Not only is it a shame that the moral shortcomings of this plot distract from the fine acting, but my recollection is that the staging of the amorous moments was far more sophisticated than Thai series usually manage. Credit to the intimacy coach for that, although hiring actors willing to "go for it" makes an absolute difference. No pressed lips frozen in place in this one. A shame the non-amorous moments so seldom defy logic. Or common sense. Or anything resemblimg professional ethics.
Deciding whether or not to watch The Hidden Moon? [Quick answer: do watch.]
If you know nothing about THM, do NOT sample the Comments here because these folks have mostly finished the whole series. They are eager to discuss its twists and turns. Their comments reflect all that knowledge. As the genre is "supernatural suspense thriller", the less you know going in, the more you will enjoy it. Spoilers in this realm really do spoil the fun by leeching the suspense and the surprise.
As an alternative, please consider this spoiler-free review I wrote. I kept things vague while still trying to give a sense of who will like--or dislike!--this production. The first paragraph alone will suffice for many. Those desiring more info before they commit to 10 hours can read onward. Happy watching.
Questions:If they were all dead, on the first night they received a phone call from their manager. Did they imagine…
The clever line at the boat floating was when Tin said to Khen "people like us cannot...." Tin meant "us dead people," but the disguised meaning was "us gay people..." it was a clue out in the open, yet the writers knew the disguised meaning would stand out tomost viewers.
can someone tell me wtf did happened in ep 9 ? I didn't understand anything except that they all died in the accident
First Rule of TV Deaths: if you haven't seen a body, the character is not officially dead, even if all the other characters think differently. So, I maintain Khen's status is still an open question, until they show us the body. Khen may be dead like his four friends. But why save finding his body for the finale? Instead, he may be comatose somewhere, having staggered away from the scene and then collapsed. Thus, the reason he manifests physically to Mas is that he is a coma ghost and not a "real" ghost. That would also explain why he still feels the pain of the accident--because his living body has yet to be treated.
A very good series, very much worth the watch. Excellent acting. Excellent directing. Good writing (script). (And a happy ending, if you relish BL for that sweet domestic bliss at the end.) Misses the all-time greats in my view due to choices made in story frame and structure. I think the writers were ambitious (credit) but bit off more than they could chew (fault).
Three Criticims: 1. Episodes set during high school outshone the episodes set during adulthood. --Not only did those episodes resonate better in the romantic department, I felt like they left material unexplored when the timeline shifted to adulthood. And those later episodes just didn't quite gel--in part because the writer chose to withhold information from the viewers (but known to the characters) until the final episodes that would have made the middle eps more comprehensible. Relying on late-arriving flashback sequences (multiple) to render a story logical? Unless you are Agatha Christie, that techniqe is hacky.
2. The time jump is the most preposterous time jump I have encountered in a Bl series. --Some relationships can pick up where they left off (platonic or romantic) despite a lengthy separation. Resuming as uf no time has passed at age 30 with someone you last saw at 18? And at that, only briefly knew each other? Not only implausible to anyone who understands human maturation, but those guys frittered away their youth. They neither of them grew in their 20s via the experience of romantic trial and error. The problem was not the length of time: it was how the story presented the gap.
3. The criminal twist in the finale was unnecessary. --This came across as a writer failing to realize their character already had enough potential drama to be a complete character capable of supporting a compelling story. There was lots left to explore before the writer said, "How else can I complicate their lives?" and dumped in this unfortunate and supercilious subplot at thelast minute. Take it out, and you still have a character who fell short of his dreamed future life. Ad yeah...that is enough for a good character and story.
For a fuller explication of these thoughts, please seek out my review.
DH's father, despicable person he is, never abandoned JY. JY was abandoned by his parents, church, school, friends…
Thus is the best theory i have yet seen for why JY maintains contact with DH's father. My own theory stopped at "he figured DH would show up eventually," but this fits that andmire so elegantly.
