FrothyMix

Wow, Assa, the last part of your comment would be interesting if anyone had, you know, actually said that. Jesus. Delicate flowers.

Could you clarify please?: Are you saying you are going to stop watching this series because the comment section here upsets you...? Or what?

I wrote: "He (GUN THE ACTOR, to whom I was referring )radiates gayness, softness, femininity and that is entirely fine and wonderful. Just don't ask the audience to buy him as a straight action/spy hero. Please."

Now...what part of "that is entirely fine and wonderful" can you not grasp? I dare you to quote me where I wrote that "straight and bisexual men can't be feminine or soft" or that "queer people cant be action/spy heroes?" I didn't write any of that. That is YOU PROJECTING your own insecurities onto me and actually just LYING in your comment.

omg...thank you for the good laugh. You're such a delicate flower of SJW - World that you can't spell out SEXUAL ASSAULT and RAPE. hahaha...you actually used the word "problematic." So original and SO SJW.

I think YOU are bullshit. Rape and sexual assault and murder and buglary and extortion and blackmail and kidnapping and battery and theft and forgery and all the other bad behaviors human beings have acted out since the dawn of time are what makes for good drama in plays, movies, series, books, novels, poetry, you name it. Very few people want to read or watch a drama about everyone sitting around being polite to each other. Some people that get raped fall in love with their rapist. It happens. Just because something happens in a fictional world doesn't mean it is being necessarily condoned. It means that the REAL world and REAL people are made up of GRAY, not black and white as you would like to pretend.

You got a problem with flawed characters who do questionable things? Tell that to every great writer of fiction in the history of civilization. Go watch soap operas and read fairy tales. No one owes you a problem-free fictional artistic experience, presented in all the beautiful grays of the human rainbow.

Where did I write "he slept with women so he's straight?" I didn't, but you'd like to pretend I did. Since your too dense to get it, my point was that GUN THE ACTOR is never going to be a convincing straight and/or bisexual character. He radiates gayness, softness, femininity and that is entirely fine and wonderful. Just don't ask the audience to buy him as a straight action/spy hero. Please.

Tharntype and Love By Chance are two of the most popular and financially successful BLs in the short history of BLs. So who the hell is this "everyone else" you think you're writing on behalf of? lol I get it. You're an SJW with all your "toxic" and "problematic" and "consent" bullshit and you want to pry every last drop of gray out of your tiny world of black and white.

It will never work. People LOVE flawed characters and bad behavior; that's what makes DRAMA. Everyone behaving properly and morally is boring.

What makes you think I'm "mad," dear? Or would attributing an emotion like that to me be your attempt to insult me and devalue my comments? Pretty sure that's what it is. More ten year-old stuff. YOU are the one who's having a hissy fit that someone would dare to dislike and mock a show you seem to think is awesome.

A cliche m/m couple is at the center of this show. A very popular and well known BL couple. Gee, why would that be?

What is it you think is "bold and new" about this silly series? Everything here has been done much better a thousand times before. Its purpose is not to "open up the possibilities for queer narratives." Its purpose is to make money.

Do you generally put "queer narratives" in all your writing so that we'll know you're in college?

Oh dear. Now you're just making shit up. I did NOT say what you claim I did. You need to learn the purpose and proper usage of quotation marks. I said THIS show, with its low budget and trying to be Mission Impossible, feels cheap and low-level, which it does. Do YOU think the action and thriller aspects are rendered in a way equal to higher-budget and feature film productions?

I can say whatever I want about any piece of entertainment by virtue of the fact that I'm a potential audience member. The show is already finished. I'm not "trying to limit" anything. I'm saying what they came up with is a BL trying to be a spy thriller and they failed.

Actually, any production HAS to limit itself, choose its parameters, tell its story and stick to that. What? You think a show can be EVERYTHING to ALL people at once? No, no it can't. It can't be rainbows and unicorns and spy thrillers and relationship dramas at the same time and succeed.

