Angelica Gea

Absolutely perfect. Great short.

The R 18+ is totally Scy-fy, i dunno if who rated this short was a noun or a priest, but the show fits perfectly any teenager 15+, at least on planet Earth! Personally, I would let my my 13 y.o. niece watch this without the blink of an eye, but that is surely subjective of my family's educational values.

Why, for God's sake, would this be unacceptable now?! On which planet do you live?

Hello dear friend! Sorry, I was caught up in R life, and I haven't had a single minute for writing back to you. I am speechless noticing how much has been written already by countless people in just a bit more than a week, OMG!!!!
No one would ever say that the series got a half-hearted reception LOL.
Anyway, ASAP, I ll try to keep up! ....easier said than done... hahahah

Hi dear Any, first of all, thank you for reading my endless post before <3
It is always so impressive to see how different people get different meanings from the same scenes: figure that I got the opposite meaning of what u said about the scene in their room with Shi. I perceived the issue was the same genre and not at all being stepbrothers. Maybe cos I don't and I didn't consider that to be a real issue, cos to me they are perfect total strangers to each other. I thought that way cos Sheng seems pretty flustered and shaken when he catches the two teachers kissing at night. But you are definitely right about his inner monologue: yes, there the brotherhood theme was the point, dunno why, but I took it as a secondary priority. 

But i have to disagree about his early thoughts, cos i remember , maybe more than once, when they kept repeating that the kissing jokes were not a big deal also cos they were both boys and just 4 lips touching each other.
About Xi and Benny, you are suggesting that maybe what we saw, about Xi being ridicolously slow on getting the hint, is Xi's need of denial of reality cos he is not ready to face the recent shift that has just happened, right? I can work with that!  
Although then, why does he need to put pressure on Benny to know his feelings? I mean, not very coherent, but I guess his jealousy is stronger now.
I totally agree with you about the "coutionary tale". You nailed this 100%, which is also why the series shows us Sheng busting them kissing. Plus, the correlation works both sides: you can catch how much Xi and Benny look at "their younger selves".

About the motives under Sheng's choice, of course he is afraid about jeopardizing their relation and he wants to act in the subtle way possible (just saying LOL), but to me it is more cos he knows he can't hold it any longer, he feels he is gonna lose it, realizing how much he likes JT. So, again, if that is what you are experiencing, then remaining in a shared room might not be the smartest strategy XD. I mean, when do you actually feel the issue at its most when you are in a class full of people and teachers or when you can see him half-naked, wet, asleep and right below you where u can peak at him any endless moment of the night? Huh? LOL LOL

Then, they both think their love is unrequitted, but they know very well what is going to make the other angry or disappointed. Sheng knows it much more than he shows LOL and JT is not buying anything Sheng is saying, that is why he is so heartbroken and furios (to the extent of punching the wall): he is sensing Sheng's distance now, he is desperate they are gonna be lonely again and terrified they are gonna lose each other. But there could have been lots of regrets and sense of guilt too, like "I wasn't able to keep him near me, I should have said something more", what-if stuff. In a way, even if JT is supposed to be the one that was traumatized by his father, he appears to me as the one who is ahead in the acceptance of his own feelings, like a dude who says: "Okay, I can deal with that." It is just my personal impression by instinct. Maybe it is going to be the opposite in the story. 

You are so right when you say Sheng should have seen it coming from JT, so much more! 

In the end, what bothered me the most was the unclear, ambigous and shady turn the show took in the 12th episode about being or not the very end or just a season finale, but you know this already ahahahaah.

Thank you very much for sharing all your ideas Anka!

Jyd , thank you very much, My Italian friends are indeed telling me the same thing today, I really hope this is gonna be true. They still could have made a better effort though in closing this season, IMHO.

Spectacular series, awfully wrapped up... unless they are messing with us.

What the hell happened? I mean, is this the finale for real? 
Cos honestly, it doesn't make any sense: you, screenwriter/s, create a gay series just to end up suggesting that it's better to nip things in the bud and put distance in order to forget that you like your own genre friend?! OMG! 
This ending could be easily the most anti-LGBT thing I have ever seen in my whole life! 
Not even the Pope himself or Mohammed could think of such a strategy of reverse psychology, Wow! LOL
Basically, you spent 12 episodes in view of teaching how to give up the one you love and how to renounce and avoid temptations, trying to correct yourself like if it were a possible choice for a gay person?! Are you fking kiddin' me?! 
Except for the very end where you give us the ridiculous sop of "Pass the next exam"/"Okay" thing?! Whaaaaaaat?

So, now: I get it all wrong, right? RIGHT? Tell me I got it completely wrong, because unfortunately that is the message I received from the finale of the series and right now I am astonished! I cannot believe what I have just seen, I must be drunk or stoned without even knowing.