Solid review. I will observe that applying western notions of how timely the subject matter feels out of place since Korean culture does not move in lockstep with western cultures. For instance, in the '80s and '90s disclosing one's HIV status became an ethical expectation of serious relationships. In the west. I cannot say whether a similar ethical consideration formed in the sexual mores of Korean gay male culture in that time, a subculture that would have remained more concealed than comparable queer communities in the west. The imperative to keep secrets may have won out.
Moreover, the comparison to the '90s fails because Go Young reached adulthood and acquired the virus in the 2010s. By that time, an HIV diagnosis no longer represented a death sentence. By the end of this story, it is possible that "undetectable" was a valid outcome. Advances in drug efficacy has reduced the urgency to reveal one's status to every trick. In other words, the current generation of young gay men (globally) does not face ethical considerations of safe sex equivalent to the concerns of the generation that came of age in the 90s. Unfortunately, the TV adaptation is uninterested in depicting how Seoul's gay community proccesses HIV diagnoses. So while I concur with your general critique that the script underplays the impact of the diagnosis on Go Young's life, I can also see where that that choice may reflect a contemporary reality of HIV. What would have consumed a person's life in the 1990s, making him a patient or victim or object of pity, is in the 2010s a manageable inconvenience. Perhaps the script underplays Go Young's virus because that is not the chief thing the writer is concerned about in telling Go Young's life story. Actually, that's kind of a refreshing way to see HIV handled--an afterthought.
I had the same thought during the finale sex scene. Only my brain framed it as a character issue rather than an…
That notion also occurred to me. The way they filmed Yim rocking back during his cowboy moment, no way at least one of them wasn't playing with the second penis in the room.
In all of their series, why does Tutor always have to be the top and Yim be the bottom? What? They can't switch…
I had the same thought during the finale sex scene. Only my brain framed it as a character issue rather than an actor issue. Made sense to me for Ob Aun and Shan to be the sort of couple who routinely swapped around. Almost as if actual gay couples dont get hung up on which of them is "the man" and which "the women." Who does what in bed? Not a concern.
And then the scene with Pie and Ozone started, and I thought THAT couple ought to swap around just to subvert genre tropes and stereotypes.
Well. That story just sort of petered out in the end. But closure on most character beats--even the class project.. So they got right that crucial objective of any finale.
Take that PR speech by Pie. Move it to Ep 2. Imagine if that YS retroactive cover story (we asked our stable of writers to collaborate on gender-bending issues) had been the premise of the entire series. They could have retained all the weird scenes that didnt connect to "real world", but the real world might have been both coherent and ffered social commentary.
nonsense comparison, in addict heroin they put an underage protagonist and because of that there can't even be…
I did not forget that point. No reasonable person could infer my opinion about actors from that post because I never intended to compare the actors. Identifying superior actors was not relevant to breaking down how each series is structured. Just as the constraints imposed on the makers of Addicted (Thailand) by their misguided choice to hire an underage actor does not address the fact the OP believes Kidnap's on-screen couple provides a couple with better chemistry.
Comparing actors would be relevant in a discussion of elements that might make a viewer prefer one series to another. So this latest comment repeats the logical fallacy from the first one. In both statements, you attempt to diminish another point of view with an example the first party was not considering. Also, in both cases, the substantive content you highlight possesses merit. (That is to say both "underage actor limits onscreen options" and "War Yin are better actors" represents a defensible position.) Just not to refute the original point.
nonsense comparison, in addict heroin they put an underage protagonist and because of that there can't even be…
Your comment breaks the fourth wall to highlight a real world issue about actors. The original post reacts to the story put on screen by each series. You're not wrong. But your observation does not directly refute the original point, which only references visible plot points.
Comparing Kidnap and Jack & Joker: different approaches to the central romance
Both Kidnap and Jack & Joker blend a BL romance with a black market, criminal underworld crime caper. However, the creative team structures the romantic story quite differently in each series. In one, the romance is proactive; in the other, reactive. I think the result (about halfway thru each) is that Kidnap has a lighter, sweeter romance (more feels) and J&J has a more complex, action-driven story (more thrills). Neither approach is superior to the other. Either approach can succeed; either can fail. That bit depends on how well writers / director / actors execute the strategy chosen. And, of course, a viewer may prefer one style of story to the other. But that preference reflects their individual taste, not the superiority of one approach over the other.
