Marga_ps

Girl, it's one of those things that are so obvious that it would be harder to deny it than to prove it. I can post screenshots of the show where you can clearly see it, if you still don't trust me. (Btw, nothing against lip fillers, I just pointed out that it doesn't match the character).

Dear lord, You lost all respect I had for your opinion in one comment.

Also, this is a comments section, if you don't like sharing opinions you shouldn't be here. You'll have a heart attack one day.

This time fr, no more comments from me.

I do not wish to engage any further either since you decided to hyperfocus on my comment on india instead of awknoledging my point of "choosing the middle ground" instead of the extremes on portraying gay life (as in, you can show the issues and tragedies, but not make it as extreme as this, and normalize it too) which is what I wanted to say mainly.

No further comments!

Again, as I said a million times. I'm not saying we should ignore these problems, I'm saying we should also not go aaaaaall the way to the other option which is portraying gay life as the most tragedy filled life you can have. I don't know if you are reading me or not. We should point out the issues, and normalize it too. Not go and portray it as the most depressing thing you can be.

I'm not stereotyping, just stating facts. Sadly India is really behind in gay rights and like I said, other issues like women and minorities' rights. I mean, just in 2018 was "gay sex" legalized. I think that's what you can call "being behind" on these issues. I'm not trying to insult your country (if it is), just stating a fact that can affect your point of view on this matter. Because we were discussing how prevalent this "issues" are in normal everyday gay life. Of course somebody from India vs somebody from Thailand for example are not going to see it the same way, and those issues differ depending on where you are.

Just that I'm assuming you're from India (because you mentioned the country and because of your name) and probably your point of view is that of someone from there?

I think, in life, in every aspect, we need to be aware that there's such thing as a "middle ground". Of course everything cannot be fluff and and escape, same way it doesn't have to go all the way around to the most dramatic tale of time. You can highlight the tribulations of being gay in south korea without making it into a tale of misery. If the show was more centered around a specific topic like homophobia or HIV or ssomething similar I would have been happy about it. But it gets lost in a sea of tragedy that comes from every corner. I never said we should ignore the issues altogether. My point is always to find something relatable in the ammount of drama, something in the middle ground.

I do not try to belittle anyone's efforts, from the begining I said this was not for me but I do understand some people enjoy it.

I don't think you're the best judge either. We cannot compare the situation in India or what you have seen there, with the gay experience in south korea or the rest of the world. India is behind in many issues to most west and east countries, not only on this one.

Also, I wanted to make another point before and I forgot. Of course it is important to show the issues that are still present nowadays, but shouldn't we also portray gay life as something normal? You know, to normalize it so we get rid of the stigma surrounding it? Wouldn't portraying it as one missery after the other provoke exactly one of the issues in this community? Like parents that refuse to let their gay kids live their lives freely in fear of having these "harsh lives" that are portrayed here? In fear of them contracting something? or associating gay life with promiscuity? Of course life is one struggle after the other, but if we associate being gay with being misserable, how are we going to normalize it?
I believe there's other shows out there that were more successful in making people aware of the struggles of gay life without making it into such a melodrama of tragedies.

Anyway, that's just my point of view. Living in different places might lead to different views. I do not consider this as a bad piece of media but I still wouldn't say it is realistic (to all gay or most gay individuals) or recommend it to anybody. But that's just me.

Good luck!

I made the list just mentioning briefly every point and not explaining fully each one of this instances, because my point was to make a list to highlight the sheer volume of drama in this show, not if each point was justified. Each one of those situations isolated could perfectly happen to anyone, and some of them do reflect the issues present in the gay community. And I do understand the motivations and context of each one of them. So, don't worry, I do realize these situations still happen to people and reflect the issues that are still important to consider in the lgbt world. My point is that it is almost impossible for this TWELVE things to happen to the same person. It's ridiculous. A combination of 3/4, even 5 or 6 I would have tolerated, but this was just too much.
It doesn't feel like "let's be concious about the issues lgbt people have to go thru", it feels more like "being part of the lgbt community only brings you tragedy and missfortunes" and I am very much against of that.

A decade or more ago, all the lgbt media that was made was fully focused on drama and tragedy. Every movie, every show, somebody had to die, somebody was ill, somebody was beaten, somebody commited suicide. I think it took a lot of time to get away from that stigma of "living a gay life is living a life of pain". Gay people protested, they have happy lives too. Because, while we still need to be aware of the issues that still live in this world, the message shouldn't be that being gay is living one tragedy after the other. Not all gay people live like this, thank god, and the ones that do shouldn't get the message that "even if you have already lived a few tragedies yourself, don't worry, there's more to come!". I resent that. Of course I don't mean all media has to be a comedy now, drama is good, but like I said, normal ammount of drama?

