etoks21

Mom and girl are shown being obnoxiously cute and giggly together, so as to show us how innocent they are.

Mom sees the guy her daughter is interested in hanging with a rough-looking group. Mom only cracks giggly jokes about it.

Girl, who is innocent and naive, but not as far as I could tell mentally retarded, agrees to meet a boy she doesn't know on the fucking roof of the school building after dark, alone.

As in all Korean school bully movies, the doorway to the roof of a very tall school building is left unlocked...at night...in the dark. You know, so students can get raped there or jump off to commit suicide.

Woman's daughter is raped. After returning home from the hospital the girl goes to take a bath. Mom doesn't check on her for TWO hours.

Girl says she is "dirty." Mom cries. Mom never says "no, you're not. You're as pure and blameless as the day you were born. The dirty ones are the boys who did this to you and I will do whatever it takes to make this right. You did NOTHING wrong."

We go all the way through the crime, the immediate aftermath, the useless investigation, the offer and refusal of a settlement, the criminal trial, an acquittal, and she still hasn't informed her ex-husband, the girl's father, of what is going on.

Mom walks with her daughter to the car after the trial, collapses sobbing, wrapped up in her own self-pity, rather than taking care of her child. Again...where is the dad? Has he not been informed of any of this?

Mom REPEATEDLY leaves her profoundly depressed, bed-ridden daughter ALONE at home while she is at work. There is no way in hell this educated woman would ever leave her alone. If she had to be somewhere, then the dad or a relative or someone they pay to come in, stays with the girl. You don't fucking leave a teenager, or anyone, in that condition alone.

Mom allows girl to keep her phone accessible when alone. The mom, the cops, everybody knows the boys have her phone number. Does she change the girl's number? No. Does she allow her to take calls only when she's there? No. So...

The apparently mentally-retarded girl agrees to meet the perpetrators of her rape for a second go-round, with the genius plan of taking on all three of them with a little Xacto blade she brought from home, to force them to "give" her the video they threatened to spread. Only a retarded child would be unaware that there are not already multiple files of that video already on the phones of the three rapists if not other guys by then.

The girl screams and throws something to the floor. Mom knocks but can't get in. Girl comes out of room like a zombie, all cleaned up and says she's going to her music lesson. Mom fucking goes "well, OK then, I guess you're all better. Great," and allows her to go. Doesn't check to see why she screamed, what the mess on her floor is, or if there even IS a music lesson to go to. "See ya!" says Mom.

So she gets raped and beaten a second time.

I know there are evil, stupid people in the world...but these three have just come VERY close to at least going to juvie for rape, so they assault the SAME girl a SECOND time after calling her on her phone, which will leave a record of that call, along with the video they threatened her with, and just let her go along home...? No.

Girl blames herself, as all helpless Asian girls do in these kind of flicks, cries and chops her hair off.

THEN...she comes walking back into her mom and her place with her hair chopped off, her face swollen and bruised, obviously near-catatonic, and the mom stares at her as she walks into her room and locks the door. Mom does NOT say "oh my god, what the fuck happened to you?!"

Next thing we see, girl is all cleaned up, sitting on the couch, bruised face and all. Mom doesn't care about the new bruises and says "I'm off to the market! Need anything? No? See ya!" Mom leaves the girl all alone AGAIN and goes to the store.

Idiot mom comes home, girl is bleeding to death in the tub. Surprise! Not. Does mom call 911 for an ambulance? NO, she loosely wraps washrags around her daughter's wrists, carries her to the parking garage (no one in the apartment building notices or hears any of this and mom doesn't ask for help) on her back and DRIVES the kid to the hospital herself.

Mom doesn't even put the kid's seat into recline position in the car.

Kid dies at hospital because mom didn't call 911.

And that's where I had to take a break to write this. I have never seen/watched a more absurdly ridiculous setup to an orgy of revenge in the second half of a movie, not even a Korean one. This is the laziest damn setup ever. I didn't even feel sorry for the girl because she did so many stupid things, plus so many Korean films make females out to be whimpering, helpless airheads that this just pissed me off.

OK, halfway through and I had to stop the film to come here and at least leave the first part of my comment. Everything leading up to this point is so sloppily written, so badly motivated, so full of stupidity and moron-level dumbassery, I can't believe this flick is rated above 1/10.

My reasons for the above rant under the spoiler button below:

I'll check out Happy Birthday! Thanks.

Hi there. Thank you for your thoughtful reply. If you don't like commenter-to-commenter rudeness, I hope you took note of the rudeness directed at me personally, because the other person didn't like that I mocked their show.

Unfortunately, you misunderstood my criticism of Sea's acting as a statement that people in his character's situation aren't, or shouldn't be, experiencing feelings of sorrow, bitterness, anger, etc. Of course they should! Such feelings are an entirely natural response to losing something as important to life and our understanding of the world around us, as our vision.

Here is what I wrote in my comment: "The badminton scene and the interview scene were excruciatingly bad, primarily because of him. The character's extreme and immediate, smart-ass/hostile tone with Mhok seemed to come out of nowhere. If we're to think his attitude is a result of bitterness at his predicament, he's not doing a good job of conveying that. He just seems like a jerk."

