LykeItRuff

When the story is this bad, who cares? I'd rather have a good story, well-told with bad cinematography.

ugh. What a horrible episode. I could just not care any less about the MC. They are so boring, the acting is so mediocre and unconvincing, the basketball scenes are embarrassingly bad. I FF through the episode hoping for VeeDome or the other side couple but nada. I've never seen a BL before in which it is so clear that the focus is entirely on the wrong people. Awful. Tae is one of the all-time worst BL actors ever, so I guess that's something.

Not necessarily. She slowly figures out why he did what he did while the cops were moving in, visits him in prison, tells him just that and dedicates herself to getting his story out there so that he gets a second trial with a reduced sentence and she waits a few years. The end. A lot of sequels suck. But not all of them.

I need to watch it a seccond time, which I do most movies I like, so I'm sure I'll pick up all kinds of things missed the first time. I still find it unnecessarily murky. And so often, when this type of thing happens, when one party does something cruel to another out of an "honorable" motivation to somehow benefit the other without them knowing, what they really do is hurt and scar the other person for life, who will always have doubt as to what really went down. It's not as though this girl said "OK, he's a murderer so now I hate him, done deal." She will wonder the rest of her life and maybe even figure out what he did and why. SEQUEL! :)

I do not mind somewhat open endings, but when it's done simply to fuck with the audience, why not make your intention just a little more clear? Yuichi could have said "I love you, I thank you, the cops are coming so now I'm going to choke you so you won't get in trouble. Please come see me in jail." Rather he chose to emotionally wreck her the rest of her life. You see that in the taxi at the end: Part of her believes he was nothing but a "bad person" but part of her doesn't buy it. .That is where she will spend the rest of her life. But I guess he also felt he was setting her free to hate him so she could eventually move on and have a life, since she had already said she'd "wait forever" or what while he was in jail.

I also don't really buy when a character like Yuichi under those intense, emotional, dangerous moments, is able to figure out and decide all this in 30 seconds, make a decision and go for it.

A different question I'd like your opinion on: Why would the cops so readily believe the college boy when he said he kicked her out of the car but didn't kill her? He had zero evidence backing that up and they had zero reason to believe him, but they seemed to just take his smarmy word for it and let him go. Thoughts?

This probably makes me a bad person, but even more so than the college kid, I disliked the murdered girl most of any character. She was trying to play multiple guys at one time, got called on it and thrown out on the road like a piece of the trash that asshole said she was, and then when Yuichi tried to help her she chose to make him feel like shit to make herself feel better, having just been treated like shit herself. That's another area of difficult-to-believe motivation for me. I get that she's a player but not very good at it and is a massive bitch, but really? You're on a deserted highway many miles from town, you've hit your head on a railing, you're grimy and feel shitty, but you refuse help from someone who offers it and even worse, out of nowhere announce you will charge him with rape and assault, screaming at him like a banshee the whole time? So now you're going to stagger 15 miles home in your hooker boots, bleeding and dazed rather than take a ride? Nah...yeah, she's not thinking rationally and is probably insane at that moment but really? Where is her survival instinct?

Also, an examination would show she had NOT been raped, and they had already figured out who kicked her out on the road. Why would her story be believed? Internet phone records would show her interactions with both guys prior to all this going down, etc. However, I get he wouldn't really be thinking all this out rationally in that moment and I get that one message from the show is that justice exists only to the degree of your socio-economic class and Yuichi knew he would be the underdog. But again: all that thought through and decided in five seconds?

Another theme that struck me was that of people being so quick to announce THEY are the victim in a situation where they most certainly are not. The trashy girl. Yuichi's disgusting bio-mom. The sweet girl's roommate. Oh poor meeeeeee...

Finally, do you believe Yuichi's mom's story that he's been visiting her and asking for money while she professes her sorrowful regrets? It seemed out of the blue and inconsistent with Yuichi's attitude. Plus he had a full time job and didn't need money.

Like all good movies, the more questions I ask the more I think of to ask. :D If you have any thoughts to share, please do.

