Beatrice

Sotus next gen

This is not the gl version of a legendary bl that kicked off the mainstream popularity of the queer romance dramas, but it does feel like a spiritual successor showing how the sentiments have changed regarding university student bonding activities. It's nice to see ladies in STEM get some representation also to have lots of women in main roles as well. There were a couple supporting roles that should have been played by women as well, such as Manaeow's bestie and P'Pure. I liked the flashbacks revealing Gyoza's journey with the Engineering program's SOTUS orientation exercises, she worked hard rallied to change it to something less traumatizing her incoming underclassmen. I also liked the use of the Engineering program's distinctive shirt jackets to indicate the passage of time. Gyoza and Manaow are lovely together and acted well. The couple gets into fights, but I can understand them snapping from being strained like an over twisted guitar string from being ridiculously busy with a full university workload and also having to tutor so many people including highschoolers, organizing events, etc. The two instances of the homophobic cars hitting Gyoza and Warang out of nowhere were quite silly as was the selective memory loss, but the later plays out okay. The second couple is cute, I'm glad Warang got over herself because her entitlement over Gyoza was not. Thida is the emotionally mature queen and best friend vip. I like that while the characters are sexual, they are not sexualized. I think it probably makes a big difference that the director is a woman and from the queer community as well. All in all, I hope that this drama is a sign of more fully funded, full length gl/queer storylines lead by women to come.

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Miscast and imbalanced romance to typical kdrama issues ratio

Camera angle kiss again in this day and age shows the lack of commitment from one or both of the actors and it really breaks immersion for the viewer and the production is at fault as well for letting this situation become so. The role or roles could have gone to better actors that would commit fully to portraying the characters. The complicated and toxic tinged relationship between Han Joon and Yoo Jae has so much potential to explore with Yoo Jae not wanting to date Han Joon, but not letting Han Joon date or even be close friends with anyone else either with the hints of Yoo Jae's dependency on Han Joon with him being the closest thing to a loving family member he has because of his troubled homelife. He wants Han Joon's attention and physical closeness all to himself and I like that Han Yoon calls him out on it which unfortunately only leads to the aforementioned very anticlimactic camera angle kiss. Also, every romantic benchmark is a big deal with this intense set up, but it's always abruptly undercut in the editing of this drama. That would mean more actual kiss scenes or something that would organically be the expression of the two characters. I do like the scene where they went out for ice cream and held hands. They got to date for five seconds before it all ends. If only there was committed acting, it would be a lot better, but it's not so there are better options to watch than this drama.

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Still budding

The production is competent for it's low budget, especially compared to other independent low budget series. I don't mind the lack of extras because of the budget, it's a very nitpicking point people take such personal umbrage with. I like the show's creative use of the spaces that doesn't need to utilize more people like the library, which is also an intimate space. Where it needs improvement is definitely the pacing and writing. The actors are okay, but for so much of it the main characters Min Jae and Yoon Chan seemed to be on the opposite mental age spectrum with Yoon Chan who I suppose they wanted to be innocent, but was giving more of a early twenty something with a stunted mind of a 5 year old. He's too old to get away with thinking that friends kiss and flirt like that. Also while it's a good thing the actors are committed in acting kiss scenes, sometimes they go on for way too long in the edit. I did like the professor character being a mentor figure and they actor is good, up until the weird cousin loving story. It's actually pretty harmful and messed up to use that as the parallel to a same sex relationship, it's literally the type of thing bigots use to falsely accuse lgbt people with. I'm pretty disappointed with Strongberry for not clocking that in their script. Despite all the flaws, I'm rooting for them to do better in future shows and in this show if it gets another season to finish out the cliff hanger.

