3
Wherein both main characters annoy a certified grump to the near-ruination of the series...
Duang With You is neither good enough to recommend without reservation nor terrible enough to warrant a scathing review. Per its cutomary business practice, Domundi has once again manifested a knack for pairing together cute actors whom BL fans will obsess over. Also per its customary business practice, Domundi has burdened another bright-eyed, eager duo with a script short on actual substance. Of course, well-crafted BL series can get by with minimal narrative substance. All they really need is some sort of idealized romance anchored by barely post-pubescent actors, sufficiently winsome and nubile, who exhibit good chemistry with one another. If the storyboard now and again spices up the whole affair with alluring NC scenes, then enough of the audience will swoon to guarantee a commercial success. Good news for the subset of BL fans who dote on couple pairs and just want to see cute boys kiss! Duang With You delivers more or less exactly those things, which means many reviews of this series will glow so brightly one might conclude it is the most brilliant series ever.
This review, however, was written by a certified grump who has grown jaded after consuming the genre for six years. I need more than a fluffy idealized romance: I crave a fluffy idealized romance that evinces some flair in the telling of the story and that makes more than token attempts at developing characters. Duang With You manages neither, which leaves me to deliver a tepid review of a tepid story with tepid characters. If you enjoy a bit of fluffy romance that you can enjoy with your brain switched off, Duang will likely keep you entertained. Sometimes that is all any of us need. We all of us have a few questionable choices listed among our sentimental BL favorites. So fine by me if Duang works for you. Should you, however, wish for any level of complexity, seek it elsewhere.
As far as the plot, Duang With You is a basic BL. That observation is not intended as a slight. I just mean the plot returns to the genre’s basic roots. There is no murder mystery to solve. No reincarnation twists. No one has swapped bodies. No one possesses supernatural powers. The world is not ending. The storyframe revolves around two young men, college students Duang and Qin, pursuing first-love. That back-to-(BL)basics set-up has worked plenty of times in the past, and the “opposites attract” storyline almost works here. Sadly, Domundi is too busy marketing its ubiquitous couple pairs to invest in quality screenwriting. As a result, episode after episode delivers scenes in which the boyish actors, sufficiently winsome and nubile, gaze adoringly into one another’s eyes. (To be fair, all of that frippery works well here most of the time. Credit to the boyish actors, winsome and nubile.) Nevertheless, in presenting so many instances of Duang staring with mindless devotion into Qin’s eyes—a blind devotion unwarranted by their actual level of human interaction—the series forefeits meaningful attempts to build either character (or their attraction) into more than a cardboard caricature. The best “basic BLs” work when the script delivers delightful characters with interesting lives. For me, the failings in character development, even more than the skimpy plot, prevent Duang With You from exemplifying the best that “basic BL” can be.
It is a problem if neither main character wins the viewer over. In this case, both Duang and Qin became stumbling blocks to my enjoyment. I never warmed to either. Duang is preternaturally ebullient. Qin, preternaturally sullen. Opposites, see? It could work. Maybe, it should work. Yet the relentless cheer of Duang quickly becomes tiresome. By contrast, Qin starts out tiresome. He never drops a gloomy mien. The characters were written this way—that is their schtick—so I am not knocking the performances. At the risk of redundancy, if you enjoy the evident chemistry between the actors, the whole series will likely work better for you than it did for me. A belated attempt to provide Qin’s taciturnity a backstory, one obviously calculated to induce viewer sympathy, fell completely flat for me. A nanny that horrible? Too stupid to be plausible. Even Qin, her ostensible victim, knew the story was absurd, saying at one point, "The nanny never bothered me. I just wanted a hug from my mommy." Well. Those were not his exact words, but they may as well have been. Yes, all that morose glumness stems from a sad childhood because his parents are as implausibly neglectful as Evil Nanny was implausibly hateful. Judging from the comments section, people who liked the series devoured these revelations as if they revealed profound secrets of the Universe. No. It was just hyperactive TV drama doing hyperactive TV drama things. Any character quirk that requires such over-the-top groundwork to justify simply strikes me as an effect in search of a cause. That is to say, the writer began with an idea: “I want a main character who is morose and sullen and silent,” then concocted a backstory to deliver the desired result. Small wonder Qin’s personality felt contrived from start to finish—his peculiarities were made to order for an “opposites attract” storyframe and simply come across as unnatural .