Though, if I got it wrong as I hope, then my production's friends, you really don't know how to create, write and film a season finale, and I am talking about the presentation and the form of the narrative development, not about the content of the plot. So again, the fault is yours. LOL
Because what the hell happened to the male teacher couple?!
We got a confession (as if it were ever needed, I mean, your mate has just kissed you on your mouth 2 days before and you, for real, ask him now if he does like the female teacher? How stupid and slow you must be! What did you need? Two meters of his tongue in your throat to get the message? I am shouting this to the screenwriter, of course).
And then nothing else?!  SERIOUSLY?!  It is just finished this way! How is that even possible?

What happened to the boys' parents? What about the Granpa?
And also... what is the use of failing the exam for splitting up if you are still in the same freaking room as him?! Didn't it occur to the writers to let the audience know that maybe Sheng Wang was about to go back home, for example?! You know, just for adding a little bit of logical sense to this foolish end!

We are not talking here about some sort of open ending, this is not, cos there is no end of any kind here! Not a chance.
This finale just cuts abruptly a storyline and it is not for debate: if you stop the story-telling at its peak, on its climax, you just kill the story itself, and you can't even call this a cliffhanger, cos generally in this industry you get a cliffhanger AFTER the main narrative arch is concluded, for introducing a new plot that is super interesting and breathtaking; or you can have nice cliffhangers between episodes, for instance. But that, again, is not the case here! 
So, WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PRODUCTION?!
DiD YOU GET BORED TO FILM ALL OF A SUDDEN? LOL

UNLESS —and here is where I have been waiting for you since the start— you did all of that cos you guys had already signed this project for 2 or 3 seasons.
If that is the case, then stop being ridiculous and just announce it to the desperate public. Anyway, there you should have put well-designed and smart cliffhangers instead of cuts and walls all over the place. You make yourself clear through your filming that a second season will follow.

But, otherwise, IF you are NOT SURE you can pull it through, if you just casually took the shot without having a clue if the series would get a renewal for a second season, then shame on you! We have seen this attitude already countless times in old western TV series and in current Japanese anime, so... WTF!
Therefore this finale is simply bad from a film technical standpoint: awful structure, absurd chapters division for the lack of time balance (you were on drugs while creating the storyboard) and in conclusion, apart from the main leads, all the other characters simply disappear from the end of the story and basically they can go suck it; I dunno what else I may add! 
Pros should never work this way; they should always have a decent respect for the audience, if not, make ourselves a favor: keep the half story for yourself if you are not able to tell one entirely and let others have the job done. Thank You.

I am pissed off as hell, cos I give a super vote to this fantastic series, one of the best gay series on TV of the last 30 years worldwide, both Asian and western TVs; I am dead serious.
It is marvelous: realistic, believable, sensitive and deep, amusing and poor of clichè. All the characters are very well characterized and defined, 3D persons; all the actors, and i mean it, are great: the entire cast plays spontaneously, never overacting.
The dialogues between Little Chili and Gao Tian Yang are superbly written and their back-and-forth exchanges are amazingly performed by the actors. Andy Chen really did a splendid performance throughout the whole series: his naturalness in playing that role makes me think of him as any of my old classmates still beside me.
Beautiful directing, nice editing, maybe not original or innovating but still very good, cos the pace of narration is amazing: great rhythm, peaks and pauses that create a beautiful dynamic in the story-telling speed, with the result of having you addicted, greedy and eager for every tiny detail in every episode.
The attunement and the chemistry between the leads are really good, so much that they totally remind you of "Your name engraved herein" (Taiwanese cinema docet indeed) with several contact points. The building up of their bond and their attachment is really well thought out; it follows natural and realistic steps, giving this way real substance to their story.

In short, literally everything was great and stunning... until... the finale arrived... my goodness...
It is just neither a proper series finale nor a season finale. No matter how you put it, cinematically speaking, it just sucks. 
If someone had told me yesterday, I would never believe that I would have managed to find a worse TV-show finale than the "Game of Thrones" one! LOL

Damn you, TV's contracts, you create prostitutes amongst authors... sigh.

Please, someone helps me out here to understand what the fck of a finale I have just watched!

Defo, Meg, I agree with u too: something else that caught us up :)

So much better than the parent story!
Better acting, better characterization, and deepening of the leads. better chemistry: definitely much more realistic, loyal to what real boys are in real life. Full of passion and both emotional and sexual tension as it is supposed to be between boys of that age.
Absolutely much more credible dynamics and storyline.
Intimate, sensual and pure at the same time, in the script and through the frames as well
Good job!

LMAO! Never heard such an amount of total BS before these on MDL . Geez, what a communist propaganda! Not even during the '80 and the whole cold war! LOL
Really, I don't know if they are a chinese person or a Russian one faking, in order to be mistaken for a chinese user LOL
It's hilarious!