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Atmospheric and ambitious modern dark fairytale

Singto and Fiat are the acting standouts with Singto carrying the whole show wonderfully as Dan and Fiat as Trin who is Dan's opposite and parallel. It's so fascinating that they set the Catholic side as the scientific sceptic against the Buddhist side with the practical solutions to Dan's supernatural issues. There is also the shaman that takes no one's side. The Catholic boarding school lends to the gothic imagery and the color grading is nicely done with care, with skin tone and clothes popping over the gray instead of just a bland gray wash over everything. The music is also very good, the mdl credits list the actor who plays the murderous bully Anan doing double duty as the composer as well. The opening credits is stylish and fun to watch before every episode. The slow burn nature of the story works best when the editing is strong, with the ghosts shown in restraint, their ability to commune directly with Dan limited. I also like how Dan and Nai's ability to see the supernatural is different. It slips during the over long fun house segment that spans the end of one episode and the beginning of another. Other weak moments of the story is Nai never reporting the pedo teacher Yada who has been having sexual relations with Anan, merely using the photo evidence luring him into the funhouse that lead to nothing but him attacking Dan for the billionth time and the whole plot with brother Anurak being the one armed man. Brother Anurak's was innocent regarding the university student's deaths in the past but acting really shady and keeping the student's remains inside the statue pedestal. What was well done was hiding in plain sight that Brother Anurak had a hand cast the whole time.

The story is not a bl, but does have gay characters. The romance is limited to the messy crushes among the four friends. Both Nai and Chaaim likes Dan, but Dan rebuffs both. Nai is lucky to get a dance date from Dan though while Chaaim settles for shady Josh who will smack talk Dan at a drop of a hat. Dan meanwhile does like her, but as much as he likes the creepy shadow creature. Though fearing it for much of his life, the increasing power of the shadow to manipulate what he sees in dreams made Dan see it as more of a comforting presence. The scene where he decide to hug the shadow was a fascinating moment. Then soon after the shadow makes it really weird, taking advantage of Dan physically for the first time when he's high, then again in the middle of the school day when Dan is just not feeling well. It's mirrored by how teacher Yada takes advantage of Anan. At the very end it's revealed that his terrible father made a deal with the forest spirit who is the shadow to have Dan in order to keep his abused wife with him. The shadow seems want Dan to itself like Hades wants Persephone. The solid form of the shadow didn't really work, probably would have been better just as a shadow the whole time. As soon as Dan started speaking in a deeper voice, I knew that it was Trin in Dan's body, then doubly so at his joy to see teacher Joe drop by. Teacher Joe was the only authority figure he didn't have an issue with, but unfortunately was an adult he had a huge crush on. It's a low bar that it's commendable that Teacher Joe turned him down.

The open ending with Trin's body reappearing and having drowned for a few days makes it possible that either Dan is still trapped separately in the other realm or Dan had also returned in the wrong body in the middle of the lake and drowned to death, with Trin living on in Dan's visage. I felt sorry for Trin who didn't have people looking for him in the way that Dan has even though he's surrounded by the same people. Trin doesn't accept that status quo for what it is and looks beyond it and he tries befriend and defend people that are picked on. He managed to encourage fellow students to be curious in history and question the teachers on why they aren't teaching them something that is common in books and at other schools. I really like the scenes where Trin and Brother Anurak actually has productive conversations about what Trin is advocating for and why it doesn't work like the bathroom improvement issue. It shows Trin is still naive to things from his youth. He gets understandably overwhelmed by seeing the shadow in the second part of the ritual. Fiat played Trin's strength and vulnerable moments really well. The final scene of Trin smiling in the mirror reminds me of the Twin Peaks "How's Annie?" moment. He looks sad though in the final seconds. I hope Singto signed an excellent contract with his return to his former management company and a season 2 of Shadow can happen. There's is so much potential of Dan and Trin actually interacting in regards to their ideals and other things.

Overall a good watch and I hope there will be more to continue it. Otherwise the ending it still works as a dark fairytale, where the terror of the supernatural is but a symptom of the horror of what humans do to each other in life.

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The execution is not the scandalous nature the premise suggests

The way that Milk and Choco's respective cat and dog personalities are translated very well into their human forms. I really like how it's just the particular fixations like they way they stare at Jung Woo or like to play with strings that are kept rather than moving around on all fours, meowing, and barking like other stories do. They are in human bodies, grown adults, and fully articulate and understanding of the culture and has understandings of human social norms which Milk is way better at following than Choco in certain situations. The longer they are in the human realm and as they are more acclimated as individual human beings, only then do they start developing feelings towards their respective love interests other than what they had as pets.