The boyish actors, winsome and nubile, gamely sell the quirks of their characters as they pretend to fall in love for the camera. Their effort makes Duang With You a serviceable BL. Ultimately, however, little distinguishes the final product from a host of other forgettable series starring other sets of boyish actors, sufficiently winsome and nubile, who also manifest compelling chemistry. Again, if that's all you need from your BL, you will enjoy Duang just fine. But for me? File this as the latest example of "watch, then forget." Next!
This review, however, was written by a certified grump who has grown jaded after consuming the genre for six years. I need more than a fluffy idealized romance: I crave a fluffy idealized romance that evinces some flair in the telling of the story and that makes more than token attempts at developing characters. Duang With You manages neither, which leaves me to deliver a tepid review of a tepid story with tepid characters. If you enjoy a bit of fluffy romance that you can enjoy with your brain switched off, Duang will likely keep you entertained. Sometimes that is all any of us need. We all of us have a few questionable choices listed among our sentimental BL favorites. So fine by me if Duang works for you. Should you, however, wish for any level of complexity, seek it elsewhere.
As far as the plot, Duang With You is a basic BL. That observation is not intended as a slight. I just mean the plot returns to the genre’s basic roots. There is no murder mystery to solve. No reincarnation twists. No one has swapped bodies. No one possesses supernatural powers. The world is not ending. The storyframe revolves around two young men, college students Duang and Qin, pursuing first-love. That back-to-(BL)basics set-up has worked plenty of times in the past, and the “opposites attract” storyline almost works here. Sadly, Domundi is too busy marketing its ubiquitous couple pairs to invest in quality screenwriting. As a result, episode after episode delivers scenes in which the boyish actors, sufficiently winsome and nubile, gaze adoringly into one another’s eyes. (To be fair, all of that frippery works well here most of the time. Credit to the boyish actors, winsome and nubile.) Nevertheless, in presenting so many instances of Duang staring with mindless devotion into Qin’s eyes—a blind devotion unwarranted by their actual level of human interaction—the series forefeits meaningful attempts to build either character (or their attraction) into more than a cardboard caricature. The best “basic BLs” work when the script delivers delightful characters with interesting lives. For me, the failings in character development, even more than the skimpy plot, prevent Duang With You from exemplifying the best that “basic BL” can be.
It is a problem if neither main character wins the viewer over. In this case, both Duang and Qin became stumbling blocks to my enjoyment. I never warmed to either. Duang is preternaturally ebullient. Qin, preternaturally sullen. Opposites, see? It could work. Maybe, it should work. Yet the relentless cheer of Duang quickly becomes tiresome. By contrast, Qin starts out tiresome. He never drops a gloomy mien. The characters were written this way—that is their schtick—so I am not knocking the performances. At the risk of redundancy, if you enjoy the evident chemistry between the actors, the whole series will likely work better for you than it did for me. A belated attempt to provide Qin’s taciturnity a backstory, one obviously calculated to induce viewer sympathy, fell completely flat for me. A nanny that horrible? Too stupid to be plausible. Even Qin, her ostensible victim, knew the story was absurd, saying at one point, "The nanny never bothered me. I just wanted a hug from my mommy." Well. Those were not his exact words, but they may as well have been. Yes, all that morose glumness stems from a sad childhood because his parents are as implausibly neglectful as Evil Nanny was implausibly hateful. Judging from the comments section, people who liked the series devoured these revelations as if they revealed profound secrets of the Universe. No. It was just hyperactive TV drama doing hyperactive TV drama things. Any character quirk that requires such over-the-top groundwork to justify simply strikes me as an effect in search of a cause. That is to say, the writer began with an idea: “I want a main character who is morose and sullen and silent,” then concocted a backstory to deliver the desired result. Small wonder Qin’s personality felt contrived from start to finish—his peculiarities were made to order for an “opposites attract” storyframe and simply come across as unnatural .
The boyish actors, winsome and nubile, gamely sell the quirks of their characters as they pretend to fall in love for the camera. Their effort makes Duang With You a serviceable BL. Ultimately, however, little distinguishes the final product from a host of other forgettable series starring other sets of boyish actors, sufficiently winsome and nubile, who also manifest compelling chemistry. Again, if that's all you need from your BL, you will enjoy Duang just fine. But for me? File this as the latest example of "watch, then forget." Next!
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