cocteautwink

A gay story that portrays a gay relationship openly, even if the characters aren't open to society, isn't necessarily "utopia". Even in Japan or Korea. This show isn't more "realistic" just because the leads never get romantically involved despite being arguably lgbt+.

It was a pleasure to see Inoue Sora in a BL again. As for the rest... hum!

It went downhill after they got together. The director didn't seem to know (or didn't want to) how to keep things going with the romance which is a shame cuz there was good sexual and romantic tension in the beginning but then it... becomes nothing. Just some stupid fluffy scenes that honestly, i get it, it's a classic in bl, but please can we have something different sometimes? Even their love scene didn't feel in character at all, badly written, badly directed, weirdly acted too. But i don't think the problem here was the actors, they were delivering with the eyes alone, but then there was nothing else for them to do. Even the censored gay season of the croatian skam remake had more kisses than this show, wth.

I don't see anything interesting about this show sadly cuz it's got some serious HYPE but i find myself looking elsewhere while it's playing. The best part of it is the comedy bits, I'm really enjoying Pond in this role, but Phuwin's performance is so apathetic that it puts me off. I suppose part of it is that his character has zero charisma and is just meant to be a boring person but pls, it's hard to watch. And i don't feel any romance either, it's just Pond wanting to get closer to Phuwin while Phuwin plays nice. Someone said the romance "hasn't started yet" but this is a 10 episode show and we're already heading to episode 6 (so, 2nd half of the drama). Romance should've started already. It probably has, it's just not giving anything.

I agree that their kisses are terrible here but they had a great kissing scene on ep9 of Only Boo!

WELCOME BACK MAWINERR (kinda)

Come back to me mawinerr

I'm sorry but there is some massive attempt at gaslighting in some comments here (and i feel like that goes for many people's reasonings to hating/disliking kant as a character here and everywhere else on the internet), especially when it comes to describing kant as a character and his motivations in the narrative. Kant is not "manipulating bison and fadel with the sole purpose to hurt them", he's not attempting to hurt anyone, he's attempting to protect himself and his brother, that's his goal. Hurting bison and fadel (which is putting them in prison) is a consequence. The reason why he is on this mission we all know, he is being coerced by the police, a power much much bigger than him. Kant is the vector of the chain of events that happens to other characters so it's understandable that he is the one who'll receive the most negative reactions from the audience, but you can't ignore he is also a victim. The audience will empathize with fadel and bison because they're main characters and you're seeing what they're actually dealing with, but kant is not part of the audience. All that he knows (at least in the beginning) is that those guys are hitmen. He doesn't necessarily have compassion for them, they are just a mission to him. Yes, bison included. It's the story. And as the narrative develops he's gonna start seeing bison as an actual person and will start liking him (which is what's happening rn). It's just mindblowing that part of the audience decided to hate the character and downplay his (very valid) motivations based on THEIR own assumptions instead of trying to look at the situation with the character's eyes. This reminds me of when ppl hated dan in not me cuz he betrayed the boys when actually the police were threatening to murder his parents and had no other choice but to cooperate but people still couldn't have any empathy cuz he broke poor yok's heart uwu.

The thing with style is the most debatable thing he did cuz style, unlike bison and fadel, is someone he knows. I'd argue he did that as an act of desperation, but i understand that not everyone will see it that way (especially since kant seemingly doesn't deserve any empathy or critical thinking, i suppose). And ofc he is not perfect, he is making mistake after mistake but he's trying to "get it right".

Oh and don't come with this "drama rule where we’ll forgive murder but not cheating" talk cuz that's total bullshit and doesn't even fit this situation. You're watching a show that deals with crime themes and the main character's motivations are related to that but you only care about the romance so you'll never accept why he does what he does and you'll only see him as the irredeemable villain.

save the series from what?

If you watch until the end you'll probably be less confused but still I hate how this director has been relying more and more on non-linear storytelling that leaves us confused while watching the story in order which consequently makes it hard for us to buy into the characters' motivations only to make it clearer later when i've already made felt bittersweet about the whole thing. Convoluted (and pretentious) writing with almost unbelievable conflicts is NOT synonymous with good writing. It's similar to what happened in To My Star 2, which many people think is a masterpiece but i find it yuck terrible.

I think this show gets really fun when the group comes together to execute a plan and steal something. It's totally not entirely realistic, but who cares, it's still fun. Now, I have a setback with the way the series handles the romance part. I know romance is not the main focus here and i think that's a respectable choice! But they still want to sell a romance, cuz it's there somehow, but I find the way they handle it strange. To me, it feels like an afterthought. Like they were sitting there very excited with writing the action moments and the overall plot and then someone by the table remembered "hey this was meant to be a BL!" so they decided to phone in that part. Jack and Joke barely spend time together. Each episode is more than 1 hour and about 90% of it is dedicated to anything else but having the main characters onscreen together, which is (to me) a problem in itself but more than that, in the scenes where they're not spending time together, they're doing their own things, they're too focused on their own lives for me to think or care about whether they should be having a romance with each other or not. Then by the end of the episode they go home and see each other and OH these two are supposed to be in love with each other, i forgot! And for a moment the chemistry is there cuz YinWar never fail at it, but i'll forget about it soon enough cuz they'll go back to their own things.