It's really great to see Yeon Seung Ho appear as a guest star. He was one of the leads of Strongberry's Long Time No See, their action romance drama, their strongest and my favorite of their productions to date. It's one of the OG korean bl dramas with a positive ending as they are today, a huge turning point that deserves more recognition.

Though the episodes are short, the pacing of the scenes are a bit slow. The stakes could have been explained a bit better, like what exactly does "disappearing" consist of, does it mean their souls will disintegrate forever? How do they know they had 50 days on earth? At first I thought they were rounding up from 49 days, but then they come back for double the amount of days. I feel like the ending was fine as it is for this story, though if there's a season 2, it would be nice if they could elaborate clearer on for what the stakes that Milk and Choco are dealing with.

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Uneven quality but still interesting

It's really cool to see a story that utilizes Thai mythology, the action scenes are well done, the visual effects look good, the leads playing Phaya and Tharn are good, and the supporting role Yai is effective at both comic relief and serious scenes when needed. The Yai hand heart scene with him accidentally interrupting the two diver's conversation is the most hilarious scene of the series.

The pacing of the scenes are a bit slow and the writing introduces a lot of story beats but they disappear abruptly or is explained as something that happened off screen, like whole Montree storyline, Mayris disappears, Chart never getting mentioned after he ended up in the hospital after blowing his cover trying to help them, and the worst instance is the ending where instead of seeing Tharn and Chalothon's discussion, it's just quickly explained away by a Tharn who suddenly reappears. We don't get to see him reuniting with everyone else who has been looking for him and how the conversation went for the whole IDF to be on board with Tharn is missing because of being taken by supernatural forces. As elite officers, Phaya and Tharn aren't very professional a lot of the times. Phaya is also the worst at explaining why he finds someone shady, which is a crucial ability in his line of work. He was also cognizant when drunk Tharn mentioned the amulet, but he just totally forgets about it by the time he goes to the temple. Then there is an epilogue that seemed to be setting up for a 2nd season, but is actually for a special episode for a paywall live in person event.

I appreciate the ambition of the show. It would have been nice if the script was further polished and there was either more episodes or runtime to flesh out certain story points or shaved some off to film some important missing ones. Overall, it's still worth a one time watch.

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Excellent

For those unfamiliar with kdrama, 16 episodes is the typical episode order of Korea tv dramas, so both parts of The Glory is part of the same series/season and one continuous story arc rather than being two separate seasons. The writer is a veteran of addictive hits that are hits and misses in terms of quality for me personally, but The Glory is an objective masterpiece. I wouldn't call it a fun watch considering the painful subject matter, but it is a most cathartic one. The acting is wonderfully led by Song Hye Gyo in her best work to date along with the writer and wonderfully supported by Lee Do Hyun who is Netflix's Sweet Home alum, and all of the support cast on either sides of the revenge accomplice and bully spectrums.

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A mixed bag with a rewarding bright gem in the midst

Y Destiny varies wildly in quality like a lot of anthology type storytelling, there are many lows, but their high point is well executed artistry. The Kaeng and Puth storyline in Eps 9 & 10 that's wrapped up in ep 15 and their own special 10 minute epilogue is stunningly compelling. I would also suggest watching their scenes as supporting roles in episode 5 & 6 for a extra context of their state of minds as well as their Dear Friend cover music video done in character that's a beautifully aching encapsulation of the relationship.

Though I would rate the show at a 5 and the Kaeng Puth storyline separately at a 9, there are things I liked about the show such as the conceit of having the characters take turn being supporting characters does add additional dimension to them outside of what he see when they are in their romance plots and seeing events from a slightly different point of view as a when scenes from one story happens before or concurrently as a plot point from another story. The contrast of genre tones of the other couples worked well to compound to tragic reality at one point in the KaengPuth storyline in particular. I really enjoyed the styling, such as the creative take on the university uniform for both the general one everyone wears to the personalized takes the characters have and their personal wardrobe and color schemes also feel intentional and adds to the characterization. The use of flashbacks of new scenes to add additional information is also efficient to add more development in the limited episode time.

A review of each storyline on their own before the strongest one:

Tue Ake Ep 1 & 2 The key part of portraying them growing feelings for each other was a miss in all departments.