Gosh, I can think of a TON of BLs where being openly gay is NOT looked upon favorably, the lead characters are experiencing their first gay relationship, and homophobia and its consequences are a huge part of the story. BL leads are constantly coming out to hateful, selfish, homophobic parents, friends and coworkers. Of course that's not true in all cases, but I'd argue it is in most.

More than anything, a show like this, with its low budget and questionable direction, comes off as a community-theatre version of a crime/spy thriller and feels cheap and cheesy. It's embarrassing. And to me it gets worse when a show like this tries to teach moral/cultural/political lessons because the teaching is inevitably clunky and too on-the-nose. Filipino BLs are the worst at this: So many of them are little more than a Pride parade.

Finally, this is definitely aimed at the BL audience, as was Manner of Death, by its casting of a popular gay BL couple.

If you're a college freshman, stop writing like a ten year-old.

Who cares what the main actors say? They're paid by the production company to say what they're TOLD to say. Yes, we have one of the most popular BL couplei s telling us how the show they're in where they fall in love is not a BL. lol

Why would I be trying to "limit what the director is wanting their series to be?" I don't know these people or hate them. I have no reason to destroy their fantasies.

If you want to pretend it's not a BL, let's go with that for a second: It's a "queer narrative" (lol, are you in film school) that is absolutely terrible in almost every respect. Queer narratives about spies and secret missions and hidden identities should be left to the feature film portion of the industry, where such things can be done with a sufficient budget and lack of cheese.

We've established that you are about ten years old (which is an achievement if you really are in film school), by your use of "u are being disrespectful in THE LEAST" statement. Who is it you think I have to pretend to respect unless they have EARNED it with their work product, in this case a series? Are you denying that this show, if only by means of its casting, is aimed directly at the BL audience? The makers seem to think it's a BL. lol

This show is listed on multiple web sites that feature only Boys Love productions, by the way. But you know better.

Terrible. Just awful. It is so embarrassing when a BL, on a BL budget, tries to be an action/thriller or SyFy/horror or police procedural in which the gay relationship is a sub-plot to the ridiculously over-complicated and silly main story of intrigue, spies and secret missions. BLs became as popular as they are by telling stories of young men/boys developing/living in gay relationships, coming-out, homophobia and how to deal with it, prejudice, pain and heartbreak, along with furtive romance-to-passion, acceptance of self, bisexuality, and on and on.

There are thousands of stories yet to be imagined using those tools. These attempts to do a high school-play version of "Mission Impossible" are just horrendously bad. I knew I wouldn't be with this series long when Gun got in bed with the young woman in the first episode and I realized I was supposed to accept his character as straight. I laughed out loud when he did that, such is the power of Gun to project any straightness whatsoever. The two would have been more convincing as male/female BFFs sharing popcorn and talking about boys at school.

BL people: Stick with the basics. It's where all the magic has come from, making BL World such an interesting place. Sadly, the last few BLs I've tried are all really bad. Either the genre is running out of steam or I'm out-growing it. I do watch as many gay-themed Asian feature films/series as I can find, and I'm branching out rapidly into the many good het shows out there. I long for more ITSAYs, IPYTMs, MODCs, TTs, LBCs, MIRs, TWMs, HWIL?s, LLs, and other great BLs that have set the standard which is now being trashed with crap like this.

I knew going in this would be a rough ride but I hit the play button anyway and was not the least bit mistaken. There are maybe three movies I can think of during which I wept almost continuously from somewhere around the middle off and on til the end. He's such a beautiful llittle boy/young man and we all know what is coming so every moment from then on is precious and fraught with the pain just around the corner. Every story about someone dying is our story too of course, and that's why our hearts break. We all have to let go, say goodbye, and finally sail away...but god, the time we spend together on Earth can be so rich and beautiful in the meanwhile.

Astounding acting from the parents and the little boy too. Kang Dong Won is a fave already, but the lovely Song Hye Kyo is extremely talented as is Jo Sung Mok. I bought into them as who they were presented to be. Their portrayals never felt overwrought or obvious or over-acted, and that's part of why I was so deeply moved. The characters they played were remarkable and utterly ordinary.

