Exclusive Love (2025)

looked good but felt empty inside

Just when I thought Taiwanese BL dramas had set a consistent standard for me, Exclusive Love came along and shattered that streak. I started watching the first episode without much background reading, curious and open-minded. By episode two, I had to pause and actually read the plot synopsis and even then, confusion hit me like a truck.

Initially, I thought there was going to be a ghost element involved because of the prank in episode one. Turns out, that was the first and last time any “ghost” even remotely made sense. The entire funeral company concept, which should have been central to the story, was barely shown and poorly integrated into the plot. It felt more like a narrative afterthought than an essential part of the characters’ journeys.

As for the main leads, their performances were serviceable at best. Not terrible, but not memorable either. Their chemistry was almost non-existent. You’d think a strong character background would save them, but the execution was so scattered that you couldn't even enjoy it properly. There was no emotional hook to latch onto between the leads.

Surprisingly, the second leads offered a bit of hope. Their chemistry was more believable, enough to make me wish they had more screen time. Still, their subplot about sabotaging a wedding dragged the quality down even further instead of lifting the story.

There were TOO MANY missed opportunities. Important story arcs felt half-baked. Did Wang Zhan actually overcome his deep-seated fears? Did the brother die or not? Also, what happened to the "training" that was supposed to help the main character? If you call a one-day crash course “training,” then I guess they technically ticked the box, but not convincingly.

To give credit where it’s due, the cinematography was clean and visually appealing. You can tell they invested effort in the technical aspects. The soundtrack, too, was genuinely good. If anything, those were the only things that kept me from quitting immediately.

Overall, I've seen WORSE (yes I'm talking to you Sunset X Vibes), but that's hardly a compliment. Exclusive Love was more disappointing than entertaining. It wasted a decent premise and stretched 12 episodes into what felt like an endless loop of "what is even happening?" I even found myself skipping about 40% of it, and it still felt too long.

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And way down we go

This started considerably well. Chaotic and nonsensical from the beginning, it was so light, cute and sometimes hilarious that I really liked it. The filming locations were shot very nicely and everything looked aesthetically pleasing, the OST was decent, the setting had a couple interesting twists to it, so this was my favourite thing to watch Friday nights to end the work week - until it wasn't. It had the potential to be a good "brain off" drama, but it would've needed a lobotomy to not notice how this drastically declined. You absolutely can't binge this unless you like to get things over with once you realize it's bad. Although then maybe you won't notice how nothing's really happening.

The acting sways between good and massively lacking and the plot is absolutely random. I imagine the writers had two spinning wheels in their offices, one for first or second couple, the other with random typical BL tropes. Whatever the wheels showed would be the next scene. This lead to scenes between both couples being widely unbalanced and the plot not having a single stringent line. Despite having a "happy end", it was all loose ends. Every scene that allowed for a bit of emotionality was either cut strangely short or presented in a way that was more cringe than anything.

The bed scenes were okay, but unneccessary. I assume the overall runtime of these was at least one full episode that the plot desperately would have needed for the relationships to actually develop to reach that point. After all, it seemed they decided to prioritize a tropey mess that decided to leave its potential untouched for a deep dive into fanservice.

Will you like it? If you find randomness and the most out of nowhere plottwists to be entertaining, I absolutely recommend watching. For a proper story, please use your preferred exit to go back to the main page and try to find something different to watch.

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