Charbonnel

Seonga is essentially a chaebol, which was way too easily guessed from long before the reveal. But, even after this, it’s all very predictable at the close of a story that clearly didn’t want prediction.

Her criminal activities are rural enough that surely it would have felt more vengeful to let her rot in prison and at the hands of the police, rather than bail her out only to put her down like a dog. After putting up with so much of her deviance, her father is disappointingly cliche.

Personally I can see more interesting options for the story if she were anything but a chaebol, but that’s just my take. The chaebol route didn’t leave wriggle room to avoid predictability and cliche.

It’s really very good, the only major critique I have is on some specific aspects of the nonlinear storytelling. Without reading the synopsis, the initial episodes are very confusing. Just explicitly tell viewers this is 2001 and this is 2024 and problem solved. I was thinking initially they were down the road from each other facing simultaneous crises, which was half right.

The smaller critique being that the background of one character that was kept a mystery for so long was cliche and predictable and could have been handled better with only minor changes.

Otherwise a very good dark drama that provokes thought and question.

Since it’s only releasing internationally and not in China, I doubt it’ll get censored. The mainland Chinese viewers have no official platforms to view it, which makes everything happening to the actors crazier.

Filmed in China, but only airing outside of China as far as I know.

This I can agree with, I still just find it hard to believe the behaviour of ‘fans’ at times, this certainly being one of them.

I have seen clips of Chinese influencers and celebrities not having enough security and even abandoning their luggage to get away from fans that want to mob them. I do hope something changes in future.

Si!

The webnovel fandom for BL in China is huge, but most international BL fans never dip into it because they don’t often get translated, let alone relatively uncensored adaptations since 2017. I suspect it’s a combo of how well known and loved the novel is and the fact it has an uncensored drama that is doing well, combine these factors and you’d get the unfortunate events like that airport incident.

I hate fandoms and refuse to align with them for this exact reason. At the end of the day, daily life is daily life and actors are not their characters. I wish fans could learn to see actors as people no different to themselves, respecting others as regular human beings who happen to be good at what they do.

It’s incredibly long, I read a translation years ago (as in, pre-2020) and got lost in the soup somewhere around the 160 mark if I recall correctly. Said translation was still updating at that time. There’s a lot of Chinese BL novels like this though, Addicted has well over 200 chapters as I recall hearing from a friend who read the entirety of it, and a lot happens in those.

Short(ish) chapters sometimes with a lot of detail for not a lot of events covered? Descriptive would be the word, but nit every chapter is like that.

Edit: if it helps as a guide, I remember multiple chapters detailing every job Wu Suo Wei took and every encounter he had with the other lead in detail. It wasn’t just that he took each job and encountered him each time, while this is all in Episode 1 here.

I was wondering if they’d include the snakes this time, suffice to say question answered! They were a surprise when I first read the novel since as I recall they’re not really mentioned in the previous adaptation.

3/6 watched and I won’t sugarcoat this. Each instalment of this series has had less and less soul to it, in a way that is also very strange. The characters brought in in season 2 and carried through to this season are more likeable…but on the whole, a lot less interesting and engaging. A shaman, a retired rapper-turned-addict, a scammer who has some sort of heart, and yet they all fall flat, becoming caricatures, victims to their own predictability (bar the scammer to some extent). The mother-son duo have been the closest to meaningful, while sounding far less exciting than the previous list.

I cannot say the first season is flawless or a favourite of mine, but I can say I rooted for the humanity of the characters. While the timing of their deaths was predictable, they felt far more like real people with real struggles and motivations. I felt emotional impact to these characters as people and was affected by one or two deaths. We’re also not given reasons to want these characters to succeed in most cases, as at best they mention their struggle, but we don’t even get a visual allusion to it. I’m not asking much, but we saw the life circumstances in season 1, and that made leaps and bounds for depth, motivation, and character investment.