But he sure seemed to be quite serious about killing her. He wasn't pretending, and how could he know the cops would break in before he choked her to death? I love your interpretation but it should have been made a bit clearer.

Wow, I hadn't thought of that, but it sure looked like he was intent on killing her there at the end and how could he know the cops would break in before he DID kill her? But maybe you're right...hmmm...I thought maybe he was so psychologically damaged and full of self-hatred that to him anyone who loved him that much must be fucked up and deserved to die. If the self-sacrifice part is correct, and I like that interpretation, I wish the director had made it a little more clear.

and also maybe not falsely accuse someone who is trying to help them of rape and assault. But yeah, women hooking up off the Internet is insane.

Fukashu Eri is astonishingly talented. Wow. So is Tsumabuki Satoshi of course.

Only a Japanese, Korean or Hong Kong movie could ever make me feel such a wild range of emotions as this film and many others have. Asian film makers and story tellers seem to get that the world operates in a wide range of grays, not the black and white, good/bad fairytales we so often get out of Hollywood. Once again, I'm blown away.

I think Yuichi, in that moment, was justified in believing what that horrible girl told him, that no one would believe him and his life was over. Doesn't justify what he did but really, was he completely wrong?

Tremendous acting across the board. Fantastic. Loved it. Highly recommended.

9/10 from me.

What a great, fun movie. Really entertaining and a lot of belly laughs. Jong Jae Young is top-notch as the by-the-book "robber." Good supporting players all-round, especially from the actor who played the police chief. I will look him up, as I know I recognize him from somewhere. He played the character to perfection and I liked the character he played a lot too.

Lots of fun! Watch it!

This looks terrible but I'll give it a shot because of the Grey Rainbow actors I love and the funny dude from Love By Chance. But these BLs where they cast 19 year-olds as professionals, CEOs, doctors, nurses, whatever feel like a high school play. Then there's the special effects and kick-ass makeup a show about a hospital setting is going to need and I could tell from this trailer that the blood looks awfully fake. lol Add in the cliche OST songs that pipe up every time the director wants to tell us what to feel about something as if we're stupid and he doesn't trust his actors or script to do the job.

All that and I haven't mentioned the silly conceit of a doctor and the freaking Angel of Death falling in love. Apparently the Angel of Death will take a break from killing people to go to the beach and schnuggle with the doctor. lol There is not one BL with that sort of supernatural plot that I have liked. Too bad for me.

Just watched the rooftop trailer. Boring. Why would they pick such a slow/blah scene to promote t he show. And I hate it when BLs use intrusive OST vocals/music that burst into song as though to cue us what and when to feel this or that. The director doesn't trust the script or the actors to convey the feels, so we have some dude breaking into song out of nowhere when the hand goes to the heart. Totally takes me out of the moment, plus it's such a BL cliche. It would be nice to have somebody try silence as a directorial choice.

Meh...dropping after about 40 minutes. The insanely abrupt change in tone from slapstick comedy to heart-breaking tragedy gave me whiplash and kind of pissed me off. Seemed weird to me. After that I had a bad taste in my mouth and was suddenly impatient with the entire thing. So...off I go.

To me it would have been more interesting and profound for the script to emphasize that the SOUL of Hayeon is the SAME regardless of the biological gender of the body it finds itself in in any given lifetime. Haeyone isn't different because their SOUL is in a body with a penis anymore than it is different if it has a vagina. The soul, the spirit, the essence would be the same and YS's acceptance and embracing of that fact should have been emphasized. After all, YS is completely straight in a sexual sense, so he has to allow himself to explore the physical side of being in love with Hayeon when they are inside a man's body. So I didn't really like it when Hayeon asked if he was in love with HIM....of course he is, the SOUL of Hayeon is the same.

