Revolutionary
A groundbreaking series that followed the likes of Single's Inferno to give us a look into the gay experience living in South Korea while giving the eight men a chance to find love amidst the harsh societal climate. I can't tell you how much a show like this means to me as a queer person myself, and I'm sure it means even more to the people in South Korea who are part of the community.I was surprised and moved that they didn't shy away from discussing the contestants' pasts and what it was like growing up gay in South Korea. My jaded mind assumed that the whole series would play out like a typical heterosexual dating show, but I definitely cried during the more real segments.
While I wanted them all to be happy in the end, the reality of all dating shows is that there will be people left single and I'm glad that wavve didn't force a happy ending for everybody, as that lends more credence to the fact that we are just like straight people. On the flip side of that, I'm glad that at least some of them found love, because otherwise it would play into the old Hollywood rule that you could only show a gay person on screen if they ended up miserable in the end.
Unfortunately, protesters played a negative role in the series' development and I can only hope that it doesn't prevent wavve or other studios from making similar content in the future because we deserve to be seen as normal over there.
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This review may contain spoilers
The first half is great, but...
This is the first time I've felt compelled to write a review for a drama, but I just had conflicting feelings about this series. The first half was solid; good acting, good pacing, and the story was entertaining. But after that, the enjoyable moments felt fewer and further between. The show did not have to be this long. It felt like we had reached a satisfying ending around the halfway point, and then it just kept going, becoming more drama for the sake of drama rather than a cohesive story.The moment that infuriated me the most was the third-act misunderstanding, which is unfortunately a common trope in romantic fiction, though sometimes it can be executed well; this was not one of those times. It felt incredibly out of character for Suo Wei to lie when confronted. That just reeked of forced conflict to pad out the runtime, and I actually had to stop watching at that point and continue later because it was making me emotional in all the wrong ways. I'm just glad Chi didn't then go and hook up with his ex, that probably would've made me drop the series completely.
Obviously there were moments in the back half that were necessary, like resolving Xiao Shuai and Cheng Yu's storyline and the unfortunate fate of Wu's mom, which was such a gripping scene. If some of the fat was removed, and if the breakup hadn't been so ridiculous and out of left field, this would definitely have a higher rating.
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