Proactive: Q and Min have full agency in the growth of their romance. That dynamic of falling in love, of getting into one another, develops almost independently of what unfolds in the crime caper. In fact, the crime story largely advances when Min and Q are separated. The moments shared at home matter most. That's not to say Q and Min are immune from the other subplot. Those events do buffet them into new directions (potentially with the same force Hurricane Milton buffeted the roof of poor Tropicana Field the other night). But the relationship of Q and Min is not primarily driven by those events but by their own decisions. As a blended romance-crime story, the separation is not total, but it is notable.
Reactive: Meanwhile, Jack and Joker have less control over their interpersonal moments. Events originating in the crime story force each to take action. Those events thrust them together repeatedly, so that their personal relationship (unlike Min's and Q's) advances with each new permutation in the crime story. The moments spent together in furtherance of some skullduggery matter most. Their nascent personal bond develops out of their "professional" activities. Home, for them , does not exist yet. (Exception: The episode where Joker spends time with Jack's grandmother is closer to the Kidnap approach.) Those forced interactions are deepening the pull between them whereas Min and Q are (mostly) choosing to spend their time together voluntarily. If Kidnap is a romance-crime blend, Jack & Joker is a crime-romance blend.
For most of us, the imagined nuance between crime-romance versus romance-crime will not matter in the end. What we really desire (in whatever order) is for each series to deliver a compelling romance without degenerating into either an easy or hokey ending to the crime plot, or stale clichés, tropes, and formulas in romance or crime stories. The boundary in each series between proactive versus reactive development is also fluid, so that in any given episode, one approach may outweigh the other. So far, both have been better than average. (Knocks wood superstitiously.) Here's hoping the second half of both series fulfills the promise of the first half.
3 
If you know nothing about THM, do NOT sample the Comments here because these folks have mostly finished the whole series. They are eager to discuss its twists and turns. Their comments reflect all that knowledge. As the genre is "supernatural suspense thriller", the less you know going in, the more you will enjoy it. Spoilers in this realm really do spoil the fun by leeching the suspense and the surprise.
As an alternative, please consider this spoiler-free review I wrote. I kept things vague while still trying to give a sense of who will like--or dislike!--this production. The first paragraph alone will suffice for many. Those desiring more info before they commit to 10 hours can read onward. Happy watching.
https://kisskh.at/profile/8984637/reviews/402968
Three Criticims:
1. Episodes set during high school outshone the episodes set during adulthood.
--Not only did those episodes resonate better in the romantic department, I felt like they left material unexplored when the timeline shifted to adulthood. And those later episodes just didn't quite gel--in part because the writer chose to withhold information from the viewers (but known to the characters) until the final episodes that would have made the middle eps more comprehensible. Relying on late-arriving flashback sequences (multiple) to render a story logical? Unless you are Agatha Christie, that techniqe is hacky.
2. The time jump is the most preposterous time jump I have encountered in a Bl series.
--Some relationships can pick up where they left off (platonic or romantic) despite a lengthy separation. Resuming as uf no time has passed at age 30 with someone you last saw at 18? And at that, only briefly knew each other? Not only implausible to anyone who understands human maturation, but those guys frittered away their youth. They neither of them grew in their 20s via the experience of romantic trial and error. The problem was not the length of time: it was how the story presented the gap.
3. The criminal twist in the finale was unnecessary.
--This came across as a writer failing to realize their character already had enough potential drama to be a complete character capable of supporting a compelling story. There was lots left to explore before the writer said, "How else can I complicate their lives?" and dumped in this unfortunate and supercilious subplot at thelast minute. Take it out, and you still have a character who fell short of his dreamed future life. Ad yeah...that is enough for a good character and story.