To me it would have been more interesting and profound for the script to emphasize that the SOUL of Hayeon is the SAME regardless of the biological gender of the body it finds itself in in any given lifetime. Haeyone isn't different because their SOUL is in a body with a penis anymore than it is different if it has a vagina. The soul, the spirit, the essence would be the same and YS's acceptance and embracing of that fact should have been emphasized. After all, YS is completely straight in a sexual sense, so he has to allow himself to explore the physical side of being in love with Hayeon when they are inside a man's body. So I didn't really like it when Hayeon asked if he was in love with HIM....of course he is, the SOUL of Hayeon is the same.

I think you're mostly on your own with this opinion, my friend, except for the horror that is Hayeon trying to act like he's crying. Instead of spending valuable time researching before you choose to watch a BL, why not, you know...just watch it? There is no way to know from research whether a show is good or bad, as your dropping this one indicates. I'm a firm believer that you can tell in the first 20-30 minutes whether a show is good, bad, in-between. If the writers and the director don't feel they need to grab our attention with that first impression, they are sorely mistaken.

Same with labeling ALL BLs from one country the same when in fact there is a wide variety of quality from each place. The only way to know is watch it. I don't give a damn where it was made if it sucks or if it is awesome.

I will, however, go so far as to say I am REALLY leery of Pinoy BLs...I watch the first episode through my fingers. That country has put out so many stinkers I can't imagine how they keep getting funding for more. I have dropped a shit-load of BLs lately...because they suck. Thailand seems to be on a downward trend but I will always at least sample a show, regardless of where it originates.

What is "occ?"

Why did Hyun Soo kill the female detective at the end?

Whoa. Awesome gangster flick. Korea has turned me into a crime/thriller/action fan to some degree. The complicated plotting, the direction/acting/fight scenes/sets/everything is just amazingly well-done. Hollywood thrillers seem dull by compare.

I have a major question in the spoiler below. If someone can give me the answer I'd appreciate that.

Wow, thanks for all that exposition. I truly appreciate it. I would not have replied with my list above if I had realized you were specifically talking about SK BLs. I'm just jealous that you can write so concisely about what you saw and felt from this show, or any show. :D I may have to copy and paste this as a reference for the future. :)

What I know is that I liked this show very much and cared about the MC as characters. There was a lot that could have been done better, and at this point in BL world development, there is no excuse for the trope/cliche/repetition problem when a little bit of creativity and hard work could have fixed that problem..

And while I found Jeon Chang Ha's character to be sweet/cute, I don't think he has the acting chops or got sufficient direction to play this part as well as it could have been played. His "crying" scenes were, to use a cliche, cringe-worthy. On the other hand I can't say enough about Jin Gun, particularly in this final episode. Wow. His character's pain/hurt/regret/sorrow was palpable and entirely real. He had me bawling half the episode and he wasn't TRYING, he was BEING. The series got a little slack in the middle but this last ep puts it on my re-watch list and JG on my actors-to-watch list.

As for lessons about gay acceptance/lgbt representation/internalized homophobia/prejudice, etc. I don't really look to art, especially fictional films and series, to be taught moral/SJW precepts. All of those things and more can be part of an overall story of course, and can make it very powerful, but I hate being preached to. Sometimes I like to see a character DE-volve rather than develop; not everyone lives life on an upward trajectory due to circumstances or personality.

I wish more had been explicitly explored about my feeling that souls do not have sexualities, that the body a soul inhabits in a particular lifetime is either a chance of fate or destiny. By that reasoning, a soul would frequently change gender and sexuality over eternity, no? I thought at the end this show became TOO focused on Hayeon's gender; the message seemed to be that because in this life he was a man that he was somehow a different PERSON than before. I like the idea that gender changes, souls do not even have a gender. It felt like the script was really PUSHING YS to go from full-straight to full-gay in a relatively short amount of time. A LOT more time could have been given over to his willingness and struggle to change teams for the sake of his beloved. To me, that's a more interestiing story.

"Maybe" is a long way from IS. I'm just curious as to why you would write such a thing as if it were fact. It struck me as strange that you would do that without some evidence as to the truth of what you're saying. Anyway, no biggie.