jpny01

It has cute moments, but I think it's not great. As it goes on it gets more and more frustrating.

I feel like I might have been dating myself with that reference, but I'm glad at least one person could enjoy it.

The only Ep 2 available with subtitles looks like it's been cut by 15 minutes. Well, if I remember this exists in January, I guess I can watch the international release.

OK, Ep 1. The director and editor need to go to directing and editing school. Two examples: was it necessary to have THAT long a scene of Kaitoon trying to reach the customers? How compelling is it to watch someone making phone calls to a dead number for 10 minutes? Also, when he left Non's room, what was the point of showing Non pack up the medical supplies and put them away? Did that serve any purpose to the story? This is full of things like that.

Pak who plays Kaitoon did not disappoint - he is really charming and endearing, and I can already tell he's going to be carrying this series.

New trope to add to Trope Bingo: Why does everyone always look at their phone when the alarm goes off, go wide-eyed and say "Oh no! I'm late!" Why don't you just set the alarm for a time early enough that you're not late?

I'm trying to decide which is the better cure-all - being dabbed by a damp towel, or the magic Q-tip. At least this one didn't look like it was covered with ear wax like usual.

Anyway, the writing was a bit lackluster, but the main character of the show is a solid actor, not to mention very easy to look at, and I wasn't groaning due to an overload of tropes - really just one, which is a minor miracle.

Thai BL is certainly in a rut. They really need to get some good writers. And maybe directors. I've been having to watch EP 1 on 2x. Who thought that four-hour scene with him sitting around trying to call the customer over and over would be fun viewing for us? The actor is certainly cute, and he can do well with good direction, like in the strange last four eps of Cupid Coach, but whatever he has is wasted on this. At least he's not an engineer.

To be fair about the dialogue, it's possible there are translation problems, or expressions that don't translate well.

I guess the pauses didn't seem that bad after Be Loved in House where there were 20 minute stretches of people staring at each other trying to say something. But yes, that's a particular problem in BL - I remember screaming with frustration during Lovely Writer.

If this series is aiming for realism, I don't think you can just handwave away any reference to sexuality, especially a story set in 2002. There's no sign of either of them going through any sort of process or realization - just straight from zero to relationship. That's certainly very BL, but BLs are fantasy - this isn't.

I could buy Nut being shy in public if he's not dealt with his sexuality, but then we need to be told (or shown) that, because it doesn't appear to be an issue for him.

Well, at least they didn't do the "two attractive gay boys who are in love with each other and sleeping in the same bed but never touching each other" thing.

It would be interesting to see the story from Da On's perspective - they should do a special episode.

OK, I'll buy that. It should be easy for me - I've been both DO and TK. Unfortunately it was so long ago that I can't remember specifics - and I was DO and TK with the same guy. (I figured myself out, he didn't. And still hasn't.)

The best moment for me was how DaOn lost focus on his effort at distraction. Hysterical.

That's interesting. I think it might be harder for boys to separate attraction from liking someone, but I think you're right that there's some one-sidedness - but he hasn't really gotten anything his way at all here - he was asking for a discussion, and DO wouldn't even give him that. Even "I don't know how I feel and I'm not ready to discuss it - please give me time" would have been enough. Instead, he got more robot stare. (Although the actor is good at portraying the repression and sadness behind the stare).

That seemed more like best friends to me, but it was cute and well-done.

I agree 100%. Except for the question about why he hadn't contacted him for 4 years - I think he would dare to ask that. I think he would demand an answer before he was willing to go any further.

Well, I liked that. It felt like movement instead of running in circles. It was also Shin Woo-heavy so it felt less like another episode of Robot Love.

Also, it felt good to see that the villain's chickens are coming home to roost. We've seen Da On be gently firm, but we haven't seen him furious - that should be interesting. Although knowing him, he may just be deflated. I would settle for ice-cold, though - in a way that's worse, because being yelled at might be easier on her than how that would feel. I still wish she'd trip and fall into the path of a lawn-mower, but you can't have everything you want.