This season, not one character has enough of this realness to their writing for me to plausibly feel any attachment. The show has none of the emotional depth the first season attempted to offer, because it doesn’t even try. Will I finish it? Yes, because I watch it socially, but honestly not sure I would otherwise.

I just saw the format and I’m in shock. A 24 episode, 48-minutes per episode BL!? I’m so used to shorter formats, never expected to see one in a more standard Cdrama format post-ban. Looking forward to this, the other adaptation was one of my early watches on this site. I’ve also read the novel for this one and it has so much potential, albeit it’s on the wilder side at times. Very excited, starting this today.

That’s left me so happy and giddy, a rare 10 from me! It left my heart feeling excited and sparkly and that’s the only way I can describe it. Every single episode is a joy to watch, the show never bogs itself down in taking itself too seriously and yet still a lovely positive message shines through. The narrator was also a lovely touch throughout!

(Edit: spelling)

I know the feeling! The first few times I encountered it as SOOD I was confused and then it clicked 🤣😭

I’m so glad to see someone else feels so strongly about the importance of subtitles in conveying dialogue. For this drama, I think I can only wish you luck. If it were Japanese I could recommend fansubbers, but I don’t know any for Taiwanese dramas to recommend, and often officially translated dramas don’t get fansubs. If like me you’ve seen enough to have the ability to use a bit of familiarity with Mandarin, it might not be so bad?

On a side note, the admiration and respect I have for fansubbers who care strongly about the impact of the dialogue is through the roof. Really amazing work comes from it and they don’t even do it as their main career usually.

Either way, I’m glad my rant was appreciated 🙏

Up to date and as usual, left feeling a bubbly happiness

My first was Dark Blue and Moonlight, followed by both seasons of Make It Right before I found the HIStory series and (BL) dramas became a more regular fixture for me. I’d love to hear yours too!

Dark Blue and Moonlight had a lot of beauty in spite of the painful themes. Still appreciate it now. Colour grading choices were creative but inconsistent (they chose to emphasise the dark blues through grading changes when certain characters were together but it didn’t quite work.)

I agree broadly on Thai BL, and their market is wildly saturated these days. I watch at most 1~3 per year if I watch any at all.

I’m a week behind but still loving every second of this little gem. Not a single second wasted. Loving the lightheartedness along with genuine open and positive messaging. I also love a drama that manages to showcase a parent’s sincerest care for their children, which I’d argue was done perfectly here without having to adjust the tone of the show. They kept it light but we can clearly see both mothers only really wish for their child’s happiness, even if Mia’s mother needs some time to wrap her head around it, she showed support.

Ah, that I can totally understand! It happens to the best of us.

Totally respect your decision about where you watch content from too! For me the drama pipeline was because of running out of anime I was interested in in 2017, and my first drama was also BL, off the back of an amv I saw the recommendation as I recall.

I appreciate this little chat, it has been fun! Any adventure is still an adventure, distance aside~ Also glad to see someone else so interested in the world around them, be it culture, politics, or media.

I’ll look forward to watching it when I next settle down with a film then~ (No worries about BL or not, I watch everything!)

Also pleasantly surprised to see someone mention Wrath of Desire, I watched that eons ago, albeit it’s very difficult to find. It’s also very strange, artsy neo-noir but an interesting film.

I’m glad you enjoyed it~

I’m not Japanese, but I lived in Japan during my degree, and will be moving back to work there after graduation this summer. While not fluent, I understand and speak the language pretty well, as well as speaking dialect due to where I lived and my local friends’ influence.

I’ve hardly seen any pre-2000 Japanese media but would be interested if you had any movie recommendations! I’ve watched dramas ranging from 2000s to present, but movies I’ve seen so little from before 2020, not for a lack of interest, I just tended to go to cinemas while I was over there - became an enjoyable hobby to see what’s new. Same with seeing some asadoras (the 15-minute morning dramas) before my daily commute from my dorm.