So that's basically my point. I agree we should be aware of the issues the community has to go through every day in south korea. I agree not everybody lives a fluffy and cute story. But that doesn't mean you have to make a story that is 4 times the normal drama any person would go through in one life.
I also don't agree that this is made for the gay audience. I'm not a gay man myself, but having a gay little brother and one of my best friends also being gay, I don't think I could pay them to watch this. They would relate to the night life and maybe a few of the issues here and there but the rest would seem horrendous and they would hate me for making them watch this. So I dare not.

I mean I'm all for portraying the issues a gay man might go through in south korea, so the HIV part and the homophobia are okay with me, and would have been interesting to explore if those were the only issues covered. But it was soooooo much drama it turned into a pain-fest and that's not realistic. I mean, let's remember all the tragedies the ML went through:

- When he was a kid he caught his own dad having ANOTHER FAMILY and consequently went thru his parents' divorce. (Not just any divorce, the guy had another family!, super common that).
- When he was a teenager his mom caught him kissing another guy and sent him to conversion camp or a religious camp of some sort (Wtf? I know this happens sometimes in america but it's not like it's a super common problem).
- When younger he got HIV from a boyfriend.
- His ex-boyfriend died in a car accident and it was probably his fault because he always pressured him to drive faster. So he's to blame for the death of a person (wtf)
- Another boyfriend left him because of homophobia and not wanting to come out.
- He tried to commit suicide because of it and almost died. (wtf again).
- His mother gets cancer.
- His mother doesn't recover and ends up dying after a few years. (oh lord)
- He finds a suitable partner and ends up separating from him, suffering for years even tho he's to blame for the separation.
- He gets with another dude that's depressed because he's gay and he's married with kids.
- His only real friend gets married and basically is nowhere to be seen again, basically abandons him.
- His father returns (but has basically abandoned him all his life) and is caught on a fraud case after his matresses are discovered to use material that causes cancer. (double wtf)

Do you really think all these tragedies together are realistic? What seems to be the message of this piece? that being gay will consist in one tragedy after another so you better think it twice? what's there to think?
I think this is simply using drama and tragedy for a pity party that always looks romantic and beautiful to make a product seem more deep than it is. Good writting doesn't need cheap drama jabs every few minutes to make a story deep, inpactful and beautiful. And it is true, life isn't full of roses, but it is also not realistically as melodramatic as this was.

I struggle to understand why so many people hated this show for the step brothers (2nd couple) storyline but somehow Unknown is a masterpiece. The irony.

Also his lip fillers are distracting because they don't go with the character xD

Sorry to earth fans but I cannot stand the actor and specially this character. Just started, and never have I seen a character whine so much in my life. Also I'm not a fan of characters that are written like 5 year olds specially if they're like annoying kids. I'm probably gonna skip thru his scenes and watch the second couple only,

This healed me after Love in the Big City

I was excited for this because I only read good comments about how lovely it was and how the ending wasn't sad...
oh boy was I tricked lol
Don't get me wrong, this was beautifully done, very well acted.... but I hated it with passion. My friend and I watched while totally feeling like crap the whole journey.

So I would like to issue a WARNING for future viewers, just so they know what they get into:
DO NOT WATCH THIS if you don't enjoy a full (melo)dramatic story with characters that go thru many tragedies one after the other (the happy moments are almost non-existent, or at least I don't remember them being so brief). This series is depicted as realistic, since real life isn't full of joy, but I don't know if I agree completely since this poor lead went thru 4 major tragedies in his life in a span of 10 years or so. I don't think I know anybody in my life (gay or not) that has had to go thru so much crap, to be fair. I resent this portrayal of "gay life" as being always linked to suffering and tragedy, and it's kind of what this show does since not only does the lead go thru many tragedies but also the partners he has all throughout the show.

I do realise this is realistic in a way since most BLs are too "fluffly and cute" and life isn't really like that, but I'm a firm believer that media entertainment doesn't have to depict harsh reality to a t since each one of us watching already have our problems and tribulations, and usually watching media is a way for us to get away for a brief moment from the reality of adult life. So this was the exact opposite of what I wanted for my free weekend, to be honest. It left me feeling like crap and totally devastated.
I do realize some people enjoy this kind of content, so if you do, go ahead! I just wanted to warn those who don't. I would have loved to read a comment like mine before I started.