Nuea Sun EP 3 & 4 features actors Max and Nat switching up their dynamic with Nat playing the confident one and Max playing the cute one works really well.

Team Mon Ep 5 & 6 On it's own it's about a naïve freshman being having his emotions played with for a game by a older Scorer, which also sets up the complications for Kaeng and Puth later.

Thur Pao/Pae Ep 7 & 8 is where supernatural and magical elements are introduced as being real in this world. It almost gave Thur a bit more complexity as a character, but it didn't and the way he is both meeting and reuniting with Pae has no impact because he's a totally different person in life than he is in death, they didn't lay any connection to make it a meaningful story.

Sat Choke Eps 11 & 12 A magical realism episode with time travel through that's inspired by 13 going on 30 expect this is 11 going on 18, which gives very disturbing feelings while watching this 11 year old in a adult body doing adult things.

Masuk Tir & Jia Eps 13 & 14 The final story was a swing and a miss. I understand the intention of a moving portrayal of handling grief, the but the execution was atrociously done. It was also a missed opportunity they didn't bother continuing with or building on any of the set up about spirits and the spirit world that was introduced in Thur's story.

Kaeng Puth Eps 9 & 10 They have the heaviest relationship development despite the friends with benefits set up. The storyline is incredibly well acted by respective actors who are refreshingly committed to their characters without any personal ego and has the skills to to disappear into them on screen. 10 out of 10 score just for them. Extra shoutout to First who was just 18 or 19, not many actors his age has the capability. The storyline is intense, mature, and realistic, not just in terms of the sexuality that is depicted but the layered emotions and the complexities of the relationship . Their story has the most build up from the sidelines of the other stories, particularly Mon's where their appearances inform the history of their story. There are so many intricately placed meaningful details of the story that span from their support appearances, to their main episodes, show finale, and their epilogue that totally respects the audience's intelligence, which is good writing, well directed, and edited as well. The whole KaengPuth storyline is the very rewatchable and worth revisiting.

In a show with ghosts and time travel, the most compelling story is of the complexities of human relationships.

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Sibling Mind Games

The show has interesting twist and turns and secrets. The core sisters are of course all flawed and has their own secrets. It would have been good if certain characters had more savvy though on paper it makes sense for the individual characters, but the execution is not as exciting to watch. All four sisters just so happening to be wearing white pajama dresses is striking, uneasy imagery of cults, and the loss of innocence when the clothes are drenched in blood. While I get the artistic vision, it's weird for their characters who other wise dress differently to suddenly have matching sleepwear.

Chom wanted to become a news anchor and she was doing decently well in school, but all her alcohol consumption must have depleted all her brain cells because she repeatedly makes the worst decisions and it also exacerbates her poor impulse control. She's an easy target for Chat who effectively ruins Chom's reputation and gets Chom bullied by texting the whole school with an fake account pretending to be Chom all to supplant Chom as the popular girl and taking Chom's school and job opportunities. It's chillingly evil, made even more so with their mom praising Chat once it's revealed revealed to the mom. Chom really lucked out with Thana, who while is creepily obsessed with her, she does find as a helpful ally, and while he does keep the hammer as blackmail to keep her around, is generally less harmful to her than her family to her or her to herself. Nathat happened to date Chat before dating Chom. It's pretty rude of him and on brand that he never told Chom. He gets blackmailed to cruelly break Chom's heart by getting engaged to Chat and without explaining goes to sleep with Chom thereby threatening his deal to protect her. I'm glad Chom chooses to leave him at the end. I hope she chooses to leave alcohol as well as Pi given she learns from Bua that Pi is the co-murderer of Chat and lies and lies.

It's so nonsensical that the sisters and Chom in particular continue to have a relationship at all with Chat after this immense betrayal, which continues to give Chat opportunities to make their lives more hell than their parents are already making it. Chat is absolutely her mother's daughter, the bald faced favorite raised to be secretive, selfish, and to sabotage her sisters. Chom sneaking her underaged, sister who has already shown very willing to harm her into the club was so dumb. Chat is shown having some humanity in that she actually does care and wants the love of her siblings of sisters, but all she knows how to do is hurt them as trained by her parents to. She just can't stop, won't stop. She steals Pi's designs and leaks them to other jewelry designers to ruin Pi's hard work to premier her collection, so Chat can become the ambassador to those brands. Chat is obviously very intelligent, but instead of just doing her own thing, she just wants to systematically destroy each of her sister's career's, hopes, and dreams. Her life's purpose is to make her sister's lives hell while also craving their love.