I think you can see the shift starting in TK. Shin Woo hasn't poured it on yet, but you just know it will be compelling. It's strong enough with him just standing there - if he's aiming All That directly at you, you don't have a chance.

Maybe it's working for you because it's not a typical triangle - it's sequential rather than concurrent. There's a clear end to one before the second starts, at least for TK, and the other two didn't really compete - they stood aside for each other.

He's probably 17, so it seems unlikely he's only ever been attracted to one person. This might very well have been the first time it was mutual.

I don't think it's that simple - attraction is partly physical too. But there's no doubt that what you said plays a large role - I doubt he'd ever had anyone treat him like that before.

I love your user name. I will definitely check those out, but I think I'd better wait until the series is over.

It's not my job to improve Gun, it's the director's job, and the acting coach. My job is to watch, and the purpose of this forum is to share what we think, good and bad. I've said several times that Gun is good at comedy - but I think he's wrong for this role, and it's having a strong negative impact on the series. I think everyone started out having a warm feeling for him because of LBC, where he was a comic side character, but it's getting hard by this point to overlook his shortcomings as a lead. You can see the shift in opinion over time.

The parcing for me was better in this episode. For the record, I think most people don't like the overextended scenes that are not emotionally relevant, not scenes like them laying in bed, which are wonderful. This ep there was a small example which was not important enough to comment on otherwise, except as an example - when Phob is scanning Nut's room, it was longer than necessary. Or there was a scene that ended and there was a slow pan to a tree for no apparent reason. Again, not important, but when almost every scene is like that, it adds up and seems self-indulgent. Did the cinematographer just think the tree was beautiful? (Now that I said that, someone will hang himself from it just to spite me. Or maybe it will eat a kite).

This ep the editing was tighter, which was great - but there were some content issues that took me out of the story a little:

- I think the chances of Nut not needing an explanation for Phob's 4-year disappearance are close to zero, especially after Phob said it was accidental. That's a long accident. Not to mention Nut not really asking about the details of Phob's illness. It's not like he's a med student or something, right?

- Phob keeps on talking about "what happened last night" - you mean a kiss that elementary school kids might share? It was sweet, but where was the longing? These two have been in unrequited love for years and just been separated for four years - I didn't need them to rip each other's clothes off and have crazed monkey sex, but there was no heat - Nut even woke fully dressed. That kiss would have been perfection for the next morning, or when they were in high school, but not to take the place of fulfillment of passion repressed for years. If that really was Nut's first time, is there no reflection on it? And wouldn't he want to do it again rather than having bad noodles from a truck? The peck at the beach was beautiful, but they haven't touched since the previous night - no holding hands, no brushing against each other - not even deliberately bumping sides as they walk.

That's what I think is missing - there's a passion for the artistry of making a film, but not enough passion in the story itself. In ITSAY, did you ever doubt for a second how much Teh wanted Oh?

I like the naturalistic way the characters interact, but it's not the right intensity for the nature of the moment. I feel as if I should be feeling more when I watch this than I am. It's good, and it's not like I don't want to watch it, but I don't need to or ever think about it during the week. Last night I binged Crossing the Line - I just meant to watch the first ep, but I couldn't stop. I can't feel that way about this, and I really want to.

That pissed me off. I would have loved an epilogue about the main pair, and would have been happy with a behind the scenes, Instead, they gave us a whole episode about the ex, who already totally derailed the last third of the series with a ridiculous turn in the plot that made no real sense from the beginning. We never really got to see any intimacy between Yu Zhen and Shi Lei, and we didn't here, unless you count their 12-year old kissing scene at the end, with Hank leaning away from Aaron with his body tensed as if he were doing something he didn't want to.

Honestly, this lowered the show considerably for me and left me with a sour memory of it.