This review may contain spoilers
South Korea's first ever lesbian dating show.
This is the first dating show I've ever watched, and I've really enjoyed it. Let me start with a brief summary of the show before describing what I liked, and what I didn't.* Show Summary
The show starts with seven women, all lesbian, bisexual or pansexual, arriving one at a time at the location where they will be living together for a week. There is plenty of awkwardness at the start, as each person arrives to greet those who arrived earlier. The more extroverted personalities stand out while the more introverted people mostly sit back to observe. Room mates are assigned, eyes wander and people start to get to know each other. Each woman is then given the opportunity to write an anonymous note to whoever first caught their eye. The one who receives the most notes gets to go on a date with the person of their choice.
The following day, our "catfish" contestant arrives to even out the numbers at eight. She immediately chooses an existing contestant for a date, while the remaining six women remain behind. Over the rest of the week, various activities and games are played, conversations happen, advice is sought and given, gossip is shared, misunderstandings occur, meals are cooked, tears are shed and life is lived. Towards the end of the week, more one on one dates happen giving contestants the opportunity to spend time together.
* Show Quality & Other Observations.
I found the quality of the show to be quite high. It was professionally filmed with good quality sound (including the outdoor scenes), and was quite well edited. The location was suitable, although I would have preferred it was filmed in summer rather than winter.
One thing that caught my eye from the very start was just how good looking all the contestants are. (A skin care company is also a sponsor of the show). Also, there was zero skinship shown on camera, with a focus on contestants interacting and bonding on an emotional level. Consequently, there are numerous scenes of extensive dialogue between contestants.
* The Controversies
Unfortunately, some controversies have diminished this show, which is quite disappointing. I will only mention here the two known issues that affected the show, and not any of the other rumours and accusations that were made.
1.) Before episode 3 was publicly released, the showmakers became aware that one of the contestants had previously worked as a Cam Girl. Consequently they decided to "remove" that contestant from the show. Because filming had already been completed, they chose to edit this contestant out of many (but not all) scenes she was in.
[UPDATE: A new "extended version" of this series has now been released which does not remove the contestant.]
2.) One of the contestents is only 19 years old, much younger than the other contestants, most of whom are in their early 30s.
* What I Liked
I loved seeing same-sex attracted women represented in a "normal" and genuine way, especially in a country that is still largely homophobic. Although imperfect (as we all are), all contestants seemed to be kind and sincere people who were choosing to participate in the hope of finding love. We got a glimpse of their weaknesses, strengths, hopes, fears and humanity.
I generally liked the structure of the show, although there were some things that I would have preferred were done differently.
I liked that they didn't have a panel of commentators interjecting their thoughts into the show, taking time away from the contestants.
* What I Didn't Like
In my opinion, semi-erasing one contestant from the show was a silly decision and an over-reaction by the showmakers, and it resulted in a poorer show than what it could have been. It sometimes resulted in important interactions with other contestants being deleted, leaving viewers confused about why something was now happening. [UPDATE: The "extended version" corrects this.]
I thought it was unfair to accept the teenage contestant when the rest of the contestants were (in some cases) old enough to be her mother. I have no problem with age gap romance, and if she did end up with one of the other contestants, I would have been very happy for her. However, I think they should at the very least, have told her the ages of the other contestants so she could have made an informed choice about whether or not to participate.
I thought the instructions that went with the "love notes" were sometimes ambiguous, and because these notes were anonymous, it sometimes resulted in confusion and misunderstanding.
None of my 'shipped couples ended up together, but that is hardly the fault of the show.
We didn't get to see all contestants do their final confession on the last day. It is unclear if those contestants chose to not participate in this, or it was just edited out.
I really hope there are more seasons of this show in the future, and other companies also begin to produce GL dating shows.
Was this review helpful to you?
Its pretty bad ...
I'm a big GL drama fan, but this drama is pretty bad. Specifically ...* The acting ranged from average to bad. In my opinion, the most naturally gifted actress in the entire series was Kina Kinnary Chaleunphol who played Som. Some of the bit part actors were terrible.
* The sound ranged from satisfactory to bad. Sound levels were often inconsistent, with some dialogue being way too quite and then sometimes background music being too loud. Dialogue audio often included a lot of background static suggesting cheap recording equipment was used, and/or the audio people didn't know what they were doing.
* The cinematography was actually OK, so at least their camera crew were competent.
* But by FAR the biggest weakness of the drama was the script. Much of the drama consistested of meaningless subplots and semi-random scenes that went for too long and contributed nothing to the narrative. There seemed to be a concerted effort to stretch out the runtime. Even the main plot (if I can even call it that) was simplistic, but somehow also managed to be confusing. Overall, it is an amateur production that falls well short of most of the Thai GLs that have been made in the last couple of years.
Even though this drama was pretty bad overall, it does have (in my opinion) the most realistic love/sex scenes of any Thai GL to date, so it should at least get credit for that. If you're a hard-core GL fan, then it is still worth a watch, but if you're not, I'd suggest you give it a miss.