It's another good twist that Pi is also an affair child like Chat, but ironically the most beloved by her dad while physically abused by her mom from hampering her freedom because she's ill and the housekeeper pressures the mom to take care of Pi who was a sickly child, often getting seizures. There's no explanation why she no longer gets them as an adult. She holds key trauma hidden memories that reveal the truth about the family business and where the most normal and moral person of the family disappeared to, her aunt who is the skeleton in the hidden well. I'm not sure it was explained who was the person digging up the dirt of the well area that led to the police finding the skeleton and well. She gives very damsel in distress vibes, but she comes the girl who cries wolf instead by deciding to fake her brake lines getting hit, fake threatening note, and hiring people to fake hit her with a car in an attempt to throw suspicion off of herself. In the end, she did effectively get away with murder with Parn being the person who stabbed Chat who already became a skeleton by the time her remains were found in the river area, so there's no evidence of strangulation. Her deeds only known by Bua who also tells Chom.

Bua gets the most CW romantic entanglement, with the guy Arch ending up to be her sister's brother. All she wants to do is to run her family's Orchid business well. She's ambitious and hardworking, but she doesn't have much cunning, always perpetually a few steps behind her scheming uncle. She says that she wants to be a politician if she can't run her family business, but she doesn't really show that she has the aptitude to outsmart her opponents at any point of the show. She does have connections at the hospital where she got the pregnancy results of Chat and the paternity results for Pi. There wasn't really an explanation why she got paternity result for Pi, but that's how she figures out Pi probably murdered Chat. Bua for some reason decides to hand rip and toss away the pieces in the family mansion's trashcan, which is the worst way to despose of sensitive material. It got taken by Arch, but it could have been seen by the housekeeper, regardless of whether the housekeeper had murderous intent or not. She discovers the family business is actually drugs with the help of Arch who wanted to discover the truth of the death of his father.

Arch's background is very nonsensical. He seems close with his dad, but at the same time he ran around with gangs. That was pretty racist that his gang buddy that betrays him is a black guy. He also said he did stuff for his dad. What was it, was it also gang stuff? The writing to make him a bad boy that is also connected to the family is so lazy. Even though Bua didn't know he's Chat and Pi's brother, he knew that she's Chat's sister and he didn't have any second thoughts about sleeping with her. Good thing he was stalking Bua and not Pi who also turned out to be his sister. He's not open minded to have a relationship with Bua no matter how strong their attraction is after finding out her dad killed his dad though he stuck around after saying good bye to her to save her from Parn. It's also ridiculous that he just pushes Parn away rather than disarming and restrain her, which he most definitely can do with his fight skills and being physically stronger though she has supernaturally murderous strength.

Cousin Parn has very legitimate beef with the sisters. Chat set the fire and the other three left her there to die. Chat at least had some sense to go back to save her in time though the fire leaves Parn scared and needing a long recovery process to be be able to walk again, but effectively her actor dreams are ruined. It can be implied that Parn has the immense arm and hand strength to strangle her cohort house maid who self volunteered to help her after witnessing her stabbing Chat, to death, killing Thana, and also killing her own father to frame Bua by stabbing him into a tree with his own garden shears. Bua and Chom chasing after her with no weapons while Parn was still wielding a knife was really stupid. Her offing herself seems pretty anticlimactic and too convenient after all her revenge plotting. She has such strong will, it seems more like she would survive out of spite and continue to plot her revenge.

Pi is the ultimate winner successfully getting away with murder and even getting her guy Khem back. Khem's partner Chain who had a thing for Parn has a sense that Pi is more guilty than she seems but has no proof, like Detective Doakes in Dexter. She along with the remaining sisters have a split of the remaining inheritance that isn't effected by the reveal of the drug family business. The sisters, still seemingly keeping her secret, the way that was instilled into them by their parents. Overall flawed, but diverting enough family drama thriller that tries to do something different.

