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High school cohabitation BL that left me unsatisfied because of its open ending and lack of focus
This BL drama which features the budding romance between two newly step-brothers as they are forced to cohabitate and go to the same school. In itself, the series contains a lot of classical romantic tropes that I like but spend too much time on elements irrelevant for the romance to really maintain the interest. There is too much plot at school and even if it is important to establish the characters and develop their relationship, it also take too much place in the storytelling. When I look back at the 12 episodes and the open ending, I can only regret the choice of the production team to spend so much time on school plot rather than on family and romance, especially with the cohabitation aspect of the series being the best part of the story.
Acting wise, the main actors Liu Dong Qin and Benjamin Tsang did both an overall good job portraying the shift in feelings of their characters as well as the emotional trauma they carry. I wish there were a bit more tension and fiery chemistry between them, but it is far from being the worst that I have seen. Especially given the fact that the material they play does not contain a lot of intense moments of passion. The remainder of the cast is doing an okay job but nothing outstanding. The lack of charism of some of the "adults" part made me not care at the side characters storyline, especially the one of the teachers. I wish they would have removed from the script all the "teachers" stories because it was just a distraction on the main plot, without any real rewarding pay-off.
I also found the editing of the scenes and the overall making quite clumsy. The way they filmed some of the interactions and moments supposed to showcase the sparkles of feelings between the main leads was sometimes awkward. My biggest regret was that the production team decided to only adapt half of the story of a novel, thinking that they could have a season 2 to finish it but without greenlighting it. It seems that this second season will never happen, leaving the viewer with a relative bittersweet feeling given to the quite open ending. While it does not end on a cliffhanger, it left me hanging enough to feel frustrated about the big picture of the story told.
With S2 seemingly not happening, I would not necessary recommend this to people. If a season 2 was planned, I would probably say it is worth a shot if you enjoy slow burn cohabitation romance and are not allergic to a lot of sides plot and slice-of-life aspects.
Acting wise, the main actors Liu Dong Qin and Benjamin Tsang did both an overall good job portraying the shift in feelings of their characters as well as the emotional trauma they carry. I wish there were a bit more tension and fiery chemistry between them, but it is far from being the worst that I have seen. Especially given the fact that the material they play does not contain a lot of intense moments of passion. The remainder of the cast is doing an okay job but nothing outstanding. The lack of charism of some of the "adults" part made me not care at the side characters storyline, especially the one of the teachers. I wish they would have removed from the script all the "teachers" stories because it was just a distraction on the main plot, without any real rewarding pay-off.
I also found the editing of the scenes and the overall making quite clumsy. The way they filmed some of the interactions and moments supposed to showcase the sparkles of feelings between the main leads was sometimes awkward. My biggest regret was that the production team decided to only adapt half of the story of a novel, thinking that they could have a season 2 to finish it but without greenlighting it. It seems that this second season will never happen, leaving the viewer with a relative bittersweet feeling given to the quite open ending. While it does not end on a cliffhanger, it left me hanging enough to feel frustrated about the big picture of the story told.
With S2 seemingly not happening, I would not necessary recommend this to people. If a season 2 was planned, I would probably say it is worth a shot if you enjoy slow burn cohabitation romance and are not allergic to a lot of sides plot and slice-of-life aspects.
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