What I think is that if Jack and Joke were portrayed like a duo, like "partners in crime" (which imo is what the title of the series implied), that do things together for a certain purpose, instead of doing things separately, the build-up to the romantic relationship between them would have worked better. You'd have delicious sexual tension, the longing that the kiss was meant to portray would make more sense, and you could have delayed the kiss just the same. I thought we were heading that way at some point in earlier episodes and it was promising but I think since the Rose character came back into the picture things lost their focus in that regard. So yeah I like the show a lot for the characters as individuals and for the fun here and there when Joke and co. are on a mission but sadly i can't bring myself to care much for Jack and Joke as romantic interests, despite me loving the actors' chemistry.

I think it's probably just me (based on these comments here) but I don't find Book funny at all. His comedic moments had me looking away with embarrassment. Anyways, will we have to wait 8 episodes to see the 2nd couple or will all the romances happen simultaneously like in We Are?

I hate to be mean but sometimes (most of the time) Leng's acting makes me ijbol. But really, we also need to start blaming the direction when criticizing these actors, especially rookies, cuz how do you film a scene like that one of Q barging into Min/James encounter with the kidnapper in episode 3 without pausing, talking to the actor, giving him some guidance, telling him to soften his facial expressions, relaxing his body language a bit... and then trying to do it again?

As for the show itself, it doesn't feel dangerous. I've watched up to episode 3 so far and for a show called Kidnap i feel like i'm watching a basic romcom. Even the lightning is too bright and takes away from the vibes the script wants to convince me the show has. The whole kidnapping plot feels like just an excuse for the two guys to have a romance and even then, the show doesn't really make any interesting efforts to get me to want those two together cuz them living under the same roof and sleeping in the same bed is already enough to make it a romance so everything else that happens between them is just the standard tropes you'll expect to see in this context. There's your romance. They look into each other's eyes for 5 seconds and that's already enough to tell me what's happening there is sexual tension even if maybe we'd need a bit more fire there for that to work but really I can't even tell if there is or not as I'm always too distracted by how forced Leng's acting is.

Feel like dropping this even if I hate dropping shows, especially a show with Ohm Pawat who's great and has very solid BL history (haven't seen Make It Right so idk about that one).

Hidden Agenda was directed by another guy. New Siwaj has directed We Are, Star in my mind, Boss and a Babe etc.

I think 30 episodes is mindboggling, even if it's 10 per couple. Each of these love stories could be properly told in 6 episodes each. Anyways, at least this format will allow each main pairing to shine on their own unlike what happened in We Are (which i liked but more for the friendships). Hate to see AouBoom still getting crumbs, but their time will come! I'm curious to see what PerthSanta will bring, although I'm not very sure about Perth in this trailer, the character is giving nothing. Junior and Mark were meh to me in Cherry Magic but here Junior playing the persuer looks promising as he's the most talented of the duo and will probably be able to carry their dynamic. ForceBook looks like usual ForceBook which makes me feel a gigantic nothing but at least they put Poon in their section to give it the oomph it's going to need <3

The teachers's side-story was random. I guess they needed that scene of their kiss to help Wang realise things but honestly outside of that no one moved! wasted screentime. And that NC scene def took me off-guard as (to me) it could imply that Tian had some childhood trauma that would lead him to reject homosexuality but i never got that impression from him at all and they didn't touch that topic after the scene was shown. So what was the point?

They could've done like We Best Love: 6 episodes for the first part (the story we saw) > break > 6 episodes for the second part (the rest of the book).

The ending made sense considering the development of the story but that's my problem with the show. Did we really need 12 episodes 50minutes each for the story to get to where we got? i don't think so. I'm seeing people say they only covered half of the novel with this one and that there could be a second season so why not just adapt the entire story and deliver a good, fully enjoyable, filler-free series instead of a slog? It started out beautiful, I loved the emotional depth the characters had, loved the (few) family moments and loved the actors but to me the story went nowhere. I would've liked it a lot had it been a 90min indie arthouse film but I spent 10 hours with this!! It's frustrating.

Damn to me this was very boring like painfully boring which would annoy me less if i had connected to the couples and the romance but while everyone seems to have loved Great and Inn together, i didn't feel much (i thought Inn had more chemistry with Podd). Maybe i don't like their characters' dynamics, they were adults but they behaved so child-like so the "chemistry" felt forced. Even their "spicy" scenes and kisses were underwhelming. It was hard to finish but i did it!!

I love everything