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Sworn sisters

The drama goes through any and all the romance drama contract marriage tropes that doesn't require falling and bumping mouths with each other or lips touching in any manner between Jin Yu and Yun Xi. I do like Jin Yu's personality and creative business venture ideas. She's a jack of all trades despite being forced to train as a military leader all her life. The deserts she creates looks delicious.

Making Yun Xi's friend bro fall in love with Jin Yu was really unnecessary. The between this character and the main one was more interesting before the unfunny scenes of him being obsessing over her being just plain annoying.

The drama makes sure to tie things up platonically with Jin Yu and Yun Xi being solidly sisters forever once Jin Yu is able to return to being a woman with her father no longer forcing her to take over the family military business. Jin Yu gets to live and work together with Yun Xi with her second leader status remaining intact. Their interactions totally change once Jin Yu gets to live as a woman and as a sister to Yun Xi and vice versa. Friends forever. There's nothing inventive or interesting going on plot wise or any clever ambiguity at the end as to how the women feel for each other. Yun Xi's father's 180 turn was really rushed.

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Has both fun and substance.

I appreciate the range both the writing and acting has from lighthearted humor, sweet love, to nuanced, raw, tragic devastating emotional gut punches. Aside from the very cool stylized use of solid colors to code characters and their inner minds, that the color grading of the other scenes are not afraid of color even while illustrating this world where the characters live in the grey area of morality. The costuming is also very well done. Modern drama costuming looks so deceptively simple, but it's really not. They designed looks that fit naturally without being distracting, as well as reflecting the emotional state of the characters in the scene. All the artistic and technical aspects are done and oversaw with care from the directors/producers, the labor of love from from every cast and crew is felt from the overall quality of the work.

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Vibe killed by overlong episodes and inflated runtime

Bae Seok Ryu and Choi Seung Hyo are played by very pretty people, but attractiveness alone is not enough to keep the sizzle going for these characters. Their lack of romance had been drawn out for decades already up to the point the show starts and continued to drag on for weeks and weeks of the 80 something minute episodes. They don't have the type of relationship with any kind of spice or sweetness to sustain interest for them as potential couple for that long. In the meanwhile, it's the family and family friendship lives that are explored in depth and the emotions of those storylines overshadows and engulfs all the screen time. It's relatable, but still ill balanced to the detriment of what should be the core relationship of the show. I do give the show props for the very believable reason to hide their relationship being their loving, but suffocatingly nosy collective family that will keep them on such a close watch and infantilized that they can't actually function as a couple of consenting adults. The second couple didn't take that long to get together, but they suffer from the very odd decision the show made to introduce them in a weird scene where the hot, amazing, adventurous, confident paramedic Jung Mo Eum grabs a drink from the shop freezer like a normal person only to have it yanked in her hand by the reporter guy who felt entirely entitled to take a drink out of a woman's hand when she already took it first fair and square. It's nonsensical and the show builds him up as a amazing guy that would help divert traffic for the ambulance and raises his niece who is the sole survivor of his entire family dying in an accident, but that kind of rude behavior is just too off putting to over look and I want Mo Eum to just keep going on her adventures rather than to obsess about that weirdo no matter how otherwise virtuous he seems. Let her be free.

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Elder Millennial Re-do

17 year old Win is friendly and fun. 44 year old Win has a lonely and miserable outlook on life, being let go from a cold office gig and has even frostier relationships with his younger brother and his high school friend who has already hit their limit from his hitting them up for money to pay the rent he's behind on. His father has passed and the legalization of gay marriage in Thailand makes him think of the only romantic love he felt in his life for his high school crush Nut who passed away too soon. Win's will to live a full life died with Nut at just 17. Feeling his lowest, Win lives carelessly and while driving decides to reach down for his phone that's fallen below the passenger seat instead of waiting until he can safely pull over and crashes, but wakes up in as his 17 year old self again. The magical conceit is never explained, so it could be that this is all a lucid death dream of a man going back to the warmth of his teen years in 1998, a point in his life when the people he loved and loved him were all in his life and his dreams still had possibility.

