way i felt about this series and the anger i felt .Honestly I was so disappointed . When they announced about this series with tutoryim i was so happy i waited more then a year and when it fainelly came out i was so angry. they had an amazing opportunity to make an incredible series with this 2 magnificent actors and they messed up so badly its painfull .The series has nice moments and the cast is great but over-all i recommend to find another series to watch . Absolutely not one of my favorites.
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As advertised unfortunately
If you watched the trailer then you already know what to expect. There’s a lot of cringy and aloof characters especially our main character Jade. Yim always seems to get these types of characters. I don’t know why they have my man Yim yelling the entire show but GOD it can be unbearable *insert crying emoji*. I do wished they dialed down of Jades character a bit but what’s done is done.As expected the show was not advertised to be something like bed friends, cutie pie or anything of that sorts but instead light and sit com vibe. I love TutorYim and their chemistry*insert heart emoji*.
I do hope one day we’ll get a more mature character for Yim instead of always getting this aloof character they like to give him.
Unfortunately the side couple Tong and Gus are the best in the show and we barely see them interact but also thankfully they have a lil scene together that was scrumptious. I hope to see more of that pair because the chemistry they gave off really held this show together.
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Loved it
Great show excited for next ep, people are composing about the show, but in my opinion, I enjoyed the first episode very much. I do agree with the commentary on king and uea’s roles sorta being swapped because king wasn’t his usual self portrayed in bed friend, but it didn’t bother me to the point where I hate it. I just brushed it off as relationships change, (me trying to convince myself it’s not a big problem) and I just dealt with it. I think that this is a worthwhile watch and since it’s only been the first episode, people should be patient and give the show a try.Was this review helpful to you?
