Maggi64

The1st hint is when Haeboom asks TaeSung to do him a favor and call his mom. TaeSung asks, "What will you do for me?" Then he gives Haeboom a sexy look, leans in toward him, and whispers, "Then you'd better be looking forward to tonight." Haeboom blushes.

The 2nd hint is when Taesung picks up Haeboom and Haeboom's got his legs wrapped around TaeSung's waist, whereupon Taesung throws him on the bed, and essentially mounts him. There's some tickling, but what's implied is that TaeSung is the dominant, strong one who's gonna ravish his sweet, little boy. LOL.

The 3rd hint is when Haeboom tells TaeSung that he'd better apologize to his mother. "Otherwise," says Haeboom playfully, "I'm not letting you come near me." The implication is that TaeSung is always trying to get jiggy with his little Haeboom, so much so that Haeboom even has to occasionally say, "Down, boy!"

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BOTH CUTESY & SEXY!

I liked how there are hints that these two are going at it at night. While last week's episode suggested that they were cutesy with each other when they first moved in together, this episode shows them in phase two where they're comfortable enough to be both cutesy AND sexy with each other.

I've never used IMDB to give ratings, so I am not sure if they have verify viewers or allow multiple accounts. Perhaps someone else here can answer????

Conversely, you will see some mediocre dramas get sky high ratings. This happens when rabid fans set up multiple accounts to boost a show's ratings with 10's. One must be obsessed with a show to take that kind of trouble, and I don't know what it says about we BL fans, but this kind of obsession seems to happen a lot in our community. At least over at Viki I don't have to feel ashamed of being a BL fan, because there's some dignity in how they rate shows and don't allow the obsessive nut jobs to take over.

I watched it 2x and always cringe when he pretends to like French Avant Garde directors like Trauffaut. It's so obviously pretentious. And you can tell he's embarrassed almost as soon as he says it. Especially when cool DeWoon says he doesn't even have a favorite film. But Si Won redeems himself later on and gets honest. I won't spoil it for you with the details, in case you're not there yet.

Nice assessment of the show. I hope you left exactly this as your review for the Review section. Oh, and I agree that the only bit which disappointed me was at the end when Da Woon whispers his new career choice. I figured it was portrait photography (ie, he want to shoot people, not stories), but why whisper this? Was there some sort of inside joke with the director and cast? I mean, it's odd to not let the audience know what a character is saying. Otherwise, I'd say the show is perfection.

I know! Everyone does! My theory is that he wants to be a portrait photographer, because he said he wants to shoot people, not whole stories, which is what movies are. And when Si Won asked "Because of me?" I thought maybe Si Won wondered if he were leaving the film profession cuz of their argument, and the fact that Si Won said he won't work with him again. I assume Si Won doesn't want to work with him cuz Da Woon would keep getting all the credit due to his parents. What I cannot figure out is why this would have to be whispered. And why the heck did the director include something the audience would not be able to hear?

I stopped paying attention to MDL ratings as they are corrupted by so many factors. To begin, MDL does not verify viewers, so anybody can give ratings even if they do not watch a show. MDL also allows people to set up dummy accounts and thus one person can enter multiple ratings over and over. In fact, some people who thought "My Beautiful Man" was "toxic" lowered its rating from an 8.6 to a 7.9 in a matter of days. The swiftness indicated there was a concerted effort to lower the rating, likely from dummy accounts.

I go to Viki to see ratings I can trust. Viki verifies viewers by making them pay for a subscription before being allowed to give a rating. And you can only rate a show once. If you wanted to rate multiple times, well, then you would have to pay all over again with different credit cards and subscribe multiple times, which nobody's going to do. But MDL lets people rate shows w/dummy accounts over and over for free. That is why their rating system is entirely corrupt.

It is also why there is always a huge disparity between the rating for the same show on MDL and on Viki. For example, "My Beautiful Man" has a 7.9 on MDL, but it has a 9.5 on Viki. Considering the methodology for Viki's rating system, I would say that Viki's rating is the legitimate one. Blueming is not on Viki yet, but it probably will be soon. And I am sure it will get a high rating. In the meantime, just ignore MDL's rating. It's meaningless.