Aside from his rental band practice room boss Phob's death being unpreventable, everything else falls into place for Win. He takes on cooking duties for his father, brother, and especially to ensure that Nut eats healthy. He enacts group running exercises for Nut's health as well, getting Nut to see a doctor as soon as he's able to as a pretense as a health check for their band activities. As a result of everything he spends even more time with Nut. The first time around, Nut wrote in his journal that he wished he could have had some time to date Lin, someone who made it very clear she liked him. This time around, the first thing he does is the tell Nut that he liked him to a confused Nut who wasn't sure if he heard right. I really like how this key difference made Nut open up to seeing Win in a romantic sense, which makes him contextualize everything that Win does for him through that lens rather as just a best bro to the point that he wrote a romantic song for Win. The scene where Win drops Nut back off to his room, but has to stay in there for a bit when Nut's strict father is checking outside the window is so beautiful. Win asks what Nut wanted to tell him with Nut saying to wait until after the competition the next day, but basically tells Win what he wanted to confess with the lyrics of the confession song that he wrote for Win and instead of saying anything, Win just kisses Nut and Nut answers "I like you too" before they resume kissing. They are so cute. All Win's effort's pay off and Win gets a surgery in time in Bangkok and the combination of a healthy living style that Win has got Nut doing worked well for his recovery.

Another result of Win trying to get everything back into place, but in a different way is that his band group becomes 500% more gay. Aside from Win winning the heart of his dream boy Nut, their rich drummer Ek and college bassist Chai gets together, and their two band managers Biu and Lin get together. At first it was eye rolling that Ek and Chai gets a camera angle kiss, but then it turns out the actor who plays Ek is actually 17 in real life, so that was understandable. But really they should have just cast an actor who wasn't 17 in the first place. I also really enjoyed Win and Biu being a girl and boy best friends forever pairing. Win's relationship with his most understanding father is so sweet as well as is Ek's relationship with his loving parents. Nut has the most tumultuous relationship with his suffocatingly strict father who is not won over to letting Nut pursue his own happiness even with Nut's brush with death, but instead the band gets a deal to release tapes of their music and to do a concert as well. The man finally smiles approvingly for his son in the crowd. Nut's dad is not all bad though, he did look away that day that Win snuck Nut out for practice and probably when he snuck back in with Nut into the room. When Win and Nut discuss coming out to his dad and to the fans, Win tells Nut that his dad probably already knows and to let him pretend he doesn't and as for the fans, definitely not the era for coming out yet, but in 20 years they can legally register their marriage. Nut doesn't even question the idea of marriage with Win and instead thinks 40 years with Win is not enough and wants 60 and more. I was hoping there would be a flash forward back to 2025 where we see 44 year old Win and Nut living a happy domestic life, but we leave off with the teenagers happily living their couple life in Nut's room. The lack of a future scene also leaves it as a possible death dream scenario for those that enjoy a bittersweet finale, but that's just personal interpretation, it's absolutely a happy ending.

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Nearly untangled

The film follows the hollywood concept of casting someway way older to play up the 1 year age difference between teenage characters, but the male lead's acting and styling is good enough to not be distracting, especially as the rest of the teens are played by early to mid 20 something year olds. It's nice to see a high school narrative with no bullying involved and the teen characters are all charming, especially with their friendships, including between the two leads. The way the two realize and express their romance is lovely.

The male lead and his mom suddenly has to deal with a whole domestic violence plot line that is suddenly resolved at the end with nary a verbal exposition to explain how he's free to return to Busan to be with the female lead. It feels like missing a whole episode of a kdrama. I feel like had the movie had even half an hour more instead of being cut off at 2 hours, they could have completed the storyline, it's so weird it's like a whole chunk got deleted. Either the movie needed to be longer or it should have been a mini series or even full drama series instead. It would have been nice to see a bit more of the second male love interest as well as he actually seemed like he had more dimensions to him, not being shallow, top hundred in scholastics, actually appreciating the female lead's actions, but that's not as consequential as the male lead's plot being entirely missing.

The film is still a cute watch, it just feels incomplete.

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