On a different note, I did enjoy the more realistic portray of LGBT night life in Korea. And like I said, the actors deserve a major applause for their outstanding portrayal of the characters. Other than that, I wouldn't rewatch this even if they paid me. I'm gonna go back to my "fluff" with silly drama that lasts for an episode xDD thank you

anywhere else?

Worst parts about this: ML actor is horrible, FL character is hard to understand (why on earth would u tell the exboyfriend you despise that you're in a contract marriage?) and they discussed the physical part of the marriage but never mentioned it again.

Anyways, like somebody already said, something to watch while you fold the laundry, nothing else.

Some series feel like they could be cut in half and work better. This one feels like 2/3 can be perfectly removed and it would improve the product tremendously. I did enjoy the chemistry and kisses, but I fast forwarded so much, my thumb hurts. Also, Pat's chatacter was too whiny and Jeng's was too controlling. Just trust your boyfriend for once. Anyways, nothing great.

"The feeling that still lingered inside him caused him to fail the exams every time." That sounds very pretty but it's not how feelings work in actuality. I mean, to be studying for that exam for more than one year and still fail it because of guilt, it means that when you get to the test, you're sabotaging yourself on purpose, because after studying for so long you would write the correct answers just by inertia, so if he's not, he's actually stopping himself from writing the correct answers on purpose, which means, it doesn't make any sense to keep going to the test after the first two times if you know you're not going to let yourself pass it anyway. It would be totally nonsensical.
And like I said before, somebody who's been studying for this test for several years and then worked as a tutor for years too, wouldn't need another year to take the exam once his guilt has subsided. We're talking about somebody who is described up until that point as "top of his class". It just makes no sense. If he was described at one point as having a learning dissability, the story would be different.

And, I'm no expert in law, but usually when you get 6 months prison sentence and 2 years probation, how it works is that you do the 6 months time and then after that you have a 2 year probation time where if you commit a crime you go back to prison to do even more time than what you were originally senteced to. I've never heard of it being the other way around. In the case that you get probation and no jail time, if you did commit a crime during probation then you will be senteced afterwards and learn your prison sentence afterwards. But in his sentence the jail time is mentioned so that means that he should do that time. Unless in korea there's some kind of law (like where I live) that if the sentence is too short and you have no prior convictions you don't actually have to do the time, but that should have been explained properly since you can't assume the viewer is a law expert. I think it's left ambiguous on purpose, because the writters commited with the part of him being honest about what he had done but didn't want to commit til the end with him doing time, which is poor writing.

I've been reading some comments and realized that this project is from the same people that did Blueming and well, no wonder. I wasn't a super fan of that either. I think they try what the japanese usually do well, and write stories about complicated characters with complicated emotions, but with both Blueming and this one, I'm left feeling "this was very flourished and poetic, but they didn't nail the human emotions part", their motivations and emotions sometimes were off and they leave the viewer to fill in the blanks so you have to make sense of it instead of writing the character properly.

Also, I don't mean to be nitpicky, but the dialogue suggests he's going to study for a year for the college entrance exams, what? Wasn't he a tutor for several years? I mean, I'm a teacher myself, tutoring kids after class, I don't think I would need more than a month to take my exam again, you re-hash everything everyday with your kids....
Even if you don't teach every subject, a 31 year old with several years of experience shouldn't take more than 3-4 months of studying.... A year? whithout doing anything else? I don't know.
And I understand korea's exams might be hard, but to be honest I've seen other shows and what they teach and it's not that different from where I live....
oh well

Very beautiful series, very very very good acting. But it's not exactly my cup of tea. I'm not very fond of the overly dramatic series where a person is having a really hard time and it seems in the worst moments every bad thing that can happen, happens. It's too melodramatic for me. Also, not fond of the storytelling where there's too much left to your imagination, at times it was too hard to understand what happened to Dohee that day of the exams, and I still don't understand why he failed so many times since he was apparently such a good student. I understand not coping well and getting nervous maybe the first 2 times but after that it didn't make much sense. I still don't understand if he went to jail and they didn't show that period or what happened.
I'm okay with being subtle and leaving some things for the viewer to figure out but at times it was too much, too criptic, I was too distracted trying to figure out what was happening instead of focusing on their feelings and conversations.
Still, 7,5 rating for me, because otherwise I realize it's a very nice story, very romantic, and very well acted. I wouldn't re-watch it tho.

Anyone knows where to watch this for free? The bilibili links are not working anymore