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
Is this a mainstream erotic movie or a softcore porn flick (or both)?
This movie tries to be an erotic comedy, but in my judgement, it falls well short. For starters, its just not particularly funny, and it gets pretty bit dark at times, especially with the hostage taking, violence and rape scenes.But what this movie mostly lacks is an engaging plot, as the "plot" that does exist seems to be little more than an attempted justification for the next sex scene. What it doesn't lack is tits and arse, with about 20 minutes of its runtime consisting of extremely explicit sex scenes. At times, it really does feel like you're watching a softcore porn flick rather than a mainstream movie.
Kim Ju Eun and Kim Do Yeon are the two female leads who spend about as much time in their underwear or completely naked as they spend fully clothed. They are both quite young and are both rookie actors who likely took this role to try to get noticed and hopefully drag their careers out of obscurity. They definitely committed to the well coreographed sex scenes, but the rest of their acting was quite bland in my opinion. I'll be interested to see where their careers go from here, because I think there is a risk they may have typecast themselves by choosing such an explicit role so early in their careers.
Watch it if you want to see lots of very hot sex scenes. Don't watch it if you need your movie to have an engaging plot.
PLOT SUMMARY WITH SPOILERS BELOW. DO NOT READ ON IF YOU DON'T WANT SPOILERS!
Plot Summary:
Two young sisters move into rural village.
Both sisters like to masturbate ... a lot. One enjoys pleasuring herself with cucumbers that are still in the vegetable garden ... because fresh is best I suppose, while the other enjoys digitally exploring in innermost self while listening to animals mating on nature documentaries, and ... this is important ... with the curtains of her room fully open. (No, I'm not making this up).
Two pervy village men (both old enough to be the sister's father) take advantage of the sister's easily observed performances and voyeuristically observe them. The men occassionally need to change their own underpants after getting a bit too excited.
A wanted fugitive breaks into the house where the two sisters live and ties them both up. They are both only wearing their underwear for some reason. He informs them that he's filmed them masturbating and uses that to blackmail them into allowing him to hide out in their house. While there, he forcibly rapes them both (not at the same time). Initially both of the women unsuccessfully try to fight him off, but after a couple of rapes, they each decide that they quite enjoy being raped. (I promise I'm not making this up). Perhaps the writer was going for a Stockholm Syndrome vibe, but I can easily see how he might be criticised for trivialising or even romanticising sexual assault.
After the sisters's change of heart, they decide to have lots and lots ... and LOTS ... of sex with the guy (not at the same time - sorry, no threesomes in this movie). They have so much sex with him they completely tire him out, which causes him to become meek and intimidated by the women ... which is something that happens apparently. (Honestly, I'm not making any of this up).
The two old pervs who are disappointed that the sisters have been closing their curtains lately decide to "check" on them. They discover the fugative hog-tied inside the house. The sisters, who apparently were aware that the two old pervs had been watching them masturbate all along, hog-tie both of them as well, because that's something petite women can do to grown men. They then present all three hog-tied men to the police. The end.
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
A compelling age-gap drama.
I'm a big fan of age-gap noona romances, so I was excited to watch this drama. After now completing it, I would say that I found it an enjoyable but flawed drama. In my judgement, it deserves a higher MDL score than what it currently has (7.8), but it certainly isn't the masterpiece that some reviewers suggest that it is.I found the story to be quite compelling and I really wanted to know where it was heading. I found the character of Ogawa Manami to be entirely believable, but the character of Takamori Taiga less so. Some of the support characters were just walking stereotypes - especially Manami's father (the evil mysoginistic psychologically abusive parent) and her fiancé (the cheating manipulative scheming controlling partner). The later transitions of these two characters from pieces of shit to supportive, upstanding citizens was far too sudden and consequently not really believable. Also, neither of them "earned" their redemptions - they just decided to stop being evil. For some reason, writers struggle to write compelling and emotionally rewarding redemption arcs for characters, which is a shame.
The production was generally of a high standard, but the editing was weird. At times it seemed like random scenes were just shown one after the other, separated by an annoyingly long blackscreen trying to soften the jarring caused by the editing decisions.
One thing that Japanese dramas often get wrong in my opinion is the balance between angst and feel good moments, and this drama suffered from that imbalance. Too much angst, and too few happy, feel-good moments for my taste.
The ending was much less satisying that it could have been. It seemed rushed, and it was disappointing that the writers chose to have Taiga regress so much after we watched such character growth from him. After watching him physically throw Manami out of his room, my advice to her is to leave him. He's immature and volatile. He's also indifferent to her feelings, something that she should be warey of after seeing her sexist father belittle and ignore her mother for years. I love Noona romances, but I NEED the younger male to have (or develop) the maturity to deserve to be with the older woman. In my judgement, Taiga didn't do this and unless he grows up a LOT and quickly, their relationship has little chance of lasting.
My score: 8.5/10
Was this review helpful to you?