For a fuller explication of these thoughts, please seek out my review.
https://kisskh.at/profile/8984637/reviews/402618
Moreover, the comparison to the '90s fails because Go Young reached adulthood and acquired the virus in the 2010s. By that time, an HIV diagnosis no longer represented a death sentence. By the end of this story, it is possible that "undetectable" was a valid outcome. Advances in drug efficacy has reduced the urgency to reveal one's status to every trick. In other words, the current generation of young gay men (globally) does not face ethical considerations of safe sex equivalent to the concerns of the generation that came of age in the 90s. Unfortunately, the TV adaptation is uninterested in depicting how Seoul's gay community proccesses HIV diagnoses. So while I concur with your general critique that the script underplays the impact of the diagnosis on Go Young's life, I can also see where that that choice may reflect a contemporary reality of HIV. What would have consumed a person's life in the 1990s, making him a patient or victim or object of pity, is in the 2010s a manageable inconvenience. Perhaps the script underplays Go Young's virus because that is not the chief thing the writer is concerned about in telling Go Young's life story. Actually, that's kind of a refreshing way to see HIV handled--an afterthought.
And then the scene with Pie and Ozone started, and I thought THAT couple ought to swap around just to subvert genre tropes and stereotypes.
Ok, then. Next!
Comparing actors would be relevant in a discussion of elements that might make a viewer prefer one series to another. So this latest comment repeats the logical fallacy from the first one. In both statements, you attempt to diminish another point of view with an example the first party was not considering. Also, in both cases, the substantive content you highlight possesses merit. (That is to say both "underage actor limits onscreen options" and "War Yin are better actors" represents a defensible position.) Just not to refute the original point.
Both Kidnap and Jack & Joker blend a BL romance with a black market, criminal underworld crime caper. However, the creative team structures the romantic story quite differently in each series. In one, the romance is proactive; in the other, reactive. I think the result (about halfway thru each) is that Kidnap has a lighter, sweeter romance (more feels) and J&J has a more complex, action-driven story (more thrills). Neither approach is superior to the other. Either approach can succeed; either can fail. That bit depends on how well writers / director / actors execute the strategy chosen. And, of course, a viewer may prefer one style of story to the other. But that preference reflects their individual taste, not the superiority of one approach over the other.
Proactive: Q and Min have full agency in the growth of their romance. That dynamic of falling in love, of getting into one another, develops almost independently of what unfolds in the crime caper. In fact, the crime story largely advances when Min and Q are separated. The moments shared at home matter most. That's not to say Q and Min are immune from the other subplot. Those events do buffet them into new directions (potentially with the same force Hurricane Milton buffeted the roof of poor Tropicana Field the other night). But the relationship of Q and Min is not primarily driven by those events but by their own decisions. As a blended romance-crime story, the separation is not total, but it is notable.
Reactive: Meanwhile, Jack and Joker have less control over their interpersonal moments. Events originating in the crime story force each to take action. Those events thrust them together repeatedly, so that their personal relationship (unlike Min's and Q's) advances with each new permutation in the crime story. The moments spent together in furtherance of some skullduggery matter most. Their nascent personal bond develops out of their "professional" activities. Home, for them , does not exist yet. (Exception: The episode where Joker spends time with Jack's grandmother is closer to the Kidnap approach.) Those forced interactions are deepening the pull between them whereas Min and Q are (mostly) choosing to spend their time together voluntarily. If Kidnap is a romance-crime blend, Jack & Joker is a crime-romance blend.
For most of us, the imagined nuance between crime-romance versus romance-crime will not matter in the end. What we really desire (in whatever order) is for each series to deliver a compelling romance without degenerating into either an easy or hokey ending to the crime plot, or stale clichés, tropes, and formulas in romance or crime stories. The boundary in each series between proactive versus reactive development is also fluid, so that in any given episode, one approach may outweigh the other. So far, both have been better than average. (Knocks wood superstitiously.) Here's hoping the second half of both series fulfills the promise of the first half.