Funny, but I had no intention of rating KP until 5 or 6 episodes were out. But I got eviscerated on the Comment Sex for saying people should hold off on rating it, cuz 1 episode was not enough. So I thought, ok guys, you think it's ok to judge based on one episode? I'll do that. Based on 1 episode I see alpha male behavior. It's what Thai Marketers called "straight acting" males. It's really just what sociologists mean by "alpha males."

A Japanese journalist did an article (which I'll try to find again), about the Thai BL industry's market research and how it determined that BL fans wanted to see alpha males. It also defined the demographic who watch BL as hetero women under 35. I fit the demo insofar as I am a hetero female, but at 55 I am older than most. The article was so interesting that I was compelled to google more and hence discovered that BL Shows were one of Thailand's Gross National Products. That means big time money!

A Thai director critiqued the whole industry in the BL show, "Call It What You Want." It was based on his experiences directing 2 Moons. CIWYW featured a producer sexually abusing the lead who was hired to be the "top" (ie, alpha). It was about how Thai BL producers demand that every show cast an alpha male, and how there's enormous pressure on the alpha male to work out and maintain a hot body.

It was an interesting look at the behind the scenes of the BL industry in Thailand and, frankly, put a bad taste in my mouth about Thai BL's ever since. So perhaps I am biased against Thai shows. But I really did think KinnPorsche was cheesy. And I was looking forward to it because it was promoted so heavily, and because I love BL's. I love movies about gay women too (a great one is Cate Blanchet in "Carol"). I just love stories about what I call "otherness" in general.

OK, sorry for writing at such length. I am an English Prof and writing is part of my profession so I tend to always go on and on, lol. So I'll close out by thanking you once again for disagreeing in such a polite and respectful manner.

I want to thank you again for your polite reply. As you'll see if you read the messages here, some hysterical fan left me an angry message. I only read one sentence, gleaned her hysterical tone, and stopped reading. I shall neither read nor reply to angry missives.

But you were cool. In fact, you were so cool that I went back and edited my review based on what you'd said about a character in KinnPorsche being revealed as gay later on. Now, I still maintain that Thai BL's give us straight "acting" macho guys, even if they are "gay." But it's better if they at least claim to be gay, so I edited my review to concede that a guy is gay in KP.

However, I kept my rating a 1 to make the point that I was judging based on a single episode just as all the people giving it a 10 are judging it based on a single episode. MDL should not even allow this. I got eviscerating in the Comment section for saying the 10 ratings were premature because a lot can change in coming episodes. For instance, pacing may lag; the climax may be underwhelming, characters may be introduced who are underdeveloped, illogical plot points may appear.

So much can happen, but whatever ratings people give once the show is further along won't matter, because the overall rating shall be corrupted by these early ratings that will inflate the permanent number. And most fans of KP are rating it a 10 based on their excitement from all the promotions more than anything else. This show had a massive budget for production and promotion.

Meanwhile, a small, quiet show like "Blueming" had no promotional fanfare and is resting on its own laurels for quality. It's also a perfect example of a show wherein the boys may not use the word "gay" (because in Korea one is still oppressed for it), but nor are the boys portrayed as macho studs with ex girlfriends. Indeed, one boy is so clearly a virgin that he didn't even know how to kiss and accidentally bites his boyfriend's lip. It's a darling show and I strongly recommend it if you have not already seen it.

Thank you, I had no idea that the character was gay in the book. I only saw the 45 minute episode. There's a 1 hour episode so maybe it's been cut from mine or hasn't happened yet. As for Italian, yes, I lived there a year. The mafia still exists, but it's feeble. The South Americans really took over. All the trade runs through them with coke and dope. I think KinnPorsche was relying on old fashioned Godfather images and that's why they were going with Italian mafia men. It would have been more realistic if that were a couple of Mexica mafia men, rather than Italian mafia men.