Hi again and thank you for your rich reply, meaning i thank you for your time too. I really think this kind of discussions is super interesting and enhances one another :) Especially when we come from , maybe, opposite parts of the world.
Of course I know well Italian law about de facto unions, just cause there are many in my family, involving both straight and gay couples, so, you may guess by yourself how much I do care about this matter.
The point of what i wanted to express previously was that , given the word concubinage, it is absolutely normal that some people can misunderstand the meaning and the context, cos, as i said already, according to the language, the country, the dictionary and the historical period, this word has a variety of meanings and shapes, that's it :)
So i kinda understood why May was initially displeased.
Really, that's all.
Regarding the matter about the connection with the series, I agree with you: if the parents are living in a de facto union, legally, I would consider their sons as step-siblings, step-brothers, oh yes! Altough, it would be an issue of poor value to me, personally, cos in fact they still remain strangers, even if they belong to the same family.

Well, actually (you can read my reply to Ariel) you were right in a way, I mean, you displayed a logical reaction, getting the common meaning of "concubinage" IMHO. XD

Hello Ariel, pardon me if I dare to say that what you wrote is just partially true and it does depend on which country you are referring to, so I can understand why May17 was wary and dissatisfied.
I dunno, of course, where you come from, but I come from Italy and we usually grow up studying Latin in high school; in Latin, the mother word "concubinatus", though it was a legal term in ancient Roman law, has a derogatory meaning too indeed for today's standards. They put in Roman law the case of concubinatus just right to protect men and their needs and status when they wanted to have multiple women, basically, outside the proper official marriage. So concubinatus refers to concubines indeed. 
[Roman Law: Lex Iulia de adulteriis - Lex Iulia et Papia Poppaea]
Now, I get that in France and in some part of Switzerland it is a neutral term, cos it is used today in their legal terminology, surely, but in the common sense, in many places and in English-spoken language, it still brings in itself the meaning that it is a union between a man and a woman, where the latter cannot give the first legitimate offspring, a woman that is indeed a concubine and whose rights come after the wife's. 
The reason why you do not use in common language "concubinage" is because it is not neautral at all, not as "living together - cohabitation - convivenza more uxorio (my country's legal term for "union de facto". We are Italians, but we do not use, never ever, the word "concubinato")".
Here we are on an international drama's forum, not on a channel by a legal firm, so the audience speaks common terms, right?
Therefore, when you translate that word, it has multiple meanings and most of the time the meanings are denigratory to women cos the CONCUBINATUS was created by men to subdue women like properties and it is a term very much present also along with "slavery" for the past decade of millenia. You can check it out by reading what "concubinage" is and, most of all, was in an ecyclopedia.
I can guarantee you that if you talk to people today, friends and acquaintances, about concubinage, referring to the fact that a couple of them is living together, they would immediately raise an eyebrow with popping eyes.  :D
As you said, if you check the dictonaries, you will find that for a man and a woman living together today, the utilized words are:coexistence - cohabitation - living together - co-existence - harmony - partnership - co-habitation - togetherness - get-together - fellowship - moving in - convivence - common-law marriage - cohabiting - coexisting - life in common.
NOT CONCUBINAGE
I assure you: if you translate from English this word in other languages, in most of them the meaning is, for nowadays values, insulting, at least in countries where monogamy is the rule... I don't wanna know in others...
Thanks for the discussion, by the way :)

My feeling? WTF?! u must be on drug yourself. Please go to Uni and study a lot more. You are incompetent, ignorant and really short-minded: you are talking by googling stuff you don't know how to search. And I repeat myself: you dunno the right proper sources to study this theme. The fact that you are choosing a stage like MDL to talk about stuff like this says it all.
Just a clown in search of a stage to perform.

Evidently you've never been to Oslo, but worst of all, you have no sense of criticism and understanding of which sources you are listening too. And you even dare to say "naive" to others... LOL
Please do come here In Oslo and see for yourself.
Unbelieveble!

You don't know what Squishy was talking about, evidently, smart guy. He/she is referring to The Host 2013 from Stephenie Meyer's novel, so, i assure you, it is totally a Hollywood movie...

FINALLYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Defo my dear ! ;)

I am at ep 9, till now it is exactly the plot, the narrative and characters of GONE WITH THE WIND made in 1939, dunno what kind of originality you see, cos it is the most classic love story ever, of all time, in cinema universe...
That said, it is really well done, beautiful and entertaining, worthy to be watched, but DEFO a Korean REMAKE.
Great cast, with:
Namkoong Min as Clark Gable/ Rhett Butler
Ahn Eun Jin as Vivien Leigh/ Scarlett O'Hara
Lee Hak Joo as Leslie Howard/Ashley Wilkes
Lee Da In as Olivia de Havilland/ Melanie Hamilton

Just, please guys, don't tell me it is gonna end in the last scene with an : "After all, tomorrow is another day!" XD XD

i hear you well :)