Please pay special attention to the last two sentences. It is my opinion that Sea does a poor job in the interview scene in particular, of evoking the sense that his rude, smart-ass demeanor comes from the emotions I listed above, not that his character shouldn't be having those emotions. For me, what is missing is a sense of brooding/anger/fear that should underlie the smart-ass stuff. I see a jerk in a wheelchair, wearing sunglasses, being rude to someone he doesn't know. And if I hadn't seen the badminton scene, I would have NO idea that perhaps this person has a right to his belligerence.

fringe

I like GOOD Thai dramas. Unfortunately, there have been almost none of those made in the last two years. I have EIGHT Thai dramas on my Top 30 Best BL Series, Ranked list. #1 and #2 are Thai dramas. However, six of those are from the early years of BL, before Thailand started pumping out dreck like this show at the rate of nearly two per week. #1 and #2 are ITSAY and IPYTM, which did, somehow, get made in Thailand. They are night and day to this crap.

I don't check out a lot of Thai series, I check out almost none of them. A friend who likes this one suggested I try it. She likes it. I don't. Understand?

So you love Thai dramas, even this one, and spend your time complaining to the few commenters who dare to criticize them? That's a unique hobby. lol

millennial stupid

"media literacy..." lol I love when English-as-a-second-language writers try to say something that ends up making no sense to those who actually, you know, know English.

You can't read either. I already referenced the fact that if Sea was trying to convey his bitterness over being blind with his bad acting, then he failed. You disagree. I don't care.

OK, I'll be rude and snide in return:

I'll comment when and where I please, and as many times as I choose. Don't give a shit what you think about that.
If your watch of this show is "spoiled" because some rando on MDL left some comments that hurt your fee-fees, then you didn't think much of the show to begin with. Poor baby.

Oh...could you confirm for me about how I "lurk" on EVERY Thai BL page? I'd like to see you prove the impossible.

It's telling you have nothing positive to say about the show, just a little temper tantrum about some comments you could have chosen to ignore.

Oh, OK. Ugh, yeah it's a problem. The producers/directors don't trust the acting and writing to move the audience, so they attempt to do so with constant and annoying musical cues.

You sound a little snide with this comment ("your precious time") but I'll ignore that. Yes, perhaps it isn't my cup of tea. Bad acting, bad direction, overwrought, pounding background music and other problems common to Thai BLs are not something I enjoy. So yeah, definitely, if I make it thru the rest of ep. 1 and still see no hope, I'll for sure drop it.

I Told Sunset About You is at the top of my Top 30 Best BL Series, Ranked list. It continues to amaze me that it and I Promised You the Moon came out of the same country as shows like Last Twilight.

Thanks, I appreciate your compliment. Is there some reason a person would have to be "brave" to diss an actor's acting in the scenes the person has viewed? His acting, in two crucial, introductory scenes, was embarrassing. That's 15 crucial, introductory minutes of bad acting.

Viewers shouldn't have to sit through ANY lame acting with the hope that maybe by episode 3 things will improve. It is the actor's job to set the tone and convey the story convincingly from the first second they appear onscreen. Sea hasn't done that.

I suggest you consider raising your standards. Or are you the guy's sister or agent or something?

Gosh, he'd be much better off just choosing to not have the character be a smoker. Not many things look sillier than a non-smoker pretending to smoke in a live-action show.

What are you talking about when you say it's not "just gmmtv who does this?" What is "this?" The smoking?

Well, halfway through episode 1. I need to take a break. All the overwhelming background music, the bad acting, and that thing Thai BL actors do where everyone pauses two seconds between lines has me stressed. I need to take a Klonopin next time before trying to finish this.

Day's mom is beautiful and seems to be able to act. Mark, Day's older brother, has gotten hotter and seems to be able to act as well. How this Sea guy got that role is beyond me at this point. The badminton scene and the interview scene were excruciatingly bad, primarily because of him. The character's extreme and immediate, smartass/hostile tone with Mhok seemed to come out of nowhere. If we're to think his attitude is a result of bitterness at his predicament, he's not doing a good job of conveying that. He just seems like a jerk.

What is up with GMMTV productions and their constant, overbearingly bombastic background music? The loud, sci-fi thriller-like music every time anyone says anything the least bit pensive, is as annoying as it is hilarious. Or is it the tinky-rink rom-com music we hear whenever we're supposed to think something is cute or sweet or charming or giggly? Christ, it's exhausting. Just act out the scene and stop cueing the audience with music to every emotion you think it's supposed to feel.

And Jimmy, please, if you want your character to be a smoker, learn how to actually smoke so you don't look silly and awkward when handling and sucking on your cigs. I laughed out loud in his first scene when he pulled a cig out of its pack with his mouth and it looked so contrived. Then he pretended to inhale without inhaling and puffed a cloud of smoke out of his mouth. lol If your character is a smoker, then you have to actually, really, for real, SMOKE.

He needs to watch lots of Korean Yakuza flicks. Those guys know how to light and smoke a cig...for real.

Did Jimmy have a nose job at some point? His schnoz just doesn't look natural. Asking for a friend...

Too stupid, and not in a funny way, for me. A lot of the physical/slap-stick stuff falls flat.
I think the direction is off.

Dropped.

How is this better? And why "of course?"

Awful, terrible, embarrassingly bad.
The creature is so ridiculously fake-looking I couldn't believe it was seriously being presented as a horrifying monster. lol When it went ga-lumping across the lawn squishing people, I laughed.
Bae Doo Na is a horrible, one-note actor who would be schlepping pizzas somewhere if she weren't the daughter of famous Koreans.

4/10

Because it's a bad movie. The creature is laughably fake, and nepo baby Bae Doo Na stinks up every film she's in. 4/10 from me.

A lot of BLs explore all those themes, and have been doing so for years.

Curious: Are you currently enrolled in college somewhere, or did you recently graduate? Your definition of a "queer movie" sounds like a quote from the pages of a "Queer Studies" textbook.

I find the now-common use of the word "queer" as offensive as it is trendy. It's the equivalent of renaming Black Studies "Ni**er Studies.