That’s why I’m here. The blurb is no help, so I’m hoping the discussion will be.
I found a good one. I don’t mind spoilers, so I found its entry on one of the review sites I use. The review is here: https://blwatcher.com/bl-series/love-mechanics-drama-review/ - I’ll include the useful stuff, in case there are spoilers on the page you don’t want to see:
“Love Mechanics is a Thai BL series about two engineering students and their turbulent romance. Triggered by a failed love confession, the heartbroken protagonist has a drunken one-night stand with a stranger at a bar…”
There is more of this summary, and a partial synopsis further down the page, but don’t follow the link if you want to be spoiler-free.
I’m only at the first meeting of the lead pair and the long pauses are making my ADHD itch. I am glad Viki has a user-friendly UX, like YouTube, for skipping forward. You always hit the nail on the head.
As a note to those with a regular VIP sub on iQIYI, paid by the year: don’t upgrade to premium VIP for shows the release at different rates, like this one. I did for another series, and lost the remaining six months of my subscription, then had to chase after a refund. It was such a pain, and not worth it. I re-subscribed, but if they keep doing this I might not to that again.
YouTube threw me a video with these actors together off the set, and it made me sad that the main couple have much better chemistry in real life than in the drama. Director problem, I guess.
Maybe the era was unromantic but people were people back than too. They love, they lost, they made mistakes etc.…
I’m not saying anything against the relationships. This series is just leaving me cold right now, because it’s set in a bad time for an amazing nation, and because at the point in the story I’m up to, I’m not feeling Mile. I’ll go back to it once I’ve pared down my watchlist a bit, and my mental health is better. I’m watching so many series right now, and I’m stripping that back to the warm, fuzzy mind-candy. Think of it as self-care 🙃
I’m finding Thanwa annoying, and the era a bit grim. I grew up through the 70s, and it’s distinctly unromantic to me. There was nuclear testing going on in the Pacific, the Cold War was going on, as well as many more conventional conflicts. Thailand was a mess. South Africa was an apartheid state, and had locked up Nelson Mandela in the 60s. I was in Bangkok very briefly at the end of the 70s, and the strongest impression was made by armed forces personnel carrying rifles at the airport. Around then the ozone hole that effected my country badly started appearing. The 60s and 70s was a period when counter-culture had a lot to chew on, so it makes sense to base a political drama about social unrest then, especially a Thai one, given the instability there at the time. It’s just not conducive to me getting a fix of romance, so after three episodes I’m going to put it on the back burner, until I’m feeling optimistic enough to re-visit it.
I didn't really like Min Jun. I just think that he didn't even put the same effort compared to Jin Hwan. To be…
Minjun’s a lot like me, to outward appearances. Their conversation by the river in the third episode confirmed that he shares less visible traits with me too. He’s got listening-comprehension deficits and doesn’t understand cues for intent, but I’m not sure if they’re from similar causes to mine or not. When he was younger he was terrible at wearing his heart on his sleeve, he’s much more expressive in the scenes set in the present. That’s probably a case of learning how to over time, because his more overt expressions feel like ASD-style masking to me. I don’t know if it’s good actor instincts or good direction, but he’s acting his socks off, from where I’m sitting. It’s subtle though. Jinhwan is the opposite. He wears his heart on his sleeve, and is very authentically rendered, which makes him feel sincere and earnest, when they are communicating properly. His masking is much more neurotypical, and as such much more obvious, because he comes across as insincere in those moments, such as in the boardroom encounter when they are first reunited by the director. They’re both great, in my opinion. Good casting.
“Love Mechanics is a Thai BL series about two engineering students and their turbulent romance. Triggered by a failed love confession, the heartbroken protagonist has a drunken one-night stand with a stranger at a bar…”
There is more of this summary, and a partial synopsis further down the page, but don’t follow the link if you want to be spoiler-free.