Otherwise, thank you for a respectful reply. We may not agree, but you were polite, so thank you .

Your feedback was spot-on. Especially regarding the tiresome trope of employing external forces to shove 2 boys close together because, as you said, god forbid 2 boys actually express natural attraction. In BL Land it must always be forced by external forces. Or what I call the old slip-fall-and-kiss. It's to the point that the instant I see it, I turn off a BL because the rest of the episodes cannot possibly be any good. After all, any screenwriter who is lazy enough to use the old slip-and-fall-kiss is going to give us a lazy screenplay throughout. So why bother, right?

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THAT VOICE!

Da Woon's voice was so deep and melodic. It reminded me of Gao Shide's deep voice in "We Best Love." Come to think of it, both BL's feature a steady guy with a deep voice who has a killer crush on a slightly erratic, but adorable boy. But I gotta give it to Da Woon's voice for really seducing me. It wasn't just deep, it was gentle too.

Thanks, because so many women were gushing about it that I was shocked. I mean, the men were not only offensively macho, but the depictions of the women were sooooo sexist. I thought, no gay men or men who are sensitive enough to explore their bisexual side would regard women the way the characters in this show did. How is it possible women viewers did not see this?

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CHILD ACTORS

I love how Si Won tells the chubby child actor, "You know that you are cute and adorable, right? The movie we're making is not a real version of you."
He doesn't want the kid to internalize the insecurities of the movie version's kid (ie, the movie will have kids calling him fat, and a mom saying looks matter, etc). It must be hard for a child actor to know they've been hired for their weight, and I hope directors in real life are sensitive like this to child actors.

Actually, we usually don't get THIS much depth in a romance with 2 characters. For instance, we won't get the family life and the childhoods of both partners in a romance. We might get some of the friends of both partners, but a 2 hour movie won't give us both partners' families and childhoods. There's only time for 1, like we got with Si Won.

But I totally agree with you that DaWoon is interesting and I want to know more about him. The show had hinted at his being a lonely kid whose parents were always working. Look at how his mother neglected his bday by just leaving him a lousy note and some dinner under a screen. That was pretty cold. I also get the feeling he was surrounded by posh, superficial film people all his life and perhaps this is why Si Won's vulnerability attracted him. But we don't know any of this for certain. That's why it would be so cool to know more about him, just like you said.

Hell, even Si Won wanted to know in that scene on the beach when he said, "You know everything about me. So maybe if I keep staring at you like this you'll tell me more about yourself." It was as if Si Won and the audience both wanted to know more about Da Won. So I say sequel please! LOL.

I am often appalled by the acting in Thai BL's where the guys cannot even shed a tear in crying scenes. They will just twist up their faces, and moan and whimper, but no actual tears come out. They end up looking like grimacing monkeys cuz, man, they sure ain't crying.

The guys in Blueming, however, gave wonderful performances. They were not idols either, as most actors are in Korean BL's. This may be their first drama, but they are serious actors and signed with real acting agencies.

His sister submitted it, but since his name was on it Da Woon recognized his name.

Also, I think Da Woon was less developed than Si Won because the drama decided to focus on one boy as the primary character and then go in deeply. Hence, they went in deeply into Si Won. I think that given the time constraints these Korean dramas have (ie, ALL the Korean shows are so short), it was wise to choose one character and go in deeply, than to choose multiple characters and have it feel vague. Maybe a sequel will give us more about Da Woon. Let's hope!

OMG, that drunk scene where Si Won kept slurring, "You're fishy!" was pitch perfect. It reminded me of exactly how we acted when we all got drunk in college and acted like asses with people on whom we had crushes.

Question About the Scene Where They Kissed on the Beach

Why did Da Woon suddenly stop kissing Si Won and laugh and ask, "Are you alright?" Was it because he felt that Si Won got so excited that he'd kissed him too hard? Or did Si Won accidentally bite Da Woon's lip or something? Poor little Si Won looked a little embarrassed until Da Woon said, in a sexy voice, "Relax" and started kissing him again. But what was up with the laughing?