There is something odd and beautiful in the situation of extremely young parents welcoming into the world a child destined to die at an age that is both extremely young and extremely old. The chemistry among these three was lovely, they feel like a family.

Wow, I'm pretty cried out now but there's a lightness, not a heaviness, in my chest. This movie hit its mark.
9/10

See a psychiatrist immediately. You have issues or may be a psychopath.

I know this is an old, old comment, but who knows, maybe you're still around: What were the few scenes that DID NOT need to be in the movie? If they're the ones I'm thinking of, how could the movie makes it point WITHOUT those scenes?

This is good. Very well done, with a few flaws but nothing significant enough to ruin things.
It made me think of something about the death penalty, which I've been against almost my entire life, which is that governments establish the machinery of death, but seems to care little for the mental and spiritual health of the employees that are hired to do the killing. That said however, and this is especially true here in the U.S., there is NO lack of psychos who would gladly pull the lever or push the button and not lose a wink of sleep over it, all the while claiming to be a Christian. Please. Spare me.

It has long bothered me, and it's very telling, that governments mostly do their killing behind closed doors and thick walls so that the general public doesn't see what so great a percentage of it enthusiastically support actually put into action. I totally agree, that if they'r'e going to do it, do it out in the opne where it will become the blood-thirsty circus that it really is anyway.

Regarding the sub-plot, and the girlfriend, she pissed me off. She made a choice and took action without telling him so that she could drop that bomb AND make him feel guilty for life. Nothing rational prevented her from telling him her decision when she made it. Talk about passive-aggressive.

Also, why would he not quit that job asap?

God...just being reminded that this thing exists made me have to go take a dump.

See below. I'd say 50% less now. lol Had time to think about all the stupid stuff that happened and implausabilities. Good acting throughout though. And I really like the lead.

All the acting was remarkable, especially from our lead couple. I too wept like a child at the end. I liked that the director did not flinch from drawing that scene out, making us live through a tiny bit of the torture that is doled out in situations such as this every time it happens. It's not only the act, but the time that leads up to it. I despise every government that still allows it, including my own, the U.S. It just seems so medival and barbaric sometimes I can't wrap my head around it.

I would have liked a little more indication of why he did what he did in the way that he did it. It seemed so random and without motivation. Why not just run the second you saw what was going down?

Terrible. 5/10

Hi there. Dropping in to say you were absolutely right. I'm dropping the flick at about half an hour. Ridiculous plot conveniences/coincidents, stupid character moves that make absolutely no sense, just lots of dumb stuff like sick people not even covering their faces while they cough all over other people on the bus, etc. The magical immigrant who lay still in a pile of dead bodies until his jump-scare moment, comes out nearly dead, a day later he's running all over the city, still alive all of a sudden. He just HAPPENS to meet up with the girl, who...omg, I like a good disaster flick, Train To Busan is a masterpiece. This is a piece of garbage. I can't believe that 8.5/10 rating. I'm giving it a 5/10.

This movie was enthusiastically recommended to me by two MDL member/friends whose opinions I respect but I can't agree that it's a GREAT movie. A couple of major plot holes and unconvincing character motivations in important scenes were a problem for me. Really fascinating set-up and story that could have made a spectacular film, but the framing device of the female investigator ruined much of it for me. Why not just tell the story in a direct, linear manner instead of with flashbacks through her? I thought most of her scenes were dull and her accented English annoyed me. The Swiss dude with the pipe was annoying af, as was the other, German? dude. Terrible acting from both...that pipe business made me laugh. Their accents were so heavy there should have been subs under their dialogue too.

Basically, I liked it when the story was being allowed to play out, and was bored when the framing device came back. Most of the reasons for who shot who near the end remain a mystery to me, and I didn't like it enough to watch a second time. Some of the artsy shots and cinematography was nice but there was WAY too much of that. Blood dripping off a light bulb was cool.

Good acting from all the male leads, but I have to give this a 6.5/10 overall.